Another frontend! Why?!
Quite simply, because the one's out there didn't fulfill my needs, so I created one that does (or will. [eventually.]).
What it does (right now):
What it will do (soonish):
What is planned (in approximate order of priority):
Sound's good, want to give it a try? Download the latest beta from the release page.
Installation is as easy as unpacking the .zip to the desired location and running EmuBoxFE.exe. The configuration screen will display on first run, so input your paths, press the scan button, tweak if you want to tweak, and that's it!
Other links
http://www.emubox.io/ is the official project site, if you want to stare at a logo and a download link.
https://github.com/LukeMcDonnell/EmuBoxFE is the github repo. If you'd like to get involved, there will be more info on installing and setting up the project dev environment soon, or feel free to contact me.
Feel free to drop any thoughts, bug reports, or feature requests, either in this thread, on the github repo or via PM.
Quite simply, because the one's out there didn't fulfill my needs, so I created one that does (or will. [eventually.]).
What it does (right now):
- EmuBox is Hyperspin compatible. You point it to your HyperSpin and RocketLauncher install directories, push a button, and all your systems, games, themes and videos will show up and launch (via rocketlauncher) just as they do in HS (mostly).
- EmuBox will also pull your launch statistics from RocketLauncher to create both global and system specific 'recently played' and 'most played' lists.
- EmuBox connects to online databases (currently just GamesDB.com but more will come) to grab meta data for games and systems in your library.
- EmuBox extends the genre system of Hyperspin to allow selecting multiple genres from either a specific system or from the global game list.
- EmuBox is designed from the ground up to be skinnable. Sure it's great that you can load the aeon nox theme and view it like in hyperspin. But the possibility is there to recreate the skin, in native resolution with dynamic content and multiple views.
- EmuBox features full global lists. Want to view every game in your library, in one list? Why not. Want to filter it to just your favourites, or a specific genre, or your most played games? Sure, probably a good idea.
- EmuBox doesn't alter any data in your hyperspin or rocketlauncher directories. I know you put a ton of time into your setup, and I wouldn't dare risk that by messing around in there.
- EmuBox is beta software. Alpha, really... no lets go with beta. It will have bugs. It will glitch. It will (probably) break.
- EmuBox is free and open source!
What it will do (soonish):
- Global search is coming. As soon as I have a decent solution for an onscreen keyboard.
- Better interface control, including a fullscreen toggle button that actually works!
- Better gamepad customization. Currently, it's setup for a xbox 360 pad and is not configurable. That will change soon. (Keyboard controls are configurable, however)
- Better resource management when launching games. The frontend will go into a low resource state while in game, freeing up resources for the emulator, then relaunch to the same state upon completion.
What is planned (in approximate order of priority):
- A Collections system. Create your own, share them online, import from others. All from within the EmuBox ui. Collections will be either system specific, or global. Examples: "Mario's greatest hits" "Best Gamecube sports games" "Top ten grossing Arcade games" "Some Old Magazine's top 20 snes games of 1993" you get the idea.
- A full rom scanning and matching system using hashes, filename lookup and fuzzymatch. For those who won't be transitioning from Hyperspin.
- Full media scan and download capabilities. I hope to use the HyperBase Live public api for this. Download the app > set your paths > enter your HS login credentials and let EmuBox do all the work. The dream.
- A recommendation engine. If people don't mind sending anonymous usage stats back to a server, it would be fairly trivial to create a database of games "people like you" would like. Setting up global (as in world wide) lists for most played games, or trending games, or games that no one has played ever would be neat too.
- Full access to the core via an HTTP API. This means creating addons like a web remote, or a marquee display or virtually anything which needs to share data with the frontend.
- Much more...
Sound's good, want to give it a try? Download the latest beta from the release page.
Installation is as easy as unpacking the .zip to the desired location and running EmuBoxFE.exe. The configuration screen will display on first run, so input your paths, press the scan button, tweak if you want to tweak, and that's it!
Other links
http://www.emubox.io/ is the official project site, if you want to stare at a logo and a download link.
https://github.com/LukeMcDonnell/EmuBoxFE is the github repo. If you'd like to get involved, there will be more info on installing and setting up the project dev environment soon, or feel free to contact me.
Feel free to drop any thoughts, bug reports, or feature requests, either in this thread, on the github repo or via PM.
