LaunchBox for Android - 1.19 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hi Everyone,

1.19 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of fixes and a new addition: Playlist support!

Thanks to all who help test these beta versions. Don't forget to include the following information in your feedback to help us out with tracking down with any issues you may face with these betas:

• Your device specs
• The version of Android and API version
• Description of the issue
• Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
• Reproduction steps

 

You can opt into the beta within LaunchBox for Android by going into Option and turning on the Update to Beta Releases option. If a beta release is available, you will get prompted each time the app opens up.

Full Changelog: https://www.launchbox-app.com/android-about/change-log

 

Beta 1:

• You can now create and manage playlists entirely on Android. Open any game’s menu and tap Add to Playlist to create a new playlist or add to an existing one. Once created, a new Playlists section will appear in your library
• A new Show Playlist Filters option on the Options page lets you show or hide playlist filters under your filter sections
• Browsing Filter and Game pages just got faster thanks to major behind-the-scenes optimizations
• The Settings pages have been refactored for quicker loading and smoother transitions
• The alphanumeric index has been fully rebuilt using a custom control that dramatically improves load times for any view using it and gives theme developers more flexibility
• Fixed syncing issues with PlayCount and PlayTime, making your game stats sync properly with the LaunchBox Games Database and stay consistent across Android and Windows builds
• Default text list views (FilterBasicTextList, FilterTextListWithDetails, GameBasicTextList, GameTextListWithDetails, GameTextListWithTwoColumnDetails) have been converted to utilize CollectionView, improving performance and enabling support for the new AlphaNumeric control

 

Known Issues with Beta 1:

• You are unable to edit the metadata of a playlist right now
• You cannot change the view of the list of playlists

 

Here's some more Context with our changes to help you with testing:

• You can now create and manage manual playlists directly on Android. Open any game menu and tap Add to Playlist. You can create a new playlist or add the game to one you have already made. Once you create a playlist, it will appear in your filter section alongside All Games, Favorites, and other filters.
  • Note: Playlist filters are hidden by default. To see them, go to Options then Navigation then enable Show Playlist Filters.
  • You can also assign media to playlists like banners, box art, and clear logos. No media is included by default.
• Navigation throughout the app is now faster and smoother.
  • The alphanumeric index has been fully rebuilt. It now loads quicker and offers more flexibility for theme developers.
  • Default text list views now use CollectionView, which improves performance and allows support for the new index.
  • Important: Some of these changes require updated themes. Go to Manage Themes and update all themes you are using. Because of the large amount of code restructuring, this update could introduce new bugs. We fixed everything we could find, but your help testing during the beta is greatly appreciated. If you see any strange behavior or navigation issues, please let us know. Updating your themes is also necessary to take advantage of the new index.
• Syncing issues with play count and play time have been fixed on the Android side. These stats should now sync correctly between Android, Windows, and the LaunchBox Games Database. If you have had problems here in the past, please test and report back with your results.

[Variann]

Remember to fix the bug that does not allow use of the geolith and cps3 emulators please!  Thank you

[Omifi]

I tested the sync changes for about an hour and i found some issues:

If you have playtime on a game on pc and import to android with network share that game wont get the statistics from PC and when you launch it on android all the playtime will get reset to zero, then it will start to sync from there

If a game has playtime on PC and you import to android normally not using network share the game will have its playcount synced correctly but shows zero playtime. If you then play the game on PC and sync again it will now show the correct playtime on android

Playcount seems to jump up in increments of 2 between syncs randomly. I couldnt pinpoint what exactly causes this but its very frequent

 

I have made a bug report earlier about sync issues and ill continue to update there aswell while i test

[faeran]

2 hours ago, Variann said:

Remember to fix the bug that does not allow use of the geolith and cps3 emulators please!  Thank you

Thanks. Yes, this should actually already be tackled internally, so we haven't forgotten. There's also a giant laundry list of other things on our list as well for next beta.

