Games library (with database), and extend scraper interpeter/engine to include games?

C-Quel Wrote:ive already done the scrapers for allmusic/allmovie/allgame feel free to patch the code to allow for music/games scraper xmls

@C-Quel, can you maybe upload your AllGame scraper to our SourceForge tracker just in case it would help spark interest in someone else who might be willing to extend XBMC extend the scraper interpeter/engine to support this? Pretty please with sugar on top...

if i still have it yes mate ill have a poke around shortly

I know there is already a plugin to lunch games and emulators just wounding why we cant have a games section since we already have movies,pictures and music the only thing left in the htpc would be a games section.

These are just suggestions

My idea is something like this

-able to lunch emulators and pc games
-have a library mode from where it can list things like platform/console,number of players,genre etc

those are the basic futures then we could add much more to make awsome

-able to setup emulators within xbmc globally and per game basis.example some emulators need a option on for some games to work.So you dont have to have a mouse and keyboard to change things

-able to setup your controls globally per console and per game

-scrap info,screenshot,cover art,fan art,cheat codes,guides a site might not exist for this but i am sure we could figure out something.

-how about xbmc can detect a psx and other disc based games when you insert it into your cd/dvd drive and load up the correct emulator.

one thing that would be awesome but i think it might be just to hard an ability to have a menu pop up in game from where u can edit settings,save/load states,change controlls,see cheat codes and exit back to xbmc. even in game guide so if you get stuck you can read what to do while ingame example of ingame menus:steam and xfire so its possible but i don't know how hard it would be to make something like that.

i found a plug in for a different media player app that has some of these futures its called mygames here is some screen shots of how it looks just for examples.



In game menu


i dot like the way it looks but i bet the skinners here could come up with something amazing.

this screenshot looks better



i don't write good so i hope you understand what i am trying to say

thanks

I like this idea

Lots of cool ideas, but I think you are asking for too much. A My Games library (separate from 'My Programs') would be nice, but it doesn't need a ton of features.
All you need is to scrape info about the game, a thumb for the cover, fanart if available, maybe a screenshot if available, and the ability to launch games directly for emulators that support it.

That's the maximum I think anyone could expect...

A quick google search revealed no good source to scrape this information from, so really this wouldn't be so great anyways.

Me thinks the launcher plugin will work for now, once team xbmc gets the programs section back working we can worry about a separate games section.

yea rwparris2 that's what i want. But if someone wants to they could improve it to make it much more user friendly but the basics would do just fine.these are just ideas.

This may be a bit out there (or even discussed before) -- but would it be possible to setup a Programs scraper or something like that? I currently use my Xbox as the platform for XBMC, and I was thinking it'd be really cool if I could have information about my games get pulled up and show different sources (i.e. Emulators/Games/Homebrew) all under one little library feature. Something that would even let you manually update it (and maybe check Wikipedia for data with a scraper, i.e. Release Date, Company, etc).

Would be pretty sweet to see Super Mario War or ZSNES show up in the library and get a custom wallpaper for it, etc.

Not sure if Programs only shows up on Xbox -- but would definitely be killer anywhere...

not yet, but it's been discussed and I also think there are requests for it on the tracker.

There seems to be a lot of interest in this -- and I'm really interested in it too. I've taken a look at some of the source via SVN at work (blarg on the beginning of the year being so slow). I'm busy working on two major C# projects in my personal time, but I do have a heavy background in C++ as well. Maybe I can do some of it -- but my time is incredibly limited...

Do we have any architects or major players that know this well enough, that they could tell me what all would be necessary to update? I imagine we'd need a ProgramDatabase, ProgramInfo, etc similar to the VideoLibrary, etc. How about linking it in to the rest of the app and playing around with the skinning, etc? I mean, it's not terribly difficult to build a database or anything else from that.

And, help me if I'm a little off here -- but is the persistence of the database (as seen in the constructor) limited to the XBMC's execution; i.e. it will recreate the database each time the app reboots/starts, but persists it in a data format outside of the app, which is then reloaded into the tables? (any reason why?)

Edit:

Furthermore, would it make more sense to call this Program<section; i.e. Database.cpp> or Game<section> ?

Terin Wrote:Furthermore, would it make more sense to call this Program<section; i.e. Database.cpp> or Game<section> ?

Maybe your asking something else here, but what about a Programs section, with an internal structure similar to the video section, how there are movies and tv shows sections in the video library, which in this case could be Applications and Games?