Auto-Populate Rules Not Working

[Drybonz]

As requested by faeran... a separate thread regarding auto-populate rules not working.  Rules to not show a particular platform, etc in the playlist does not filter those properly.

As requested, pictured here are an example of the rules that aren't working.  The platforms that should be filtered still show in the playlist.  This happens if you add the rules to an existing playlist or create a new one with those rules already added.

 

[C-Beats]

If you have multiple rows for the same field they are joined with an OR. Because of this you're not actually filtering out anything by platform. What you need to do is use: Platform - Has None of the Values - Arcade; LaserDisc and that that should give you the results you are looking for.

[Drybonz]

That worked.  That was all I needed.  Thank you.

[Retrofrogg]

The "has none of the values" doesn't seem to work for version?

[C-Beats]

14 hours ago, Retrofrogg said:

The "has none of the values" doesn't seem to work for version?

Version isn't typically a multi-string field so I'd have to look into the code to verify. If you version is "(USA) (Rev1)" (without quotes) and you say "None of the values - (USA)" it wouldn't fire on that because that is a single value. Multiple values need to be separated by a semicolon, so the games version would need to be "(USA);(Rev1)" which it typically isn't.

[Retrofrogg]

So for example, here are the N64 "1080 Snowboarding" roms from the No-Intro set:

And here is the "version" field in Launchbox for one of them:

You can see that "version" in this case contains three bracketed entries.

As it stands, I don't think it is possible to make an auto-playlist that looks to exclude more than one of these entries. So in this example, say I wanted a playlist without "Proto" and without "LodgeNet" in the version field, this would not be possible.

Am I correct in this? If so, it would be an extremely useful feature to have, in order to create a playlist that excludes these duplicates. Given that most No-Intro sets are like this, I'm surprised that it's not possible already. Unless I'm missing something? I know you can combine roms with the same title but that's not the path I'm on.

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Retrofrogg

[C-Beats]

30 minutes ago, Retrofrogg said:

I'm surprised that it's not possible already

It is, but as you stated it's not the path you're going down.

Right now it to work the way you're hoping it'd be work you'd need to split the values in parens with a semicolon, or we'd need to implement a "Doesn't Contain Any of the Values" sorta rule that would check if the strings were there at all or not (which I could see getting REALLY confusing alongside the "Has None of the Values" type).

[Retrofrogg]

You mean I'd need to alter the filenames of the roms to include semicolons? Or use semicolons in the auto-playlist rule? The latter doesn't seem to work.

Obviously messing with filenames is not the most desireable option! Some kind of rule as you mention would probably do it? Yes the phrasing would have to be clear!

[C-Beats]

No, I'm saying you'd alter the Version information on your games to adhere to the multi-value rule of "different values are separated by semicolons". You don't need to touch filenames at all for much of anything in LaunchBox outside of initial scraping/detection.

[Retrofrogg]

Ah I see, ok. I guess doing that for all games would involve running some kind of "find and replace" rule on the platform xml. Then it would have to be redone every time a new game is imported. It's a workaround - but the ability for Launchbox to recognise blocks of text within the "version" field (that are not separated by semi-colons) would a very helpful feature. 

[Clutz450]

On 12/19/2023 at 7:15 PM, C-Beats said:

No, I'm saying you'd alter the Version information on your games to adhere to the multi-value rule of "different values are separated by semicolons". You don't need to touch filenames at all for much of anything in LaunchBox outside of initial scraping/detection.

I'm having the same problem with trying to customize my playlists and my searches led me to this thread.  How does LaunchBox fill in the Version field?  Does it get it from the Games DB or does it fill it on based on whatever is in parentheses in the file name?  Either way, since it sounds like the only way we can easily filter out one type of version from our playlist is if the version field separates each one with a semicolon, it's there any way to automatically do that?  Like I have so many games in LaunchBox that it would be impractical for me to manually add semicolon to every game's entry.  Or maybe can I suggest an improvement where when importing your ROMs, it will recognize the multiple versions and automatically separate them with semicolon?  Thank you. 

[C-Beats]

8 hours ago, Clutz450 said:

I'm having the same problem with trying to customize my playlists and my searches led me to this thread.  How does LaunchBox fill in the Version field?  Does it get it from the Games DB or does it fill it on based on whatever is in parentheses in the file name?  Either way, since it sounds like the only way we can easily filter out one type of version from our playlist is if the version field separates each one with a semicolon, it's there any way to automatically do that?  Like I have so many games in LaunchBox that it would be impractical for me to manually add semicolon to every game's entry.  Or maybe can I suggest an improvement where when importing your ROMs, it will recognize the multiple versions and automatically separate them with semicolon?  Thank you. 

Version is basically anything in parens in the filename, that field doesn't get populated any other way automatically.

[Retrofrogg]

Is there any way to achieve what we're trying to do @C-Beats? Basically we have No-Intro sets, need to have the roms separate in Launchbox (rather than combined) and want to create a main playlist that filters out duplicates using strings within the version field (rather than the whole version field). As @Clutz450 said, adding semicolons manually to the version fields isn't really tenable. To my mind, a new rule in the auto-playlist feature that looks within the version field would easily do it. 

Edited April 19 by Retrofrogg

[adam1972]

I guess that's a hard No lol.  At least allowing us to use a "wildcard".. a simple asterisk for god's sake.  Anyone that's done the simplest of searches knows what a wildcard is.  
Using C-Beats example.. Platform - Has None of the Values - Arcade; LaserDisc in this case I'd want to use it on the title to fiilter out College Sports Games and Soccer Games... 
Title - Has None of the Values - *NCAA *; * College Football *; * Soccer *; * FIFA *
Boom.  More helpfull if we could use double quotes in there as well.
just my 2 cents 😎🙏
Ya'll have a wonderful upcoming weekend 😎💯