[yevaman44]

Hello !
Can't wait for the next release but, i'm a little afraid.

I modify some stuff in the code ( hide favorite with the line you gave me) , spend hours to hide games of my romsets ( clone and proto). A also spend time to modify the artic theme so that my screentshots fits perfectly

The upgrade between 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 would be "natural" or is there a risk that all my work would be erased ?

For info, recalbox just added screenscrapper support ! ( Mutlilang scrap Info EN, FR, DE, ES, PT) will it be avalaible for 0.9.7 release or later ?
here's a link with a video demo :https://www.recalbox.com/blog/fr/post/blog-2017-02-24-scraper/

Would be great to have nfo file of Roms in my own language !

regards

[Wintermute0110]

Hi,

The upgrade should be transparent as usual. Just install the new version when released, then open AEL settiongs, I/O tab, and execute "Check/Update all databases". That should bring all the databases up-to-date.

I modify some stuff in the code ( hide favorite with the line you gave me),

Thank should be OK. AEL 0.9.7 incorporates that fix.

spend hours to hide games of my romsets ( clone and proto).

The worst-case scenario that may happen is that for some reason the launchers or ROMs database gets corrupted. In this case you will need to rebuild (create launchers and scan ROMs again). This is very unlikely but it may happen. If you deleted the physical ROM files and then rescan then it's OK. If you deleted the ROMs from AEL database but didn't delete the ROM physical files then if you rescan again the deleted ROMs will show up again.

AEL 0.9.7 incorporates a new launcher display mode named 1 game 1 ROM (1G1R). This display mode requires a No-Intro DAT file and filters all the clone ROMs only displaying the parents as dictated by the DAT file. Future version of AEL won't require a DAT file at all (will be able to generate the Parent/Clone groups based on the ROM filenames) and will include filtering options (like you prefer ROMs from Japan, Europe or USA). In other words, NARS Advanced ROM Sorting features will be embedded into AEL. Note that all MAME-related features are already embedded into Advanced MAME Launcher with its powerful set of ROM filters.

In any case, I always recommend to keep a copy of your original No-Intro ROMs, and then keep another directory for AEL ROMs where you do any modifications if necessary. For example,

Code:

/home/kodi/ROMs/nintendo-snes/ -> Original copy of your SNES ROMs
/home/kodi/AEL-ROMs/nintendo-snes/ -> Here is the ROM path of AEL SNES launcher. Here you only copy the ROMs that you want to show up in AEL

In this way, if something happens with AEL database you can rebuild your setup very quickly.

Another way of organising your setup is that you create a SNES launcher with all the No-Intro ROMs, and the you create a ROM Collection with the SNES games you like. In this way, if something happens to the SNES launcher you still will have your selection of SNES ROMs into the SNES ROM Collection. If you upgrade the ROMs in the SNES launcher or completely rebuild it AEL is able to automatically link the SNES ROMs in your collection with the new SNES ROMs in the launcher. Also, ROM Collection ROMs can be launched even if you completely delete the original SNES launcher. ROM Collections can also be exported/imported (think of this as a backup).

To be 100% fault-proof you can make a backup before updating (strongly recommended!). Make a ZIP or 7ZIP file with all the contents of AEL data directory. AEL data directory is located in $USERDATA_DIR/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/. Have a look here for more infor about the USERDATA directory. Once the backup is made, then upgrade to 0.9.7. If something goes wrong, ask for help here. You may be asked to provide debug logs, etc. Then, uninstall 0.9.7, install 0.9.6 again, delete $USERDATA_DIR/addon_data/plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/ and restore the backup.

A also spend time to modify the artic theme so that my screentshots fits perfectly

Whatever changes you made to the skin will be kept.

For info, recalbox just added screenscrapper support ! ( Mutlilang scrap Info EN, FR, DE, ES, PT) will it be avalaible for 0.9.7 release or later ?
here's a link with a video demo :https://www.recalbox.com/blog/fr/post/blog-2017-02-24-scraper/

Screenscrapper support will be added in 0.9.8, definitely not in 0.9.7.

