Launcher - an application launcher for Linux, Windows, and Xbox (Mac wanted!) - Breaking Windows: September 2006 Archives - polala.com

Hello,
I've working last few weeks on a plugin that is able to run windows or linux applications within the XBMC GUI.
The plugin has been tested and working under XBMC Atlantis Beta

Download Link:
http://xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/files/Launcher1.02.zip

Svn Access:
svn checkout http://xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ xbmc-launcher-read-only

Plugin Features:
- Run an application with arguments.
- Run a file from directory using given application.
- Search & Download images for applications and files using Yahoo search engine.
- Full work with the GUI with. (add application, remove, add files, etc..)

Installation:
1. unzip the file into Plugins/Program directory.
2. (linux users only): create a symlink for /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 named /usr/lib/libcurl.so (run: "sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 /usr/lib/libcurl.so" in terminal)
3. Run XBMC:
3.1. Switch to MC360 Skin (or some other skin that has "Programs" Section)
3.2. Go to Games -> Applications -> Add Source -> Browse -> Program Plugins
3.3. Select Launcher and Click "OK"
3.4. Click OK Again.
3.5. Right Click on "Launcher" Icon
3.6. Choose "Add to Favorites"
3.7. Switch back to PMIII Skin.
3.8. Click on the Arrow in the bottom right corner
3.9. Choose "Launcher"

Breaking Windows: September 2006 Archives::
Forza for the Xbox was one of my favorite games for that system, . have a section for "Computer Talk" and have Windows and Linux, but nothing for Mac OS.
http://breakingwindows.com/2006/09/HOME

10 Apps Every New Mac User Should Download - PaulStamatiou.com::
windows media player is the worst app for mac i have ever seen starting with . Quicksilver, yep thats a great app launcher. TextWrangler - Use Textmate
http://paulstamatiou.com/2005/12/19/10-apps-every-new-mac-user-should-downloadHOME

Known Bugs
1. Got stuck if no images were found on Yahoo service.
2. (Windows Only) Minimizing and not maximizing back the XBMC after program finished.
3. Need to exit & re-enter directory to see changes (like adding & removing files)

I'll be happy to get feedback about it, you may also open bugs in :
http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-launcher/issues/list

Enjoy.
leo

http://xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/files/screenshot000.PNG
http://xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/files/screenshot001.PNG

oh my god, its cApS sEnSiTiVe!!
Well, I still get an error tho when I try to run a game. VBA opens then returns an error window with "Unsupported file type X:EmulatorsGBA"
I realized that my folder is names "GBA ROMS" so it must be confused by the space. I changed it to "GBA_ROMS" and got the error again, but this time it was in the file's name. So apparently the LAUNCHER can't handle spaces. I gotta tell you, it's hard to conceive editing so many ROMs. This doesn't even include my NES, SNES and Sega emus.
I would love to see some thumbs support in this script, but I think it's a long way off. Sorry for the confusion with the earlier posts.
PS; what is the format for multiple extensions? GBA, VBA or GBA; VBA or Do I only get one at a time?

what platform is that link to?

@micster: Thanks, I'll try modifying those files.

I have another problem: the launcher doesn't launch roms who have spaces in the name.
I tried with zsnes for windows and snes9x for windows, both have the same problem.
If I try to launch a "D:zsneswromsRom.smc" it works, with a "D:zsneswromsRom Name.smc" it opens the emulator but the rom isn't executed.
The same thing happens with the GBA emulator, but this time it gives me an error message: "Unsupported file type: D:VisualBoyGBARom", notice the "Rom Name.gba" has been truncated.
It is as if the " before and after the filename (with full path) is not used.

I don't know python, so I can't properly debug to understand what's going on.
Any suggestion?

Thanks for your testing and the feedback.
I notice the problem with the images , but didn't successes to understand when it happens.
I will be looking forward your detailed diagnostic in order to fix the other problems.

@leo2 & darxide:
Using the latest XBMC version it works as intended, without quotes in the xml file!
Not only that, but they solved the non-working windows network browsing.

Awesome I'm glad to hear. That issue drove me nuts having one symptom on one pc and not the other. I now have 90% of my emulators working from launcher so, soon won't have to exit XBMC to launch anything.

On a side note if

I know you never intended for it to work on Xbox, just reporting it that it indeed for me at least does not work. Reports a network error. :) Great plugin however, I'm sure it will be extremely easy to use.

Wait, I don't think I understand the install process.
Firstly. Do I need to copy (from the zip) the Launcher folder and rename it for every program I wanna launch? I tried to set one up, decided it was wrong (as it failed to work) and then when I deleted the source and tried to add a new one it kept taking me to a folder instead of asking me the next question it had before (the folder was titled same as the program i'd just tried to set up).

I am also getting a bit confused by the install instructions.

Installation:
1. unzip the file into Plugins/Program directory. Should I rename it for every program?
2. (linux users only): create a symlink for /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 named /usr/lib/libcurl.so (run: "sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 /usr/lib/libcurl.so" in terminal) Windows
3. Run XBMC:
3.1. Switch to MC360 Skin (or some other skin that has "Programs" Section) Using Project Mayhem
3.2. Go to Games -> Applications -> Add Source -> Browse -> Program Plugins Programs is on main page
3.3. Select Launcher and Click "OK" I did this before and was asked to select 1 or 2 options, they were something like standalone program and file launcher (don't remember the words off-handHere's where the new problem begins. Instead of getting the 2 options I now get the screen linked below.
3.4. Click OK Again. At this point I was confused and on my own as now it started asking me to link the program to launch and associate file extensions.
3.5. Right Click on "Launcher" Icon
3.6. Choose "Add to Favorites"
3.7. Switch back to PMIII Skin.
3.8. Click on the Arrow in the bottom right corner
3.9. Choose "Launcher"
I went thru it all, it seemed to be working out despite the confusion. Finished. Clicked. A window comes up asking if it should import or search for files in the directory, i said 'no', nothing happens. Just backs out of the operation I guessed. I tried again, said 'yes', it scanned, said 0 files loaded and....I can't seem to remember what it did right there.
Point is that now I can't even try again cuz of whatever its showing below. I tried to copy over it. I tried to delete then re-copy it. It continues to be there in either case, so I'm stumped.

