Multiple artwork files/documents of one type for a game?

[Geronimo]

I've been looking through all available docs and the forum but couldn't find an answer to this question. Is it possible to have more than one artwork file/document of one type (screenshots, artwork, etc.) for a given game? Example: let's say i have "Silent Hill" (PSX) in my game list and would like to have multiple screenshots, cover art versions and disc scans displayed in GameEx. Is that possible, maybe by naming the files in a special way?

[Geronimo]

Sorry for double posting, but i'd like to bump this up and add some thoughts.

From what little experience i have in configuring GameEx, it seems it supports only one artwork/manual file per game. If this is true, may i suggest adding support for multiple files? I guess this could be implemented by checking the filenames for "grouping" files. For example: "<game_name>.jpg" (main/first file), "<game_name> 2.jpg" (2nd), "<game_name> 3.jpg" (3rd), and so on.

In the GUI, a nice blend/crossfade effect (maybe with a configurable delay) would look very cool i think. Another solution for displaying the artwork would be to show some kind of "marker" when more than one artwork file is available (like some sort of "plus" symbol or an arrow) and let the user switch the files manually.

Slightly off-topic in the context of this thread, but somehow connected: could you consider implementing a simple full-screen text viewer with controller support? I'm playing lots of retro games, and i'm occasionally making use of walkthroughs to get around annoying parts in a game. Most of these walkthroughs come as ASCII files. It would be nice to be able to view those in the GameEx GUI as part of a game's "artwork", and possibly during playing a game. With that kind of functionality we could access ASCII readme files etc. as well.

I'm not sure how a "view ASCII while a game/emulator is running" functionality could be implemented. In a perfect world i could hit a controller/keyboard combo which would bring up the viewer, and then return to the game/emulator to resume playing. If this is done multiple times the viewer would remember the position in the text it was at when last returning to the game.

Of course the ASCII files could be converted to PDF for viewing with the currently available functions, but it's a lot of work to convert everything and ASCII formatted for 80 chars per line looks downright ugly when converted to PDF.

[bkenobi]

Currently, GameEx can only display one image of a type for each game. Supporting multiple images in a way similar to what you have suggested has been requested in the past. I'm not sure if it's still in the features request thread, but you might consider checking. If it's not there anymore, it's definitely worth asking again!

[Geronimo]

OK, thanks for the info. I'll keep the feature requests thread in mind. Guess i'll collect more questions/requests before posting there (; .

How about that text viewer thingy? Any ideas/comments on that one?

[Tempest]

I believe that CPWizard has the ability to display multiple images much as you have described above. I think it would be most beneficial if you have 2 monitors though. You can also use Marquee Magician to display images, HiScores, and various statistics on a 2nd monitor. With Marquee Magician, you can also create composite images that you could display in GameEx. You may be able to export multiple images, and what not from CPWizard, but I've never tried it, I know you can export Cpanel images from CPW.

[Geronimo]

Back at working with my GameEx setup after a long pause, so please forgive me if I'm not up to speed (; .

Is it possible now to have GameEx show multiple files per artwork category? Specifically, I have "converted" a collection intended for another frontend to GameEx standards. The collection has a few games with more than one PDF manual in it (up to about 5 PDFs), all of which are relevant. I could of course combine the PDFs into a single file, but it would be much neater if GameEx would let me choose which PDF to view.

[Adultery]

You could always just use a custom artwork path in the emulator settings. These extra paths get whatever name you choose to give them, and support all the formats that GameEx does.

I know it's not a perfect solution, but it's a solution none the less.

[Geronimo]

As I wrote, I'm dealing with up to 5 or 6 PDFs per game, so using the extra paths is not a feasible workaround. I'd like to know if GameEx supports multiple artwork files per type now, and if not, if such a feature is planned.

[Adultery]

As I implied in my post, no it's not currently available.

I'm not aware of any plans to implement that feature, did you put in a feature request in the proper forum so the big guy sees it? I'm not sure how one could add that in, but maybe he'll think of something, or at least consider it.