Is there every going to be a way to add custom artwork without having to go through the yahoo search engine? I just tried this out tonight and I got my ZSNESW working just fine but had to make two different folders for the games because they are two different extensions. However my project64 won't launch the games. It will launch the program then I am getting the error message. Also I'm kinda a noob to all of this so I don't really know the svn thing or how it all works. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thought I better start posting my issue in there actucal fourms.
Windvd - unable to get it to over take xbmc for windows.
Program launches but hides in the background
micster Wrote:Sure, I was planning on creating a video once I got everything dialed in. The background images actually rotate and they are not all Halo images, I just used those because they match. I'm still having trouble getting Aeon to execute Launcher everytime. Sometimes it just hangs and never launches. I think this is a problem with the way I'm linking to Launcher from the Homescroller in Aeon.
Home Page
Launcher after clicking "Arcade" above
My Super NES Emulator with ROMs
-Mic
in the above pictures how did you get the videos and art work to load like that
I already have pictures and videos but they only load with znes
also every time i go to to like the snes i got it to load from my emulator folder is it suppose to scan all the roms every time its kinda annoying i have all the roms i will ever use (845) is there a way to turn it off and they will still be loaded and thumbnails and info about that dual preview from above would be great
btw anyone got surreal to work only trouble I have so far
Im using a xbox btw
Okay, I'm a bit confused.
I understand how to make a link to a specific program using the plugin...
But how do I tell xbmc to recognize the filename for a specific emu and launch it with the right program?
Edit: Do I have to set it up for each ROM, or can I just point it at a directory or something and tell it to use program X to open any file in that directory?
Can i just say this plugin rocks.
works great on xbox i never new you could launch emulators and roms.
@ Nate1579
Quote:in the above pictures how did you get the videos and art work to load like that
I already have pictures and videos but they only load with znes
Well, I kinda faked it. In theory this should work but it was too buggy for me to deal with it anymore. Let me clarify...
XBMC and Aeon theme allow for thumbnails. When using Launcher plugin there is already a spot for the thumbnails to be displayed. You can specify in the .xml file of Launcher to point to the folder you have all of your ROM images in. In the Aeon theme this spot is taller than it is wide. So I thought it would be cool to use the boxart on top of the video intro for each game (See this post on xbox-scene from resurectionx on getting boxart and video intros
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=660135).
Unfortunately, XBMC does not support embedding video previews as thumbnails. This should be possible, and there are a few threads in this forum talking about it... but nothing yet. So instead, I decided to create an animated .gif from the video preview and use that as the thumbnail. To do this I used GIMP, a photo editing program for Linux. Gimp allows you to create an animated .gif from a video file automatically. It's really easy and takes only like a minute to finish. On top of that, Gimp can take two separate images like a static .jpg of your boxart and an animated .gif of your game intro and create a single new image!
So I did this and it worked. I created a single animated .gif that had a picture of the boxart on top and would loop through the intro of the game below. Pretty cool! Alas, XBMC only likes to display animated .gif sometimes. I think the problem might come down to size (my animated thumbnails were like +50mb!) and color depth. Sometimes they would appear corrupted and all green looking.
My conclusion is that it is possible to get the effect I was trying to achieve, but it might be more effort than it's worth. For me, I'm content to have thumbnails of just all the boxart.
@
digitalhigh
Quote:Do I have to set it up for each ROM, or can I just point it at a directory or something and tell it to use program X to open any file in that directory?
I run XBMC on the original xbox, and for me I install all of my emulators on a drive labeled "E:" I think. Each emulator has a folder for it's thumbnails and ROMs and it contains the executable for the emulator itself.
From within the Launcher plugin, add a new launch item and select "emulator". You should then be walked through choosing the executable file for the emulator, the folder location of your ROMs, and the file extension for your ROMs.
After completing those steps you should see your Emulator listed, and the first time you select the emulator it should scan for your ROMs. You can always edit the .xml file that Launcher creates and modify the paths to point to different locations for the executable and thumbnails.
So to answer your question, you should only have to do it once for each EMULATOR and it should automatically find the corresponding roms.
Got it. My problem was I was using Aeon to set up the original time I tried it, and couldn't read the prompts to know what to input to make it work properly.
New question...do I have to manually tell it to find art for all 1000+ ROMs I have, or is there a flag you can set to tell it to just start scanning and downloading?
I'd check the "settings.xml" file (I think that's what it's called) that Launcher created. Within that .xml file it should list all of your Emulators and their corresponding ROMs along with path information.
It's been a couple months since I did mine, but I think Launcher found my thumbnails by itself and I just had to edit that file to either add or remove the quotations. Find that .xml file first and see what it has already written. Maybe try and assign a new thumbnail from within Launcher. Last time I checked that feature was still buggy though and I don't know if Leo2 fixed it or not.
I might have misunderstood your question... I already had art for my 1000 snes ROMs and I just needed Launcher to look in the right place for them, which is real easy. I don't think the feature for adding thumbnails was ever fully realized, you deffinitely had to do them one at a time and sometimes they wouldn't download properly and it would lock up XBMC.
If you don't already have artwork/thumbnails for your ROMS I suggest you visit that link I posted to
xbox-scene a guy named ressurectionx has been working on collecting them all.
Edit:
Allright...in the interests of not continuing to post totally stupid questions which then get ignored...
I've read through this thread a few times now, and don't think I saw a definitive answer to this problem.
I run the launcher the first time. Pick a rom, it loads fine. I close the emulator, and it goes back to XBMC. But it only does this the first time. After that, I have to manually re-select XBMC after closing the emulator. Is this something I can fix, or just a problem at the moment?
Also Leo, you should consider whipping up a readme or FAQ for Launcher. I know it was a bit of laziness on my part, but scanning through 20 pages for various answers to my dumb lil' questions is a bit tedious.
Otherwise...love this launcher. Works wonderfully, and looks totally awesome with Aeon. Thanks for the hard work.
What platform do you have XBMC installed on (Linux, Windows, Xbox)? I have mine installed on the original xbox hardware and every time I exit out of my emulator ZsnexBox, I go straight to the home/root page of XBMC. No need to execute XBMC manually every time.
I did a software mod on my xbox and when I was setting it up, I replaced the default dashboard with XBMC. So whenever I turn on my xbox it goes straight into XBMC. That might have something to do with it. I believe the way external programs work whether it's an Internet Browser, Video Player, or Emulator, is they actually exit out of XBMC. I might be wrong about that, but after I exit out of my Emulator I hear the startup music for XBMC.... just like it was closed and automatically restarted when I exited the emulator.
micster Wrote:What platform do you have XBMC installed on (Linux, Windows, Xbox)? I have mine installed on the original xbox hardware and every time I exit out of my emulator ZsnexBox, I go straight to the home/root page of XBMC. No need to execute XBMC manually every time.
I did a software mod on my xbox and when I was setting it up, I replaced the default dashboard with XBMC. So whenever I turn on my xbox it goes straight into XBMC.
I am using launcher in Windows.
Has anyone looked into making the launcher plugin code work in XBMC for Mac (under Mac OS X) yet?
Would be great to be able to use the same launcher plugin under all XBMC platforms