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/30/m_cb7342a8035f4a89a74fe6ce88c2477a.jpg (http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/30/l_cb7342a8035f4a89a74fe6ce88c2477a.jpg)

While I'm at it, I don't wanna start a new thread something so trivial; What the heck is this empty box for? The blue arrow opens it up but nothing's ever been there. Is that My Favorites list?
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/18/m_d4ba0dd304a34b8b975aeb921ad3496e.jpg (http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/18/l_d4ba0dd304a34b8b975aeb921ad3496e.jpg)

no idea if this is possible, but it would rock if
the launcher would set xbmc into window-mode
before launching the application and set it back to
fullscreenmode when the launched program is quit.

the reason is, that almost every application can't open
in fullscreenmode when xbmc is already in fullcreen.
(in fact xbmc does switch to windowmode this way too,
but too late - means after the applications has launched
or after it quits, one of both)
it works fine when you switch xbmc to window
before launching.

i found two threads which are about similar problems
( though i don't have dual-monitor here, but use
"1920x1080" nvidia 8500-GT):
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37377
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=36305
so it seems thats it is a problem in sdl.

edit:
btw gentoo, i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ AuthenticAMD here

Got my thumbnails to load up automatically, but it's an ugly hack. I changed this code on line #434 of launcher_plugin.py
romdata["thumb"] = ""
to this
romdata["thumb"] = 'E:\Emulators\zsnexbox\artwork\Shots 1\' + romname + '.png'
Which because I have thumbnails for all of my ROMs, I basically hardcoded the path to those images once in this part of the script so I wouldn't have to write it 500 times by hand in Launchers.xml

It would be better if it would just grab the path that we've assigned from settings.xml and only write the path if the image exist in that location. That's probably the way you have it setup already, but I was getting blank thumbnails.

I've working last few weeks on a plugin that is able to run windows or linux applications within the XBMC GUI.
The plugin has been tested and working under:
Windows XP - XBMC Rev14676
Ubuntu 8.04 - XBMC Rev14725is it backwards compatible with XBMC for Xbox as well?

???

well in rev 14 it seems to be working great. I am assuming that it was the issue with the quotation marks.

Thanks for the great app and support.

@amducious:

Event Ghost is a great way to do any kind of cause -> effect system commands, such as closing XBMC when a different program is launched. It's very easy to use and it has amazing potential.

Maybe it's a noob question, but,...
It's possible to use 2 instances of this plugin, one for apps, and the other one for games&emulation ?
how it can be done?
I don't think so, because the launcher files and the settings file is stored in one place, so even if you'll create two instances there will be exactly the same.
but there may be a way - create two users in XBMC and switch between them as necessary, in that case i think each one of the users will have separated settings.

any way of linking launcher to the games,app menu

Answer is... yes. Next question please.

Hahaha okay not so funny. I did this with the Aeon Project skin, but that skin is very messy so I don't think that is the *normal way of doing it. What I had to do was find where in the .xml code of my skin was the code/link for the menu items. Once you find that you can modify a working menu item to go wherever you want, like a favorite or Source location.

I think there is more detailed information in the wiki on doing this. When I get more time I will retrace my steps and jot down how I did it for the Aeon skin which might help or not.

-Mic

micster, can you send a screenshot of the integration of Launcher with Aeon?
Sure, I was planning on creating a video once I got everything dialed in. The background images actually rotate and they are not all Halo images, I just used those because they match. I'm still having trouble getting Aeon to execute Launcher everytime. Sometimes it just hangs and never launches. I think this is a problem with the way I'm linking to Launcher from the Homescroller in Aeon.

Home Page
http://www.cybercoalition.com/images/home.jpg

Launcher after clicking "Arcade" above
http://www.cybercoalition.com/images/Launcher.jpg

My Super NES Emulator with ROMs
http://www.cybercoalition.com/images/zsnexbox.jpg

-Mic

Leo, Is there any way for you to add an option to put the between the executable path and the rom path? My sega Genisis emulator won't load roms because of that. The emu starts but the rom doesn't load.

It also does appear that elspero is correct too. (atleast in my case) with FCE it will load testme.nes fine but
test me.nes does not start the rom. the emu does open however.

Obviously I was wrong in the above post. because once I tried the same thing on my second pc it works fine. I have no idea whats different. the paths are the same and everything. Im gonna poke around and try to figure out.

I am on latest SVN of linuxport and cannot get this running. It looks like most of the people here are on windows, is linux supported? This is what i tried:

I grabbed the latest launcher from svn put it in /.xbmc/plugins/programs/Launcher
Here's where I got lost:
3.2. Go to Games -> Applications -> Add Source -> Browse -> Program Plugins
There is no Games menu in the linuxport. I enabled the programs menu, but I dont think its implemented yet. I added /.xbmc/plugins/programs/Launcher as a source but it just kept browsing through directorys, the .py scripts were nowhere to be seen. I also tried to create a symlink under /.xbmc/scripts/My Scripts/ to the Launcher folder above. Launcher shows up under scripts now, but it runs for a second and stops. Debug info shows:

File "/home/trevor/.xbmc/scripts/My Scripts/Launcher/default.py", Line 20, in ?
plugin.Main()
File "/home/trevor/.xbmc/scripts/My Scripts/Launcher/resources/lib/launcher_plugin.py", Line 67, in __init__self._handle = int(sys.argv[ 1 ])
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'argv'

am i missing something?

hi!

regarding emulator/rom it maybe would be a nice feature to have the
option to re-scan the rom-directory. So when you add some roms
to an emulator you could easily add them by right-click/re-scan roms
or similar. just an idea - no idea what trouble it would be to implement this.
pm3.hd compatibility would rock too :)

already implemented:
Right Click (Context Menu) -> Import files from path

I would like to confirm that this does work with Vista 32 too. Where are the thumbs stored at? I would like to change one of them manually.

