Portable collections

[Mark Norville]

Thanks for any help given.

I have multiple PC's and the one that I am on at the moment, I keep up to date with my PC games, but I use it just for testing and trying new things out.

I know that if you store your games in the games folder then you can have it as portable.

However, I want to create collections of my PC games in the kitchen where this PC is, but I want to be able to transfer the collections to my arcade PC so that I do not have to do it all over again.

Is this possible? If yes, would someone be so kind as to tell me what files I need to move etc

Regards

Mark

[Mark Norville]

I have found

C:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\Need For Speed.html

C:\LaunchBox\Images\Playlists

C:\LaunchBox\Videos\Playlists

Is it just a case of copying those across, especially the html files but then I found which is worrying, in the HTML files

<Playlist>
    <PlaylistId>4424f57a-e594-4645-82e0-dfc00f82f3e4</PlaylistId>
and

<GameId>97f0ef24-2f5d-4371-8b38-b76f7a1db933</GameId>

I am guessing that the gameid will change if I imported games on another PC?

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Mark Norville said:

I have found

C:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\Need For Speed.html

I hope not.  Maybe Need For Speed.xml

The <PlaylistID> in the playlist_name.xml file is for that playlist.

The associated <GameID> you see in the playlist_name.xml file relates to the game as listed in its /Data/Platform/platform_name.xml

So you should be able to copy the respective playlist_name.xml and platform_name.xml (into their respective folders) and be fine.

Then copy the /Games/platform_name/whatever_games

If you need to do an actual install of the PC games on the "new" PC, if you install them into the same folder structure on the "new" PC as they are on the "original" PC (e.g. /Games/platform_name/), obviously don't copy /Games/....  The platform_name.xml will still point to the same (relative path) game locations and the <GameID>'s should Just Work™.

[Mark Norville]

Many thanks for the reply @JoeViking245

My problem is that the PC that I work on in the kitchen, none of the games are installed so they are just fantasy games that I have in my Steam library but not on PC.

I have horizontal and vertical arcade machines so the horizontal then everything will be installed but vertical I wanted to display the PC games, but have it so only vertical games were favourites and the rest was just eye candy.

Unless I am missing something, and the gameid refers to what it is on the games database and not installation file or local database file?

I will give it a try tomorrow and see if I can copy a PC play list across.

Thanks for your answer

Regards

Mark

[JoeViking245]

5 minutes ago, Mark Norville said:

Unless I am missing something, and the gameid refers to what it is on the games database and not installation file or local database file?

The <GameID> is the unique GUID for the game, as it sits on your system, for that LaunchBox installation.  Import that exact same game into a different LaunchBox installation, it will have a different <GameID>.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be unique.

This is why you'd need to copy the Platforms xml file along with the Playlists xml file.  (You can copy the Platform xml without the Playlist xml. But not the other way around.)

 

The <LaunchBoxDbId> is the number as it's listed in your local db file for that game. That will remain the same across different LB installations.  It is also the number that links it to the online Games Database.

 

 

Not to confuse matter more..
Those 2 elements are how they're seen in a playlist_name.xml file.
In their corresponding platform_name.xml, they listed as <ID> and <DatabaseID>, respectively.

[Mark Norville]

Ok forget that, I just tried with someone else's collection. It froze my PC up loading playlists so I deleted the lot and now it is a fresh install pretty much, it does not even have my Steam API any more.

I am just glad this is only a test/skinning PC rather than a main build. 

Oh well, do everything by hand then I suppose, I might do another test or possibly at least, but safer if I stick to know what I know (which is usually nothing)

Thanks for your help anyway

Regards

Mark

[JoeViking245]

53 minutes ago, Mark Norville said:

now it is a fresh install pretty much, it does not even have my Steam API any more.

If you have backups enable (which they are on by default), you could restore a backup.  If you're so inclined.

Backing Up and Restoring Your LaunchBox Setup - LaunchBox

56 minutes ago, Mark Norville said:

Thanks for your help anyway

You're welcome.  Anytime.  Best of luck to you.

[Mark Norville]

@JoeViking245

Many thanks for that, all back to normal. 

Thank God for backing up files and helpful mods

Regards

Mark