[daniel.delillo]

So, I've modified IAGL (aka GL) to work off my own collections of games from my own webserver.  I've looked into AEL quickly, but it looks like it only scrapes data correctly if you use the no-intro naming convention... is that right?  Also how does AEL work with accessing games outside the home?  Let's say I go to my friends house and want to pop on a game of TMNT turtles in time:  I install the GL addon, pick the game, and it's running.  Can AEL do the same thing?  Will it work over webdav, ftp or http?  How easy is it to setup on a second device?

I still have a little more work to do with GL, but I wanted to know if I'm going to wrong course of action by not using AEL.  All my games have their titles scrubbed / cleaned and everything was scraped using Emulation Station, so would AEL even work correctly?

[Wintermute0110]

So, I've modified IAGL (aka GL) to work off my own collections of games from my own webserver.  I've looked into AEL quickly, but it looks like it only scrapes data correctly if you use the no-intro naming convention... is that right?  Also how does AEL work with accessing games outside the home?  Let's say I go to my friends house and want to pop on a game of TMNT turtles in time:  I install the GL addon, pick the game, and it's running.  Can AEL do the same thing?  Will it work over webdav, ftp or http?  How easy is it to setup on a second device?

I still have a little more work to do with GL, but I wanted to know if I'm going to wrong course of action by not using AEL.  All my games have their titles scrubbed / cleaned and everything was scraped using Emulation Station, so would AEL even work correctly?

Lots of questions... so I think the best is to explain the differences between IAGL and AEL

IAGL is kind of a Internet Archive game browser and downloader. It is capable of downloading the games and by default hides the complexity from the user. IAGL comes preconfigured with the game lists and the artwork.

AEL is a general app launcher for Kodi, focused on game emulators. AEL assumes you already have the ROMs and the artwork, although it supports artwork and metadata scraper. AEL works mainly with external emulators such as Retroarch and MAME but also support Kodi Retroplayer. AEL works best if your ROMs have No-Intro names but it will do its best if not. In any case, some scrapers like ScreenScraper use the ROM checksum so the filename is pretty irrelevant. AEL does not support at all accessing ROMs through the network. If you want to go around with your setup then create a Kodi portable installation and then place Retroarch and MAME and the ROMs and artwork in the portable unit. You can use relative paths in AEL for your setup or tell windows to mount the USB disk on the same drive letter, Z: for example.

[daniel.delillo]

Thanks for the information!  AEL sounds like a great option, I just wished it had remote storage access.  Workarounds such as ( USB sticks & mounting drives (Windows only) ) are okay, but I was really hoping for something centralized.

IAGL's backbone offers the centralization that I wanted, but it's structure is extremely dependent on cloud services to operate.  It has 3,000 UI images that were offloaded to imgur using their randomly generated file name "YggZ48K.jpg" = Sega 32x thumbnail. There was just a lot of work streamlining and cleaning it up for centralized usage, so I was hoping to I wasn't doing that for no reason.

I wish I knew python so I could help out... either way I want to say thanks to you and Zach Morris (Everyone involved with these launchers)

[Wintermute0110]

Thanks for the information!  AEL sounds like a great option, I just wished it had remote storage access.  Workarounds such as ( USB sticks & mounting drives (Windows only) ) are okay, but I was really hoping for something centralized.

IAGL's backbone offers the centralization that I wanted, but it's structure is extremely dependent on cloud services to operate.  It has 3,000 UI images that were offloaded to imgur using their randomly generated file name "YggZ48K.jpg" = Sega 32x thumbnail. There was just a lot of work streamlining and cleaning it up for centralized usage, so I was hoping to I wasn't doing that for no reason.

I wish I knew python so I could help out... either way I want to say thanks to you and Zach Morris (Everyone involved with these launchers)

Zach uses an internal database processing and scraper tool to generate the resources for IAGL. Resources here means the XML/JSON databases for the addon and the artwork online. Note that Kodi is capable of using online artwork, as a streaming player. On the other hand, AEL is more like a typical front end. ROMs and artwork must reside in a local filesystem because the emulators, for example Retroarch and MAME, require the ROMs to be in a local filesystem. In a house you can use a NAS to share the ROMs and artwork over several computers in the network and then mount the NAS directories as network shares in Windows or Linux. In this way, the files in the NAS effectively look like local files.

For what you want, a fully portable installation, maybe the best option is to buy a Raspberry Pi or Intel NUC (if you want something more powerful than a Raspi). Install you game station there and if you want to go to a friend house just put your Raspi and gamepads on a bag. I recommend to use Xbox-360 clone wireless gamepads with a USB dongle, they are easier to setup than Bluetooth gamepads. I love wireless gamepads but USB wired gamepads also work OK.

[daniel.delillo]

I hear you, but once I see something I want I'm determined and the conversion is fully functional now.  My conversion of IAGL no longer depends on anything from the outside of my own webserver.  It uses my scrapped emulation station databases, including all the artwork, banners, plots, movies...  I've redone all the launcher wizard and it's broken naming convention.  I've removed all references to Internet Archive.. including adding new artwork and removing the TOS.  It's a just a really nice webserver based game launcher now and there's something magical about having access to any of my games from anywhere at press of a button with no extra hardware... as everyone I know has a 4K Fire Stick.

I got tons of PCs, laptops, I even tiny Dell Kangaroo which has a built in battery that could easily beat be used as a portable unit, but it's not the same thing.  I got 6 360 controller wireless controllers, 2 original dongles, 2 xbox controllers... you name it.

I would love for AEL to support either webdav, ftp or http... please consider adding something in the future.