[UnluckyForSome]

@Wintermute0110 , what are your thoughts on Leia's RetroPlayer? Loving the work you have done on this I use it every day - but won't RetroPlayer (which is being included in Kodi 18) kind of replace it's functionality? Or have I completely misundertood what RetroPlayer is?

Many thanks, and keep up the good work on AEL, its a great addon!

Thanks a lot

Leia Retroplayer support will be still very limited. Retroplayer cannot load zipped ROMs (you must decompress them, if you have thousands as I do ...). I believe you will not be able to use cores that require BIOSes. Also, not all the cores are still ported for Retroplayer. I'm not sure about savestates and rewinding either. To summarise: Kodi Retroplayer is going to be a big milestone, but there is still way to go. In Leia I still recommend using Retroarch as an external emulator.

Also, Leia will not include a games database. The database (also called the library) is what stores the metadata and artwork of the ROMs. In Leia, you will browse the ROMs like files in the File Manager. I am not sure whether they will include a games database in Kodi M****, or decide that plugins like AEL will provide the metadata/asset database capabilities. In any case, AEL will still have use for a couple of years, maybe more. Once Kodi gets a games database most of AEL's functionality won't make sense any more. However, there are some AEL functionalities, like ROM auditing, Parent/Clone view modes, Fanart generation from other pieces of artwork (well... AEL doesn't have this yet but AML does and I will port it from AML to AEL ASAP), etc. that probably will never be implemented into Kodi core. And of course: if you need a general launcher AEL will be still there.

On the other hand, Advanced MAME Launcher will have a healthy future even once Kodi get the games database, and the reason is that MAME is so special that many features will never be implemented into the core, left for addons. Same for Advanced DOOM Launcher (ADL has not been released yet, but development is well advanced and can generate Fanarts from the doom level maps).

I hope this more or less answers your question but let me know if you need more info.

EDIT: forgot to mention... there are emulators (PSX2, Xbox, Model2, etc.) that are not part of Retroarch and many people use. For those you will need AEL. 

 Thanks for the reply, that's answered virtually all the questions I had haha! Keep up the good work! I use AEL with the Arctic: Zephyr skin homescreen widgets and it looks glorious!

One technical question/request: what's the best way to delete/clear the last played & most played catagories - I restructured my ROM collection and now the items in history and most played point to the wrong place!

EDIT: FYI, it looks like TheGamesDB is updating their API! https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comme..._site_api/

[Wintermute0110]

Thanks for the reply, that's answered virtually all the questions I had haha! Keep up the good work! I use AEL with the Arctic: Zephyr skin homescreen widgets and it looks glorious!

One technical question/request: what's the best way to delete/clear the last played & most played catagories - I restructured my ROM collection and now the items in history and most played point to the wrong place!

EDIT: FYI, it looks like TheGamesDB is updating their API! https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comme..._site_api/ 

Currently there is no way to clear/delete Last Played and Most Played. It's in the TODO list for next version. I will add a "Manage Last/Most Played ROMs" menu.

About the new TheGamesDB API: it is good to know, I will add to the TODO list. MobyGames also recently released an API, so I will need to refactor both MobyGames and TheGamesDB scrapers for next version.

[dogdiego]

Hi and thanks for the launcher. I managed to get it working last night, following your LNK guide - before that I was tearing my hair out.

I run windows 10, and Kodi 17.6 and have set it up to launch a few different apps (Xbox, BT Sport etc). I've noticed though that when I close those apps down, although Kodi flashes back, it then minimizes and I'm back to the desktop. Is there any way to stop that from happening, so when I close one of the apps, it just dumps me right back in Kodi again?

Thanks.

[Wintermute0110]

Hi and thanks for the launcher. I managed to get it working last night, following your LNK guide - before that I was tearing my hair out.

I run windows 10, and Kodi 17.6 and have set it up to launch a few different apps (Xbox, BT Sport etc). I've noticed though that when I close those apps down, although Kodi flashes back, it then minimizes and I'm back to the desktop. Is there any way to stop that from happening, so when I close one of the apps, it just dumps me right back in Kodi again?

Thanks.

You need to create a BAT script that uses a helper program to give Kodi the focus. It is an utility to maximise/minimise/etc windows from the command line. I don't recall now the name of the program but it somewhere in the thread. Please try to search it.

[fregrinz]

Just started to use Kodi on a living room PC, i used AEL to run gaming clients such as glyph,uplay,origin,gog and few others. My question is can i close kodi when i run a client and then open kodi again when i finished with uplay or whatever i ran.I currently have kodi set as shell with regedit.

[Wintermute0110]

Just started to use Kodi on a living room PC, i used AEL to run gaming clients such as glyph,uplay,origin,gog and few others. My question is can i close kodi when i run a client and then open kodi again when i finished with uplay or whatever i ran.I currently have kodi set as shell with regedit.

I'm not sure on Windows but in Linux you can if you create a shell script (BAT file in Windows). The BAT file closes Kodi, calls the application, and then reopens Kodi. Note that when restarted Kodi will start in the Home window, not in AEL. In theory it is possible to restart Kodi in AEL, but again I know how to do it on Linux, I don't know if it's even possible on Windows.

