Offline Descriptions [taken down]

[OneAngryGamer]

Disclaimer:
I created this extension some time ago for my own use. Most users will not need nor want this extension.

This is not recommended if you have:

• fast internet
  
• cheap internet
  
• stable internet (no dropouts)
  
• your Playnite always online
  
• limited storage on the drive containing your extension data path
  
• no interest in using Details view in Playnite
  

Using this will require:

1. sufficient storage capacity on the drive that contains your Extensions Data (to store the downloaded images)
   
2. patience (downloading thousands of images takes time. Also do not attempt to download all games at once - more on that below)
   

What this does:
Game descriptions can contain image links especially for descriptions from online stores. When your Playnite is offline, these descriptions will break (broken links instead of images) if the images have not been cached. This extension aims to address this problem.

This makes game descriptions fully offline by downloading their images and then editing the descriptions to redirect to these downloaded images.


Instructions for use (WARNING: READ THIS VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE USING)

1. After installing the extension, open the menu items (game menu > Offline Descriptions)
   
2. The first option will scan your entire game database to find any descriptions that contain online images. It will apply a tag to these games.
   
3. Use your filter to only show these tagged games
   
4. Select a small number of these filtered games to download their descriptions (For your first time, only download 1 game to demonstrate how long this is likely to take). WARNING: never attempt to download all games in one session. For two reasons. a) downloading images will take a long time to run (especially as your internet is most likely slow and/or unstable) and b) the more images that you download per hour from a website, the greater likelihood that you will be blocked.
   
5. Over several days repeat steps 2 to 4 until all descriptions are downloaded.
   

Known Issues (NOT caused by extension)

• Description contains black images = These are GIF files where their first frame is completely black. This issue is not caused by the extension. (You would get the same effect if your Playnite was online and you hadn't used the extension.) This can not be fixed as Playnite does not support GIF.
  
• The webstore contains animated images but these appear as still images when using Details view = Playnite does not animate GIFs so you only see the first frame as a static image. This issue is not caused by the extension. (You would get the same effect if your Playnite was online and you hadn't used the extension.) This can not be fixed as Playnite does not support GIF.
  
• The extension suddenly stopped downloading images = You are probably blocked by the website for exceeding their download limit. Change your VPN I.P. address or wait a day before retrying. To avoid this happening again, limit the number of descriptions you download per day.
  

(While you can not view animated GIFs in the description you can use the 'Open Offline folder for selected game' feature to open and view the downloaded GIFs)


Known Issues

1. (Minor/No fix yet) A game is tagged as needing description downloaded but all images were downloaded = Scan the database again. If this game is still tagged after the scan then it is probably because my RegEx is not perfect. (Out of several hundreds of descriptions tested, I have < 5 false positives)
   
2. (Minor/Unavoidable) Metadata plugins will always show that the game description is different to the store description after downloading description for game = This extension works by editing your Descriptions. If you update metadata for a game after downloading its description, it will not be obvious if the store has updated its description or not. (This is only an issue if you frequently refresh metadata) If you proceed to update the description, it will break the offline usage for this game. (It can be fixed by downloading the description again)
   

Theoretical Issues (Report if these ever occur)

1. Some images will not download = It is possible that the site is using an unsupported image format. (This release only supports jpg, gif and png files) Another possibility is that the store redirects their image links to another site. If any images will not download, post the details to this thread.
   
2. Image displayed is different to the image shown on the website = The extension stores images by their filename and skips images that have already been downloaded. This could be a problem if a page contains images linked from different sites that happen to share the same filename or if a page replaces an image with another of the same filename after you downloaded the description.
   

Compatibility: Due to the Great 8 Break, this add-on is not compatible with any version of Playnite after v8.15.

UPDATE: I have taken this extension down.

[darklinkpower]

your internet is expensive (save bandwidth by downloading images once instead of every time you view Details)

Game descriptions can contain image links especially for descriptions from online stores. When your Playnite is offline, these descriptions will break (broken links instead of images).

Just to clarify, this is not correct since it happens only if the description was added to the game but the images in the description have not been cacheed. When a game description is viewed Playnite downloads the images to its web cache and then it loads the image from disk this and other times the game is selected without needing to download again. The web cache is located in <PlayniteConfigDir>\Cache\Images

[OneAngryGamer]

your internet is expensive (save bandwidth by downloading images once instead of every time you view Details)

Game descriptions can contain image links especially for descriptions from online stores. When your Playnite is offline, these descriptions will break (broken links instead of images).

