How to add a .pdf file for guides on games ?

[Luram]

Hello Community I had a small struggle on how to figure this out and im reaching out to ya for this quick question.

 

Im going through the story of Indiana Jones for the SNES and i have found the official nintendo guide as a .pdf on the link http://www.oldiesrising.com/noticespdfV2/Nintendo Super Nes/Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures.pdf

How can i add this file to show up as a button to click on this highlighted area of the screenshot ? Not as a link but as a downloaded file inside a folder.

 

Any answer is appreciated!

Edited March 25, 2022 by Luram

[C-Beats]

To add the PDF to the game you have two options:
1) Add the PDF as a manual via Edit Game
2) Add the PDF as an additional app to the game

To my knowledge the only theme that has links like you're asking to your document files in Game Details is Steamy, and even then only when using list view.

[Luram]

Thanks for the interest @C-Beats  Its kinda hard to do it the way it is right now. At least for the user who is not that advanced

 

Is there a chance that we will see a similar easy to use function built in on the app maybe later on ?

 

Sometimes i find some old PSX magazines or pages of em that have some guides or tips for specific games, it would be so nice to know there is a button somewhere that i can link 1 or even multiple articles on a game for nostalgia reasons or education of the newer generations (parenting done right, right?)

Edited March 25, 2022 by Luram

[C-Beats]

If add them as additional applications they do show in your context menu, and their is a badge to mark they are there. It would be nice to have a more dedicated "Additional Documents" section, but for now this is the best we have in the application.

[leostrife]

On 3/25/2022 at 12:13 PM, C-Beats said:

If add them as additional applications they do show in your context menu, and their is a badge to mark they are there. It would be nice to have a more dedicated "Additional Documents" section, but for now this is the best we have in the application.

How do I get the PDF reader to record where I left off?

[C-Beats]

Right now there is not way to do this currently. The reader will always open at the start of the document.

[faeran]

16 hours ago, leostrife said:

How do I get the PDF reader to record where I left off?

This is actually a setting in Adobe Acrobat (if you use that). Go to Edit > Preferences > Documents and check off Restore last view settings when reopening documents.

[leostrife]

1 hour ago, faeran said:

Esta é realmente uma configuração no Adobe Acrobat (se você usar isso). Vá para Editar > Preferências > Documentos e marque Restaurar configurações da última visualização ao reabrir documentos .

I'm using the latest version of Launchbox, and it seems to me that it uses a browser to open the pdfs in Bigbox, I have Adobe DC installed. I'll try when I get home to set this configuration. Thank you very much!

[faeran]

Pretty sure LaunchBox just uses whatever your default pdf viewer is in Windows. So, you should be able to adjust that in your Windows settings and you should be good to go there.

[leostrife]

7 hours ago, faeran said:

Pretty sure LaunchBox just uses whatever your default pdf viewer is in Windows. So, you should be able to adjust that in your Windows settings and you should be good to go there.

It only uses my default reader in Launchbox by opening the manual externally, in game or in BigBox it seems to always use its Chromium internally, no matter what my default reader is.

[faeran]

12 hours ago, leostrife said:

It only uses my default reader in Launchbox by opening the manual externally, in game or in BigBox it seems to always use its Chromium internally, no matter what my default reader is.

My bad, in Big Box it does use chromium for a more seamless controller support. I don't believe that's currently changeable.

[vince16]

I'm also very interested in adding .pdf files that would be readable from within Launchbox & BigBox, I have guidebooks, artbooks, user's manuals and stuff, but I don't know how to do that, would anyone be kind enough to explain the walkthrough?

[Retro808]

12 minutes ago, vince16 said:

I'm also very interested in adding .pdf files that would be readable from within Launchbox & BigBox, I have guidebooks, artbooks, user's manuals and stuff, but I don't know how to do that, would anyone be kind enough to explain the walkthrough?

Right click and edit a game. In the additional apps tab add the files and call them what you want. They will be available as additional apps in LB, in BB they will show up as options to select in the Game Details view, and pdf files will also show up as a selectable option from a Pause Theme. 

[leostrife]

22 minutes ago, vince16 said:

I'm also very interested in adding .pdf files that would be readable from within Launchbox & BigBox, I have guidebooks, artbooks, user's manuals and stuff, but I don't know how to do that, would anyone be kind enough to explain the walkthrough?

It's very simple, requires a bit of work and ends up not being very functional due to the aforementioned factor that it only works with its own internal PDF reader, which in this case does not save the location where you close the file, very important for long Guides.
But the file is actually in PDF format, go to Edit the specific game and add the PDF just as an Extra program, just entering a specific name for it, for example, Prima Guide.
In Desktop mode it should already appear in the game options menu to be viewed and in BIGBOX mode it will be available in the Pause Menu.
There are alternative and much better methods, but much more laborious, where you use another reader like Sumatra, for example, to open pdfs or crbs as if it were an emulator, and you can even let it open that pdf before the game is launched and on an extra monitor/TV.

[vince16]

Are you two refering to the "Additional Apps" in "Edit metadata"? I did just that, Application name, application path (where the .pdf is located), but maybe because I didn't enter anything in the "Application Command-line parameters", it only appears as a name and a link (or several links in this case) below "play time" of a game. It's nice, but personally I could've done with an option to make the pdf images (the pages of the pdf) visible as if they were just images of the game. But it's not bad as is.