Also, not having the standard shell is known to cause trouble. By trouble I mean: 1) when you launch an app Kodi gets the focus and not the launched app, 2) when you close the launched app Kodi doesn't receive the focus, 3) Kodi and the launcher app both grab commands from your gamepad/keyboard, etc. The only known way to avoid these problems is to use the Windows shell to run Kodi, and do not use Kodi itself as the shell. In the Linux world this is equivalent to use a Window Manager.

[fregrinz]

If Kodi closed thru don’t get commands send to it..wonder what commands be for bat to do this

[Wintermute0110]

If Kodi closed thru don’t get commands send to it..wonder what commands be for bat to do this

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/...mand-line/

After you kill Kodi you execute the app you want.

Then restart Kodi again.

Also, if you need it, I can create a per-launcher setting to close Kodi after launching the app, so you don't need to kill Kodi in the BAT file.

[jaydash]

If Kodi closed thru don’t get commands send to it..wonder what commands be for bat to do this

So, this isn't SUPER helpful (I'm not in front of my HTPC where all this stuff may still be stashed), but I can maybe point you in the right direction?  Years ago when I used Angelscry's awesome "Advanced Launcher" add-on (essentially the precursor to Wintermute's awesome "Advanced Emulator Launcher" add-on, I found the scripts you'd need in the old "Advanced Launcher" thread:

85724 (thread)

If you're patient enough to search through that thread you may be able to find them.  They would shutdown XBMC/Kodi, launch whatever, then restart XBMC/Kodi whenever the other program was shutdown.  Took some fiddling/testing, but was pretty cool.

OR

If you don't need/want the gog/origin/etc interfaces, there are instructions for setting up this modern AEL with "lnk" windows shortcuts.  The first page of the post has links to the wiki, and I think there're video tutorials too if you search.  You basically tell AEL to look for lnk files and use Windows to launch them.  So, Windows is like the emulator you're launching, and the lnk files are like the ROMs you're opening.  That way you can have the same interface to launch old emulated favs and modern windows games.  This approach may take some tinkering with AEL's settings to get everything working (sound), but it successfully launches my games and then brings Kodi back fullscreen and in focus (I also use Launcher4Kodi, don't know if that is part of it all working smoothly).  I rarely need to touch anything other than my remote or controller -reaching for the HTPC keyboard annoys me, haha.

But both approaches work -kill Kodi/open the games/re-open Kodi with a script OR set up AEL to launch windows shortcuts...

[fregrinz]

per launcher setting would be great. I been fiddling with bat files but starting go over my head a little, years since looked at anything like this.

I tried the following and it killed kodi,opened uplay,but then instantly reopened kodi..

@echo off
taskkill /f /IM kodi.exe
Uplay.exe
cd\
cd D:\Program Files (x86)\kodi 
Start /WAIT Kodi.exe

i try reading that forum link as well in mean and thanks for pointers so far.

[WeirdH]

I can't figure something out. I used to use 'old' Advanced Launcher by AngelsCry, on which the following worked: for my PS1 emu (ePSXe190), I wanted to create a unique memorycard for each game. I did this by launching ePSXe with the following arguments:

-nogui -analog -loadmemc0 "g:\htpc-zooi\emulatie\psx\epsxe190\memcards\%rom%.mcr" -loadiso "%rom%"

This would create a file 'Crash Bandicoot 3.mcr' when launching 'Crash Bandicoot 3.cue', which would then act as the dedicated memorycard. In AEL it doesn't; it launches the game just fine, but I only get a 'epsxe001.mcr' file, which isn't read by the game.

What do I need to change in the arguments?

[sagrath]

I use and extra tool to put kodi in suspend mode while the game is playing in retroarch using batch command. After I exit Retroarch, Kodi is resume. This way I don´t have eny issues with kodi capturing the commands from joystick, and save extra power from my CPU and GPU.

[fregrinz]

Sorry do not quite follow? What is this tool your using and batch commands are ?

[fregrinz]

Just cannot get this to work i have tired various tools such as process and psSuspend, so i can suspend or kill kodi process easy enough but batch file will immediately resume \ restart kodi, best i managed to kill kodi and run the launcher.Then i have to manually kick up kodi again when finished the game .

[WeirdH]

per launcher setting would be great. I been fiddling with bat files but starting go over my head a little, years since looked at anything like this.

I tried the following and it killed kodi,opened uplay,but then instantly reopened kodi..

@echo off
taskkill /f /IM kodi.exe
Uplay.exe
cd\
cd D:\Program Files (x86)\kodi 
Start /WAIT Kodi.exe

i try reading that forum link as well in mean and thanks for pointers so far.

I found the same problem with taskkill, and when searching for an alternative, I found pskill.

Link.

Using this in my batch files waits before relaunching Kodi.

Example batch file:

pskill Kodi.exe

cd /d "G:\HTPC-zooi\EMULATIE\SNES"

zsnesw.exe %1 %2

cd /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Kodi\"
start Kodi.exe -fs