[Wintermute0110]

Hi @Wintermute0110 

I wanna ask you something tha i believe it's very tricky.

To use Retroarch is quite simple when we use some console emulators, the bios files go in system folder and roms files goes to another desired folder. But to use MAME cores is demanded that the bios files gos in the same rom folder (Eg. In Neo Geo games the bios named neogeo.zip goes in the rom folder with aof2.zip (Art of Fighting 2), or the rom will not launch.) The same it's happeni with same Capcom games that demand qsound.zip (bios to Q-Sound) in the same folder.

So, with this bios files in the same folder of roms, whem we add the games to launcher, we receive in the list the entries of this bios too.
Is ther some way to not include this files when add games? (all the the files has .zip in the extension)

I've already chequed the option "ignore bios files" in teh settings of the addon

Thanks in Advanced

Short answer use Advanced MAME Launcher. AML distinguishes between BIOS and Devices and allows you to filter them out.

Currently I'm preparing a new release of AML that will include a lot of new features (like full MAME ROM auditing). Also, if you find something useful when using AML (for example, being able to create an AEL launcher from any of the AML filters) let me know.

Long answer the current code only works for No-Intro-named ROMs. It checks if the name starts with "[BIOS]" and if so filters out the ROM. AEL's offline scraper may include whether a MAME ROM is a BIOS or not and properly filter them. I will implement it but will take some time. Currently, with help from chrisism, AEL is undergoing a huge refactoring (release 0.9.9) and release 0.9.8 will only have bug fixes. It will take some time to implement.

For the record neogeo.zip is a BIOS. However, qsound.zip is a Device with ROMs. Although not exactly the same, both behave like BIOSes but actually they are not. For example, BIOS are runnable machines, you can launch MAME with just the BIOS and you will typically see something. However, all devices are unrunnable machines and cannot be launched. AEL will be able to filter out both (in 99% of cases launching a BIOS machine, however runnable, is not useful at all).

[billyc666]

Hey Wintermute, how's it going.... i Messaged you

[Wintermute0110]

I wanted to thank the developers for continuing the development of this product. Forgive me in advance if i use incorrect context for historical reference. The Advanced Launcher had a scraper and a pretty decent following for comics and magazines.

Yes, Advanced Emulator Launcher started as a fork of Advanced Launcher and it is the third iteration of the original Launcher addon. You can find more information here if interested.

I know reading a comic on your TV is not ideal, however - it makes for ridiculous eye candy and show off time when you have company over. 

Does AEL have similar features? Im looking to launch comic readers and have all the art work that you can scrape for comic books.

Is this possible with AEL? I know i can launch the comic reader - anything with scrapers?

A lot of things have changed in AEL compared to AL, but I think launching a comic viewer must be still possible. The argument variable substitution that AEL uses have changed a bit: instead of %ROM% you must use $rom$. Currently %ROM% is deprecated but still supported (although it will be removed in future releases of AEL). If you have the Icons and Fanarts for your comics, AEL should be able to pick them up and use them.

The scraper for comics was removed in AEL. The reason is that I myself do not use comics at all and have no idea about which websites will be good to scrape comic metadata and artwork. In order to develop the scraper again, I will need to dowload some comics, make a test environment for development, etc. and that will take a lot of time. Currently I do not have much time because developing AEL, Advanced MAME Launcher and Advanced Doom Launcher will require my attention for a long time from now.

Also, Advanced Launcher only supported Icon and Fanart assets. AEL supports more than 10 kinds of assets and by default it maps Boxfront to Icon and Fanart to Fanart.

Having said that, if you or somebody else are willing to contribute I will help you doing so. I can create a new platform, named for example "Comics and magazines". AEL allows customization of the scrapers on a per-platform basis, so if you create a launcher with platform "Comics and magazines" then you can choose the scraper specifically tailored for comics. The new scraper should be also developed and I can tell you the files that need to be modified. Please tell me what you think about this.

[sagrath]

Hi @Wintermute0110 

I wanna to request a feature:

An option to "remove dead roms from most played/recent roms".

I notice in my most played or recently played roms still show roms that I don not have anymore, included roms in launchers that I've already deleted or change the emulator launcher.
I deleted the files in addondata that register this ones, but this way, the roms that still exist gonna deleted from the records too.

I don't know if it's possible, but an option in addon settings or in context menu it would be great. It's some like "update library" in movies/series.

Thanks in Advanced

[dugan26]

A lot of things have changed in AEL compared to AL, but I think launching a comic viewer must be still possible. The argument variable substitution that AEL uses have changed a bit: instead of %ROM% you must use $rom$. Currently %ROM% is deprecated but still supported (although it will be removed in future releases of AEL). If you have the Icons and Fanarts for your comics, AEL should be able to pick them up and use them.

