Topic: Xbmc Shortcut Creator (Read 1207 times)

nate1579 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 19, 2009, 02:29:00 PM »

QUOTE(nate1579 @ Mar 19 2009, 07:01 PM)

k ill give it a try here in a sec

works great thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

ressurectionx · « **Reply #16 on:** April 19, 2009, 11:26:00 AM »

Is the newest version of this now in your link at the top of the thread BombBloke? I wanted to try it out, but I know you made a revision or two.

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #17 on:** April 19, 2009, 08:51:00 PM »

Indeed it is. I didn't see much point in leaving the old links floating about.

ressurectionx · « **Reply #18 on:** April 19, 2009, 08:57:00 PM »

Cool... I used it earlier and it works brilliantly. It takes a while to figure it out, but once you got it down it's easy.

I'd really appreciate it if you could make that 0001.png to "game name".png program for me. I'm going to make packs for the emus in the Icon Pack I'm going to release and that will save me a few weekends of converting artwork.

When the Madmab editions are finished, I'm going to see if we can make alternate emus (different save folders in TDATA and UDATA) so we can set those emulators to return to XBMC after exiting a game so this system works right, straight from XBMC to launch games.

Who knows.... mabye somewhere down the line somebody could alter the emus to not waste any time loading up the skins and jump straight to the game and straight back to XBMC so we could just launch our games from XBMC if we wanted to.

Later,
~Rx

osmorphyus · « **Reply #19 on:** April 20, 2009, 12:43:00 AM »

i dont yet fully understand this shortcut method for booting directly into xbmc works. i made a shortcut and placed it just right in my c: drive part. and it didnt do anything different.

can anyone shed any light on how to do this?

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #20 on:** April 20, 2009, 02:09:00 AM »

These shortcuts (that is, the ones discussed here) are used via XBMC to boot ROMs.

The shortcut you're talking about is something completely different; it's an XBE file used to boot XBMC itself. T3CH includes it with most of her builds. Take a read through the XBMC section for more details.

ressurectionx · « **Reply #21 on:** April 21, 2009, 02:42:00 PM »

I just used your updated shortcut creator for XBMC on my NES US roms and I gotta say it's really sweet.

It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did BAM!!! 725 boxarts for the NES are staring me in the face.

This program works perfect if you have the Xtras!

Thanks man,
~Rx

EDIT: Well.... maybe not 725. Now I can easily see which Boxarts I'm either missing or have named wrong and fix that in my Xtras set. This is just too cool.

So.... all we need now are emulators that load the game up without going to the skins first, emulators that exit to XBMC after you finish a game, and video previews within XBMC and we're all set.

EDIT 2: On first glance, it doesn't seem that I have any problems with my boxarts. Games that are missing boxart so far:

1) AD&D - Dragons of the Flame
2) AD&D - Heroes of the Lance
3) AD&D - Hillsfar
4) AD&D - Pool of Radiance
5) Back to the Future I & III
6) Battletoads & Double Dragon

etc, etc, etc....

I don't think your program has any problems. It looks like you put the "&" in all the files. Sucks that XBMC doesn't recognize the "&" though since I use it quite often. Any way around this?

EDIT 3: Yeah... the images don't show up and the roms don't load right and give an error when the emu tries to play them. There's probably 40 or more games with the "&" used in them. Here's hoping I don't have to rename and change everything in the Xtras to get this to work.

EDIT 4: If we could get a 3rd option for ZSNESXBox artwork BB, that'd be great. I assume you know how the artwork works on that ,but here it is in case you're not aware....

"ZsnexBox 3.5\artwork\Shots 1" Shots 2, Shots 3, etc....

Perhaps we could also add an option with an "if, then, else" statement that will make the .CUT file creator use 0002.png or 0003.png if there is no 0001.png or 0002.png before it. Also a similar statement that would do the same thing for ZSNESXBox. Top notch stuff here man.....
~Rx

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 21 2009, 11:55 PM

ressurectionx · « **Reply #22 on:** April 21, 2009, 04:43:00 PM »

First person who sends me the "listing.txt" file using this updated program, and gives me the exact directory that their emu "default.xbe" and the exact directory where their NES screenshots are located, I will send you a zipfile with 725 US games that will load up with the boxart previews in XBMC once you add the .CUT folder as a source.

