12.8 Beta Testing

[faeran]

Hey everyone,

Our first beta for 12.8 is out now, and it's a big one. We have overhauled our entire media download process and you should see a significant increase in how fast media is downloaded. Whether it be during any of our import wizards, using the Update Metadata and Media wizard, or Adding/Editing an individual Game, we can really use your help with testing. If you do help test this, please let us know your results below.

Here's the changelog for beta 1:

• Improvement: We have changed how media items download. LaunchBox with now downloads several files at once instead of using several threads to download one item at a time. This results in significantly faster downloads
• Improvement: Title text on the image view can now be toggled via the Show / Hide view menu
• Improvement: Show/Hide view options are now context specific
• Improvement: Added several new tools that LaunchBox theme developers can use when creating themes
• Improvement: You can now set the "Extract ROM before playing" option per-platform in the Edit Emulator window
• Improvement: Added logic to help determine what platform is being imported during ROM imports
• Improvement: LaunchBox will automatically add the platform you're importing to the emulator you select during import if it isn't there already
• Fixed: The Edit and Delete buttons in LaunchBox's control bar were not refreshing when changing side bar filters
• Fixed: Controller Support section of the Add/Edit Game window would sometimes clear new entries before saving occurred
• Fixed: Rare error when logging into an Epic Games account via Google sign-in
• Fixed: Added logic to help process images with corrupted color profile information
• Fixed: Corrected rare threading issue related to marquees
• Fixed: Rare occurrences where the scrape as value would not save during an import
• Fixed: Multi-Version badge was incorrectly identifying the primary application path as an additional version (introduced in 12.7)
• Fixed: Added logic to help resolve file in use errors when saving a game
• Fixed: Adding an emulator via the import wizard wouldn't pre-populate associated platforms correctly when first opened

 

Beta 2:

• New Feature: Inside of the MAME Full Set importer you can filter games by CHD requirement and input type (Poll Item #4)
• New Feature: Inside of the MAME Full Set importer you can prioritize 2 or 4 player variants
• New Feature: Inside of the MAME Full Set importer you can create playlists for games that require a CHD as well as vertically orientated games
• Fixed: Right-Clicking a game in List View will now select the game before displaying the context menu (introduced in 12.7)
• Fixed: Issue where pressing OK in Edit Game would leave the controls view buttons disabled (introduced in beta 1)
• Fixed: Changed the time-out of EmuMovies media downloads from 5 to 10s (introduced in beta 1)
• Fixed: The total number of media downloads being displayed should now be more accurate
• Fixed: The Download Media string was incorrectly changed (introduced in beta 1)
• Improved error strings during downloads to make it more clear what caused the error

 

Beta 3:

• Improvement: Games that need installed by the Epic Games client will now take you to the installation options when played (instead of an error screen)
• Fixed: The ROM Import Wizard was not updating the emulator page when going back to change the selected platform

 

Beta 4:

• Improvement - A few extra theme developer tools were added for LaunchBox Themes
• Fixed: Incorrect suffix could be applied to media files
• Fixed: Media limit setting was being bypassed under certain conditions

[Retrofrogg]

Good stuff. The "maximise" option in the top right doesn't seem to work properly; when pressed, it maximises too much so that the bottom of the Launchbox window is off the screen.

[Mr. RetroLust]

Hey @faeran and @C-Beats awesome work as always! I'm really excited for "Added several new tools that LaunchBox theme developers can use when creating themes" but where do I find them in the beta?

[Benuno]

Small bug I've noticed: After editing a game entry, the play/edit button are greyed out until you switch to another title.

[The Papaw]

So far, I can say that downloads have improved for me and so far had no errors with emumovies, but I have encountered one strange thing with downloading manuals.

Only 18194 total games in collection, I used the Games Missing Data option, it finds 18183 missing manuals, the screenshot shows it's downloading 43858 manuals????

 

[Drybonz]

On 2/11/2022 at 3:44 PM, Retrofrogg said:

Good stuff. The "maximise" option in the top right doesn't seem to work properly; when pressed, it maximises too much so that the bottom of the Launchbox window is off the screen.

I think that one has been around for a while... or maybe it has just come back.

[retroNUC]

A bug that may have been introduced in 1.27, thinking about it:

• Right-clicking an item in List View no longer focuses the item that was just right-clicked on

Context menu will appear for whatever the existing selection was, which leads to some confusion, and used to update focus correctly in previous versions. Happens on default theme as well.

  

[Cineaste]

Something I noticed since upgrading to 12.7 and beyond - often when I try to delete an image from within 'Edit Metadata' LB says the file is in use, and that I cannot delete. I need to restart the PC and try again, or alternatively delete directly from the source folder. This is on two separate installations. What might be causing this?

EDIT: It only seems to affect Clear Logos. Could it have anything to do with the new game details panel?                   

Edited February 13, 2022 by Thornback

[dreamy]

6 hours ago, Thornback said:

EDIT: It only seems to affect Clear Logos. Could it have anything to do with the new game details panel?                   

I guess you are using a theme which shows the clear logo in the details view, right? C-Beats is already on it and tries to find a workaround for that issue.