Unfortunately rev 14 is still not working for me, I can't launch roms with spaces in the name...

Thank you leo2. Thats kind of what I thought. The workaround isnt a problem. If you need more Xbox testers I will ask a few people over at xbox scene to play with your script and test it out. Thanks for the script!
you welcome.

i am using windows xp sp3

launcher does run as it is supposed to until it is time to launch something the launcher popup window opens and then closes then it does nothing. however it doesn't freeze up

it wont launch anything whether it be a standalone prog or an emu with rom.

thanks for creating this plugin its much appreciated this version seems to work well very polished

for any one trying to get this to work on a newer build of XBMC that is fresh installed as opposed to upgraded. You will need manually create the programs folder in C:Program FilesXBMCplugins

ps dose this build work on xbox and will it be going in the plugin svn

Doh thank you working now.
I am using the mediastream skin any way of linking launcher to the games,app menu instead of having to start launcher. I have made it a fav but that is in system menu.

Hey Leo2,
I got your script running on my xbox! It is pretty awesome so I just wanted to thank you for your effort in this script.

If you wanna take a look at what I did and perhaps you might be able to integrate some fixes into the final version of this script... check my thread here: http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?p=220168#post220168

I don't really understand too much of what I did, it was mostly trial and error, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on better solutions :)

-Mic

micster, can you send a screenshot of the integration of Launcher with Aeon?

AndaleTheGreat,
The whole process of yours were wrong.
I'm sorry I didn't explain the process so well.

- The Launcher Plugin is capable to run many applications, so there is no need to replicate it and rename it.

- If you already has the Launcher plugin under programs, you do not need to do steps 3.1,3.2.3.3 and 3.4.

- once you have "Launcher" plugin in the Programs section, you can run it or add it to your favorites (using context-menu-> Add to Favorites)

- The first execution of the Plugin forces you to add an application to launch, you can add more applications later using context-menu -> Add new Launcher.
- The Scan of the files is used only on "File Launcher" applications.
you do not need to create a file launcher if you want to launch a single program without any parameters.

- If you'll create a file launcher, the scan process will add all of the files in a specific directory with specific extension to the list of the files that can be run with the launcher.
I'll give an example:
let's say I have an application called "C:MAMEMAME.EXE" that can launch some games called "puyo.zip", "bobble.zip", etc. in "c:mameroms" folder.
using arguments -joy for joystick control.

1. I'll create a file launcher.
2. Set the application to be "C:MAMEMAME.EXE"
3. Set the application arguments to be "-joy"
4. Set the file path to be "C:MAMEROMS"
5. Set the extension to be "zip"
6. Set the title to be "MAME"

When I'll click on the MAME launcher it will scan C:MAMEROMS folder and add all of the files named "*.zip" to the list.
When I'll choose one of the files, for example: puyo.zip from the list, it will launch:
"C:MAMEMAME.EXE" -joy "C:MAMEROMSpuyo.zip"

I hope this explanation is better.

Does this work with the latest version of XBMC? I couldn't get it to work. It just wants to browse the folder.

I'm running
kernel version: 1.0.4034.1
XBMC pre-2.1 (compiled July 28, 2008)

And it's working for me. Could you be a little more specific with your problem. If you can only browse for a file to launch, but never select a file it might be because the file type you are trying to launch is being filtered.

On my xbox I had this problem with the ver. 1.0 of this script because it was treating the xbox as a windows platform and only showing ".exe" or ".bat" files instead of ".xbe". Make sure your using the newest version 1.01 and be aware that there are a few minor kinks being worked out.

Ahhhhh Haaaaaaaa!

I fixed it. at least mine. The issue ended up being XBMC. elspero what version of XBMC are you using? I updated from beta 2 to svn 15900 and everything works! here is a link to the build I used.

XBMC SVN rev15900: http://www.mediafire.com/?nf4tfynmzcm
I guess it is lucky that I was having issues with high CPU when XBMC was Idle because that is where I found the link.

@leo2
Is there a way for launcher to somehow cross reference MAME Rom file names with the MAME .XML file? That way when scanning the roms directory it can display the actual games name as opposed to the crappy file name.

as for the above post, Im not sure but I think the xbox doesn't support DOS 8 Character format. so if I'm right there would have to be 2 versions of launcher.

Hey elspero,
I noticed that darxide was also on windows and having an issue with the quotations effecting his ROMs from launching. I would try and remove the Launcher plugin entirely and all of the files it generated in your "UserData" folder, then reinstall the newest version.
Done, it doesn't work.

If reinstalling the Launcher doesn't fix it, perhaps it has something to do with the way your emulator works and the ROMs it uses.
No, that's not the issue. It does it with every emulator. The only one I can see working without problems is MAME, because the roms don't have spaces in their name.

Windows needs quotes to make it work, example:
"D:zsneswzsnesw.exe D:zsneswGAMESRom Name.smc" would work

I am using the plugin in Windows XP. I use the Aeon skin, and I don't understand how do I add a thumbnail and a wallpaper to the games/programs, manually.
Can someone please help? Where do I put them? What format/extension?

Update: Ok, so I somehow managed to get it working putting a .jpg and .tbn file in the userdataThumbnailsPrograms folder.
But what about the custom wallpapers? (The so-called -fanart.jpg in Aeon)

Hi -

This is a much needed plugin for me - I really need to be able to launch my TV client (Beyond TV Link) from XBMC somehow, and this final integration step is all that I need to retire my MediaPortal configuration.

