[Wintermute0110]

 

Welcome to Advanced Emulator Launcher

Advanced Emulator Launcher is a multi-emulator front-end for Kodi scalable to collections of thousands of ROMs. Includes offline scrapers for MAME and No-Intro ROM sets and also supports scrapping ROM metadata and artwork online. ROM auditing for No-Intro ROMs using No-Intro XML DATs. Launching of games and standalone applications is also available.

Features

• Runs ANY Windows, Linux, Android, and OS X Application.
  
• Populate thousands of ROMs metadata within minutes with powerful offline scrapers. The offline scraper for MAME is custom made (based on MAME XML database and Catver by AntoPISA) and other platforms use Billyc999 GameDBInfo.
  
• Online metadata & artwork scrapers for ScreenScraper, TheGamesDB, MobyGames and Arcade Database.
  
• Optimized for blistering speed and efficiency.
  
• Highly scalable in accommodating vast libraries without compromising performance.
  
• Solid reliability. AEL maintains launcher integrity and completely eliminates the XML database corruption issues with Advanced Launcher.
  
• Expanded artwork & asset support including titles, snaps, clearlogos, banners, trailers, boxfronts, boxback, manuals, and more.
  
• ROM auditing for No-Intro ROMs using No-Intro or Redump XML DATs.
  
• Parent/Clone view mode and 1 game 1 ROM (1G1R) Launcher display modes.
  
• Organise and unify all your treasured titles with the special in-built Favourites category.
  
• ROM Collections: Bring together all the games from a series that spans over various years and systems.
  
• Virtual Launchers: Allows for browsing collections by Name, Studio, Genre, Year and Category.
  
• Display the most played ROMs.
  
• Display the last played ROMs.
  

Advanced MAME Launcher or Advanced Emulator Launcher?

Why two different addons capable of launching MAME? Should I use Advanced MAME Launcher or Advanced Emulator Launcher? The answer is that you can use both!
 

• AML is much easier to configure than AEL. AEL is a general launcher whereas AML is tailored specifically for MAME.
  
• AEL only shows the MAME ROMs you have. As opposed, AML shows every single MAME machine, even the ones you don't have the ROMs for.
  
• AML includes a set of powerful Machine/ROM filters that makes navigation of MAME and Software Lists easy and convenient.
  

AML and AEL have been designed to work in tandem to enrich the retrogaming experience for Kodi users.

Installation & Downloads



Current stable Python 3 version is release 0.10.1 for Kodi Matrix.

Current stable Python 2 version is release 0.9.11 for Kodi Krypton and Leia.

Development builds are also available from GitHub by clicking HERE. Make sure you download and install the correct branch. You can also download old AEL releases from the repository.wintermute0110 in Github.

IMPORTANT Note that the current development build in master branch is highly unstable due to a big code refactoring taking place. No support is provided at all for development builds in master branch.

WARNING Advanced Emulator Launcher is currently under active development and is offered as a public beta. Until version 1.0.0 is released, storage of metadata, assets, and naming conventions may be subject to change.

Getting Started

Instructions for Advanced Emulator Launcher usage are available from the GitHub Wiki. Currently the status of the wiki is not great and I will update/improve its contents as soon as possible.

A Getting Started tutorial is available here.

How to configure a LNK ROM launcher in Windows

How to use AEL to launch Retroarch in LibreELEC with a wrapper script to close and reopen Kodi

Explanation of AEL ROM assets and how they are mapped to Kodi standard assets

AEL Metadata and Asset scrapers demystified

How to use AEL to launch a comic/magazine reader

HOW-TO configure AEL for Android emulators' launcher (myghalloween)

How to configure Android emulators in AEL

The AEL Asset Library

The Advanced Emulator Launcher asset library has been designed to help you in the process of setting up your Kodi retrogaming library. The Library is available in Github. Currently, the library includes the following items:
 

• Category and Launcher metadata in NFO format.
  
• Category and Launcher assets, including Icons, Fanarts, Banners, Clearlogos, Posters and Controllers.
  
• Launcher (emulator) configurations in XML for Linux, Windows and Android platforms. The included configurations are mainly for vanilla MAME and Retroarch.
  

