03-16-2023, 04:38 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-31-2023, 03:43 AM by OneAngryGamer.)
I have been staying with Playnite 8 because of the changes in Playnite 9 that broke all existing themes and plugins. Now that the last P8 exclusive metadata plugin has a P10 alternative - thanks to Jeshibu - I have finally tested Playnite 10 for the first time.
Having created many extensions, some of which I have released publicly, I was interested to see that some of their features are now available in other P10 add-ons. For the record, I am not making accusations of plagiarism - I have created (unreleased) extensions where an equivalent is released later by another developer.
One of the extension features I worked on now has a built-in equivalent in Playnite - although with mixed success - more on that later.
I was also interested to see that developers are trying to work around the same issues that I encountered when I first started creating the One Ring Project. Some of the Playnite 9 changes appear to make these issues more difficult.
Impressions of P10 compared to P8 - Positive Changes
Positive Changes that could be improved
Change I Question
I do not want to criticize Playnite. Playnite is the best general game launcher/frontend. I know because a few years ago I tested many frontends before settling on Playnite. Some launchers have interface options that Playnite does not but it is still the best all-rounder.
For the first time I find myself questioning some of the design choices made in a Playnite update and I have been using Playnite since version 1.
Changes I wish P10 had
While there were many P8-P10 changes, I was more surprised at how little had changed.
I should not have been as I know that Crow is reluctant to add new fields. I do understand that stance - more fields means more to maintain and more cluttering of interface. There are good arguments for adding new fields - if add-on developers are repeatedly working around limitations by intentionally misusing existing fields or by storing data in Tags with custom prefixes then that is a good case for adding it as a standard field. If the data for the proposed new field is publicly available on game database websites then adding the new field would benefit metadata add-ons.
I am unable to use GitHub so I can not add these there.
Having created many extensions, some of which I have released publicly, I was interested to see that some of their features are now available in other P10 add-ons. For the record, I am not making accusations of plagiarism - I have created (unreleased) extensions where an equivalent is released later by another developer.
One of the extension features I worked on now has a built-in equivalent in Playnite - although with mixed success - more on that later.
I was also interested to see that developers are trying to work around the same issues that I encountered when I first started creating the One Ring Project. Some of the Playnite 9 changes appear to make these issues more difficult.
Impressions of P10 compared to P8 - Positive Changes
- database loads faster when opening Playnite
- ability to browse and download add-ons inside Playnite
- Separate log for extensions
- allow multiple values in field Series
- allow multiple values in field Age Ratings
- allow use of path variables in field Manual
- show dimensions when downloading images
- changes to Configure Emulators
- changes to PlayActions - in particular, alternate PlayActions can add to TimePlayed and this can be set on a case by case basis so that Custom Level Editors can be added as an alternate action without adding to TimePlayed
- new field - Game Install Size
- new variable - Emulator Directory
Positive Changes that could be improved
- UI Change - Details, Grid & List buttons - Quicker to access but they share the identical icon.
- new button - Install Size Calculate - This returns incorrect results for most games because it relies on the path in the installation folder and this is not correctly set. Further reading on this issue here
- Importing games now has built-in support for reading external data from ScummVM and PS3 roms. This is a welcome improvement but when I compared the import results with what I have been working on here & here - the P10 version is missing some features. I will go into details in their respective threads.
Change I Question
I do not want to criticize Playnite. Playnite is the best general game launcher/frontend. I know because a few years ago I tested many frontends before settling on Playnite. Some launchers have interface options that Playnite does not but it is still the best all-rounder.
For the first time I find myself questioning some of the design choices made in a Playnite update and I have been using Playnite since version 1.
- Default Platforms changed - Changes were necessary and I am pleased to see the removal of 'Various'. It does make it more difficult converting add-ons from 8 to 9/10. This appears to be a work in progress as there is now no standard Platform for Arcade games in P10. The P8 platforms carry over to P10 but how will their (now) non-standard platforms be treated when future changes are made to Platforms?
- Allow custom values in field Completion Status - This is good for users but will make it difficult for add-ons that use the Completion Status. This field did need more values but I wish that 3-4 new standard values had been decided on instead of allowing custom values.
- Removal of option to hide the 'Steam Friends' button - Why? UPDATE: resolved
- Allow multiple values in field Region - I can not think of a practical use for this change. Ensuring a single value for this field was useful for add-ons automatically downloading region specific box art for emulated games.
- Allow multiple values in field Platform - I can not think of a practical use that would require this change (Some software can have additional features on other platforms but this could be recorded in Features). This change makes add-on development more difficult.
Changes I wish P10 had
While there were many P8-P10 changes, I was more surprised at how little had changed.
I should not have been as I know that Crow is reluctant to add new fields. I do understand that stance - more fields means more to maintain and more cluttering of interface. There are good arguments for adding new fields - if add-on developers are repeatedly working around limitations by intentionally misusing existing fields or by storing data in Tags with custom prefixes then that is a good case for adding it as a standard field. If the data for the proposed new field is publicly available on game database websites then adding the new field would benefit metadata add-ons.
I am unable to use GitHub so I can not add these there.
- Time Played - The ranges feel too wide in the lower brackets. How many games have over 1000 hours? How many have between 10 to 100 hours? I propose replacing the 10 to 100 hours with smaller ranges based on community feedback.
- Implementation of automatic aspect ratio when viewing Grid View by Platform.
- Manual - does not have a button to select a file.
- Built-in support for multiple background images per game in Details view (rotate or random select each open)
- Importing games reads metadata for PS Vita roms
- Importing games reads metadata for Wii U roms
- New media options - Logo, BackCover, Spine, FrontCover, GamePlay, TitleScreen - This would allow for more creative custom themes. Metadata add-ons could download these images for older games from certain online databases. Some of these image types could be imported from the installations of certain emulators or launchers such as MAME and RetroArch.
- The ability to link directories to games would be useful for several different add-ons. I know of 3 add-ons that are trying to work around this limitation. One stores the locations in PlayAction, another uses Links and another uses an external XML file. UPDATE: I have since released Link Folders
- new field - Alt Title - This is useful for recording an alternate/region-specific title for a game. It would improve lookups for metadata add-ons when the main Title fails to return a match for a game. The data for this field could be downloaded from several online game databases. It could also be parsed from one of the major rom naming conventions e.g. 'romanized title ~ original language title'
- new field - Game Guide - clone of the Manual field. Guides can be purchased digitally or scans of old game guides can be downloaded from various websites.
- new field - Supported Languages - Currently there is no dedicated field to store this so it ends up recorded in Tags or misusing the Region field. The primary use of region is for rom versioning. Languages is applicable globally.
- new field - Franchise/License - Some sites store this data separate to Series but metadata add-ons have either to ignore it or include it in the Series field instead.
- new field - Installer Location
- new field (nice to have) - Game Engine - currently add-ons store in tags with custom prefix. UPDATE: changed mind. It doesn't need a separate field.
- new field (nice to have) - Purchase Price - If this ever gets implemented, I propose only allowing a single currency (the users local regional currency) to keep it simple.