I am using Launcher 1.01 beta on XBMC for Windows (Atlantis) Beta 1. The TV client is launched like this:

EXE Path:

C:Program FilesSnapStream MediaBeyond TV LinkBTVD3DShell.exe

Command Line Arguments:

/networkclient:DVR /networkclientuser:user /networkclientpw

The app always starts in FS, and as it receives focus, overlays anything 'behind' it.

OK, so I setup Launcher as per instructions, added the program, and named it 'Watch TV'. The 'Wait for Application' setting is set to True. (It doesn't work if I disable this option).

The first time I select the option, BeyondTV executes, works fine, but then when I exit the program, the first time (only) XBMC window restores itself to full screen, but no keyboard input is recognized. It's as if focus is elsewhere. Pressing 'Alt-Tab' once brings focus back to XBMC, and keyboard input is recognized again.

The second time I select the option, BeyondTV executes, works fine, but when I exit the program, now XBMC does not restore itself to full screen at all. Basically, I just see the Windows desktop (XBMC is running, but minimized). By pressing 'Alt-Tab', XBMC restores itself to fullscreen and XBMC has focus again.

Therefore, the logic that (WISo?) put in there that watches for the child app to complete and then restore XBMC window/focus doesn't seem to be completely working.

Here is the log for the session I described above:

http://pastebin.com/m48e52fbe

Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

-m

what platform is that link to?

windows

sorry, only one extension is supported. please open an issue in:
http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-launcher/issues/list
and I'll try to add this ability.
as a workaround - you can create two launchers one for the .smc and one for the .zip

Thank you leo2. Thats kind of what I thought. The workaround isnt a problem. If you need more Xbox testers I will ask a few people over at xbox scene to play with your script and test it out. Thanks for the script!

is it backwards compatible with XBMC for Xbox as well?

???
don't know, don't have an xbox so I can't test it.

@leo2 & darxide:
Using the latest XBMC version it works as intended, without quotes in the xml file!
Not only that, but they solved the non-working windows network browsing.

Maybe it's a noob question, but,...
It's possible to use 2 instances of this plugin, one for apps, and the other one for games&emulation ?
how it can be done?

oh my god, its cApS sEnSiTiVe isn't it?

Thanks a lot for this, excellent work! I'm surprised more people haven't jumped on this.

I understand if this problem is going to have to wait. Personally I already have all of the thumbnails and being able to manually set them in the .xml file is nice. I'm still having trouble getting the thumbnails to show up automatically. They are named the same as the ROMs with a .png extension. After putting them all in the thumbnail folder before I scan for ROMs, I now get blank/missing thumbnail images where as before I was getting the default icon for my skin.

If I edit Launchers.xml by hand and specify the path to the thumbnails within the field (which are all blank to start with) then it shows up. Are the fields inside Launchers.xml suppose to be blank? I'm currently investigating how to get them to write the paths like the field does.
-Mic

I think I found the problem, fixed, now the automatic thumbnails are working under Windows too.
try the latest svn. (rev 14)

my first box is sp2 not sue of .net vers
this box is sp3 .net 3.5
32 bit on both

new to xbmc (windows) and want to run apps with it.
I put Launcher here C:Program FilesXBMCpluginsProgram directoryLauncher
But when in xbmc i try and open program plugins it comes up REMOTE SHARE
can not connect to network server. My network is fine and can get movie info ect what am i doing wrong

rv 12 refuses to work on my gentoo, too.

regarding my problem to launch apps in fullscreen (probably as xbmc occupies
mouse/keyboard when it's in fullscreen(?)) i did a somewhat dirty
workaround (in rv 11) which fixes the issue:
at the place where launcher executes the selected application in
launcher_plugin.py for linux (somewhere around line 170 and for emulators/roms at about 200)
i added the line
os.system("%s" % ('display -delay 1 /path/to/1x1.jpg &'))

which lets imagemagicks "display" show a 1x1 sized jpg for 1 sec
and forces xbmc to go into window mode.
the selected app launches in fullscreen then, as it should.

i tried with
wmctrl -x -r xbmc.bin.xbmc.bin -b toggle,fullscreen
before, which wasn't able to do this,
as it only works when xbmc is already in window mode.
ugly, but works for me.
maybe it helps someone else.

Is there a way to make this plugin close XBMC(windows) when it launches a program. I have no clue about programing and stuff like that so im completly lost when it comes to this. Thanks

I Probably don't get this..Tried to add a firefox script once and did it wrong.. Now when I try to add a launcher, I can't redo the firefox script..

browse -> Program Plugins -> Launcher -> Firefox Folder(???) -> Import Files From Path? ->

Yes -> Hangs on dialog "Loading Directory"
No -> Empty Directory

How can I make a new launcher and erase the "old" firefox settings? And another question, can I make multiple launchers?

just delete it, and recreate it.

I really appreciate the script, but I have one problem. After setting everything up, I go to select a program to be launched and the program is opened in the background instead of taking focus away from XBMC.

Hey Leo2,

I've been out of town for the last couple days and I just got back. I downloaded your revisions and just uploaded them straight over the old files.

Everything seemed to continue to work fine so I removed the current emulator that I had installed through the Launcher and added a new item to the Launcher.

It recognized my system as an xbox and displayed .xbe files :)
After I added my zsnexbox emulator and it's ROM path it seemed to fire up the first game I tested "Demolition Man".

I tried to change the thumbnail for the emulator, and the Yahoo! search came up. Certain images would only initiate the Launcher dialog window when I selected them, and after a few seconds the dialog would dissapear leaving me at the Yahoo! image search with 10 thumbnails to choose from still. I would press back and refresh the directory, but no change. This is new behavior that I didn't experience before your revision.