There are several ways to use the library:

1. If you use the Launcher creation wizard to create your launchers (context menu "Create New Launcher"), you can have a look at the XML files to know the arguments you need to setup the emulators. Later, you can fill the metadata and assets of your category launchers using the context menu and browsing to the assets in the library. It is recommended that you install the library in a directory readily accessible in your media center.

2. You can use the XML configuration files to import into AEL any Category or Launcher. For Categories, the XML file defines the metadata and assets. For Launchers, the XML file defines the Launcher metadata, assets and the emulator parameters (aka the arguments). To import an XML file, go to AEL Utilities section in the root window, then select "Import XML configuration" and browse to the location of the XML file. You can import more than one XML file in one go. Remember to change the ROM path, asset path and application path in the XML before importing. I recommend that you create a directory where you place the edited XML files suited for your setup.

After importing an XML configuration file, if you discover some mistake or want to change some settings, simply edit the XML configuration file and reimport it again. When asked about overwriting the category/launcher say yes. You can reimport categories/launchers as many times as you want until you are totally satisfied with your setup.

The recommended way of setting up AEL is by using XML files. Users with a large number of Launchers (say, more than 10) will find the Launcher creation wizard slow and tedious, where the creation and editing of XML files is much faster and less prone to mistakes. Moreover, having a set of XML files with your emulator configuration will serve as a backup in the event that you have to rebuild your media center emulator setup for some reason (emulator upgrade, AEL addon upgrade, Kodi upgrade, hard disk crash, etc.).

Contributions to the AEL Asset Library, in the form of new assets or XML Launcher examples, are welcomed and encouraged.

Skin Support

AEL supports all Kodi skins including Confluence for Jarvis and Estuary for Krypton or higher. However, what metadata and art assets that can be presented to the user is entirely skin dependent thus different skins may yield different visual results. As AEL is an evolution of Advanced Launcher, any skin which provides support for the latter will actually support both. Currently, there are no skins which fully support the new changes introduced into AEL though some skins / views with robust support for Advanced Launcher presently exist. This is anticipated to change shortly as skin developers become familiar with AEL.

List of skins with Advanced Emulator Launcher support:

This is a very incomplete list of skins with AEL/AML support. If you find a skin with good AEL support and it's not in this list please let me know to update the list.

Skin name	Author	Kodi version
Aura (JMRiego AEL mod)	JMRiego	Matrix
Arctic: Zephyr 2 Resurrection	nfm886	Matrix
Estuary MOD V2	Birger Jesch	Matrix
Estuary AEL MOD	Wintermute0110	Matrix, Leia and Krypton, see second post of this thread
Lyrebird	Rufoo	Leia
Arctic: Zephyr 2	Jurialmunkey	Leia
Aura	Jurialmunkey	Leia
Citris	Ruffo	Krypton, development stalled
Arctic: Zephyr Plus	Kodser	Krypton, not developed any more
Confluence AEL MOD	Wintermute0110	Krypton, deprecated, see second post of this thread

Getting Artwork for Games / ROMs

IMPORTANT It is strongly recommended that your ROMs follow the No-Intro naming scheme. The AEL Offline scraper, most online scrapers and the vast majority of online game databases follow this standard. Most emulator asset websites also follow this standard, which means that the artwork image file names will match your ROMs only if they have the correct file name. There are tools, called ROM managers, that verify the integrity of your ROMs and also rename them to the correct name.

Although AEL incorporates online scrapers that will download artwork for your ROMs, due to the large number of artwork pieces it is recommended that you get whole artwork collections, specifically, if you have launchers with many ROMs. These are some places you can download artwork to use with AEL.
 

• EmuMovies: The most complete emulation asset site on the net (excluding MAME). *Registration Required*
  
• HyperSpin Media: Forum for HyperSpin users containing artpacks. Clearlogos are called 'Wheels' in HyperSpin parlance. *Registration Required*
  
• Libretro Thumbnails: The Libretro Thumbnail collection of Boxfront, Titles, and Snaps. Most of them have been scraped from TheGamesDB. You can use the Online Updater in Retroarch to download the assets and them copy them to the AEL artwork directories. Alternatively, you can download the zipped artwork packs here.
  
