2 questions about BigBox setup

[djdaveoc22]

Hi all,

I purchased the software and have a cab setup but I haven't used it much yet.  I'm trying to change that and have a couple questions.  If anyone has time to answer, thank you in advance!

1. Is there a tutorial video or written instructions with a step-by-step for newbies like me that explains how to list games by star ratings per platform?  For example, when I go into the arcade platform, instead of showing games in alphabetical order it would start with the game with the highest user star rating and go downwards from there with the worst-rated games being last.

2. How do I find and download as many themes as possible for Bigbox?  Is there a way for the program to see and update/download themes from some central source?  if so, where in the menus do I go and what options do I select to do that?  If not, how do I find and download themes into Bigbox manually?

Thank you

Edited November 19 by djdaveoc22

[AstroBob]

Hey @djdaveoc22 🙌 Welcome to the community, time to put that cabinet to good use 🤩
 

6 hours ago, djdaveoc22 said:

1. Is there a tutorial video or written instructions with a step-by-step for newbies like me that explains how to list games by star ratings per platform?  For example, when I go into the arcade platform, instead of showing games in alphabetical order it would start with the game with the highest user star rating and go downwards from there with the worst-rated games being last.

Within LaunchBox, you can easily change the sorting by going to View from the top menu and then selecting Arrange By > Star Rating. Note that you may also want to go to Tools > Download > Update Community Star Ratings which will download community star ratings for all your games.

Note that this sorting affects all of your different platforms within LaunchBox, however you can set a sort order on a per-playlist basis. Just edit the playlist, and under Sort Games By, you can choose a custom sort from there.

For Big Box, there isn't a way to change the default sort order across all of your views like you can with LaunchBox. However, any playlists that you've created and the Sort Games By option that you've selected will be respected in Big Box. So if you want to view your arcade games by community star rating, I would suggest creating an auto-generated playlist, set the Sort Games By option, and then use that within Big Box

6 hours ago, djdaveoc22 said:

2. How do I find and download as many themes as possible for Bigbox?  Is there a way for the program to see and update/download themes from some central source?  if so, where in the menus do I go and what options do I select to do that?  If not, how do I find and download themes into Bigbox manually?

To download themes directly from Big Box, under the System Menu go to Manage Themes. Here you'll see a list of LaunchBox-vetted themes that you can install directly from within Big Box. To download external themes manually, head to our themes section on our forum, download the theme that you want, and pop it into the Themes folder of your LaunchBox directory. Then you can manage them from the same Manage Themes section, much like any other theme.

We recently hosted a stream all about themes in Big Box, if you want to learn more or give it a watch, I'm attaching the recording at the correct timestamp where we cover themes in more detail. 

Hope that helps, let us know if you have any questions and definitely let us know how your cab build gets on, would love to see how it turns out 🕹️

[djdaveoc22]

Thank you for your reply.

I will have to do this part of your suggestion I guess since my question is specific to BigBox:

"I would suggest creating an auto-generated playlist, set the Sort Games By option, and then use that within Big Box."

How do I do that?  Is there a written guide or video showing a step-by-step somewhere?  It sounds like this is at least a 3-step process?

1. Create an auto-generated playlist

2. Set the sort game by option

3. Somehow change a setting or more in BigBox to tell it that I want to use the playlist for all my game views in each and every system. (I do want to view my games in all systems by star rating instead of alphabetical order by title.)

Maybe, I'm wrong here, I'm just going from your comment.  I haven no idea how to do any of that.

I find both LaunchBox and BigBox's options/settings to be overwhelming and usually end up getting lost.  I tried to take a look at some youtube vidoes but they were over an hour long each and didn't have timestamps from what I remember.  I just don't have time to go watch a few hours of videos unfortunately.

Edited November 20 by djdaveoc22

[AstroBob]

Hi @djdaveoc22 thanks for the reply and no worries at all. I totally understand it can be tricky to track down some information and I also realised playlists is one of those areas we're yet to have a dedicated tutorial for. It's certainly something we're looking to improve.