Just to clarify, this is not correct since it happens only if the description was added to the game but the images in the description have not been cacheed. When a game description is viewed Playnite downloads the images to its web cache and then it loads the image from disk this and other times the game is selected without needing to download again. The web cache is located in <PlayniteConfigDir>\Cache\Images

OK. I have taken the extension down.


Regarding the web cache:

1. The cached images are heavily compressed. (My extension stored all images uncompressed) UPDATE: incorrect
   
2. All GIF images are converted to PNG format. (My extension let you open the offline folder for each game so you could open each GIF to view the animations)
   
3. Not all images are cached. (My extension downloaded all images in descriptions)
   

[darklinkpower]

I didn't say that it needed to be taken down! Just wanted to clarify some information
Regarding No. 3 I have never noticed that but I'll be checking

[steve-o]

Holy crap, someone finally did it!

This is a plugin I've been thinking about making myself for a while, just because I like keeping everything offline.

I use Playnite 9 though, so I'd be very interested in seeing this updated to work with P9. I'm also willing to try my hand at helping out, if you like, but I'll need you to put the plugin back up please.

[Crow]

The cached images are heavily compressed. (My extension stored all images uncompressed)

This is not true. The cache doesn't modify images in any way, they are stored in the same format as source. gifs being the only exception because we can't play them anyways and therefore storing the whole gif is just a waste of space.

[OneAngryGamer]

I didn't say that it needed to be taken down!

You convinced me that it was (mostly) duplicating functionality that Playnite already has. (I only do that when necessary)

Regarding No. 3 I have never noticed that but I'll be checking

My 'Offline' folder is over 10x larger than the contents of my webcache.

---

The cached images are heavily compressed. (My extension stored all images uncompressed)

This is not true. The cache doesn't modify images in any way, they are stored in the same format as source. gifs being the only exception

Crow. I was wrong. You are right.

(I replied to darklinkpower after I had been comparing 'Offline Description' images with the cached images. The images I had been testing must have all been GIFs which would explain the size reduction. I have since checksummed random images between the two and confirm that you are correct. Non-GIFs are exactly the same in both.)

[OneAngryGamer]

I'll need you to put the plugin back up please

darklinkpower and Crow have convinced me that this extension is unnecessary * since almost all of its functionality is already built-in to Playnite.

Ignore my previous posts regarding functionality differences as they contained errors (pointed out by darklinkpower and Crow).
The only differences over Playnite are:

1. My extension does not convert GIFs (but Playnite can not play GIFs so it makes no visual difference when using the Playnite interface)
   
2. You can right click a game to view all of its images in a single folder (You could open this to open/view the GIFs in another program)
   
3. My webcache does not have all description images when compared to my offline folder.
   

* I will still keep developing this for my own use. I have an idea for GIFs. I could scan the downloaded GIF images, verify the images are GIF format (necessary because some GIFs are actually PNG format with a GIF file extension) and edit the Description so that the GIF is hyperlinked. Then, while viewing a game in Details view, you could double click the GIF to have it open in your default GIF viewer.
(Since it is isn't obvious which images are GIFs unless you edit the description, I could add a small "(click to play)" message immediately above/below the GIF image)

[steve-o]

I'll need you to put the plugin back up please

darklinkpower and Crow have convinced me that this extension is unnecessary * since almost all of its functionality is already built-in to Playnite.

I'm sorry you feel that way.  The native caching feature doesn't alter hyperlinks in the description to point at local files, which is the primary thing I was interested in about this plugin.

Oh well, knowing that it was done once might hopefully motivate me to try to recreate it myself one day.  If you ever change your mind, or decide you'd be willing to share your code at least with me, I'd really appreciate the chance to see what you accomplished.

[OneAngryGamer]

If you ever change your mind, or decide you'd be willing to share your code at least with me, I'd really appreciate the chance to see what you accomplished.

I nearly didn't upload it at all. (Most of my extensions have never been released. Some never will.)



If you are that keen, I may re-up it one day but only after I upgrade it for Playnite 9 (Wont be until after I switch from Playnite 8 to Playnite 9)