• Internet Archive: The Internet Archive is full of treasures! Make sure you do a comprehensive search!
  
• Progretto Snaps MAME Artwork: The definitive place in the universe for MAME (and Software Lists) assets.
  

Notes to Advanced Launcher Users

Both AEL and Advanced Launcher can coexist on the same Kodi installation.
 
Since release 0.9.8, AEL does not support any more the import of AL launchers.xml. This is because AL and AEL have diverged much and the importing process created more problems that it solved. It is recommended that you rebuild your setup in AEL using XML configuration files, creating new AEL artwork directories and moving your AL Icons and Fanarts to the corresponding artwork directories in AEL.

Bugs & Feature Requests

You can ask for feature requests in this thread or directly on GitHub.

If you find a bug or Kodi shows an error in AEL you can report it in this thread or in GitHub. In your report try to be descriptive about the problem and the steps you do that cause it. Also, report your operating system, Kodi version and AEL version. If AEL crashes it is very important that you post a debug log in order to locate the cause of the bug so I can fix it. To generate a debug log, unless otherwise told, follow these steps:
 

• In Kodi Settings, turn Kodi debug log OFF.
  
• In AEL addon settings, go to "I/O" tab and set the "Log level" option to DEBUG.
  
• Reproduce the bug.
  
• Put your Kodi log file in paste.kodi.tv.
  

You can use the Kodi Logfile Uploader addon to help with the log upload process. Thanks to Ronie for this fine addon.

Known issues
 

1. The offline scraper does not contain yet databases for all platforms. You can see the list of currently supported platforms here.
   
2. Multi-disc ROM support is far from perfect and needs some code refactoring.
   

Release history (and release notes)
 

1. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.11 - 04 August 2021
   
2. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.10.1 - 04 August 2021
   
3. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.10.0 - 22 June 2021
   
4. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.10 - 22 June 2021
   
5. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.9 - 13 March 2020
   
6. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.8 - 16 September 2019
   
7. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.8-beta1 - 06 September 2019
   
8. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.7 - 23 November 2017
   
9. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.7-beta2
   
10. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.7-beta1
    
11. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.6 - 20 May 2017
    
12. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.6-beta1
    
13. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.5 - 12 January 2017
    
14. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.5-beta2
    
15. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.5-beta1
    
16. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.4
    
17. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.3
    
18. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.2
    
19. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.1
    
20. Advanced Emulator Launcher 0.9.0 - First release - 22 August 2016
    

[Wintermute0110]

Skin Estuary AEL

IMPORTANT If you are using Kodi Matrix use the master branch in Github. If you are using Kodi Leia then use the Leia branch. If you are using Kodi Krypton you should use the Krypton branch.

IMPORTANT The Dynamic view does not work yet. Please use the other views.

LAST UPDATED ON 09 December 2020 Update skin for Kodi Matrix Beta 2.

Estuary AEL MOD is compatible with Kodi Matrix, Leia and Krypton only. If you are using a version older than Krypton you should seriously think about upgrading your setup. I will update the skin from time to time to follow Estuary releases and AEL/AML/ADL new features. Estuary AEL MOD adds some views to the default Estuary skin that take fully advantage of all the metadata and assets the advanced launchers support. It also changes the Text Viewer dialog to use a monospaced font and make easier to use AEL's Launcher/ROM "View" context menu and other features.

The main purpose of this mod is for myself to do internal tests of AEL, Advanced MAME Launcher and Advanced DOOM Launcher, and as template for other skinners who want to support the advanced launcher addons into their skins. Keep in mind that I'm not a skinner and that the views are cheap and far from perfect! Any help with this skin mod is absolutely welcomed.

Installation instructions and notes

1) Go to Github and click on "Clone and Download", then click on "Download ZIP".

2) Decompress the ZIP file. This will create a directory named "skin.estuary.AEL-master". Rename this directory to "skin.estuary.AEL".

3) Compress "skin.estuary.AEL" into a ZIP file and install this ZIP file in the addon manager.

4) Enable the skin in Kodi settings.

