Please add the “Bulk Edit Wizard” to the final page of the “Import Game from Files Wizard”

[Duncan]

The problem:

I am an archivist, but I want to have all of my collections represented via a launcher. I have chosen LB for this. This means I end up with things like 12,000+ non-duplicate NES titles for example. I separate these (in windows file explorer) into sub-folders. e.g. Beta, Europe, Hacks, Homebrew, Japan, Prototype, Revisions, Samples, Translations etc. I want this to be reflected in LB via whatever means is accurate. Regions is kind of accurate (except the 1000s of roms it misses that it doesnt know about).

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Possible (bad) solutions:

So I have been trying to find a way to do this for a couple months now and this. Some (awful) ways would be massively extending the launchbox game database. This is by far the most difficult option. Another is adding a sub-platform functionality to LB that would inherit, for example, all SNES directories (images, audio etc) while being able to have subsections within SNES, for like “Revisions” “Hacks” etc. so roms could be dragged directly to those subsections. The current system can almost do this, but the caveats are: you have to make an entire new platform, add it to retroarch (or whatever) and then youre stuck with a whole new folder directory system for images etc and this causes a huge mess and overlap of data. The issue with those two methods is I can imagine it would be a huge pain in the ass.

Best? Solution:

Please add the “Bulk Edit Wizard” to the final page of the “Import Game from Files Wizard”

See image for a visual of what it would look like. This would add a HUGE upgrade to initial asset organization while simply using existing code. From there everything can be done via Playlists without missing a single rom. Thanks for your consideration!

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[Christian]

Doing so at that place may not make the best sense because at that point we don’t know which games will or will not be successfully imported for various reasons. Also would be difficult to do that and allow users to edit multiple fields that way.

[Christian]

Is there a reason you find the following steps don’t work for the flow you are trying to achieve?

1. Import the games to the platform from one specific sub folder
2. Navigate to the platform in LaunchBox
3. Arrange By Date Added
4. Select all games added from that folder
5. Bulk Edit and change fields
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for any additional folder you need to import

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[Duncan]

Hi Christian, thanks for the response. As you pointed out, I suppose the import doesn't always import all roms and also alters directories and that seems like it would make this complicated.

Another idea before I get to your workflow: Possibly have a checkmark option on that last page to enable/disable having all roms that were imported selected? That way I could right-click and goto edit myself and it would edit the most recently imported roms.

The workflow you state is a good one that ill probably use until this gets improved (if ever). The only real minor issue is performance based as scrolling 1000s of files to get to the start of the most recent import batch can be rough even on mid-highend hardware. Is there anything the end-user can do pre-import to files to make this process easier?

[Christian]

Could do the following to make things a bit easier for you if you are having a hard time selecting the items in batches.

1. Import the games to a temporary platform named “SNES Beta ROMS” (or something similar). Do not bother pulling media during initial import
2. Navigate to the new platform
3. Select all (ctrl-a)
4. Bulk Edit all fields you want to edit
5. Bulk edit the platform of the ROMs to the correct platform (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)
6. Use Download Metadata/Media tool to download all required images

Doing things this way however CAN give you duplicate games, once done you would want to run the audit tool, sort by duplicates and combine games as you see fit.

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