Any tools/methods to scrape locally or customize media locations ?

Is there any tools or automated way to take pre-existing media, boxes, video snaps, banners, etc... to retrobat from other locations, or frontends?

I have all the media needed already organized from previous retrofe setups, and launchbox setups.

All I want to do is use local media for retrobat.   I'm aware of symbolic links, and editing manually with notepad.  But even then the process would be tedious and long for each platform/game.

I also have looked in to ARRM, but I have no idea if it can do such a task, as its functions are not well documented, and its interface is somewhat of a design nightmare.

Anyone successfully find a method for using pre-existing assets without manually editing XML's?

Thanks.

Hello

https://wiki.retrobat.org/navigation/scraping-and-metadata#using-local-media

"Hello"

I don't know whether the solution described here is the right one for me. I have a large rom collection on a NAS. Since I use different OS and Game Starter, I want to prevent the gamemedia files from being stored in the same directory as the roms, because the game starters differs in handling this files.

I would welcome a setting option like ES-DE, where the media files are in a separate, freely definable directory and it is not necessary for them to be linked in the gamelist.xml. The dir structur looks like:

Code:

downloaded_media
-- switch
---- thumb
---- marquee
---- image
---- video
-- nes
---- thumb
---- marquee
---- image
---- video

If the option described above is exactly that, I don't understand it. Where should this image directory be? And what is the structure underneath? Have I to remove the links in the gamelist.xml by myself or will they be ignored then? For me, that's the only thing that prevents RetroBat from being the perfect game starter.

Does no one have an answer for me?

Well... seems that you miss the principle of common courtesy...

BTW you got a link above. Could be interesting if you open it.
RetroBat isn't ES-DE. So if you want to store your medias elsewhere, you have to find a corresponding trick to do so, as RetroBat isn't developped in this way.

I didn't realize that you have to greet someone in every post. I had already introduced myself here in another post and also praised the software extensively. I'm also a big fan of RetroBat, but for a help forum to work more effectively, I think you should concentrate on the problem so that you don't have to read a lot of unnecessary text. Hence my direct approach. Sorry if anyone feels offended by this.

To your answer: I followed the link and as I wrote here, I never fully understood the functionality. Hence these follow-up questions. And I still don't fully understand it either.

And yes, I am aware that RetroBat is not ES-DE. However, it never hurts to look at the competition to see what they do differently. Because that could also be a good thing. In this case, it's the only feature that makes ES-DE better than RetroBat. Wouldn't it massively increase flexibility if the paths to the image files didn't have to be set in the gamelist.xml? I'm sure other users also have the problem that they have their roms on a NAS and use different systems to access them. If each software creates its own media files and sometimes uses the same gamelist.xml files and mutually corrupts the paths, then it is no longer usable.

Since RetroBat might already have implemented something like this and I just haven't found it, I wanted to ask here. If not, perhaps my wish could be included as a feature request, as I'm sure that several users would like to see this. My only concern is to help RetroBat become even better. In another thread, I was also asked by the developer what suggestions I had for improvements. This would be my only one, but it would also be very important to me.

I would like to thank you in advance for all your answers and hope for a constructive discussion.

Maybe not greetings at every post, but maybe one time could be a good thing, that not ask for a lot of effort. At least it's the only thing that we ask for. Each day when i came to work, i say hello to my colleague, even if i allready say it the day before. But your right, let's focus on the subject.

Actually, our ES version is looking to some predefine paths, that are coded in order to keep the 100% portability, but also due to an heritage from the original Retropie ES. Whereas the aim of the main dev is to keep this compatibility, some things haven't change.

What you can do is edit the gamelist to add the absolute path to the folder.
You can try also with third party software like ARRM.

If you can officially push your request, you better open an issue (of maybe look if one allready exist) on the github page of the project.

You are absolutely right that a certain friendliness is important, especially on the Internet. I'm sorry that I neglected that. I really appreciate your work, because as I said, I'm a big fan of RetroBat.

That's why it's important to me to continue improving this project. I will submit an official feature request as soon as I have time tonight. Thanks for the hint and the link. As I said, I wanted to ask if this feature already exists before I request something that already exists. I will give your suggestion a try. I also have an idea of my own that I would like to try. I can then post the results here so that others can perhaps also benefit from them or at least know that this way does not work.

You're warmly welcome to help improving the project. The RetroBat team is still a really little team.
I allready ear that kind of request from the past. Some because they are coming from other frontends where it's like that that they have learned, some other because it add some freedom by managing their asset as they want to.
So if a solution can be find, without breaking portability, but adding this possibility also for user to adapt according their need, for sure you'll find ears.

Sorry to be a little bit rude, but trying to help people everyday on free times for free, and see people acting like we are bots or as it's a due role... sometimes it's boring