Adding Boxart to WINUAE Configs

[DamienD]

Heya Toni,

I'm sure this is way, way, way down on your priority list, and rightly so

But thought I'd ask, any new thoughts / progress? Do you need anything from us, the users of your awesome emulator?

...I've also just sent you a "motivation" donation my friend; please don't take it as "would be nice if you now concentrated on this".

Whenever you get the chance, I'm very patient

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by DamienD

For me currently, when scrolling through my list of configs, it can sometimes be hard to remember exactly what the game is like; this happens when you have over 2250 added...

All you need to jog your memory IMHO is one title & one screenshot, boom!!!

...if I want to view many images then I visit HOL

And here I was thinking about chucking my Amiga demos in favour of Pouet.net links so I could save cloud space and download them as I needed them, despite having 256 Amiga demo videos that take up 20x the 1Gb the original files take up!

Over 2200 games, where DO you find the time to play them?

[Toni Wilen]

D3D11 support took priority because it was supposed to be easy and quick but it wasn't..

Make 3 game example zip that contain game directory with game image(s), boxart image files). File names are not that important, it only needs to be "real world" test case. (real game, real images)

[DamienD]

Ok, will do

After taking screenshots do I need to resize or is this something WinUAE will do "on the fly" when showing in the panel?

[Toni Wilen]

Don't resize too much, resizing needs to be automatic. The only thing that must be automatic

[DamienD]

I won't resize at all then.

[DamienD]

Heya Toni,

In The Zone! you will now find "WinUAE_Title-SShot-Boxart.rar"

...as requested, these are 3 randomly selected games and the archive includes the following files in each game directory:

a) ___Title.png
b) ___SShot.png
c) ___Boxart.jpg

Please let me know if there's anything else you need from me, be it more files, ideas or testing etc?


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As you know though, personally I don't care for Boxart and would be very happy with just a simple solution:

2) Added "Title / Screenshot" snap-on panel:



...but obviously, do as you think best in order to suit all

[Toni Wilen]

Under the hood logic is now mostly done. (Nothing visible yet, except log)

- configuration.cache now includes possible box art path if detected during configuration file scan. (This is backwards compatible, old versions just skip the extra line)
- loading config will log if box art images found.
- moving configurations panel selection cursor will also log if config entry had box art in configuration.cache (just moving cursor must not cause any file accesses, use of config cache required)

Testing:

Delete configuration.cache, run winuae with -log, does logged paths look correct (df0:, first filesystem2/hardfile2 or cdimage0), does it detect box art image (detection file name is "<path>\___Title.png")

Load/browse config files and confirm that box art related log messages are correct.

EDIT: enable option now in Paths panel.

[DamienD]

Awesome, many thanks Toni

Was out late last night and today I've been helping a friend build / erect a shed in her garden...

Once home later tonight I'll test and let you know how I get on

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Testing:

Delete configuration.cache, run winuae with -log, does logged paths look correct (df0:, first filesystem2/hardfile2 or cdimage0), does it detect box art image (detection file name is "<path>\___Title.png")

Load/browse config files and confirm that box art related log messages are correct.

EDIT: enable option now in Paths panel.

Home now so have tested

Here are some snippets from the log:

Games that have images created / inserted into the game path (first one .ADFs only, second one .HDF only):

Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Banshee AGA\Banshee (1994)(Core)(AGA)(M4)(Disk 1 of 4)[cr PSG][h][t +11 HLM].adf'
Detected!
Box art path '.\Games\Banshee AGA\'
Box art file '.\Games\Banshee AGA\___Boxart.jpg'
Box art file '.\Games\Banshee AGA\___SShot.png'
Box art file '.\Games\Banshee AGA\___Title.png'
 
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Capital Punishment AGA\Capital Punishment AGA.hdf'
Detected!
Box art path '.\Games\Capital Punishment AGA\'
Box art file '.\Games\Capital Punishment AGA\___Boxart.jpg'
Box art file '.\Games\Capital Punishment AGA\___SShot.png'
Box art file '.\Games\Capital Punishment AGA\___Title.png'

Games that don't have images created / inserted into the game path:

Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Beneath A Steel Sky\Beneath A Steel Sky (1994)(Virgin)(Disk 1 of 15)(Boot).ipf'

So looks good as far as I can tell

Anything else you need my friend?

Edit: oh, just browsing through the configurations using the <Up Arrow> & <Down Arrow> didn't seem to generate anything in the logs.

[DamienD]

Nope, scrap the above "Edit:"...

Just deleted "configuration.cache" file and then started WinUAE. Could see all my <gamedirs> being scanned for "boxart" before the programs starts

Nice one Toni. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it many, many, many times again:

You da man!!!

[DamienD]

Just checked the registry and see that you added there.

