[Angelscry]

I was wondering whether it would be possible to include an option to auto select or set as default launcher ex.[PCSX2.EXE] for the users who use the same structured method and only use one launcher system as me in your next update.

No, sorry, I will not do that.

As I tell you, you just have to create a GAMES category and put all you games launchers (PS2, PSC, PC games, etc...) into it. That will do exactly the same. Then, create a XBMC menu entry from a favourite pointing to the Advanced Launcher GAMES category.

If the skin you are using do not allow you to do this, ask the skin devellopers to add the feature (most of them already have it). If the GAMES menu entry of the skin you are using is pointing to Advanced Launcher root directory, tell to the skin devellopers that Advanced Launcher is not a game add-on. I will not modify the way the Advanced Launcher is working beacause some skins do not supported Advanced Launcher correctly.

Another question I have... Does XBMC Limit you to only hiding the items that you have marked complete or are you able to code Advanced Launcher to hide anything if you wanted to?

I don't see the interest to specifically hide some items or launchers. If you want to hide something into Advanced Launcher put it into the default category, and hide the default category form the addon settings. Everything that would be inside will be hidden.

[codepony]

Have you ever considered using the SteamAPI to make a launcher type for Steam games?

No, because that's already exist : http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...ight=steam

Oh, I hadn't seen that, thanks! I thought the Steam Launcher one was the only option, and I can't stand Bog Picture mode (with 350+ games, it's damn near unusable).

[Viperveteran]

I was wondering whether it would be possible to include an option to auto select or set as default launcher ex.[PCSX2.EXE] for the users who use the same structured method and only use one launcher system as me in your next update.

No, sorry, I will not do that.

As I tell you, you just have to create a GAMES category and put all you games launchers (PS2, PSC, PC games, etc...) into it. That will do exactly the same. Then, create a XBMC menu entry from a favourite pointing to the Advanced Launcher GAMES category.

If the skin you are using do not allow you to do this, ask the skin devellopers to add the feature (most of them already have it). If the GAMES menu entry of the skin you are using is pointing to Advanced Launcher root directory, tell to the skin devellopers that Advanced Launcher is not a game add-on. I will not modify the way the Advanced Launcher is working beacause some skins do not supported Advanced Launcher correctly.

Another question I have... Does XBMC Limit you to only hiding the items that you have marked complete or are you able to code Advanced Launcher to hide anything if you wanted to?

I don't see the interest to specifically hide some items or launchers. If you want to hide something into Advanced Launcher put it into the default category, and hide the default category form the addon settings. Everything that would be inside will be hidden.

My setup is different...

I have

Games

1. PC Games
   
2. PSX
   
3. PS2
   
4. Gameboy
   

So I have the PC games in it's own category.

I managed a work around... I kept my categories in the same place so I don't have to redo hundreds of games and I just use the default category to put the favourited emulators in, then I linked them to the main menu under games. There are a few issues though when I enter the game menu it seems to scan my dvd drive (this is why it was taking longer) although it didn't do that when I launched directly inside of Advanced Launcher. Secondly I can no longer add items through the new game menu I have to go back to the program to add them.

[Faire]

Is this addon supported on Gotham?

[Crssi]

Unzip it into addons folder and it will work

[Angelscry]

Is this addon supported on Gotham?

Read the first thread (there is 2 clues inside).

Unzip it into addons folder and it will work

Since Gotham release, it can be installed directly from XBMC.

[Angelscry]

I managed a work around... I kept my categories in the same place so I don't have to redo hundreds of games and I just use the default category to put the favourited emulators in, then I linked them to the main menu under games. There are a few issues though when I enter the game menu it seems to scan my dvd drive (this is why it was taking longer) although it didn't do that when I launched directly inside of Advanced Launcher.

Could you please reproduce the problem on your system and post here the content of the xbmc.log file after ativating the debug mode into Advanced Launcher. I do not see any reason why Advanced Launcher try to access your DVD drive. There is no reason, except if if you have indicated this path into on of your launcher (executable, item, thumb of fanart images)

Secondly I can no longer add items through the new game menu I have to go back to the program to add them.

What is actually you "new menu"? A menu entry into the skin? A category or a launcher into Advanced Launcher?

[Buff]

Hi Angelscry,

Great Addon, have looked at it some time ago but only recently got to grips with it and got into the whole emulation thing.

I wanted to ask a couple of things, some of which has been answered a few posts back with your discussion with Viperveteran, which was handy. I have my navigation similar, I think to Viperveteran, Advanced Launcher (renamed Games) is on my home screen and I have my different systems (Arcade, Atari, NES, N64, PS1 etc...) added as sub menus (using favourites) - perhaps not the ideal way, as if I enter Games it then goes to what I presume is the root folder you refer to and then I have to click on Default to go to the list of systems. I might look at changing this.

Anyway, it's worked well so far. What I wanted to ask, apologies if this has already been answered; is there some way for me to add a new system (e.g. Sega Arcade) and have games in there that use two different emulators - thinking this through I'm assuming not, but perhaps there is a different way I could display/navigate that would have the same effect?

Basically, I'm wanting to have Sega Arcade games that use an AM2 emulator and games that use an AM3 emulator in the same view. The ideal would be to use MAME instead, but this can't play all the games, especially AM3 games.

Any suggestions on how best to change my navigation would be great?

