Archive:Games Library Ideas

Development article for Awen's Games Library concept (and other developers assisting him with this with project).

The source of this new concept

Many of these ideas started been discussed in these threads in the XBMC feature suggestions forum:

• http://forum.xbmc.org/tags.php?tag=games+library

Games Library Concept

To allow XBMC users to reference and play Games from their favorite front-end :)
Games may have various forms such as Emulated Roms, Standalone Executables, (XBMC plugins ?)...
The idea is not to compete with über roms integrators, but to offer a rich and detailed interface to play from XBMC.

Goals of the new Games Library

• 1) Tight integration
• 2) Detailed information
• 3) Smart behavior

Implementation ideas

Assembling the core in C++. Working on the integration between OS, XBMC, 3r party application concerning games.

But using scripts wherever they could be, such as to handle application settings, roms scanning, and information scraping.

Features List

This is what we want to achieve

• Python Integration: scrapers and all
• Dedicated GUIs
• Consistency with the other XBMC Libraries Modes (videos, music, etc.)
• Platform Portability
• Game Information Dialog
• Emphasis on Immersion
  • Soft transition between app contexts
  • Ambient sounds (skin dependant ?)
  • Detailed game description

And this is what needs to be done for :)
Product Backlog

• Better GUI: intermediary solution for settings and various record forms
  • Versatile solution inspired from plugin settings (0.2)
  • Record forms: executables, games, launching infos
  • Game Description über Panel (0.2)
  • Game Category Finalization
• Game Classification
  • Game Categories
  • 'Stand Alone' game support (0.2)
• Better Thumbnail Management
  • Analysis (0.2)
  • Animated thumbnails ?
  • Icons for Categories, and executables
  • Overlay support: rating
• External Execution
  • Analysis
  • Launching params and related options
  • XBMC related code (suspend-like)
• User Info
  • Analysis
  • Last Played
  • Most Played
  • Rating
  • Stats
  • Suggestion (=>dedicated scraping)
• Plugins Support
  • 'Support area' definition:
    • Application settings support
    • Game info scraping
    • Misce. utilities: roms scanning
  • Python bindings
    • 'Plugins' Field on the 1st Game Menu Page
    • Contextual Plugin on Game Basis ('Get Info', 'Get Rom' ;))
  • Native C++ History.dat support as plugin testbed (0.2)
• Database
  • Record/SQL implementation
    • User Info
    • Thumbnails
    • Launching cmd line/options
    • Game description/fields
  • Auto rebuilding, at least for roms (is that a good idea ?)
  • Better Record class: ease of use.

Obtaining metadata

project 'scrapers friendly' + use of dedicated community files (like mame's history.dat)