Kodi Community Forum
[CLOSED] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Printable Version

+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Support (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=33)
+--- Forum: Add-on Support (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=27)
+---- Forum: Game Add-ons (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=291)
+---- Thread: [CLOSED] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC (/showthread.php?tid=85724)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-25

(2013-05-25, 20:19)sfrooster Wrote: I don't believe this is necessarily an Advanced Launcher issue, but that is where it happens so...
When I use AL to open Firefox, it opens using only the left half of the screen with no option to further maximize it or otherwise drag or enlarge it to fill the entire screen.

Any suggestions?
Applications need to be started into a desktop environnment to be displayed correctly (into fullscreen or windowed) with the correct resolution, with focus, controls, etc... And by using XBMCbuntu this is not your case. Under XBMCbuntu, XBMC is running without any desktop/windows manager. So when you want to start another external application you have problems. To avoid this you can :
  • Boot your system into a light windows manager (like openbox) and then automatically start XBMC.
  • Create a script (.sh) that you will be started from Advanced Launcher that will start a light windows manager and then automatically launch your application.
  • Use another linux distribution with a windows manager.



RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - sfrooster - 2013-05-26

(2013-05-25, 22:35)Angelscry Wrote:
(2013-05-25, 20:19)sfrooster Wrote: I don't believe this is necessarily an Advanced Launcher issue, but that is where it happens so...
When I use AL to open Firefox, it opens using only the left half of the screen with no option to further maximize it or otherwise drag or enlarge it to fill the entire screen.

Any suggestions?
Applications need to be started into a desktop environnment to be displayed correctly (into fullscreen or windowed) with the correct resolution, with focus, controls, etc... And by using XBMCbuntu this is not your case. Under XBMCbuntu, XBMC is running without any desktop/windows manager. So when you want to start another external application you have problems. To avoid this you can :
  • Boot your system into a light windows manager (like openbox) and then automatically start XBMC.
  • Create a script (.sh) that you will be started from Advanced Launcher that will start a light windows manager and then automatically launch your application.
  • Use another linux distribution with a windows manager.

Thanks for the response! Creating a script is what I did. It has only one line which just starts FF. That all works fine. The issue is that FF starts using only the left half of the screen. I had a similar issue with Chrome but I found a (Chrome specific) way to make Chrome use the whole screen. I'm hoping someone may know the issue I'm having with FF and a way to address it.

If I did need to modify my script to use openbox, what would that look like?


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - sfrooster - 2013-05-26

(2013-05-26, 03:48)sfrooster Wrote:
(2013-05-25, 22:35)Angelscry Wrote:
(2013-05-25, 20:19)sfrooster Wrote: I don't believe this is necessarily an Advanced Launcher issue, but that is where it happens so...
When I use AL to open Firefox, it opens using only the left half of the screen with no option to further maximize it or otherwise drag or enlarge it to fill the entire screen.

Any suggestions?
  • Create a script (.sh) that you will be started from Advanced Launcher that will start a light windows manager and then automatically launch your application.
    .
If I did need to modify my script to use openbox, what would that look like?

I ended-up modifying my script to look like:

openbox &
/usr/bin/firefox
killall -9 openbox

...and that did it.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - davelr - 2013-05-28

FWIW, the script error with addon.py under Eden for AdvL versions past 2.04 is present even with the last release of Eden. I'm going to rollback to 2.04 and disable the repository until I have the time to work on Frodo. Thanks again.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-28

(2013-05-28, 15:17)davelr Wrote: FWIW, the script error with addon.py under Eden for AdvL versions past 2.04 is present even with the last release of Eden. I'm going to rollback to 2.04 and disable the repository until I have the time to work on Frodo. Thanks again.
The actual GIT version of Advanced Launcher restore the compatibility with Eden : https://github.com/Angelscry/plugin.program.advanced.launcher
I've planned to release it soon.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - davelr - 2013-05-28

(2013-05-28, 15:19)Angelscry Wrote: [The actual GIT version of Advanced Launcher restore the compatibility with Eden : https://github.com/Angelscry/plugin.program.advanced.launcher
I've planned to release it soon.