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment for Windows v6 Update 2 (freeware)::
The Java SE Runtime Environment contains the Java virtual machine, runtime class libraries, and Java application launcher that are necessary to run programs
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/desktop_software/other_tools/java_jre_win.cfm/v6_update_2HOME

Other images would save properly and kick me out to the main Launcher window, but after refreshing the directory would show no thumbnail at all. I noticed this happening with the old version of the script also. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the file names of thumbnails that Yahoo! finds because it doesn't seem to matter if they are .png or .jpg some simply work and others don't. It might be a cache issue with the xbox. Maybe related to the size of the image it's saving from Yahoo!?

After messing with the thumbnails for a bit, I tried to launch a different ROM, the "7th Saga" and this time my xbox just locked up. I rebooted and tried again and the same thing happened. I know for sure that this is a working ROM.

Sorry I haven't diagnosed these problems a little better, this is sort of just a first impression. I will play with it a little more this weekend and try and determine the cause of the problems a little more definitely.

Good job with the script so far!

already implemented:
Right Click (Context Menu) -> Import files from path

oh, must have missed that somehow. :o
thanks a lot leo2! please keep up this great plugin! :grin:

Ok, I found a solution, but I need someone to code it, because I can't understand how python works, lol.

The solution is simple: the filenames must be in DOS 8-characters format.
example:
If a rom is called "Wonderful Super World.smc", it should be renamed to: "WONDER~1.smc"
If I write that name in the launchers.xml file, it works, example:

Wonderful Super World.smc
D:zsneswROMSWONDER~1.smc

Of course it's not as simple as adding ~1 to a 6 characters filename.
If we have:
Wonderful Super World.smc
and
Wonderful Super World 2-incredible sequel.smc

in the same directory, then we will have:
WONDER~1.smc
WONDER~2.smc

What do we need? A command to extract the 8.3 filename from the fat.
From what I found on google you can do something like this in python:

import win32api
win32api.GetShortPathName('D:/folder/name of the file.ext')

As I said, I can't code in python, can anyone help?

I am unable to get svn rev 12 to launch anything. I can use ver 1.01 to work fine. any ideas why?

some of my Snes ROMS have the file extension .smc and .zip. Can I use both?

fixed in svn. enjoy.

Maybe it's a noob question, but,...
It's possible to use 2 instances of this plugin, one for apps, and the other one for games&emulation ?
how it can be done?

correct me if I'm wrong.
yes is the short answer.

to do so have a copy of launcher in the plugins folder and copy it and rename it to whatever you want (eg. apps or launcher1).Then you should be good, as long as the launchers.xml file doesn't save in the same location.

@micster: well, all those lines were already present in my Aeon installation, I added just the sources and activated the Arcade button from the Aeon menu.
But... the fanart is not showing, it shows only the wallpapers I put in the "Arcade Backgrounds" folder I created. Probably I'm trying to do something not supported by the skin, I'll search in other forum sections. Thanks

@leo2: So it is a known bug? Well, I guess I'll rename the files then. Thanks

awesome. this is much clearer now. tho i did (thru trials and tribulations) find out all this eventually. It just took awhile.
My only problem I still have is loading ROMs from XBMC if they've got a space, but that could be the emulator not understanding. I will try another emulator

is it possible to use this to launch movies from the main interface? I would love to be able to use xbmc as a front end, but currently I'm not too happy with xbmc for playing back HD content. Ideally, I'd like to be able to browse through media as I normally would, but have the option to launch movies in an alternate application (like media player classic).

I have set up the beta of launcher and it works great, but I can only use it to launch a preset file. Any ideas on how I could pass the file path and name to the launcher on the fly?

btw I think this feature should be a standard element of xbmc (as it is for media portal)and I don't understand why more people aren't interested in it!

launcher does run as it is supposed to until it is time to launch something the launcher popup window opens and then closes then it does nothing.
Okay that sounds exactly like what was happening to me on the xbox. Take a look at your Launcher.xml and see what info it has for each entry.

For me, each entry for all of my ROMs had quotation marks around them like this:
"E:EmulatorszsnexboxromsSecret Of Mana I.zip"I removed the quotes like thisE:EmulatorszsnexboxromsSecret Of Mana I.zip and now all of the ROMs load up and play. See my post a couple messages up. This might work different on Windows, I'm only testing on xbox.

-Mic

can you post the debug log please?

forget it. Now I get other results ;)
I get an exception after -> Scriptresult: Succes
in thread.cpp line 266: m_iLastTime = GetTickCount() * 10000;

Also the call stack doesn't show any unusal.

Weird is that if I click retry it works and shows the following output:
thread start, auto delete: 0
WindowHelper thread started
Python script stopped

Does it mean the first script stops after I started a new thread?
Dunno have to sleep some nigths over it :rolleyes:

Thanks Leo,
It was tricky getting Aeon to display all of the correct headings and images for each section. Unfortunately it doesn't change the background wallpaper art when you select a new ROM. It does do that for my movies though, so I suppose it would be possible to include a "fanart" image but I'm not too interested in this because I really like the default behavior.

I especially like the way that Aeon only displays one thumbnail at a time and it's really big with transparency along the edge. The problem is that it does not support wide thumbnails, so most of my boxart looks squished. I was planning on creating new thumbnails like I did for my "7th Saga" ROM in the example above with the original box art on top with an animated gif below so that the whole thumbnail is the proper aspect ratio. Alas, XBMC support for animated images or video thumbnails is kinda limited. It's still possible but rather time consuming.

Here is a little more info on how I have Aeon set up. I create a folder for each of my media categories (Arcade, Movies, Comics, Music, etc.) and only load it up with the images I want. Aeon by default will fade between whatever images it finds in that folder. It would probably be a little cooler if I only included background wallpapers of media I actually have, so when you go into my SNES Arcade you would only see giant images of Nintendo games like Zelda and Mario.

By the way thanks for adding those fixes into SVN. I will download the latest and give it a go when I get a chance.

2. There is not quotations in the latest version of Lanucher.
I noticed that the individual Launcher items work, like the link for my zsnexbox emulator and it has no quotes within Launcher.xml but the individual ROMs fail to launch. Editing the following code seems to solve the problem.