Home menu

There is a link to AEL in the Home menu with a couple of widgets showing your Launchers and Categories.



Dynamic

The Dynamic view changes its shape according to the item rendered. Note that to use this view you need to install AEL 0.9.8 from Github or wait until 0.9.8 is officially released.

Dynamic view rendering a Category.



Dynamic view rendering a ROM Launcher.



Dynamic view rendering a Standalone Launcher.



Dynamic view rendering a ROM.



Dynamic view rendering a MAME ROM. Currently this screenshot is not available, sorry.

ROM Console view



ROM MAME view

Screenshot not available at the moment. Sorry.

ROM Simple view



ROM Shot view



AEL Matrix view

This view allows you to display all metadata and assets that AEL supports. Use it for debugging purposes when setting up AEL or AML.



AEL Properties view

This view is useful for skinners. Display all properties set by AEL/AML/ADL.




Skin Confluence AEL

Confluence AEL MOD is compatible with Kodi Krypton only.

IMPORTANT Confluence AEL MOD has been deprecated. This doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Instead, Confluence AEL MOD will not be updated frequently and development will be focused in Estuary AEL MOD.

Installation instructions and notes

1) Go to Github and click on "Clone and Download", then click on "Download ZIP".

2) Decompress the ZIP file. This will create a directory named "skin.confluence.AEL-master". Rename this directory to "skin.confluence.AEL".

3) Compress "skin.confluence.AEL" into a ZIP file and install this ZIP file in the addon manager.

[Wintermute0110]

Skin Confluence (Kodi Jarvis)



Skin Estuary (Kodi Krypton)





Skin Cirrus Extended with SexyCirrus mod (Kodi Jarvis)

You can find SexyCirrus mod here. Rufoo has published some patches that make use of Snaps and Clearlogos in here and here. Note that Cirrus Extended and SexyCirrus mod only work in Kodi Jarvis.





Skin xxxxx (Kodi Krypton)

Kudos to Rufoo for sharing this work-in-progress views.











*Keibertz Series based off original views by Keibertz.

[chrisism]

Nice job Wintermute!
Works like a charm with good loading speeds.Great improvement on that old AL version. Finally can start building up my big rom collection in Kodi.

[yallah]

Great I will test tonight . Nice job.

[Rufoo]

Congrats, mate.

[BugRaider84]

Awesome!

Was waiting for that, thank you so much
Will test tonight, am at work right now.

[Arokhaerr]

Awesomeee! Now bite_your_Idols gamestarter addon will geht some love in my pi3.

[bite_your_idols]

Awesomeee! Now bite_your_Idols gamestarter addon will geht some love in my pi3.

I tested it into my LibreELEC 8 alpha/Kodi 17 addon version and it is awesome!! I need tomodify some script lines in order to include it in the next release... WIP

[BugRaider84]

I've got a problem:

I can't set the directories for the artwork for my roms.
If I go to: C (context menu) - Edit Launcher - Manage Rom Asset Directories ... and then for example "Change Fanarts Path" (which is empty right now) the context menu is disappearing and I'm back at my collection without a chance to change/add the directory. So all my roms are now without any artwork

[bushida87]

I've got a problem:

I can't set the directories for the artwork for my roms.
If I go to: C (context menu) - Edit Launcher - Manage Rom Asset Directories ... and then for example "Change Fanarts Path" (which is empty right now) the context menu is disappearing and I'm back at my collection without a chance to change/add the directory. So all my roms are now without any artwork

You can solve the problem temporary.
open the advanced emulator launcher folder in userdata --> addondata (C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher)

There is a XML File called categories. Open it, i recommend Notepad++. Scroll down and look at this.