[Wintermute0110]

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

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

[bite_your_idols]

New AEL release 0.9.7-beta1

awesome!!!!

thanks for your amazing work!

[heXdot]

I don't fully understand how to use the online and offline scrappers right now but with 0.9.7 mentioning a Launchbox offline scraper maybe someone can tell me how far off I am with following scenario:

I like to use Launchbox to build my game library with all the assets and meta automatically taken care off very hassle free by the LB client. I would also like to use that offline game library inside AEL so that I can have a nice all in one launcher for my Kodi centric media center PC.
Is this something that might be doable in the future or is the focus only on scraping from the LB database directly but not importing offline LB libraries?

In any case that would be a neat feature in my opinion.

EDIT: Thanks for the extensive answer/clarification

[Wintermute0110]

I don't fully understand how to use the online and offline scrappers right now but with 0.9.7 mentioning a Launchbox offline scraper maybe someone can tell me how far off I am with following scenario:

There are 2 kinds of scrapers: Metadata and Artwork. Offline scrapers only apply to Metadata: a Metadata scraper can be Online of Offline. The equivalent Offline scraper for Artwork is to search for local available images.

AEL incorporates a more-or-less comprehensive database with Metadata of thousands of ROMs for many platforms. You can have a look to the database here. The database is still incomplete and I an improving it over time (I also expect the users to contribute to this database. In AEL 0.9.8 I will change the offline scraper database so everybody can contribute to the database by editing XML files). This database can be used to scrape metadata for ROMs.

The scrapers can be used by the ROM Scanner or via the Launcher/ROM context menu. Note that at the moment only the ROM Scanner can do batch scraping. With the context menu you can only scrape individual Launchers or ROMs.

It is very important to set the correct settings for the scrapers to operate as you wish. Scraper settings are located in AEL Settings, "ROM Scanner" and "ROM Scraping" tabs. In "ROM Scanner" tab the main settings are:

"Ignore Scrapped Titles (use ROM filenames instead)" If OFF the ROM title will be the scraper title. If ON, the scraped title will be ignore and the ROM title will be the ROM filename without the extension. For correctly renamed No-Intro/Redump sets I recommed to keep this option ON. For MAME ROMs this option must be OFF. MAME ROMs have special short names (for example, "dino" filename becomes "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs").

"Metadata scan policy"

1. "None" No metadata scraping is done.
   
2. "NFO Files" Metadata is read from ROM NFO files.
   
3. "NFO Files + Scrapers" Metadata is read from ROM NFO files. If the NFO file is not found, then ROM is metadata is scraped.
   
4. "Scrapers" NFO files are ignored and ROM is scraped.
   

"Asset scan policy"

1. "Local Images" For every asset, local images are searched. This is the recommended option (you download artwork packs, place them in the correct directories and AEL will use them).
   
2. "Local Images + Scrapers" For every asset, local images are searched. If not found, then image are scraped online.
   
3. "Scrapers" Local images are ignored and all images are scraped online. This option is never recommended.
   

After setting the correct scraping policies, you can choose the scrapers you want to use in the "ROM scraping" tab.

Finally: I always recommend to download as many artwork packs as possible and use the online scrapers (both metadata and artwork) only when necessary. You have several links to places where you can download this artwork packs in the first post. For example: suppose you have a complete No-Intro MegaDrive collection (about 1,500 ROMs0 and you create a Retroarch launcher to play them. If you use the Offline scraper and have the artwork as local images the ROM Scanner will take about 30 seconds to scan all the ROMs. Scraping Metadata and Artwork for 1,500 images online can take as long as 10/20 hours or even more. Let's suppose that you spend one hour registering to Emumovies/Hyperspin forum and downloading the artwork packs. It's clear what you should do, in my opinion.

I like to use Launchbox to build my game library with all the assets and meta automatically taken care off very hassle free by the LB client. I would also like to use that offline game library inside AEL so that I can have a nice all in one launcher for my Kodi centric media center PC.
Is this something that might be doable in the future or is the focus only on scraping from the LB database directly but not importing offline LB libraries?

In any case that would be a neat feature in my opinion.