Line #433 of launcher_plugin.pyromdata["filename"] = '"' + fullname + '"'to this romdata["filename"] = fullname

They are stored into the directory you specify within settings.xml

To anyone who is interested, I got Aeon Skin to execute Launcher reliably from the navbar. Instead of trying to link directly to Launcher, I have my "Arcade" button link to MyPrograms/Applications. I navigate to Launcher just once and then it remembers for everytime after that.

This probably wouldn't work if you had more applications that you were trying to link to from the home navbar. But with Launcher, who needs any other apps?

Here's the new code for Homescrollers.xml

ARCADE
Skin.SetBool(programarcade)
Skin.Reset(programapps)
Skin.Reset(programgames)
XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyPrograms)
Skin.HasSetting(arcade)

i'll have a play with your patch, thanks.

The Games menu has nothing to do with the platform (Linux, Windows, or Xbox) it is something that is defined in the MC360 skin. Be sure you follow these instructions that were posted on page 1. Especially the linux specific command line stuff.

Be sure to follow each step when setting up a new Launch item. For example:
For emulator you

navigate to emulator executable
define arguments (or leave blank)
set the extension type (.zip .smc .nes) for the ROMs
Define the directory for the ROMS
Give the emulator a name
Maybe it got half way installed and choked, try reinstalling everything.

I'm not sure what your getting at here. I created the symlinks as stated in the first post but I cant even start the script. The programs menu wont find any .py files to execute, i can only run it through the scripts menu where it errors out.

Does this work with the latest version of XBMC? I couldn't get it to work. It just wants to browse the folder.

thanks, I'll try to insert your changes into the main version.

micster, the AEON skin integration looks great.
did you connect the background image to the selected rom? if so, how?

it's not a script! it's a plugin.
you should add "Launcher" as source in the "Programs" section.
the "Programs" section is available in MCE360 skin under the name "Games"

ps dose this build work on xbox

maybe, I didn't have an xbox to try it on.
it should.

and will it be going in the plugin svn

depends on the xbmc team.

1. I known that thumb search is stuck for some images, don't know why. I didn't see any error messages in the log files - only a message "script stopped". I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the usock.read() function. don't know how to solve it.
I know we have already talked about this, but the recent changes seem to be worse on the xbox. Last month when I would search for thumbnails, only some would not work and they would not lock the xbox, they would just fail to get written and saved. Now it seems that every image from the Yahoo! search is effected and now if I choose one, the xbox locks up with the "saving progress" dialog box up.

Perhaps it's just my xbox that has gotten worse. I noticed a bunch of memory leaks in my logs that didn't use to be there (those are bad right?) and I'm thinking that might be why the xbox is freezing up.

I understand if this problem is going to have to wait. Personally I already have all of the thumbnails and being able to manually set them in the .xml file is nice. I'm still having trouble getting the thumbnails to show up automatically. They are named the same as the ROMs with a .png extension. After putting them all in the thumbnail folder before I scan for ROMs, I now get blank/missing thumbnail images where as before I was getting the default icon for my skin.

If I edit Launchers.xml by hand and specify the path to the thumbnails within the field (which are all blank to start with) then it shows up. Are the fields inside Launchers.xml suppose to be blank? I'm currently investigating how to get them to write the paths like the field does.

-Mic

I am unable to get svn rev 12 to launch anything. I can use ver 1.01 to work fine. any ideas why?

can you explain more? maybe can you send the xbmc.log output?

The first time I select the option, BeyondTV executes, works fine, but then when I exit the program, the first time (only) XBMC window restores itself to full screen, but no keyboard input is recognized. It's as if focus is elsewhere. Pressing 'Alt-Tab' once brings focus back to XBMC, and keyboard input is recognized again.

This one is fixed in svn.

The second time I select the option, BeyondTV executes, works fine, but when I exit the program, now XBMC does not restore itself to full screen at all. Basically, I just see the Windows desktop (XBMC is running, but minimized). By pressing 'Alt-Tab', XBMC restores itself to fullscreen and XBMC has focus again.

I got an exception when starting the script again but when I click it away it proceeds. The error message in the debug log spits out some python errors so this issue could be also somewhere in the script or the python implementation.

Let me try and clear a few things up for you, starting with the easiest...
What the heck is this empty box for? The blue arrow opens it up but nothing's ever been there. Is that My Favorites list?
Yes, that is what your favorites looks like with the PMIII skin. I don't use that skin, but somehow you can add favorites and they will show up there. That's why the instructions say use the 360 skin. Download and use that skin to add the "Launcher" to your programs. Then switch back to whatever skin you want.

I did this before and was asked to select 1 or 2 options, they were something like standalone program and file launcher
The two types are "Standalone (normal PC executable)" and "File launcher (e.g. game emulator)" For emulators, select the second choice. You should be prompted to "Select the launcher application" so browse for your emulators .exe on Windows or .xbe on Xbox.

You can leave the first question "Application arguments" blank if you have none. Be sure to answer the second question "files path" and point that to the folder you keep your ROMs in.

The third question "set the files extension" is the extension of all the files sitting in your ROMs folder. I use zsnes and all of my ROMs are in .zip archives which contain .smc files so I enter ".zip" for extension.

Give your newly created "Launch Item" a name like "Super Nintendo" in my case. You need to refresh that directory to see it. Upon entering my "Super Nintendo" folder/launch item, I will be asked to import from the file path... answer YES. It should read in all of your ROMs from the ROM folder you specified earlier.

I wonder, do I have to set up Launcher repeatedly
No. You set up the launcher once so you can run it easily from the programs/favorites menu. Then you run the "Launcher" plugin and from within Launcher you can add multiple launch items (emulators and such). Then whenever you run Launcher you are greeted with a nice list of all of your emulators, which when selected show nice lists of all your ROMs.