Great, thanks. Will test when released. BTW dropped a donation on you. The support here is just outstanding.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-28

(2013-05-28, 15:49)davelr Wrote:
(2013-05-28, 15:19)Angelscry Wrote: [The actual GIT version of Advanced Launcher restore the compatibility with Eden : https://github.com/Angelscry/plugin.program.advanced.launcher
I've planned to release it soon.

Great, thanks. Will test when released. BTW dropped a donation on you. The support here is just outstanding.
Thank you for the donation.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-29

Version 2.0.9 : This new version of Advanced Launcher restore the compatibility with Dharma and Eden verison of XBMC, that was broken by release of the version 2.0.5 of Advanced Launcher.

Changelog :
  • Restore post-Frodo XBMC versions compatibility.



RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Kagan - 2013-05-29

First of all let me just say that I love the program, but I just experienced a rather unfortunate bug:

While updating some of my games with thumb-pictures manually, I just received a script.py error, which has happened before. The difference this time is that the whole categoty (Emulators) is now missing from my Advanced Launcher-folder, with the "Default"-folder being the only one left.

Making it even stranger is that the menu-button I had made (Aeon Nox) named "Emulators" is still working, letting me access the Advanced Launcher-category that Advanced Launcher itself cannot see anymore. When I try to "Create new launcher" I get a "Error - Target category not found".

Can anyone advice me what to do to restore everything to how it was before - after spending hours setting everything up, it would really suck having to start over.

Thanks.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-29

(2013-05-29, 12:06)Kagan Wrote: First of all let me just say that I love the program, but I just experienced a rather unfortunate bug:

While updating some of my games with thumb-pictures manually, I just received a script.py error, which has happened before. The difference this time is that the whole categoty (Emulators) is now missing from my Advanced Launcher-folder, with the "Default"-folder being the only one left.

Making it even stranger is that the menu-button I had made (Aeon Nox) named "Emulators" is still working, letting me access the Advanced Launcher-category that Advanced Launcher itself cannot see anymore. When I try to "Create new launcher" I get a "Error - Target category not found".

Can anyone advice me what to do to restore everything to how it was before - after spending hours setting everything up, it would really suck having to start over.

Thanks.
This Advanced Launcher problem randomly occurs since Frodo release. It looks like if something was randomly deleteting the categories/launchers/items list from the memory. Most on the time it is not a big problem, because XBMC reload automatically this list each time you make an action. The only moment when it cause a real problem is when you are editing the categories/launchers/items list, becasue each time you edit something into Advanced Launcher, it was automatically saved into the launchers.xml file. So if the list was cleared when you save the launchers.xml file, you lost partially or completely the content of your launchers.xml file.

I have tried to found what was the cause of this problem... but I was not able to found it. Because it happen randomly (do not happen since more than one month on my system actually) and do not generate any entries into xbmc.log file. So it is really difficult to reproduce and diagnose.

BTW, since version 1.12.0, Advanced Launcher include auto-backup option, that AUTOMATICALLY make a backup of your launchers.xml file each time you edit it (http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=469). So if the problem occurs again, you do not have to rebuilt all your list launcher by launcher, just go into Advanced Launcher settings > Advanced > Backup options > Import XML file (restore backup) > Then select the file corresponding to you last modification. Files naming convention is : YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-MILLISEC-launchers.xml. Then your categories/launchers/items list will be automatically restored.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - davelr - 2013-05-29

Thanks for the error handler fix in 2.09, works great in Eden again.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Kagan - 2013-05-29

Angelscry:
Thank you for pointing out the backup-solution, I had no idea it existed and it worked perfectly Smile

Btw. I was wondering if you could tell me how Advanced Launcher recognises my games and renames them? Is this done according to an existing database or does it compare part of the name with the sites included as scrapers?

