(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: General/Interface
1) I didn't see an option to scrape for all metadata and/or all images for a rom (or all ROMS in a launcher if I'm getting greedy). This means each attribute (cover, box art, etc.) needs to be scraped one at a time.
Yes, there is no such an option. AEL supports more scrapers than AL and the scraping is more complex because the increased number of assets. The general idea of AEL is that users will download artwork if they have big collections, and then use the scrapers manually for fine tuning.
If I automatise downloading metadata/assets that will increase the complexity of the code a lot.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 2) When scraping for a single item, you're brought back to the Rom list after every search, meaning that for every image or data value you import you need to submenu>edit rom>Edit Assets Artwork > Edit. It would be far more user friendly to return back to whatever menu was open before scraping and, as mentioned in 1) be able to search for all data/images at one time.
This is because of Kodi limited GUI controls. In theory, I can change the plugin so when you press cancel on a context menu you go back to the previous menu. However, that will increase the complexity of the code a lot. I will think about this and maybe make some tests on simple context menus like "Edit categories". If it works well then I will improve all context menus.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 3) Panasonic 3DO isn't available as a platform yet
I have include this in the TODO list.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 4) There's no way to use Gamefaqs to search for boxfronts or fanart. If this is because Gamefaqs doesn't let you search by type (title, logo, fanart etc.) it might be usefull to have AEL search all items and allow the user to chose which to use.
Yes. Each scraper only supports some assets, not all of them.
How you propose to implement this feature with Kodi GUI?
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 5) AEL does not support Google searching for things like boxart or, and more usefully, screenshots. Maybe I'm the only person particular about my shots but I usually spend a while looking for a good shot so the Google option in AL a godsend. Maybe the settings could include a preferred scraping provider for each data/image attribute so that they don't need to be limited from the per-item import menus.
In the beginning Google's motto was "Don't be evil". As time went on, Google became a little bit evil. The Google Image Search API that AL used was deprecated (have a look
here). With the new Google API you only have a very limited number of searches and even a small collection of ROMs will exhaust your quota. I decided not to implement the Google API because given the very limited number of searches it was not worth the effort. Of course, if you want to use a unlimited number of searches that's possible, but you have to pay a ridiculous amount of money.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: I also couldn't seem to get most of the online scrapers to get data. I found one that worked for fanart but I didn't find any box art no matter what scraper I used
Sometimes the scrapers work very slow, particularly TheGamesDB. From Japan, I think the faster scraper is MobyGames. Anyway, I will check the scrapers just in case the webmasters introduced changes in the HTML.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: Importing
6) When importing a database from Advanced Launcher, all AL-based launchers show "No Roms" instead of the proper ROM count at the top level.
After you change anything from the launcher the number of ROMs will be updated. I will add a fix for this.
Also, note that the AL importer was useful long time ago, when AL and AEL had a lot in common. Now, AEL has diverged quite a lot from AL. If you want to use your ROM collection in AEL I recommend to setup AEL from the beginning as opposed to use the importer.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 7) All roms imported from Advanced Launcher copy their rom covers image over to the AEL Title attribute instead of boxfront/cabinet which is the more common usage (at least, as far as I know). It also means that roms imported from AL do not have any cover artwork shown (at least in Rapier Skin)
Yes... this is related with the previous issue. When importing AL roms, AL thumb is imported as Title and AL fanart is imported as fanart. I can change importing thumb to boxfront. However, this will not work for MAME roms, which do not have boxfront... As I said in issue 6), I believe now is better to start your AEL configuration from scratch setting all the directories for your assets from the beginning instead of using the AL importer.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 8) When importing roms from a folder with nfo files for each rom included in the same folder as the roms, AEL does not import the nfo metadata even when AEL is set to import metadata from nfos/locally
This issue happens when you use AEL ROM scanner? If so, can you please post an XML launcher configuration and an NFO file example?
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: Multidisk Support
9) Multidisk support does not seem to support assigning arbitrary file names to the sub discs (Ex: "Metal Gear Solid (Disc 2) (VR Missions)). If the file names differ between discs 1 and the other discs, the other discs won't be added to the set.
There could be bugs in the multidisc filename extractor. Can you send an example of all discs in a set that should belong to the same set but are not included? I will have a look.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 10) Multidisk games show the full file name in the ("Game (Disc 1).iso) in the mutlidisc selection menu. This brakes with how most other things are shown in Kodi (which tries to hide file/filesystem directory names and show proper titles instead). I imagine AEL is set this way to allow users to identify which of the multidisc games they want to play, but this could be handled more elegantly by filtering the display names in the multidisc sub menu. For example(and this will also deal with 9 above), if you a) allowed users to enter arbitrary data after the (Disc X) identifier (maybe in parenthesis or some other limiter), you could then b) only display the portion of the file names that are different in the multidisc submenu. For example:
"Metal Gear Solid (USA) [!](Disc 1) (Main Disc).cue"
"Metal Gear Solid (USA) [!](Disc 2) (VR Missions).cue"
would become
"Main Disc"
"VR Missions"
Discs that don't have an explicit name would be automatically assigned a name based on position (Ex: "Disc 2")
In my head, the file name would be broken down into
1) File name stub ("Metal Gear Solid (USA) [!]")
2) Disc indicator ("(Disc X)")
3) Arbitrary disc label ignored during initial scraping ("(VR Missions)"
OK. I will think about this for release 0.9.7. First, we need to make sure that the multidisc filename extractor (a function that decides if a ISO belongs to a set) works perfectly.
(2017-04-02, 14:50)atsumori Wrote: 11) Finally, and I know I've mentioned this before, but it would be really nice if in addition to Tosec naming, that AEL supported AL-style "-cd1." multidisc naming (either as a setting toggle or in addition to TOSEC). Having AEL and AL use different naming conventions means that it's not an easy jump to try AEL as the second we change the file names to AEL (Tosec) format the old AL database becomes out of date. I imaging there are a lot of AL users looking to jump to AEL but aren't ready to give up on their old installs yet.
I understand what you say. However, supporting every naming scheme would be impossible. I think is better to use the standard names in AEL and not support non-standard, legacy names. I know it may be a lot of effort to rename all your ISOs. I myself had to modify my collection but I think is better for everyone to use standard ROM/ISO names.