So apparently the LAUNCHER can't handle spaces.
My emulator, zsnexbox is located here
E:Emulatorszsnexboxdefault.xbeno spaces, but many of my ROMs do have spaces
E:Emulatorszsnexboxroms7th Saga.zip so I'm pretty sure spaces are okay.

Found the thumbs. Thanks.

If it's as simple as the Windows version needing quotes to work, then perhaps Leo2 could just add another "If statement" and check if we are using windows use quotes and if xbox don't use quotes.

What about this?
I tried to System.Exec in many variations but none of them worked.
I guess you'll have to use filenames without spaces.
perhaps someone from XBMC guys will be able to fix System.Exec to support quotations to separate arguments.

I'm not sure what's going on, when I get a chance I'll fire up my Windows installation and see if my ROMs play with the current version of Launcher.

I have no idea whats different. the paths are the same and everything. Im gonna poke around and try to figure out.

I am using a fresh-installed 32bit Win XP Pro SP2 + updates (including .NET 2.0), ntfs formatted partitions,what's your configuration?

Ok, I may have caused the problem myself. I keep forgetting that it's not windows and (at least in Project Mayhem) Anything that you mouse over becomes highlighted and is what you will be selecting when you hit ok. But I still am having some trouble figuring it out. I see I don't need multiple folders renamed (didn't seem right anyways) but I wonder, do I have to set up Launcher repeatedly (so it appears many times in the programs folder as a source) or can i set it once and add multiple programs inside it after I select the Launcher Source? It seems like the latter should be true but I couldn't seem to get it to do that. I keep trying for that one. That's not that big an issue.
My big issue is setting up my emulator. I select my executable, I need no parameters, it asks for the 'files path' which i assume is my ROMs. When it says 'set the file extension I hit another roadblock. What is my format here? I put 'gba' and it loaded 4 of about 1k, but '*.gba' loads nothing. Do I need to go thru and rename all my GBA files cuz at a thousand game files I think I can just use the file browser in VBA and launch this as an executable.

I noticed that the individual Launcher items work, like the link for my zsnexbox emulator and it has no quotes within Launcher.xml but the individual ROMs fail to launch. Editing the following code seems to solve the problem.

Line #433 of launcher_plugin.pyromdata["filename"] = '"' + fullname + '"'to this romdata["filename"] = fullname
you right. fixed. now it's on svn.

@Frank and @elspero
any way of linking launcher to the games,app menu
Maybe this will help you, maybe not.

But what about the custom wallpapers? (The so-called -fanart.jpg in Aeon)
After doing these changes all of my background wallpapers (fanart) magically work.

Here is how I got Launcher working with the Aeon skin and linked it to the navigation button "Arcade" on the home screen.

NOTE: I had to make edits to the .xml files that are part of the Aeon skin because they seemed to have typos/missing information. I also run into a problem every now and then where the skin locks up when trying to execute the Launcher from the home menu. I will keep working on this, but for now this should get you going in the right direction.

There are three files within the Aeon skin folder we need to check:

Reset.xml
Homescrollers.xml
Customization.xml

We also need to add the Launcher as a source, so lets start by editing sources.xml located in the UserData directory. At the very top of the file at line #2 I have my sources, make sure you have an entry for Arcade (It might be case sensitive).

D:
D:

C:
C:

Arcade
plugin://programs/Launcher/

Open up Reset.xml and edit the two sections "resetsettings" and "keepusersettings". I'm not sure what this does, but I think I needed to add a line of code to each section to get the skin to refresh my changes. Make sure the "resetsettings" section has a line that looks like this in it:Skin.SetString(arcadepath,Arcade)
and that the "keepusersettings" has a line that looks like this somewhere in it:Skin.SetString(arcadepath,Arcade)

Now lets check Customization.xml and make sure it has an entry for the Arcade button and source location. Depending on which version of Aeon you have, these variables jump around a bit and some were missing entirely. What I have is an entry for the button on line #283 that looks like this:

customsettingsbutton
Arcade (Emulation)
Skin.ToggleSetting(arcade)
Skin.HasSetting(arcade)

and an entry for the source location on line #354 that looks like this:

customsettingsbutton
Set Arcade Target (Current: $INFO[Skin.String(arcadepath)])
Skin.SetString(arcadepath)

After making these edits to the customization.xml navigate to that section within the Aeon skin on XBMC, it's called AEON ----> Home Shortcuts and make sure the radio next to Arcade (Emulation) is checked. Also verify that the target for the source is set to Arcade.

Finally, you might need to edit Homescrollers.xml around line #110 I have an entry for the Arcade button that looks like this:

ARCADE
Skin.SetBool(programarcade)
Skin.Reset(programapps)
Skin.Reset(programgames)
XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyPrograms)
Skin.HasSetting(arcade)

As a final note for getting the fanart to show up, make sure you have created a folder to put all of your various fanart images into. I created a folder called Backgroundswhich is located within UserData. I then created sub-folders within Backgrounds for each of my media sections: comics, games, movies, music, pictures, porn and tv.

Once you have those folders filled with your wallpapers/fanart navigate to the AEON ----> Backgrounds settings section within XBMC and set the folders for each of the sections listed. There should be a section for Arcade, but if there is not you can add it by editing Backgrounds.xml and adding this code:

0
0
1280
720
-
20000
2000
true
Skin.String(CustomArcadeFolder)
[Container(300).HasFocus(3) + Control.IsVisible(300)] + [!Player.HasMedia !Skin.HasSetting(Visualisation) !Skin.HasSetting(videohome)] + !Skin.HasSetting(CustomArcadeFolder)
[!Control.IsVisible(301) + !Control.IsVisible(302)]
!Control.IsVisible(87)
backgroundfade

Hope that helps,
Mic

http://xbmc-launcher.googlecode.com/files/Launcher1.01.zip

but tested only with windows & linux. I don't xbox, sorry.

