Trying to understand platform/category/playlist structure

[Jakobud]

I'm running LB on my arcade cabinet with only MAME Arcade games on it. No consoles. So there is only 1 "platform". I'm trying to create a hierarchy of categories and playlists but don't understand the limitations fully.

So if I want my top level to be general categories like "Fighting Games", "Shooter", "Platform Games" etc. and then below each "category" I want the option to split it up into further categories, for example the Fighting Games category maybe under it I have other categories like:

- Street Fighter games
- Mortal Kombat games
- Fatal Fury games
- King of Fighter games
etc

You can't add games to a Category right? You can only add them to a playlist? So any "subcategory" I want to create that has games in it has to actually be a Playlist right? And Playlists can't have other playlists as children right? And a category can have multiple child categories and child playlists, right? Does all this sound right? So I would have multiple hierarchies of categories that I'm navigating through until I get to a Playlists which is where I actually would pick a game to play. Right?

Another thing I'm wondering, if I only have 1 platform "Arcade", how do I show this in Bigbox? I don't want the "main menu" to be "Arcade" that I have to click in. I just want to go straight into it and show it's children categories/playlists. How do I do this?

Edited April 2 by Jakobud

[Retro808]

13 hours ago, Jakobud said:

You can't add games to a Category right? You can only add them to a playlist? So any "subcategory" I want to create that has games in it has to actually be a Playlist right?  

Correct, you cannot add games to a category. Games can only be imported into a Platform and those imported games can be added to a playlist. So to see games the child level must be a playlist or a platform.

13 hours ago, Jakobud said:

And Playlists can't have other playlists as children right?  

Correct, Playlists cannot have any child options (Categories, Platforms, or other Playlists). 

13 hours ago, Jakobud said:

And a category can have multiple child categories and child playlists, right? Does all this sound right?  

Correct, Categories can contain multiple child Categories, Playlists, or Platforms.  

13 hours ago, Jakobud said:

So I would have multiple hierarchies of categories that I'm navigating through until I get to a Playlists which is where I actually would pick a game to play. Right?

Correct. Remember games can only appear in the Platforms or Playlist level. Platforms contain the original imported rom/game. Playlists contain the list of games you specified based on criteria.