[goldsac]

I'm glad (most of) this thread exists. I come from the B group, and have the preference for the "everything in the ROM folder" style. I'd say it's because it's simply consistent with how everything else is organized for Kodi, but more importantly it just makes the most sense to me from an elegance standpoint. That said, I was not hitherto aware of the deep infrastructure already established by the emulation community, and can see how deviating from it would potentially alienate Kodi's gaming interface from the rest of the emulation scene, where streamlining is probably a good idea wherever possible. Wintermute clearly has expertise that should be highly considered, I can see that from simply reading this thread and some of the linked threads therein. 

If at all possible, I'd be delighted if both options could co-exist. When importing a game, it seems feasible assets could simply be searched for in tandem, using OR logic. For example, when adding romname and fanart, could a fetch be attempted to both the "assets folder" organization (/platform/assets/fanarts/romname.jpg), while at the same time scanning for romname-fanart.jpg in the rom folder? Then it could just take whichever one it happens to actually find, and ignore the one that doesn't exist. This would create some bloat to the code, and I'll fully admit that I'm not a coder of any significant worth, so pardon my ignorance if I'm severely underestimating the severity of the potential bloat. However, if it's simple parallel/duplicate bloat, that could maybe be manageable, and might be worth considering to keep it user-friendly for people coming from both sides of this argument (the Kodi library people and the emulation scene people, if you will).

Bottom line for me: If the above can work somehow, excellent. But if it's significantly too cumbersome or unrealistic, then adjusting to the established emulation scene infrastructure is something I'm sure I could get used to (it would just take some time for my OCD to subside ). I'll defer to the expertise of Wintermute and anyone else who has more experience than I in this area.

[Wintermute0110]

I'm glad (most of) this thread exists. I come from the B group, and have the preference for the "everything in the ROM folder" style. I'd say it's because it's simply consistent with how everything else is organized for Kodi, but more importantly it just makes the most sense to me from an elegance standpoint. That said, I was not hitherto aware of the deep infrastructure already established by the emulation community, and can see how deviating from it would potentially alienate Kodi's gaming interface from the rest of the emulation scene, where streamlining is probably a good idea wherever possible. Wintermute clearly has expertise that should be highly considered, I can see that from simply reading this thread and some of the linked threads therein. 

If at all possible, I'd be delighted if both options could co-exist. When importing a game, it seems feasible assets could simply be searched for in tandem, using OR logic. For example, when adding romname and fanart, could a fetch be attempted to both the "assets folder" organization (/platform/assets/fanarts/romname.jpg), while at the same time scanning for romname-fanart.jpg in the rom folder? Then it could just take whichever one it happens to actually find, and ignore the one that doesn't exist. This would create some bloat to the code, and I'll fully admit that I'm not a coder of any significant worth, so pardon my ignorance if I'm severely underestimating the severity of the potential bloat. However, if it's simple parallel/duplicate bloat, that could maybe be manageable, and might be worth considering to keep it user-friendly for people coming from both sides of this argument (the Kodi library people and the emulation scene people, if you will).

Bottom line for me: If the above can work somehow, excellent. But if it's significantly too cumbersome or unrealistic, then adjusting to the established emulation scene infrastructure is something I'm sure I could get used to (it would just take some time for my OCD to subside ). I'll defer to the expertise of Wintermute and anyone else who has more experience than I in this area.

If you like ROMs and asset together then you are A group

Yes, it is possible to scan for artwork next to the ROMs and in separated folders. There could be a setting like "Use Compact assets model" or "Use Separated assets model". This setting will be used only when the scrapers save artwork to local files, the scanner will scan both models anyway. I still believe that the compact model is a mistake because it may happen that you are OK with a few games, but after a while you may want to have more games, download ROMs/assets... and realize you have to change your setup from Compact to Separated, with all the pain and extra work. However, it is clear to me that some people prefer it. If users want to hang themselves then we will provide enough rope.

I think several interesting ideas sprout in this thread that everyone agrees with, like (a) the need for a "Games information directory" to store platform artwork (SNES, MegaDrive, ... Icon, Fanart, NFO files) or (b) the need to associate a platform property to each games source.

When I had time I will open a new thread in the Games development subforum with a concrete proposal, something similar to HOW-TO:Create_Music_Library, so users can have a say, devs can have a say. If this DB model is more or less fixed I will start the implementation in AEL so skinners can start developing views and users building their setups with confidence that once the DB moves from addons into the core the impact will be minimal (ideally configuring your sources, you Game info dir and a couple of settings). No changes in the infolabels used by the skins, no changes in the asset file names for the users that like local artwork, no changes in the NFO files for users that want to edit them themselves, etc.