<s_thumb>YOUR FOLDER</s_thumb>
<s_fanart></s_fanart>
<s_banner></s_banner>
<s_flyer></s_flyer>
<s_trailer></s_trailer>
<path_title>E:\Roms\N64\</path_title>
<path_snap></path_snap>
<path_fanart>E:\N64\</path_fanart>
<path_banner>E:\N64\</path_banner>
<path_clearlogo>E:\N64\</path_clearlogo>
<path_boxfront></path_boxfront>
<path_boxback></path_boxback>
<path_cartridge></path_cartridge>
<path_flyer></path_flyer>
<path_map></path_map>
<path_manual></path_manual>
<path_trailer></path_trailer>

Change it, Save it and be happy ;-)

[BugRaider84]

I've got a problem:

I can't set the directories for the artwork for my roms.
If I go to: C (context menu) - Edit Launcher - Manage Rom Asset Directories ... and then for example "Change Fanarts Path" (which is empty right now) the context menu is disappearing and I'm back at my collection without a chance to change/add the directory. So all my roms are now without any artwork

You can solve the problem temporary.
open the advanced emulator launcher folder in userdata --> addondata (C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher)

There is a XML File called categories. Open it, i recommend Notepad++. Scroll down and look at this.


<s_thumb>YOUR FOLDER</s_thumb>
<s_fanart></s_fanart>
<s_banner></s_banner>
<s_flyer></s_flyer>
<s_trailer></s_trailer>
<path_title>E:\Roms\N64\</path_title>
<path_snap></path_snap>
<path_fanart>E:\N64\</path_fanart>
<path_banner>E:\N64\</path_banner>
<path_clearlogo>E:\N64\</path_clearlogo>
<path_boxfront></path_boxfront>
<path_boxback></path_boxback>
<path_cartridge></path_cartridge>
<path_flyer></path_flyer>
<path_map></path_map>
<path_manual></path_manual>
<path_trailer></path_trailer>

Change it, Save it and be happy ;-)

Hey bushida87,

thanks for your quick reply

It's kinda working now ... so I do get the covers/posters/boxfront or whatever you might call them, but even though I didn't change any settings within the asset/fanart options it does not scrape fanart, logos, videos etc correctly. instead it only scraped the box front into every fanart directory and thats it. Even when I'm manually trying to add the fanart by looking for fanart at thegamesdb it always only picks out the boxfront
weird one

[Wintermute0110]

I've got a problem:

I can't set the directories for the artwork for my roms.
If I go to: C (context menu) - Edit Launcher - Manage Rom Asset Directories ... and then for example "Change Fanarts Path" (which is empty right now) the context menu is disappearing and I'm back at my collection without a chance to change/add the directory. So all my roms are now without any artwork

You can solve the problem temporary.
open the advanced emulator launcher folder in userdata --> addondata (C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher)

There is a XML File called categories. Open it, i recommend Notepad++. Scroll down and look at this.


<s_thumb>YOUR FOLDER</s_thumb>
<s_fanart></s_fanart>
<s_banner></s_banner>
<s_flyer></s_flyer>
<s_trailer></s_trailer>
<path_title>E:\Roms\N64\</path_title>
<path_snap></path_snap>
<path_fanart>E:\N64\</path_fanart>
<path_banner>E:\N64\</path_banner>
<path_clearlogo>E:\N64\</path_clearlogo>
<path_boxfront></path_boxfront>
<path_boxback></path_boxback>
<path_cartridge></path_cartridge>
<path_flyer></path_flyer>
<path_map></path_map>
<path_manual></path_manual>
<path_trailer></path_trailer>

Change it, Save it and be happy ;-)

Hey bushida87,

thanks for your quick reply

It's kinda working now ... so I do get the covers/posters/boxfront or whatever you might call them, but even though I didn't change any settings within the asset/fanart options it does not scrape fanart, logos, videos etc correctly. instead it only scraped the box front into every fanart directory and thats it. Even when I'm manually trying to add the fanart by looking for fanart at thegamesdb it always only picks out the boxfront
weird one

Hi, that's a known problem of the scrapers that I need to solve. Regarding the problem of setting the paths please post debug log and I will have a look.

Sent from my SC-02G

[BugRaider84]

Hi, that's a known problem of the scrapers that I need to solve. Regarding the problem of setting the paths please post debug log and I will have a look.

Sent from my SC-02G

Alright, good to know it's not on my end

Well, I'd love to provide a log but I can't upload it. Seems to be broken atm. Where or how should I upload the log to?

[bushida87]

Who can make viewtypes for artic Skin? [THUMBS UP SIGN]

Gesendet von meinem SM-G930F mit Tapatalk