What could be really improved upon however is if in that "additional apps" menu we could specify if it's a .pdf document, and what kind (Artbook, Guidebook, user's manual, magazine...) so it's referred to as that in BigBox, instead of just "Additional Apps/Versions" like there are other game versions like it's an arcade game or console game when it's a PC game, it would be nice if it were displayed exactly as what it is: Artbook, Guidebook, etc. with maybe even an icon to make it stand out in the menu (?)

But I'm not sure this is the right place to mention this, maybe there's a thread dedicated to making suggestions for the next LB/BB system updates?

Anyway, thanks for your help.

[vince16]

By the way, is there a particular method to have a whole "magazines" category in LB/BB? I'd like to have a category with plenty of magazines, can I just import them as .pdf files as though they were roms, have the cover of the mag as though it is the front of a game box?

[Retro808]

14 minutes ago, vince16 said:

By the way, is there a particular method to have a whole "magazines" category in LB/BB? I'd like to have a category with plenty of magazines, can I just import them as .pdf files as though they were roms, have the cover of the mag as though it is the front of a game box?

Yes. You can create for example a "Magazines" Platform Category and then in that main Category have the individual magazines as platforms.

You can set up an emulator to launch the files such as Comic Book Reader to launch cbr files and then import the files like you would roms. Similar if you want to use a specific exe to launch pdf files or some other file format. 

[Retro808]

42 minutes ago, vince16 said:

Are you two refering to the "Additional Apps" in "Edit metadata"? I did just that, Application name, application path (where the .pdf is located), but maybe because I didn't enter anything in the "Application Command-line parameters", it only appears as a name and a link (or several links in this case) below "play time" of a game. It's nice, but personally I could've done with an option to make the pdf images (the pages of the pdf) visible as if they were just images of the game. But it's not bad as is.

What could be really improved upon however is if in that "additional apps" menu we could specify if it's a .pdf document, and what kind (Artbook, Guidebook, user's manual, magazine...) so it's referred to as that in BigBox, instead of just "Additional Apps/Versions" like there are other game versions like it's an arcade game or console game when it's a PC game, it would be nice if it were displayed exactly as what it is: Artbook, Guidebook, etc. with maybe even an icon to make it stand out in the menu (?)

But I'm not sure this is the right place to mention this, maybe there's a thread dedicated to making suggestions for the next LB/BB system updates?

Anyway, thanks for your help.

You can specify what it is. In the "Add Application" screen just give it a name and point to the path of the pdf. LB and BB will show the name you gave it. 

 

 

 

[vince16]

14 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

Yes. You can create for example a "Magazines" Platform Category and then in that main Category have the individual magazines as platforms.

You can set up an emulator to launch the files such as Comic Book Reader to launch cbr files and then import the files like you would roms. Similar if you want to use a specific exe to launch pdf files or some other file format. 

I'm not sure I'm getting this right: you mean I create a new category, like it's a new console, so "Manage platforms", "Add", and I call it magazines? but in that case all the different magazines (Arcadia, Neo Geo Freak, Famitsu, Electronic Gaming Monthly, etc) are all going to be all over the place then? Add to that that ideally I'd like to have a "Media" category with magazines, artbooks, guidebooks and stuff, isn't there a way to sort all of that? What I mean by that is, make folders, I guess. One for EGM mags, one for Arcadia mags, all of them inside a "Magazines" folder, next to other "Artbooks" folder, "Guidebooks" folder and whatnot. Is it possible to do that in Launchbox?

Edited October 3, 2023 by vince16

[Retro808]

16 hours ago, vince16 said:

I'm not sure I'm getting this right: you mean I create a new category, like it's a new console, so "Manage platforms", "Add", and I call it magazines? but in that case all the different magazines (Arcadia, Neo Geo Freak, Famitsu, Electronic Gaming Monthly, etc) are all going to be all over the place then? Add to that that ideally I'd like to have a "Media" category with magazines, artbooks, guidebooks and stuff, isn't there a way to sort all of that? What I mean by that is, make folders, I guess. One for EGM mags, one for Arcadia mags, all of them inside a "Magazines" folder, next to other "Artbooks" folder, "Guidebooks" folder and whatnot. Is it possible to do that in Launchbox?

LB sees this levels. 1) Platform Category 2) Platform 3) Playlist

1) Platform Category: This can be anything you want to top level organize "Platforms" and "Playlists". A Platform Category can have any Platform and/or Playlist within it. It can never have individual games. 

2) Platform: This is the main area you import individual games or magazines (such as you and others have done). A Platform can ONLY have individual games in it. 

3) Playlists: These are the custom playlists you make and like Platforms can only have games in it. However, nothing is ever imported into a playlist it will only "list"  games that meet the criteria you spelled out. 

When you edit a Platform Category, Platform, or Playlist there is a tab called "Parents" that tab allow you to tell LB where you want that "Platform Category", "Platform", or "Playlist to show up in your list. If you make a new "Category" be sure to check the box for "Root" so it shows up like the others LB already made.

 

So in your case you can set it up like this. 

> Magazines (Platform Category: ")

        >Arcadia: (Platform)

                >All your individual Arcadia Magazines will be imported into "Arcadia" platform

        >Neo Geo Freak: (Platform)

                >All your individual Arcadia Magazines will be imported into "Neo Geo Freak" platform

        >Famitsu: (Platform)

                >All your individual Arcadia Magazines will be imported into "Famitsu" platform

....and so on.