Hi - Thank You so much for the explanation and the road map. I would like to try and get this working. If we can get this going maybe we can explore the rest of your suggestion. So i changed the arguments and YES i have all my artwork local. Fanart, thumbs etc ... 

So i get my comic book launcher to launch CDISPLAYEX.exe but where in the Launcher do i point to the Comic Books (the .cbr files)

Many thanks in advance

[Wintermute0110]

Hi @Wintermute0110 

I wanna to request a feature:

An option to "remove dead roms from most played/recent roms".

I notice in my most played or recently played roms still show roms that I don not have anymore, included roms in launchers that I've already deleted or change the emulator launcher.
I deleted the files in addondata that register this ones, but this way, the roms that still exist gonna deleted from the records too.

I don't know if it's possible, but an option in addon settings or in context menu it would be great. It's some like "update library" in movies/series.

Thanks in Advanced

I also was thinking on that. In my setup, both "Recently played ROMs" and "Most played ROMs" have a lot ROMs that don't exists anymore (due to launcher/ROM deletion/addition/renaming/etc.). I will create a couple of new ROM context menus, "Manage Recently played ROM" and "Manage Most played ROM". Both will have the following options: "Delete this ROM", "Delete all Unlinked ROMs". Unlinked ROMs are like in the Favourites section: For each ROM, AEL will check if the ROM launcher exists, and if so if the ROM exists in the launcher. If any of the condition fails then the ROM will be deleted.

[Wintermute0110]

Hi - Thank You so much for the explanation and the road map. I would like to try and get this working. If we can get this going maybe we can explore the rest of your suggestion. So i changed the arguments and YES i have all my artwork local. Fanart, thumbs etc ... 

So i get my comic book launcher to launch CDISPLAYEX.exe but where in the Launcher do i point to the Comic Books (the .cbr files)

Many thanks in advance 

Here are some tips to create your comic launcher. Many of the steps in AEL should be very familiar for an AL user.

Let's suppose that CDISPLAYEX.exe is installed in C:\CDISPLAYEX\ and you have a Batman collection of comics (a set of .CBR files) in C:\Comics\Batman\.

1) Create a directory to store AEL artwork, for example C:\AEL-assets\Batman\.

2) Open AEL. On any row of the root window open the context menu, then select "Add New Launcher". Select "ROM Launcher (Emulator)".

3) In "Select the launcher application" browse and select CDISPLAYEX.exe. This will be called the Launcher app.

4) In "Select the ROMs path" browse and select the directory C:\Comics\Batman\

5) In "Set file extensions" type cbr

6) In "Application arguments" the default "$rom$" is fine.

7) In "Set the title of the launcher" type any name you wish for your launcher.

8) In "Select the platform" choose "Unknown" (the last one). The platform is only used by the scrapers.

9) In "Select asset/artwork directory" choose C:\AEL-assets\Batman\. This is the Artwork directory.

10) Your launcher will be created now. If you browse inside it the launcher will be empty. You have to scan the "ROMs" in your launcher, in your case the CBR files. To do the scan, browse to the launcher and open the context menu, then select "Add ROMs" and finally "Scan for New ROMs". Even if you have thousands of CBR files, the scanner should take a few seconds.

11) By default, AEL will use the Offline Scraper for Metadata and Search for Local Images (no online scraper for artwork). Because AEL has no scraper for comics, this default Scanner settings should be OK.

In order to use the previous existing artwork in AEL, do the following:

1) At the time of the launcher creation, AEL automatically makes several subdirectories inside the Artwork directory: banners, boxbacks, boxfronts, etc.

2) By default, AEL maps boxfronts to Kodi Icons and fanarts to Kodi Fanarts. This means that you must copy/move the former AL Thumbs into the boxfronts directory, and AL fanarts into the fanarts directory.

3) If you copy your Thumbs and Fanarts before you do the initial scan, then AEL will pick them up automatically with the default settings providing the name of the images are the same as the name of the CBR files.

If you did an scan first and want to scan for locally available artwork, go to the comic launcher and open the context menu, then select "Edit Launcher", then "Manage ROMs", and then "Scan ROMs local artwork". Note that if you do some changes to the images then you can repeat "Scan ROMs local artwork" as many times as necessary to bring AEL database up to date.

I recommend you create a separate Artwork directory for every comic launcher. Otherwise, artwork images will be overwritten if you have two CBR files with the same name on two different launchers.

--------------------

I hope this mini-tutorial is useful to you. Tell me if you have any trouble or something is not clear enough.

[dugan26]

Hey Man-

You are AWESOME! 

Look, let me just say ... great product ... and awesome support. Your directions are perfect. 
https://ibb.co/eKrFJm

https://ibb.co/cDOUdm

Im not a comic nut - but i have the standard Batman, Superman, IronMan, Spiderman and some Star Wars comics - 20-30 each series - not thousands.
You throw on some comics on the TV when your sons friends are over - forget it - your the coolest dad in town.

