[SOFT] Skraper

[Bkg2k]

After a long wait, Beta 6 is out!

Available here

Beta 6 is a "user-requested-features" release with tons of new options here and there to fine tune your scrapes.
This release also allow clean scraping of ScummVM and PC/DOS games using new System API extensions of ScreenScraper.fr
BTW, the initial DOS screenscraper database has been populated with the eXoDOS collections v3.1 (only RPG/Adventure/Strategy, since the last 2 packs v3.1 are not available yet)

Note: CD/DVD scraping is faster with the beta 6 (still slow anyway). Also, scraping through network shares (NAS, Recalbox share, ...) is faster & requires less I/Os.

Beta5's config files are still compatibles, but I would recommand to restart the Wizard and let your configuration taking advantage of ScrenScraper's new system properties.

[cotedeporc]

Hi,

I would like to thank you for your project. It's awesome and a good alternative to UXS from Screech.

I have one request:
could it be possible not to limit the media link to only image and video in the gamelists?

I explain:
In the Médias tab, you can add many medias to scrap but only the image and video ones are inserted in the gamelist.xml.
You have an option called "Lié à partir du noeud 'aucun'" but it's useless as no new item is inserted.
Could it be possible to configure it?

Thank you for your work!!

[sag508]

Problem with SCUMMVM...and maybe for PC games as well...

When trying to scrape SCUMMVM, it is recognizing all the ROM folders, including SCUMMVM folder, but does not see any games/roms. In my case, each one of my SCUMMVM games and all of their files are in subfolders. I am assuming that Skraper only checks for .scummvm files in the first level directory? Or am I doing something wrong?

[Bkg2k]

@sag508 : Starting from 2018 releases, Recalbox supports ScummVM games being identified by their root folders by adding .scummvm to the folder names.
In Skraper, the ScummVM identification requires both .scummvm extension: root folder + identification file.
This will change in next releases as soon as I have time to work on this.

For now, just add .scummvm to the folder names and it should work properly. Doing so will remove the root folders in EmulationStation and will run the game immediately instead of entering its root folder first.

[Bkg2k]

@cotedeporc : When I started Skraper, the very first interface allowed to enter manually XML nodes for every media. However, most people ignore the structure of gamelist.xml and just want to get their games scraped with 3 clicks. I had to find a more ergonomic way: full automatic, depending of the actual media support of the frontend.
Integrating custom xml nodes is planned anyway in expert mode, but I've a lot of other features to add before.

[Bkg2k]

Skraper Beta7 released.

• Improved wizard ergonomy
• Improved UI responsiveness while scraping from local cache
• improved internal 2-5 image mixes (default screenshot/box + text wheel)
• Added non-recalbox/retropie rom folder detection in the wizard
• Moved default gamelist creation mode from "Backup, then overwrite" to "Backup, then update"
• Unknown/Custom XML nodes in gamelist are loaded and saved unmodified and are no more removed.
• Systems are now sorted by folders.
• Portuguese translations updated
• Italien translations updated
• French translations updated
• Mixes long name displayed in media buttons intead of file name
• Optimized media deletion
• Added option "Use regions from filename when possible" in metadata tab
• Added warning when running a scrape with no system configured
• Added system reset to default settings (expert mode, misc tab)
• Added thumbnail for EmulationStation
• Added system medias in user mixes:
  • SystemBezel43
  • SystemBezel169
  • SystemWheel
  • SystemCarbonWheel
  • SystemSteelWheel
  • SystemMonochromeLogo
  • SystemIcon
  • SystemIconMini
  • SystemPhoto
  • SystemPicture
  • SystemControllerPhoto
  • SystemScreenMarquee
  • SystemWallPaper
• Added text capabilities in user mixes
  • Default mixes have a text fallback for wheels
• Added image color effect in user mixes: Black & White, Sepia & Green Gameboy
• Added Image distortion and projection in user mixes
  • Converted "Arcade Moon (Zoomed)" from UXS to Skraper format (thanks to Supernature2k from the Recalbox team)
  • Added "Arcade Sun", a new arcade-cabinet based mix with HD images
  • Added "Arcade Home", a new home-cabinet based mix with HD images
  • Added lots or demo and mixes you can freely modify to suit your needs
• Added Hashing cache for file larger than 20Mb (including files in archive). Rescrap your CD/DVD collection faster!
• Changed the internal Media flow to increase efficientcy and decrease required resources
  • Faster & requires less memory
  • Keep original image format (png/jpg)
• Fixed cache clearing for individual system
• Fixed write error while doing a full-cache scrape
• Fixed user mix file selector keep asking for JSON files
• Fixed bottom ProgressBars not reset after scraping
• Fixed image resizing in Media
• Fixed "scraping aborted" with no error when reading incorrect non-standard gamelist.xml
• Preliminar Linux/MacOS compatibility
  • This version SHOULD start working on Linux (Quickly tested) and MacOSX (Untested).
  • This must be considered as an ALPHA version for Linux, and I KNOW there are still graphic glitches & probably random crashes.
  • Anyway, you can report anomalies on ScreenScraper's Discord or IRC.
  • Mono 4.6.2 required, or WINE Mono with Framework 4.5 minimum installed.

---

https://www.skrapet.net

[cotedeporc]

Awesome!