Note that I have never used Launchbox so maybe what I say is not totally right. I think it is perfectly OK to share artwork between several fron-ends. Just make sure that for every launcher both front ends use the same artwork directories for every asset type.

Regarding metadata... this could be more problematic. AEL can export the ROMs metadata from its internal database to NFO files. Those NFO files can be read by another frontend but I don't know if Launchbox may read NFO files, or if the format of AEL and Launchbox NFO files is the same. On the other hand, if Launchbox can export ROM metadata into NFO files then I may consider adding support for AEL to read Launchbox NFO files, in addition to AEL NFO file format.

[Skynet101]

Hello
in the last release 0.9.7-beta1 it is mentioned that retroarch as well as AEL now also supports Samba. Can someone explain to me how I configure it?
Have in the Kodi an SMB source with the Roms furnished. If I select this source, so Rom directory, no Roms are found.

RPI3 LibreElec 8.1.2
Gamestarter 3.0.0

Thanks
(Google translater)

[illinx]

Wintermute, is the no-intro p/c dat file your only guide for which roms get grouped into parent/clone sets?

I'm thinking of adapting one of your scrapers to scrape romhacking.net, and grab description + title screen + screenshots metadata for romhacks and translations there.

That's step one, and I'm pretty sure I can do that no problem.

But really, the ideal endpoint would be for all hacks to count as clones of the game they are hacking. So you can quickly browse hacks for any game without polluting the base game list too much.

But I don't see any fields in your metadata format to hint at parent/clone information, so I'm guessing this all gets handled strictly in the no-intro dat file? Haven't gotten far enough to confirm this myself.

Do you have any suggestions for the best way to handle this besides forking the no-intro p/c dat file and adding romhacks as clones there?

EDIT: oops, I just now noticed you have a <cloneof> tag, does it make sense to use this?

[Wintermute0110]

Hello
in the last release 0.9.7-beta1 it is mentioned that retroarch as well as AEL now also supports Samba. Can someone explain to me how I configure it?
Have in the Kodi an SMB source with the Roms furnished. If I select this source, so Rom directory, no Roms are found.

RPI3 LibreElec 8.1.2
Gamestarter 3.0.0

Thanks
(Google translater)

Currently is it only documented in the changelog, which I reproduce here for convenience.

Code:

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.

If problem persists I need you to generate an AEL debug log. You have instructions on the first post about how to get it.

[Wintermute0110]

Wintermute, is the no-intro p/c dat file your only guide for which roms get grouped into parent/clone sets?

In 0.9.7 yes. I tried to include a feature to use ROM filenames to generate (imperfect) PClone groups, but now the ROM Audit code and the PCLone generation code are tied together and it proved difficult. In 0.9.8 I plan to add the ability to generate PCLone groups from filenames like NARS does.

I'm thinking of adapting one of your scrapers to scrape romhacking.net, and grab description + title screen + screenshots metadata for romhacks and translations there.

That's step one, and I'm pretty sure I can do that no problem.

That would be great. Just use another scraper as an example and create the new scraper classes. Make sure you comply to the API documented here.

But really, the ideal endpoint would be for all hacks to count as clones of the game they are hacking. So you can quickly browse hacks for any game without polluting the base game list too much.

But I don't see any fields in your metadata format to hint at parent/clone information, so I'm guessing this all gets handled strictly in the no-intro dat file? Haven't gotten far enough to confirm this myself.

Do you have any suggestions for the best way to handle this besides forking the no-intro p/c dat file and adding romhacks as clones there?

EDIT: oops, I just now noticed you have a <cloneof> tag, does it make sense to use this?

The cloneof tag is not actually used in 0.9.7. It is used by some code which is disabled in 0.9.7, as you can see here.

For 0.9.8 I plan to enhance the Offline scraper database. The work in progress is in this repository. The idea is to convert GameDBInfo CSV files into an "input" XML. This input XML is used, together with a No-Intro/Redump DAT, to produce the final XML database.

1) If a ROM exists in the DAT but not in the input XML it will be present in the scraper XML database, but with empty metadata.

2) If a ROM exists in the input XML but not in the DAT it will be present in the database XML.

