Using Media Portal as a Emulator Front End (1 Viewer)

[Lotus]

Hey guys, I am toying around with using MediaPortal as a frontend for emulators as none of them have an interface as nice as MediaPortal, but I am running into a few snags, so help me out if I can speed this up. I am going to presume you are familiar with a few random emulator tools, so bear with me.
First thing I did, was to run Goodname to clean up all my rom names and then I downloaded picture sets which share those file names (or are very close, sometimes the pictures don't include the country and such)
Now after I got them all cleaned up and properly organized, I went in to setup and added my emulator, I noticed that I am required to add the roms to launch (which is what I wanted) but is there anyway to add them automatically, like have it scan the whole directory and add the roms in, doing this by hand for a very large amount of games is going to take a very long time. Also can I have it automatically include the pictures, or do I have to do that by hand as well?

As a thought, this might make a great plugin as well, something that allows the user to automatically rename, sort and add pictures to their rom collection.

Anyways, let me know if I am missing something, or if I am doing it the only way it can be done.

 

[hakuna]

Ehhuhh, from the back of my head I think I setup a file extension for each emulator in MyEmulator setup, and then all rom:s were added automagically (or I had to press a button that scanned for non-listed roms).

 

[Lotus]

Well don't I feel stupid, I totally missed that plugin, I even checked that folder. Whoops, let's try it out and see if it does what I am looking for.

EDIT:
Ok a few problems with it, irst it doesn't load with the skin I use, second, it loads the pictures as games, so it's not gonna fly for what I need, though it does show potential, hopefully it can get imporved so that it allows for rom pictures and such.

 

[tomtom21000]

Lotus,

if emulators is one of your key aspects about mp you might want to check out the build-in "my programs" part. It has originally been developed for emulators and has a lot of great features. I think there is an extensive description about the features and how to set up my programs for the different emulators.

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/MediaPortalSetup_Plugins/MyPrograms

The my Emulator was originally introduced to be somewhat simpler in possibilities but easier to set up. I haven´t really followed the development, so probably it has become more complex, but with more features, too. So I can´t compare these.

tomtom

 

[Lotus]

Tomtom, looks like we have a winner, that guide really helped. My only issue there was some of my file names weren't perfect, but that is getting fixed as well. I found an Xbox site that has the pictures named properly for the box, and then you simply run a utlity to fix the rom names (it basically crops them) I haven't had the time to check this out entirely yet, but if it works, I'll make sure to post up a link so others can benefit as well.

Thanks,
Lotus