I am unable to get svn rev 12 to launch anything. I can use ver 1.01 to work fine. any ideas why?

What platform are you using (Linux, Windows, Xbox)?
Does Launcher run at all? Can you load a program or emulator?
Is it just ROMs that won't launch?

-Mic

some of my Snes ROMS have the file extension .smc and .zip. Can I use both?

Im not too sure where the problem lies with the quotes and spaces. here's why

on my 2nd computer "work" (don't tell my boss) everything runs as it should with spaces and without quotes. I edit the launchers.xml file tto contain quotes around the rom paths that contain spaces and it fails to launch the rom.

on my HTPC however it is the oposite it will not launch roms with spaces in the name, even with quotes around the rom path. I have updated to sp3 and .net 3.5 just to make sure both boxed have a level playing field.

I am going to try to reinstall launcher from svn to see if that helps.

Eventghost ftw.

It's a godsend after the mess that girder was. If you don't like eventghost there is also HIP.

This one is fixed in svn.

I got an exception when starting the script again but when I click it away it proceeds. The error message in the debug log spits out some python errors so this issue could be also somewhere in the script or the python implementation.

WiSo (and leo2), thanks very much for your efforts here. In the meantime I developed a very ugly hack using AutoIt which basically runs the TV shell, and then afterwards looks for the XBMC window and brings it forward and gives it focus again. (aggh) Used in conjunction with the 'Wait' function in Launcher, it seems to do the trick quite nicely.

I will be looking forward to being able to get rid of this - and the noob question is whether SVN builds are available for Atlantis or not? If so, I'd be happy to retest, but am not sure I am so motivated/curious as to setup the dev/compile environment. ;^)

Now - in the area of further feature requests, it would be really kewl if Launcher provided the option to completely blank the screen when executing the program - it would get rid of the unsightly dialog box and the momentary view I get of the Windows desktop as the executable loads. It would seem to me that such a 'hook' would exist in the screensaver 'blank' routine ...

-m

some of my Snes ROMS have the file extension .smc and .zip. Can I use both?

sorry, only one extension is supported. please open an issue in:
http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-launcher/issues/list
and I'll try to add this ability.
as a workaround - you can create two launchers one for the .smc and one for the .zip

@Leo2

So I downloaded the latest version from SVN and ran into trouble on the xbox:

zsnexbox emulator ROMs failed to start
selecting a thumbnail from the Yahoo! search causes xbox to lock up

I was able to get the ROMs to play by editing the launchers.xml file and removing the quotations " " from the entries. I don't know if those are needed for it to work in Windows.

In regards to the thumbnail search crashing the xbox, here is a link to my log file: http://pastebin.com/m7f0866fc
Starting on line #392 is when I searched for the first thumbnail, I canceled out before selecting a thumbnail (no crash) and then navigated to a ROM and tried to apply a thumbnail to it around line #576 and that is when it locked up. I noticed a few memory leaks in the log, which I haven't seen before.

Finally, I had a feature request... I was wondering if it would be possible to search for thumbnails for the Emulators/ROMs when you first add them in case you already have the box art. I tried putting the thumbnails inside the ROMs folder, inside the Thumbnail folder, and even tried different naming conventions. It seems that the only way to get thumbnails to show up is if you manually add them to the launchers.xml file.

Keep up the good work!

-Mic

hi,
1. I known that thumb search is stuck for some images, don't know why. I didn't see any error messages in the log files - only a message "script stopped". I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the usock.read() function. don't know how to solve it.
2. There is not quotations in the latest version of Lanucher.
3. There is one simple conventions that the thumbs will show up without searching - you should create png or jpg file in the Thumbnails directory (use plugin settings to find out which directory is it) with the same name of the rom file. for example: if you have rom named aladdin.zip you should create a file named aladdin.jpg or aladdin.png in the Thumbnails folder. the plugin will search it there.

Unfortunately rev 14 is still not working for me, I can't launch roms with spaces in the name...
Hey elspero,
I noticed that darxide was also on windows and having an issue with the quotations effecting his ROMs from launching. I would try and remove the Launcher plugin entirely and all of the files it generated in your "UserData" folder, then reinstall the newest version.

If reinstalling the Launcher doesn't fix it, perhaps it has something to do with the way your emulator works and the ROMs it uses.

Try giving as much information about your setup and how it might be different from darxide's (whom seems to have it working).

-mic

"Programs" not "Program Dirctory"

The Games menu has nothing to do with the platform (Linux, Windows, or Xbox) it is something that is defined in the MC360 skin. Be sure you follow these instructions that were posted on page 1. Especially the linux specific command line stuff.
Installation:
1. unzip the file into Plugins/Program directory.
2. (linux users only): create a symlink for /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 named /usr/lib/libcurl.so (run: "sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 /usr/lib/libcurl.so" in terminal)
3. Run XBMC:
3.1. Switch to MC360 Skin (or some other skin that has "Programs" Section)
3.2. Go to Games -> Applications -> Add Source -> Browse -> Program Plugins
3.3. Select Launcher and Click "OK"
3.4. Click OK Again.
3.5. Right Click on "Launcher" Icon
3.6. Choose "Add to Favorites"
3.7. Switch back to PMIII Skin.
3.8. Click on the Arrow in the bottom right corner
3.9. Choose "Launcher"
Be sure to follow each step when setting up a new Launch item. For example:
For emulator you

navigate to emulator executable
define arguments (or leave blank)
set the extension type (.zip .smc .nes) for the ROMs
Define the directory for the ROMS
Give the emulator a name
Maybe it got half way installed and choked, try reinstalling everything.

Great plugin. Useful. I found a bug in xbmc code that prevents the ShellExecute function withing xbmc win32 code from sending long filenames. It strips the quotes from the parameters.

Your plugin should work with passing long filenames once the patch makes it into the SVN.

Heres the tracker: http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/5085