In this way, you can edit the input XML to put the metadata of the ROM hacks.

Regarding the PClone generation: I still have to think carefully on a good solution and the topic is slightly complicated:

1) You may use a DAT file to audit your ROMs. This will identify Have, Missing and Unknown ROMs.

2) The DAT usually contains PClone information, but it could not be the case (notably, Redump DATs do not hace PClone information).

3) I can make AEL to use the DAT to generate PCLone groups and then use filenames information (like NARS) to assign Unknown ROMs into PClone groups.

4) A new metadata field can be created, for example m_cloneof. Here you place the suggested parent of a ROM. However, this can create conflicts with the DAT. For example, suppose the DAT has this configuration:

Code:

Parent "Sonic The Hedgehog (Europe)"
Clone "Sonic The Hedgehog (Japan)"
Clone "Sonic The Hedgehog (USA)"

Now, you have a hack ROM "Sonic The Hedgehog (USA) (New level hack)" and m_cloneof = "Sonic The Hedgehog (USA)". This will create a conflict because there would be 2 parents in the PClone group and this conflict must be resolved in some way.

I open to suggestions about the ROM Audit and PCLone group generation for 0.9.8. Still I have to think about this and figure out a good solution for all cases: user has a DAT, user do not  have a DAT, what to do with Unknown ROMs (ROMs not in the DAT), etc.

[illinx]

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply. I'm excited to get started on the scraper, and luckily it looks like I can make some progress on it before the tough questions need to be figured out.

My naive idea for the last question you talk about would be to use the PClone groups from the DAT, but throw away the DAT's idea of who the parent is and just keep simple groups of related roms. Leave which one is the parent as a question for the user (a choice of USA/Europe/JPN, usually), that controls how the PClone groups are displayed, but behind the scenes it's still just a flat group.

That way you just add new clones to the group if their parent is already in the group, and display them all together.

I don't know enough yet about the behind the scenes to know if this would work or not, but it feels right to me.

[leodido]

I'd like to use this addon on the NVIDIA Shield. I installed the addon easily but I cannot seem to add emulators I'm using Snes9x.
Do I have to root my shield for this?

[zosky]

Do you have any plans to add multi-disk support in?

Will think about that, but currently I will focus on the artwork scrapers and another couple of bugs.

that was ~1 yr ago, has the situation changed at all ?

i see "disks":[] in db_ROMs/whatEver.json 
but i can't find any info on what to do with it ?

[Wintermute0110]

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply. I'm excited to get started on the scraper, and luckily it looks like I can make some progress on it before the tough questions need to be figured out.

My naive idea for the last question you talk about would be to use the PClone groups from the DAT, but throw away the DAT's idea of who the parent is and just keep simple groups of related roms. Leave which one is the parent as a question for the user (a choice of USA/Europe/JPN, usually), that controls how the PClone groups are displayed, but behind the scenes it's still just a flat group.

That way you just add new clones to the group if their parent is already in the group, and display them all together.

I don't know enough yet about the behind the scenes to know if this would work or not, but it feels right to me.

If you need anything with the scraper post here or send a PM.

Yes, my idea is to do something in the line of what you propose. Once I start the implementation issues will show up. I think I will create the m_cloneof metadata tag for the user to override the DAT and/or the filenames PClone generation and see what happens.

[Wintermute0110]

I'd like to use this addon on the NVIDIA Shield. I installed the addon easily but I cannot seem to add emulators I'm using Snes9x.
Do I have to root my shield for this?

You have some examples of Android launchers using Retroarch in the AEL Asset Library. You can use those XML configuration files to create new Retroarch launchers. The advantage of using Retroarch is that once you configure it you have easy access to over 30 different platforms. Is there any particular reason you want to use the obsolete Snex9x?

Regarding the XML configuration files: make sure you read the release notes of 0.9.7. Link in the first post.

I'm not sure if you need to root your Shield or not. I myself do not have an Android box for testing. Maybe some other Android user can help you. Also, if you search in the forum there was a thread with emulator configuration for Android and Advanced Launcher. You can use those configurations with AEL straight away.