The reason I ask it that I am quite amazed at some of the filenames it recognises, while it trips over what I would think would be more easily recognisable names other times.

Also, since I am having Advanced Launcher pull everything from my NAS-server, I was wondering if there is any way to have it store the game-information downloaded through the scrapers, on the NAS-drive? Right now I have it set up so that thumbs/fanarts are stored on the NAS, but I haven’t found any option to have it also store the downloaded information externally.

And again I just want to say “thank you” for an amazing piece of software Smile


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-29

(2013-05-29, 20:37)Kagan Wrote: Thank you for pointing out the backup-solution, I had no idea it existed and it worked perfectly Smile
I would prefer to do not have to add this option into the add-on. Wink

(2013-05-29, 20:37)Kagan Wrote: Btw. I was wondering if you could tell me how Advanced Launcher recognises my games and renames them? Is this done according to an existing database or does it compare part of the name with the sites included as scrapers?
Games recognition into Advanced Launcher use filenames, game platform information and website based scrapers.

(2013-05-29, 20:37)Kagan Wrote: The reason I ask it that I am quite amazed at some of the filenames it recognises, while it trips over what I would think would be more easily recognisable names other times.
It could depend of a lot of thing, but mainly of the website scraper you are using. For example, if a website do not have the game into its database, the scraper could return a game with a close title or nothing. There is not perfect database... so no perfect scraper. That's why Advanced Launcher include several website based scrapers and allow to perform manual scanning and manual editing.

(2013-05-29, 20:37)Kagan Wrote: Also, since I am having Advanced Launcher pull everything from my NAS-server, I was wondering if there is any way to have it store the game-information downloaded through the scrapers, on the NAS-drive? Right now I have it set up so that thumbs/fanarts are stored on the NAS, but I haven’t found any option to have it also store the downloaded information externally.
Basically Advanced Launcher save all the scraped information into the launchers.xml file. But Advanced Launcher also include an option to export the game information into NFO files. To export the information, select a launcher > Context Menu ("C" key) > Edit Launcher > Manage Items List > Export items data to NFO files. Then for each game a .NFO file will be created ans stored into the same folder as the roms. Then you could import this NFO file information when you want. Here are corresponding small tutorials : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg3FZQRH35w & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzhJvoEu2tA


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - o9r1sh - 2013-05-30

Hello everyone, And thanks you Angelscry for this great addon. Just thought i would let you all know that Gamefaqs seems to dislike having there website scraped excessively as I've received an indefinate ban on my ip address after importing a few sets with that scraper. To be fair i do have a ton of roms so its understandable that I would trigger an automated ip block. I'm considering contacting the site to see if I can get unbanned and was wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences with gamefaqs or if anyone has some advise on how I should proceed.


RE: [RELEASE] Advanced Launcher - Applications Launcher Addon for XBMC - Angelscry - 2013-05-30

(2013-05-30, 02:34)o9r1sh Wrote: Hello everyone, And thanks you Angelscry for this great addon. Just thought i would let you all know that Gamefaqs seems to dislike having there website scraped excessively as I've received an indefinate ban on my ip address after importing a few sets with that scraper. To be fair i do have a ton of roms so its understandable that I would trigger an automated ip block. I'm considering contacting the site to see if I can get unbanned and was wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences with gamefaqs or if anyone has some advise on how I should proceed.
Here are some suggestions :
  • Avoid to base all your scrapers (data, thumbs and fanarts) on the same website. Scraping stuff need 2 website connections (1 for searching the game and 1 for downloading game stuff). So, if you use the same website for all scrapers, it will represent a total of 6 website connections per game. Try to mix, for example : data -> Allgame, thumbs -> MobyGames and fanart -> GameFaq. It will then represent only 2 connections par website and per game.
  • Use a dynamic IP... so you will never be permanently blocked.
  • You can try to pass by a proxy or a VPN server (but connection speed will probably be slower).