You guys should get into this.

Thank You!

This was very very simple to set up and worked really really good - actually flawless.

Question:

Ive created a category called Comics, and plan to put all my launchers inside the category Comics (is that how i should do it?)

Then can i send the Comics category to the main menu? I dont want it in favorites, i want it on the main menu just like Movies TV Shows and then Comics

is that possible?

Im using the standard Estuary skin that kodi has

Thanks AGAIN!

[Wintermute0110]

Hey Man-

You are AWESOME! 

Look, let me just say ... great product ... and awesome support. Your directions are perfect. 
https://ibb.co/eKrFJm

https://ibb.co/cDOUdm

Im not a comic nut - but i have the standard Batman, Superman, IronMan, Spiderman and some Star Wars comics - 20-30 each series - not thousands.
You throw on some comics on the TV when your sons friends are over - forget it - your the coolest dad in town.

You guys should get into this.

Thank You!

This was very very simple to set up and worked really really good - actually flawless.

Question:

Ive created a category called Comics, and plan to put all my launchers inside the category Comics (is that how i should do it?)

Then can i send the Comics category to the main menu? I dont want it in favorites, i want it on the main menu just like Movies TV Shows and then Comics

is that possible?

Im using the standard Estuary skin that kodi has

Thanks AGAIN!

I'm glad everything is working OK for you. Configure Retroarch and/or MAME to launch a few classics in addition to your comics and then you will be the coolest dad in the universe, not just in town

In AL it was mandatory for every launcher to be inside a category. AEL has removed this restriction and you can have launchers in the addon root or inside a category. Once you have created the launcher, using the context menu "Edit Launcher" you can choose where you want to place the launcher. Remember: in AEL every launcher parameter and option is editable so feel free to play until you are happy with your setup.

If you don't like or won't use the <Favourites>, <Browse by...>, etc. virtual launchers, open the addon settings, "Display" tab, and you can disable those. Note that many of the new features of AEL compared to old good AL are for the benefit of users with huge ROM collections (by huge I mean about 30,000 ROMs including all launchers, which is basically every ROM released for the most common classic consoles from the beginning of time until 2000). However, all those feats can be disabled for users who don't need them and want to use AEL as a simple launcher.

If you only use Plot and Year metadata and Icon/Fanart assets then default Estuary is OK. If you want to use more artwork pieces or display more metadata then you need a skin with AEL support. Have a look at the first post in the thread for more info.

[chrisism]

....

Ive created a category called Comics, and plan to put all my launchers inside the category Comics (is that how i should do it?)

Then can i send the Comics category to the main menu? I dont want it in favorites, i want it on the main menu just like Movies TV Shows and then Comics

is that possible?

Im using the standard Estuary skin that kodi has

Thanks AGAIN!

 Okay, I have indeed been thinking about the comics part also, since it was something that came up in the original AL. But yeah since I mostly just use Kodi on my TV I didnt have the real need for it yet, but as you found out the whole concept is definitly possible.
But about your question about the main menu, that is possible, but you'll need a skin where you can customize the main menu to full extend. So a skin that supports the 'skin.shortcuts' scripts.
Just a heads up, Rufoo's and Paradix work on the new skin will ofcourse support this.

[dugan26]

I'm glad everything is working OK for you. Configure Retroarch and/or MAME to launch a few classics in addition to your comics and then you will be the coolest dad in the universe, not just in town 

Yes sir! 

I use AEL to launch HyperSpin and all the cool candy that comes along with that. You helped me on another thread on some "windowed" challenges i ran into.

[dugan26]

Whats the best way to support this product? 

Is there a donation i can support?

[Karellen]

Hello dugan26,

Yes, there is a donation button top right of the screen, under the Search button

Thank you.

[ippytick]

Hi, I hope someone here can help me because I have absolutely no idea at the moment and my searching of the net has not helped me.

I have recently installed advanced emulator launcher on my kodi setup and added the NES gaming system to it so far. That was a relatively easy thing to do, however, I am now trying to setup my Amiga emulator and games on AEL, but, nothing is working. I am completely lost, so I was just wondering if anyone here knows of a good guide I can follow? or maybe you just know how to do it? either way my fingers are crossed in hoping that I can get this sorted. The Amiga emulator I am using is FS-UAE.

I used to have my emulators setup on media browser 2. MB2 let you use the config files to run the game, I am hoping that AEL can do similar.

[dugan26]

Hello dugan26,

Yes, there is a donation button top right of the screen, under the Search button

Thank you.

 Thank You

Done -

You guys/gals are beyond excellence - amazing team here!!! 

Its amazing