1 hour ago, Omifi said:

I tested the sync changes for about an hour and i found some issues:

If you have playtime on a game on pc and import to android with network share that game wont get the statistics from PC and when you launch it on android all the playtime will get reset to zero, then it will start to sync from there

If a game has playtime on PC and you import to android normally not using network share the game will have its playcount synced correctly but shows zero playtime. If you then play the game on PC and sync again it will now show the correct playtime on android

Playcount seems to jump up in increments of 2 between syncs randomly. I couldnt pinpoint what exactly causes this but its very frequent

 

I have made a bug report earlier about sync issues and ill continue to update there aswell while i test

Thanks for the update. Surprising that you are still seeing a jump up by 2 for play count, as that's exactly what we tackled and saw it solved internally. We'd need more detailed info about the game in question that you are seeing this on. Whether it's a game on a network, or whether it has additional apps, things like that.

We also internally know about 2 issues that could be skewing your results. Both are on the docket to fix before beta 2:

• We know that games on a network may not show correct play time
• We know that our play time binding doesn't always visually update with the correct play time, even though the stat behind has. This itself could actually make it super hard to do accurate testing, as you can't really trust what you are seeing with that binding.

Beta 2 should make it much easier to test this stuff with just having the binding update correctly, so stay tuned.

[Omifi]

@faeran ill try my best to find a way to replicate the playcount jump so far i think it has something to do with games that have playcount on PC then the next time that game is played is on android after importing. It then seems to be normal if alternate between pc and android. Before it was consistently jumping by two every sync.

The dreaded doubling of playtime/count didnt happen yet on my testing but i havent tested enough to comfortable say its fixed. Thats the big one i have my fingers crossed.

 

If beta two is close i might wait for that before testing more. Also since i dont really know how the whole syncing works should it be fine to manually reset or alter the playtime/count on games? When i first noticed these problems i ended up making a fresh LB install to try and fix it so i lost all my old statistics but kept most of them in a notepad file, it would be nice to re add my playtime for my most played games. I also ended up deleting and creating a new LB database account many times because i assumed that had something to do with syncing but i have been sticking with this one for now.

[JAKAMY]

@faeran testing the VisionN-Lite original and Colorful Redux on 1.19 beta1 displays struggle and delays to load the background images when starting the view with 10 or more items like in consoles and computers compared to version 1.18. which had no visible issues. it also fails many and leave the default.webp showing. Theme's images total size is 18.9 MB (clear logos+wide backgrounds and slim backgrounds).

 
Is there a way to have image caching/preloading in ImageControl? 
I tried using MAUI xct:CachedImage but it doesn't work for me like:

    <xct:CachedImage
        x:Name="Backgrounds2Image"
        Source="{Binding FilterValue, StringFormat='{}LAUNCHBOX_THEME_FOLDER/Images/Backgrounds2/{0}.webp'}"
        Margin="1,0,1,0"
        Aspect="AspectFill"
        HorizontalOptions="Fill"
        CachingEnabled="True"
        CacheValidity="30.00:00:00"
        DownsampleToViewSize="True"
        LoadingPlaceholder="loading.png"
        ErrorPlaceholder="LAUNCHBOX_THEME_FOLDER/Images/Backgrounds2/Default.webp">
        <xct:CachedImage.Triggers>
            <DataTrigger TargetType="xct:CachedImage" Binding="{Binding IsSelected}" Value="True">
                <Setter Property="LoadImage" Value="False" />
            </DataTrigger>
        </xct:CachedImage.Triggers>
    </xct:CachedImage>

I also tested by removing the second failsafe controlimage for default.webp and they all load in the end and display the blackbackground color meanwhile.
This loading image issue isn't present in 1.18 maybe some UI additions don't handle the fails safe way of loading default.web separatlly after the initial attempt like before.
Maybe a way like adding " ErrorPlaceholder="LAUNCHBOX_THEME_FOLDER/Images/Backgrounds2/Default.webp"
is better?

Is there anyway to having an implementation in Unbroken.LaunchBox.MAUI.Controls for cache and failsafe image?
Ideally for themes with small memory footprint (maybe max 50MB? ) going from platform category to platform and genres will have them not need to reload images as they would be ready in ram cache unless it expired. 
Hope it is a quick to add if valid to smoothen the big collections on android.

Cheers
 

Retroid pocket 5

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• 128UFS internal storage
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