Sub-Genres/Nested Lists

[Chris Kane]

I couldn’t see this being raised previously but apologies if it has.

Would it be at all possible to integrate nested lists in future versions? I’m specifically looking at the genres category personally but this can probably be applied to other fields.

An example would be

• Shooter

  • First Person Shooter (FPS)
  • Scrolling Shooter
  • Third Person Shooter
  • etc

• Sports

  • Baseball
  • Basketball
  • Football
  • etc.

Currently all the genres show in a flat list which looks pretty messy and can get overwhelmingly large when you have lots of different games in your library.

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Thanks

ckane89

[Christian]

Until we address the core point of this issue you do have a work around using the Platform Category filter type. Can create a category called “Genres” and then create playlists Shooter, Sports, etc with that genre, and then create playlists under THOSE playlists labeled FPS, Scrolling Shooter, etc.

[Chris Kane]

Thanks for the response Christian, this looks like it’ll work as a good workaround to get the result cheers.

[famigami]

Christian’s work around isn’t good when you want to see all subgenres across different platforms. You have to populate the playlists manually and if you have thousands of files, it simply isn’t feasable.

If I have:

Namco → System 1
→ System 2
→ etc…
→ Genres → Shooters → FPS
Konami → GX400
→ Bubble System
→ etc..
→ Genres → Shooters → FPS

Then I can’t see all FPS games across all root categories and my developer level is inconsistent (Genre isn’t a platform).

Likewise, If I have:
Namco → System 1
→ System 2
→ etc…
Konami → GX400
→ Bubble System
→ etc..
Genres → Shooters → FPS
→ etc..

Then I can’t see only Namco FPS games and it makes my root inconsistent (Genres isn’t a developper)…

However, having this:
Namco → System 1
→ System 2
→ etc…
Konami → GX400
→ Bubble System
→ etc..

Is consistent and clean, and I can filter via sort → Genres

[Christian]

I appreciate you input Jonathan but your information is invalid. Playlists can be made without setting the platform meaning that you create the sub-genre playlists to be library wide across several platforms very easily. This can also be done completely with auto-gen playlists so no need to manually add titles to the appropriate playlist.

[famigami]

Not entirely accurate. You still have to place the playlist somewhere, that fact alone compromises cleanliness of wheels. You also cannot auto-gen a playlist for subgenres. The auto-generated list of genres is fixed to large categories (ie. shooters, beat em ups, etc) and does NOT account for subgenres (shooters → FPS, shooters → 3rd person, etc) because Launchbox doesn’t recognize subgenres at all. Lastly, you suggestion is still the same end result: you get one or the other but not both possibilities of sorting you stuff unless you further pollute your wheels by adding playlist in every platform as well as at the root.

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[Christian]

I appreciate you trying to help spread light to this matter but you once again are stating things that simply aren’t true. You can create an auto-generated playlist to look for any string value (or combination of string values) you want against the “genre” field.

[Chris Kane]

What I’ve ended up doing to try and keep things clean is to create a custom field named sub-genres and use that to auto-populate the playlists as suggested by Christian.

It’s a workaround and a compromise for now but hey it works.

Thanks again Christian.

[famigami]

Yes, but a genre isn’t a sub-genre. When a game is a FPS, I cannot tell launchbox that it is a Shooter AND a FPS. I have to tell it either one or the other or create a new “genre” of “Shooter / FPS” which is yet again, messy.

If launchbox had a sub-genre field, then the game can be truly both. it is better even from a database perspective to have them as separate fields rather one giant list of combinations of genres and more manageable from a user perspective. It then also allows for nested genres as Chris suggests,

The solution of custom fields is the true workaround in this case.

[Chris Kane]

you could have all the individual sub-genres in the genre field and then select multiple genres per game but I thought that looked too untidy so went with custom fields instead, all a matter of preference i suppose.

[Christian]

A game CAN have multiple Genre’s assigned. It is entirely possible to assign BOTH Shooter AND FPS by simply entering “Shooter;FPS” (excluding the quotes). Again not stating there isn’t a potential improvement to be had with the OP request. Just would prefer to keep the misinformation to a minimum.

[famigami]

@Chris Kane Precisely, thats why I said it is unmangeable, Imagine having a list wither single possible combination of genre to have to filter through.

@christian You’re right, you can select multiple genres for a game (I didn’t say you couldn’t) but genres are not sub-genres (which is the point of what I said). A Shooter isn’t necessarily an FPS whereas an FPS can ONLY be a shooter.

I could consider an FPS as a genre regardless, but that would be inaccurate and pollute the genre field.

[Christian]

Issue #5641 was marked as a duplicate of this issue.