2017-10-06, 21:11
New AEL release 0.9.7-beta1
Release notes
New AEL's version fully loaded with a lot of features.
1) AEL 0.9.7-beta1 only works on Kodi Krypton now, Kodi Jarvis is not supported any more.
2) Totally rewritten scraping engine. Now, you can choose the scraper on an asset-by-asset basis.
3) AEL is able to search for substituted artwork within the Parent/Clone group. This is useful because many artwork collections only include artwork for the USA region.
4) Lots of new platforms added. Note that the Offline Scraper databases have not been updated yet (0.9.8 will be the "scrapers enhanced" version).
5) Command to Check all Launchers for missing applications, unconfigured directories, etc.
6) Retroarch now supports ROMs placed in Samba shares. AEL has been updated as well
7) Non-blocking launchers (Linux only).
8) Audit of Retroarch BIOSes.
9) 1 Game 1 ROM (1G1R) launcher display mode.
10) Preliminary support for a new Launchbox Offline scraper.
and more!
New powerful XML configurations and improved AEL Asset Library
The Launcher XML configuration files have been enhanced and now it is possible to automatically import launcher assets when loading a Launchers XML configuration file. I have improved the AEL Asset Library with XML configurations for over 100 Launchers (mainly MAME and Retroarch for Linux, Windows and Android platforms).
Fully documented Launcher XML example
Categories XML configurations
Launcher XMLs for Linux
Launcher XMLs for Windows
Launcher XMLs for Android
Upgrade from previous version of AEL
1) After upgrading to 0.9.7-beta1 go to AEL settings >> IO tab and execute "Check/Update all databases ...". If you don't do this AEL will crash constantly.
2) Some platform names have changed. Obsolete platform names will be changed to Unknown. If the scrapers are not searching well go to Edit Launcher context menu and change the platform to a new one.
3) Looks like the GameFAQs scraper is not working due to changes in GameFAQs website. I will update this scraper ASAP.
4) It is not a bad idea to make a backup of AEL data directory before updating to 0.9.7. In case of trouble you can roll-back to 0.9.6 and restore the backup. AEL data directory is located in $USERDATA/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/. Create a ZIP file and recursively include all files and directories in there. To restore the backup, delete $USERDATA/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/ and decompress the ZIP file.
Advanced Emulator Launcher | version 0.9.7-beta1 | 7 October 2017
Release notes
New AEL's version fully loaded with a lot of features.
1) AEL 0.9.7-beta1 only works on Kodi Krypton now, Kodi Jarvis is not supported any more.
2) Totally rewritten scraping engine. Now, you can choose the scraper on an asset-by-asset basis.
3) AEL is able to search for substituted artwork within the Parent/Clone group. This is useful because many artwork collections only include artwork for the USA region.
4) Lots of new platforms added. Note that the Offline Scraper databases have not been updated yet (0.9.8 will be the "scrapers enhanced" version).
5) Command to Check all Launchers for missing applications, unconfigured directories, etc.
6) Retroarch now supports ROMs placed in Samba shares. AEL has been updated as well
7) Non-blocking launchers (Linux only).
8) Audit of Retroarch BIOSes.
9) 1 Game 1 ROM (1G1R) launcher display mode.
10) Preliminary support for a new Launchbox Offline scraper.
and more!
New powerful XML configurations and improved AEL Asset Library
The Launcher XML configuration files have been enhanced and now it is possible to automatically import launcher assets when loading a Launchers XML configuration file. I have improved the AEL Asset Library with XML configurations for over 100 Launchers (mainly MAME and Retroarch for Linux, Windows and Android platforms).
Fully documented Launcher XML example
Categories XML configurations
Launcher XMLs for Linux
Launcher XMLs for Windows
Launcher XMLs for Android
Upgrade from previous version of AEL
1) After upgrading to 0.9.7-beta1 go to AEL settings >> IO tab and execute "Check/Update all databases ...". If you don't do this AEL will crash constantly.
2) Some platform names have changed. Obsolete platform names will be changed to Unknown. If the scrapers are not searching well go to Edit Launcher context menu and change the platform to a new one.
3) Looks like the GameFAQs scraper is not working due to changes in GameFAQs website. I will update this scraper ASAP.
4) It is not a bad idea to make a backup of AEL data directory before updating to 0.9.7. In case of trouble you can roll-back to 0.9.6 and restore the backup. AEL data directory is located in $USERDATA/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/. Create a ZIP file and recursively include all files and directories in there. To restore the backup, delete $USERDATA/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/ and decompress the ZIP file.
Advanced Emulator Launcher | version 0.9.7-beta1 | 7 October 2017
Code:
FEATURE Added a lot of new platforms.
FEATURE Add an option to see ROM Maps image if it exists.
Add an option in context menu "View ROM/Launcher".
FEATURE Audit all launchers. Check if app exists, ROM path exits, artwork paths are configured,
etc. When a user uses XML to import configurations it is easy to make a typo when
writing directory names, etc. This command will report if AEL configuration is OK.
FEATURE Use substituted artwork from the Parent/Clone group.
So far implemented only in "Edit Launcher", "Manage ROMs", "Rescan ROMs local assets/artwork"
FEATURE I discovered that in the ROM Scanner most of the time is spend looking for artwork. Before,
I though it was the Offline scraper the culprit. Instead of using FileName().exists()
create a set with all files in the directory and use that for the search.
Implemented only in "Edit Launcher", "Manage ROMs", "Rescan ROMs local assets/artwork",
must be ported to the ROM scanner if it works well (faster than the current approach).