[Angelscry]

I wanted to ask a couple of things, some of which has been answered a few posts back with your discussion with Viperveteran, which was handy. I have my navigation similar, I think to Viperveteran, Advanced Launcher (renamed Games) is on my home screen and I have my different systems (Arcade, Atari, NES, N64, PS1 etc...) added as sub menus (using favourites) - perhaps not the ideal way, as if I enter Games it then goes to what I presume is the root folder you refer to and then I have to click on Default to go to the list of systems. I might look at changing this.

There is an option into Advanced Launcher settings to automatically start it into the Default directory. If you want to start Advanced Launcher into another category, use XBMC favourites.

Anyway, it's worked well so far. What I wanted to ask, apologies if this has already been answered; is there some way for me to add a new system (e.g. Sega Arcade) and have games in there that use two different emulators - thinking this through I'm assuming not, but perhaps there is a different way I could display/navigate that would have the same effect?

Basically, I'm wanting to have Sega Arcade games that use an AM2 emulator and games that use an AM3 emulator in the same view. The ideal would be to use MAME instead, but this can't play all the games, especially AM3 games.

For each items contained into a files launcher you have the possibility to define an alternative application and/or an alternative command line. So you can try to create a Sega Arcade games launcher using AM2 emulator and scanning all the AM2_AM3 games and then edit each AM3 game and indicate an alternative application and/or argument for each.

An other way, a little more complicated, is to create 2 launchers (one for AM2 and one for AM3), then scan, scrap and add items for both. Then manually editing the launchers.xml file to replace the plaform field "Arcade" by "Sega Arcade" for all the AM2 and AM3 games. Then finally create a query launcher based on the named "Sega Arcade" platform.

[Buff]

Cheers for the quick reply and all the info, sounds really promising - didn't quite get the second option, but I'll give the first one a try tonight.

Thanks again.

[NessLookAlike]

Does anyone already have various goodsets set up with Advanced Launcher to show proper info and album art that they could share?

So I've been an Advanced Launcher user for a few months now. I spent upwards of 2-3 months putting together a nice HTPC with goodsets for NES, SNES, Genesis and N64 (and a few other goodsets as well, but you get the idea), and getting the presentation of these goodsets just right was a huge challenge. Scraping didn't always work well, and when it didn't work at all, I was left with the task of manually adding game info and screenshots for literally thousands. of. roms. Me sitting in front of the computer, copying and pasting information over, finding screenshots and trying to link them, etc. Terrible. The interface to manually enter game info is horrendously bad and not designed for someone that needs to add a massive amount of data. It's so bad that I've seriously considered sitting down and actively developing for Advanced Launcher to make the two or three tweaks that would save so many good-intentioned people from so much havoc.

It pains me to read through this thread and see people only ask about very low-level concerns, like layout preferences and whatnot, and not ask the more important, pressing question: "how easy is it for me to add the games I want, and get their presentation just right?" I have spent many, many nights (and days!) trying to put together a relatively simple concept: if someone wants to play an NES game, they can browse the list of all of a goodset's games, look at a few screenshots to get a feel for the game, read a little about it, see a clean title for the game, and launch it.

My point here is, if a lot of us are doing roughly the same thing, can't we just pool together a collection of our nice, completed goodset NFO files to import from and save the headache? Hell, maybe even pool together a bunch of nice screenshots too.

[sudopinion]

My point here is, if a lot of us are doing roughly the same thing, can't we just pool together a collection of our nice, completed goodset NFO files to import from and save the headache? Hell, maybe even pool together a bunch of nice screenshots too.

I reallly like this idea.
There are repositories that have collections of snaps/boxart etc...hyperspin has hypersync/hyperbase
you must donate to use them tho.

[NessLookAlike]

My point here is, if a lot of us are doing roughly the same thing, can't we just pool together a collection of our nice, completed goodset NFO files to import from and save the headache? Hell, maybe even pool together a bunch of nice screenshots too.

I reallly like this idea.
There are repositories that have collections of snaps/boxart etc...hyperspin has hypersync/hyperbase
you must donate to use them tho.

Yep, I donated to one of the websites with a lot of the snaps/boxart for all the major consoles, and I grabbed everything they had. Would be willing to share in exchange for proper NFO files.

[sudopinion]

i have LOTS of game.xml files that i scraped with a program called gamemeta .08 a few years ago.
they can be converted into nfo's with a tool found on the forums.
Unfortunately, they are a hodgepodge. Many have genre, year, dev, publisher and description, while others are missing meta fields.
I am using a naming convention that doesn't follow goodsets'. I have removed all "([info])" signifiers in order to consolidate titles.
Many games are also listed as "Game,The" and have been renamed to "The Game"
This is probably unsuitable for classicly named libraries and you might be better off scraping using rcb and al.
Anyway, I would be happy to dump what I have to a PUBLIC repo, if you would do the same.

[Indyplumber]

Advanced Launcher has given me hope of a wife approved box. Since the Hulu add-on isn't working I was able to create an advanced launcher to launch the Hulu Plus app in windows.
But is there any way possible to get the Hulu Launcher to show up on the Home screen under Videos like the Hulu Add-on did? This could be a deal breaker. Things like Hulu and Netflix
need to be one or two clicks away or it won't work in the house.

like this



By the way, we are experimenting with cutting the cord. Comcast has become too damn expensive to justify.