"ArtCache"=dword:00000001

Awesome, this means that I don't need to update any of my 2250+ configuration files

Very excited about this and the way that you've made it work

Not sure what your plans are going forward, but as I mentioned, for me I'm only interested in a "title / screenshot" panel and not a "boxart" one...

I'm sure you can make both panels available to cover all users' desires but if possible, please also make these options save into the registry and not in configuration files.

[Toni Wilen]

"artcache" = Paths panel enable option, if images are detected or completely ignored.

This is needed (and is off by default) because configuration cache building can become much slower if it needs to check for images and cache is build every time any config file is modified.

It has no effect which images are detected. If "___Title.png" exists, path is cached. When config is selected or loaded, if cached path does not exist: show nothing, do nothing, if it exists, check also if other image names exists and then show all of them.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

This is needed (and is off by default) because configuration cache building can become much slower if it needs to check for images and cache is build every time any config file is modified.

It's working very well indeed

When starting WinUAE, I can see via -log that it scans through my 2250+ configs in roughly 5 seconds before I see the GUI

I also noticed that I don't even need "Cache Configuration files" ticked; which suits me as previously I never had this option turned on.

[DamienD]

Actually one small thing I noticed in the logs is that sometimes the "." is dropped i.e:

Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Tower of Souls AGA\Tower of Souls (1995)(Black Legend)(AGA)(Disk 1 of 5)[t +3 Lord & Perfection][b].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Toyota Celica GT Rally\Toyota Celica GT Rally (1991)(Gremlin)[cr SKR].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Tracers\Tracers v1.1 (1988)(MicroIllusions)[cr Testament].adf'
Possible boxart path: '\Games\Tracker Hero AGA\Tracker Hero AGA.hdf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Trained Assassin\Trained Assassin (1989)(Digital Magic).ipf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Transarctica AGA\Transarctica (1993)(Silmarils)(AGA)(M3)(Disk 1 of 3)(A)[cr PDX].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Transarctica\Transarctica (1993)(Silmarils)(M3)(Disk 1 of 2)(A)[cr Mok - S.S.].adf'

Edit: this happens with all my configurations that are .HDF only...

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Delete configuration.cache, run winuae with -log, does logged paths look correct (df0:, first filesystem2/hardfile2 or cdimage0), does it detect box art image (detection file name is "<path>\___Title.png")

Heya Toni,

Did a little more testing today to see if only having something in the line "cdimage0" works.

So with my "T-Zer0" configuration which has a CD mounted, I removed the hard drive lines and saved.

Started WinUAE, navigated to this configuration but nothing is shown in the logs regarding boxart.

If I click "Load" however, then boxart appears in the logs... so it's only when scrolling that it doesn't.

[Toni Wilen]

Fixed. (But still nothing visible..) EDIT: Loads now images and logs image size. (Using gdiplus)

[DamienD]

Thank you my friend

Have tested but there's still something not right...

If I test with my original "T-zer0" configuration that has:

a) hardfile2=rw,DH0:.\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\T-zer0 AmigaCD.hdf,32,1,2,512,0,,uae
b) cdimage0=.\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\T-zer0 AmigaCD.cue

...then this is all I see in the log (note that the . is still missing from the path):

Requested GUI size = 800x600 (720x568)
Box art path '\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\'

There's no expected:

Image '.\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\___Boxart.jpg'
Image '.\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\___SShot.png'
Image '.\Games\T-zer0 AmigaCD\___Title.png'

There was previous to the last update (and that's before I tried removing the .HDF line to test CD only).

If however I click "Load" on the configuration then all is good.

[Toni Wilen]

You didn't list what gets logged when cache scanning happens. Is the path identical?

[DamienD]

Sorry Toni, from memory:

When doing the inital scan after starting WinUAE, anything .HDF / CD related will drop the "." as per:

Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Tower of Souls AGA\Tower of Souls (1995)(Black Legend)(AGA)(Disk 1 of 5)[t +3 Lord & Perfection][b].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Toyota Celica GT Rally\Toyota Celica GT Rally (1991)(Gremlin)[cr SKR].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Tracers\Tracers v1.1 (1988)(MicroIllusions)[cr Testament].adf'
Possible boxart path: '\Games\Tracker Hero AGA\Tracker Hero AGA.hdf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Trained Assassin\Trained Assassin (1989)(Digital Magic).ipf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Transarctica AGA\Transarctica (1993)(Silmarils)(AGA)(M3)(Disk 1 of 3)(A)[cr PDX].adf'
Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Transarctica\Transarctica (1993)(Silmarils)(M3)(Disk 1 of 2)(A)[cr Mok - S.S.].adf'

Afterwards I think all is then ok so for example if I click on the configuration file "Tracker Hero [AGA]" then you will correctly see:

Possible boxart path: '.\Games\Tracker Hero AGA\Tracker Hero AGA.hdf'

Let me re-confirm when home tonight