One question: is it possible to retrieve the pictogram of the game type?
I see in your doc that you can display the nb player, etc.

Thx!

[Bkg2k]

@cotedeporc Not yet, but it can be added easily for the next beta

[cotedeporc]

@bkg2k
Argh! I can't wait for it!!! ;o)

It's the last thing I need to be able to rewrite my UXS mix....

Do you think it will be possible to obtain the different type? Like Plateform and Action for Aladdin on MegaDrive?

One last request: could it be possible to obtain the company logo?

[Bkg2k]

@cotedeporc I just discovered your two Themes. Very good work, I'll probably test them very soon.

Since I just start adding missing features to the "image composition" system, it's the right time to tell what you need.
Here is what's already planned (including your last requirements):

• Add game genre icons types (Genre1, Genre2, Genre3) working the same way than Region1 & Region2.
• Add Developer/Publisher logo.
• Add "ParentIn" in the children object to enable sub-objects to get the inner parent rectangle as the new reference. Useful when using Bezel/Overlays, otherwise the "ParentIn" is equal to "Parent".
• Add more variables in LocalFilePath. Currently it supports only %SYSTEM%. Adding %GENRE%, %PLAYERS%, %MINPLAYERS%, %MAXPLAYERS% or even %PUBLISHER% and %DEVELOPER% would give more freedom to play with customized images.
• Add conditions on min/max players.
• A "barrel effect" (moderated fish-eye effect) to give an image a nice old CRT screen b*mp & shape. Early tests show that screenshots fit nicely old srceens/TVs overlays like the one you used in the FoolScreen theme for the Atari ST

[cotedeporc]

@bkg2k

Just one request! ;o)

Can you make possible to choose, for the Genre, between PictoList and Picto Monochrome?
And the same for the company logo?

The next release is very promising!!

Thank you!

[Bkg2k]

@cotedeporc Yes, available in all versions.

[Bkg2k]

@cotedeporc You can visit the ScreenScraper's IRC channel where I make intermediate IRC-only releases, if you wanna test and help debugging the next Skraper

[cotedeporc]

@bkg2k

I will check that! Thx!

[Bkg2k]

Working symbiotically!

Starting from the Beta 7, Skraper silently (almost) adds two features that help the new Recalbox 18.06.27:

• <hash> are automatically inserted in gamelist.xml, for every game where it's possible (excluding, for now, DOS, ScummVM, Arcade). If you scrape with Skraper, it is not necessary to make Recalbox computing game hashes.
• Default configurations add 3D boxes in 300x200 max. in <thumbnail> tag to help Recalbox displaying folder contents faster. Restarting the Wizard or adding new medias to existing configurations will populate the <thumbnail> tag. If you configure it manually, it's strongly recommended to make Skraper resizing output images to a reasonable resolution (i.e. 300x250 max).

Next?

• Speed optimizations
• New mixes (PC-DOS, ZX-81)
• Improvements, new features and effects in user mixes, such as the CRT-b*mp effet:
  

[Sam Saju]

Hey there I am a user of Skraper but I use it for LaunchBox and since this is the only forum which had a topic for Skraper I figured it would be better to post here and so @Bkg2k could you assist me to use all 10 Work Engines or at least 2 work engines on Skraper because currently, only 1 is working and so scraping one of my the ROM collections I have takes around 8 Hours and I would honestly love Skraper even more if I were able to get the ROMS scraped in a lower amount of time

[screech]

Hi @Sam-Saju
if you want more 'thread' you need to help us on ScreenScraper DB
The easy way : give a little of your time filling the hole in the DB (Synopsys, media, info,...)
The money way : give some buck on Tipee or patreon

The soft and DB access is fully free, but to thanks our helper and donnator, we give them more "speed" and ressources from our server

And you can always come to see us here : https://www.screenscraper.fr/ Or on IRC
(there is a forum also where you can talk about Launchbox )

[Sam Saju]

Can you make a platform for Pokemon ROM hacks on screenscraper.fr because I don't see much stuff that you are missing in terms of media because you've done a pretty good job of getting well everything or I guess I could try to get the missing media for some FB Alpha titles and one more thing could you update SKraper to have FB Alpha scraped into FinalBurn Alpha instead of arcade or give us the option to customize where it should go because I just find pain trying to fix things after like it goes in arcade and the last thing I want to say is thank you for creating such a good scraper.

[BiZzAr721]

I originally was using Universal XML scraper until I came across Skraper beta (through screenscraper). I used it to supplement UXML, but I finally decided to make the switch to Skraper. Main reason is it scraped more reliable. I would be missing random boxart with UXML for example. I am impressed with the customizability, and the progress Skraper is making. Looking forward to DOS scraping!

Is there a thread dedicated Skraper forum for user contributed mix profiles (or Skraper in general)? I haven't been able to locate any except the small handful that's included with Skraper. I was trying to make one but I was having a very hard time not seeing the changes in real time, and I figured there must be some creative mixes out there.

[PlayingKarrde]

Hi there, really enjoying this scraper but I have a couple of requests. The first is allowing us to specify a custom gamelist node since it selects 'none' for anything that it doesn't recognise (which is nearly everything).

The other would be to add support for Pegasus Frontend. The details of this frontend's metadata can be found here: http://pegasus-frontend.org/docs/user-guide/meta-assets/

Thanks and keep up the great work!