FEATURE ROM scanner should be able to scrap all assets, not just the ones supported by the
selected scraper. This will require a redesign of the current scraping engine.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=287826&pid=2628383#pid2628383 and next post.
FEATURE Make sure all asset scraper requests are cached in the ROM scanner. For example, Title
scraper choose a game in the list, then Snap scraper for the same ROM must use the
cached selected game.
FEATURE Port to the ROM scanner the asset file cache. This will increase the scanning speed a lot.
FEATURE ROMs in UNC paths. It seems Retroarch added UNC path support recently.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=287826&pid=2647152#pid2647152
[Windows]
Workaround in _run_process() to add an extra '\\' character if argument starts with
a '\\'. This is to fix shlex.split() behaviour.
Tested in Windows only with the following configuration:
<ROM_path>\\SERVER_NAME\AEL-ROMs\sega-genesis\</ROM_path>
<ROM_asset_path>smb://SERVER_NAME/AEL-assets/sega-genesis/</ROM_asset_path>
This configuration also works in Windows:
<ROM_path>smb://SERVER_NAME/AEL-ROMs/sega-genesis/</ROM_path>
<ROM_asset_path>smb://SERVER_NAME/AEL-assets/sega-genesis/</ROM_asset_path>
Artwork is stored in JSON DB as "smb://SERVER_NAME/AEL-assets/sega-genesis/boxbacks\\Sonic.jpg"
ROMs are saved in JSON DB as "\\\\SERVER_NAME\\AEL-ROMs\\sega-genesis\\Sonic.md"
Kodi artwork does not work with paths like \\SERVER_NAME\AEL-ROMs\sega-genesis\image.png.
Correct path for artwork is smb://SERVER_NAME/AEL-ROMs/sega-genesis/image.png.
Retroarch requires a ROM path like \\SERVER_NAME\AEL-ROMs\sega-genesis\Sonic.md.
FEATURE Launcher flag to enable non-blocking launchers. This is required for wrapper scripts
that close Kodi to avoid problems (such as Kodi getting gamepad commands instead of the
launcher app or Kodi running in standalone mode withouth a Window manager).
FEATURE Ability to import launcher and categories assets in the XML configuration files.
Create a working example for Gamestarter addon. Also, refactor the AEL asset library.
FEATURE Rename "Studio" database field to "Developer" in Launchers/ROMs.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=295463&pid=2625754#pid2625754
FEATURE New Launcher asset 's_controller' for Console/Computer controller picture.
FEATURE Renamed 's_thumb' -> 's_icon' in Categories/Launchers/Collections.
FEATURE Renamed 's_flyer' -> 's_poster' in Categories/Launchers/Collections.
FEATURE Renamed 'roms_default_thumb' -> 'roms_default_icon' in Launchers.
FEATURE Improved Retroplayer support.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=295463&pid=2620489#pid2620489
and https://alwinesch.github.io/group__python__xbmcgui__listitem.html#ga0f1e91e1d5aa61d8dd0eac90e8edbf18
FEATURE Audit Retroarch BIOSes in System directory.
FEATURE Scan for artwork in the Parent/Clone group of a ROM. Implemented only in the context
menu "Edit Launcher", "Manage ROM List", "Rescan ROMs local assets/artwork".
FEATURE Support for <Launcher_NFO> tag in XML configuration files.
FEATURE Preserve path_title, path_snap, etc. when exporting a Launcher into an XML file.
FEATURE Add an option to suspend/resume joystick support at launch. This is to prevent Kodi
and the launched app to grab joystick events.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=287826&pid=2627128#pid2627128
Cannot be implemented because setting input.enablejoystick does not exist in Krypton
any more.
FEATURE Removed ElementTree dependency in addon.xml. It's not longer needed.
AEL ONLY WORKS ON KRYPTON NOW!!!
FEATURE Use the <news> tag in addon.xml. In general, have a look at http://kodi.wiki/view/addon.xml
and modernise addon.xml.
FEATURE Update code to use new xbmcgui.Dialog().select() useDetails parameter. Get rid of the
ImgSelectDialog() class. This need Krypton Beta 4 to run!
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=250936&pid=2438074#pid2438074
FEATURE Make use of Krypton features in the several dialogs of the addon: new param: "preselect"
for Dialog().multiselect() and Dialog().select().
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=250936&pid=2327011#pid2327011
FEATURE Option to group Unknown ROMs as clones or keep them as parents. I realised it is not
conveninent that the Unknown ROMs are clones in the Parent/Clone view.
FEATURE 1 Game 1 ROM launcher display mode. Copy it from AML.
Changed launcher['pclone_launcher'] to launcher['launcher_display_mode'] to store the
display mode in categories.xml database.
FEATURE Addon option to hide [Browse Offline Scraper].
FEATURE Remove duplicates from recent ROMs list. Contributed by bonzini.
See https://github.com/Wintermute0110/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/pull/41
FEATURE Preliminary render support for LaunchBox scraper.
FIX Fixed launching of BAT files in Windows.
FIX In order for skin shortcuts and widgets to work OK, addon concurrency must be enabled
by database read-only commands.
FIX Fix scraper-related crash in the ROM scanner.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=287826&pid=2628382#pid2628382
FIX When scraper downloads an image the parents JSON must be also updated. In general, every
time a ROM is modified in the main database the Parents JSON must be updated to keep
both DBs synchronised!
FIX Fixed Unicode-related crashes introduced in 0.9.6 in the ROM scanner.
See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=276002&pid=2642201#pid2642201