[fraganator]

On 2/12/2022 at 12:44 AM, faeran said:

Here's the changelog for beta 1:

• Improvement: You can now set the "Extract ROM before playing" option per-platform in the Edit Emulator window

This is a handy feature, thanks.

From a plugin perspective, I noticed the IEmulatorPlatform.AutoExtract property can be null (because the property doesn't yet exist in Emulators.xml). In this case, does the IEmulator.AutoExtract property take priority?

[faeran]

On 2/12/2022 at 6:00 AM, Mr. RetroLust said:

Hey @faeran and @C-Beats awesome work as always! I'm really excited for "Added several new tools that LaunchBox theme developers can use when creating themes" but where do I find them in the beta?

Glad your excited, but they are minor changes that include the ability to move the hamburger menu to other views and a property for the VirtualizingTilePanel that will attempt to uniform rows with dynamic box sizes while in image view.

On 2/12/2022 at 7:48 AM, Benuno said:

Small bug I've noticed: After editing a game entry, the play/edit button are greyed out until you switch to another title.

On 2/13/2022 at 1:42 AM, The Papaw said:

So far, I can say that downloads have improved for me and so far had no errors with emumovies, but I have encountered one strange thing with downloading manuals.

Only 18194 total games in collection, I used the Games Missing Data option, it finds 18183 missing manuals, the screenshot shows it's downloading 43858 manuals????

 

22 hours ago, retroNUC said:

A bug that may have been introduced in 1.27, thinking about it:

• Right-clicking an item in List View no longer focuses the item that was just right-clicked on

Context menu will appear for whatever the existing selection was, which leads to some confusion, and used to update focus correctly in previous versions. Happens on default theme as well.

  

Thanks. These will be fixed for the next beta.

 

20 hours ago, Thornback said:

Something I noticed since upgrading to 12.7 and beyond - often when I try to delete an image from within 'Edit Metadata' LB says the file is in use, and that I cannot delete. I need to restart the PC and try again, or alternatively delete directly from the source folder. This is on two separate installations. What might be causing this?

EDIT: It only seems to affect Clear Logos. Could it have anything to do with the new game details panel?                   

Are you are referring to going into Edit Game  > Media and trying to delete the clear logo from there? If so, it sounds like some kind of permission issue there that I haven't been able to replicate, but we'll see if anything can be done.

[The Papaw]

1 hour ago, faeran said:

 

Thanks. These will be fixed for the next beta.nything can be done.

I forgot to update my post on the manuals. Emu errored almost all of them, it only downloaded a fraction of them, like less than 100

[Cineaste]

@faeran yes, indeed. Edit Game > Media > Images. If you then attempt to delete a Clear Logo it throws the 'file in use' error. 2 separate installs on entirely different hardware.

I am using a custom theme on both if that helps narrow it down (Rincewind 2.0).

[C-Beats]

40 minutes ago, Thornback said:

@faeran yes, indeed. Edit Game > Media > Images. If you then attempt to delete a Clear Logo it throws the 'file in use' error. 2 separate installs on entirely different hardware.

I am using a custom theme on both if that helps narrow it down (Rincewind 2.0).

Is your theme using the logo in GameDetails or somewhere else?

[faeran]

49 minutes ago, Thornback said:

@faeran yes, indeed. Edit Game > Media > Images. If you then attempt to delete a Clear Logo it throws the 'file in use' error. 2 separate installs on entirely different hardware.

I am using a custom theme on both if that helps narrow it down (Rincewind 2.0).

Does this happen if you use the Default theme?

[Cineaste]

@C-Beats yes the theme was recently updated to mirror the new GameDetails panel, so technically the logo is in use as soon as you click on a game.

@faeran I am yet to test the Default theme.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Thornback

[C-Beats]

13 hours ago, fraganator said:

This is a handy feature, thanks.

From a plugin perspective, I noticed the IEmulatorPlatform.AutoExtract property can be null (because the property doesn't yet exist in Emulators.xml). In this case, does the IEmulator.AutoExtract property take priority?

The plugin interface's documentation comment answers that for you. But yes, when launching the emulator the setting checks that EmulatorPlatform and uses it, if null it then falls back to the emulator.

[fraganator]

7 hours ago, C-Beats said:

The plugin interface's documentation comment answers that for you. But yes, when launching the emulator the setting checks that EmulatorPlatform and uses it, if null it then falls back to the emulator.

Thanks for confirming the behaviour, @C-Beats.

I don't seem to be able to see the plugin interface documentation comment, only it's definition. This is what I see when I hover over IEmulatorPlatform.AutoExtract in Visual Studio 2019:

Is there a corresponding xml documentation file for Unbroken.LaunchBox.Plugins.dll? This SO question indicates both xml and dll are required, but I can't seem to find the xml file. I've been referring to the online API docs, but they're a little out of date.

[C-Beats]

Hmm... I'll take a look into that @fraganator, thanks for the heads up.

[Cineaste]

Is anyone else's auto-play music no longer working? It plays the audio just fine if selected manually but no longer starts when selecting a game, even with the option ticked under View > Media. Again tested on two different installations (default and custom LB theme) with Super Nintendo as a sample platform.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Thornback