EDIT: You have to have the Xtras artwork, or have every boxart on your system named exactly the same as your rom and in ".PNG" format.

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 21 2009, 11:44 PM

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #23 on:** April 21, 2009, 10:41:00 PM »

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Apr 22 2009, 03:34 AM)

I don't think your program has any problems. It looks like you put the "&" in all the files. Sucks that XBMC doesn't recognize the "&" though since I use it quite often. Any way around this?

EDIT 3: Yeah... the images don't show up and the roms don't load right and give an error when the emu tries to play them. There's probably 40 or more games with the "&" used in them. Here's hoping I don't have to rename and change everything in the Xtras to get this to work.

I dunno, I tryed replacing the symbol with "%26", "\&" and "&&", but none of them work. Suppose I could ask on the XBMC forums about it.

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Apr 22 2009, 03:34 AM)

EDIT 4: If we could get a 3rd option for ZSNESXBox artwork BB, that'd be great. I assume you know how the artwork works on that ,but here it is in case you're not aware....

"ZsnexBox 3.5\artwork\Shots 1" Shots 2, Shots 3, etc....

So the path to the image to be used for, say for example, Super Metroid, would be...?

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Apr 22 2009, 03:34 AM)

Perhaps we could also add an option with an "if, then, else" statement that will make the .CUT file creator use 0002.png or 0003.png if there is no 0001.png or 0002.png before it. Also a similar statement that would do the same thing for ZSNESXBox.~Rx

Not so easy. The shortcut generator works on the basis that it knows what ROMs you have, but only assumes you have matching thumbnails. It has no way of knowing whether or not a "0001.png" file exists, so no way of "falling back" to a 0002.png/0003.png file if need be.

(Take a look in the "listing.txt" file that gets generated to see what I'm on about.)

Two points though, if the user doesn't have a 0001.png how likely is it that they'd have any other images for that ROM? In the case that they did, wouldn't a fallback prevent them from realising they were missing an image?

ressurectionx · « **Reply #24 on:** April 21, 2009, 11:07:00 PM »

Hey BB...

1) Cool. I hope somebody in the XBMC forums knows a way to fix our ampersand problem.

2) Path for Super Metroid artwork in ZSNESXBox

ZsnexBox 3.5\artwork\Shots 1\Super Metroid.png
ZsnexBox 3.5\artwork\Shots 1\Zombies Ate My Neighbors.png
etc, etc, etc...

3) I've seen the file listing. I see the dilemma here too. Any way there could be something inserted in the .CUT file itself (say, another entry for 0002.PNG, should 0001.PNG not exist)? I appreciate the difficulty of this situation. Just wondering if we can find a way around it.

Actually, the likelyhood that there are other images for the rom if it's missing the boxart (at least in the case of the Xtras) is 100%. I've made sure to have, at the very least, an action shot for every game and a title shot when the game shows a title shot. A great deal of unlicensed games, for example, would not display boxart given the way we're currently doing it. 0002.png will always be title shot, 0003.png will always be action shot, 0004.png will always be cart/cd/disk.

4) Just out of curiosity's sake, where are the boxarts stored for this? Is it just temporarily in memory since it has to scan every time you load the folder?

And now... for another bug to hopefully work out with this thing....

A) When I switch to "Big Icons 2" view (which looks freaking awesome with the boxart), it messes up the view for the wide-icon'd homebrew games. When I go to play homebrew games, I then have to switch back to "Big Wide", and then vice versa if I go back to the .CUT files. Any way to set this stuff up so that doesn't happen?

EDIT: Actually, when I do this, it screws up the icon view for all the emulators as well. I have a source "Emulators". Within that source are folders for Company names, which contain the emulators. The Company Names display in wide icon format, but when I click on them to scroll through all the Nintendo emulators they're in "Big Icons 2" format until I change it back to "Big & Wide"

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 22 2009, 06:13 AM

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #25 on:** April 22, 2009, 12:06:00 AM »