Here's how you can go about the workflow I mentioned. If you're looking to be able to view each platform by star rating, my suggestion would be to create a new category, and then nest some playlists for each platform inside that. Here's how to do it

1. Make sure you're in the platform category section of LaunchBox

 

2. Right click on any platform and select Add > New Category. Give it a name, and under the Parents tab, choose where you want to nest it (select Root if you want it to appear with your other platform categories)

3. Then, right click again, and select Add > New Playlist. Under the Auto-Populate tab, this is where you configure what appears in that playlist. Here's an example below

4. Back on the Details tab, under Sort Games By, this is where you choose what you want that playlist to sort by. Choose Star Rating 

5. Finally, choose where you want that playlist to live from the Parents tab. You can have it appear under that new category you just created, or somewhere else. It's worth noting you don't have to add the new category first, you could nest the playlists directly under each platform, it's entirely personal preference.

 

This playlist will now also appear in Big Box and will respect the sort order by star rating. Hope that helps, give me a shout if you get stuck along the way or have any further questions

[AstroBob]

Also attaching a video at the correct timestamp that shows some other use-cases on how you can create playlists

 

[djdaveoc22]

Thanks for the replies so far.

What I care about is just what appears in BigBox since that is the front end where game selection and playing takes place.  I just want my 10ish systems/platforms on the main menu (which they are so no changes needed) and then when I select a platform, NES for example, I want to see all my NES games sorted as best rating to worst.  I don't want multiple gategories/lists per system to appear in BigBox.  If you're saying that your instructions will let me accomplish my goal I will go try them.  Please confirm.  Thank you.

Edited November 21 by djdaveoc22

[djdaveoc22]

Also, when I right click a platform there is only an option to add, edit, or delete.  If I click add the only thing that happens is I'm asked if I want to manually add a platform.  There is no option for new category after right-clicking on a platform and choosing add.

Edited November 21 by djdaveoc22

[djdaveoc22]

If there is no way to display games by star rating when going to each platform, is there a way to have a Playlist for each platform (where games are sorted by star rating) and have that displayed INSTEAD of each platform?  If I can create a playlist that displays games per platform by star rating maybe I can show that and hide the default platforms themselves?  Is that possible and would it still accomplish what I want?

Edited November 21 by djdaveoc22

[AstroBob]

Hi @djdaveoc22, thanks for the updates there and for elaborating on your use case. Given what you're trying to achieve, I think we can simplify things to give you exactly what you need.

Assuming this build only needs your 10-ish platforms, organised by star rating, here's what I suggest.

1. In LaunchBox, change your view (on the left-hand side under the search bar) from Platform Categories to Playlists. From there, using my previous method, create auto-playlists for each of your platforms, and set the playlist to be organised by star rating—no need to bother with adding them to any categories, and under the Parents tab, just leave everything unchecked.

2. In Big Box, go to Options > Views > Default Startup View and change the option to Playlists

Assuming you don't have any other playlists already, this means now that when you load Big Box, it will simply show you the playlists you created, and going into those will organise the games by star rating.

Let me know if this works for you and how you get on.

[djdaveoc22]

I think it worked thank you.  I have been asking how to do this for a couple years now I think and never found an answer so I appreciate it.  I work full time and just haven't made the time to get it right.  There are just too many bad games that I wouldn't really want to play and most others wouldn't either so I'd like to keep my cab setup so that the best games are displayed first.  A lot of games I just removed from the cab as well but I don't want to spend hours going through 14ish systems to get rid of everything I'd never want to play.

I'm about to upgrade the PC I have this working on and once that's done I think my cab should be pretty much done other than fine tuning a few emulator settings and/or controls.  Oh yeah and I have to complete the gameplay videos if I can.  Anyway thanks for the help.  Hopefully I'll be on to playing instead of tinkering soon.

Edited November 22 by djdaveoc22

[AstroBob]

No worries at all, glad it seems to be going in the right direction. Totally understand it's a faf to curate everything, so highlighting the best ones first seems like a great way to hone in on the best games. There is also a setting to put games marked a Favorite at the top of your view, which can be used in tandem with your current sorting, as a way to highlight specific picks (on mobile atm so can't remember the exact location of that preference).

Let me know if you have any further questions, and good luck with the cab build! Feel free to show it off in our Collections & Builds section of the forum if you want 😊 We'd love to see it

[djdaveoc22]

Now I'm just posting requests for gameplay videos at emumovies as it seems they're missing plenty, especially original Xbox.  Thanks again.