Gengal - Gamelist XML Generator

Jax

UPDATE - Gengal can now update existing gamelist.xml files
.

Hi all, first time poster, long time lurker here (I'm not much of a forum guy), but I thought you might find this useful.

I couldn't find a gamelist.xml generator that did exactly what I needed it to, especially with the video support recently added; so I made one.

Gengal (portmanteau of "generate" and "gamelist.xml" and pronounced like 'bengal')
Gengal screenshot

How to use

Select your ROM folder with Browse
Select whether you want image, marquee and video fields in your XML file, and which subfolder to use for them (should be under your ROM folder for the system), and which extensions should be used.
Click Generate Preview to make sure the example looks about right
Click Generate gamelist.xml - when the progressbar is full, you're done and the gamelist.xml will be in your ROM folder ready to copy over.

Notes

Gengal will never overwrite an existing gamelist.xml file
Gengal is not a scraper and will not fetch metadata for games (yet anyway)
I recommend using fatmatch or a similar tool to make sure your game, screenshot, logo and video filenames all match.
Windows only, and non-updated Windows 7 and older (i.e. XP) versions will need to install Windows Management Framework v5 to get this to run.
I will do my best to fix any bugs or add features on request, but if you have trouble running Powershell scripts on your machine, it's unfortunately outside of anything I can fix. Try googling (sorry!).
Gengal also runs on all files in the selected ROM folder, so for BIN/CUE combinations, this probably won't be too useful without separating the files first. If there's enough interest, I might add a feature to select extensions to work on.

Download: Gengal.zip

Change Log
1.11 - Added "suffix mode" to cater for users with images in one folder
1.1 - Added ability to update existing gamelist.xml files

xaGe

Looks nice, I'll have to give it a try next time I'm on one of my Windows desktops.

BTW curious what did you program the gui in? VB, C?

Nismo

@Jax Nice work it's just what I need. Thanks for sharing.

Jax

@xaGe Pure Powershell code compiled into an executable, the GUI is generated with standard PS system calls. I use Powershell a lot at work, and it's built in file handling features are perfect for this sort of job.

@Nismo You're very welcome. Glad it's of use!

LorThe3rd

Nice work @Jax, is it possibly to overwrite an existing gamelist.xml file in the future? Maybe an option where we can add the Marquee & Video in the existing file .

Jax

@LorThe3rd I was thinking about that actually.

It's possible as there's a way to treat XML as an array, make the changes and write it out, so I'll look into it over the next few days if I get chance.

Jax

@LorThe3rd Figured it out, kinda. The file has now been updated in the original post. You can now update existing gamelist.xml files.

At the moment, it can insert "image", "marquee" and "video" tags, and update them if necessary with different extensions or folder names.

What I couldn't figure out how to reliably do though, is make it so you can add games to an existing gamelist.xml file. So you either create from scratch, or update what's already there. I'm sure I'll figure it out, but it's a headscratcher right now.

I'm planning on making a YouTube video soon showing how to use it and the limitations (even though it's self explanatory) but if someone wants to beat me to the punch, go right ahead.

EctoOne

It would be great if we could add a suffix to the files. My folder structure looks like this:

/rom folder
 /images
  gamename-image.png
  gamename-boxart.png
  gamename-screenshot.png
  gamename-marquee.png
 /videos
  gamename-video.mp4
gamename.rom
gamelist.xml

So i would love it if i could add -marquee or -video to the filenames in the gamelist.xml

Jax

@EctoOne I'll certainly have a look into that. Don't see why it can't be added.

Jax

@EctoOne Okay, this has now been implemented in the form of a "suffix mode". You can either press F5 or select it from the new "Tools" option. That should give you what you need!

I think it's self explanatory (especially with the preview option), but let me know if you get stuck.

EctoOne

@Jax Awesome, works great. But i think there's one Bug. When not using Suffix Mode, i only can enter 4 letters in any of the subfolder textboxes.

Jax

@EctoOne Whoops, well spotted. Fixed now if you want to redownload.

BORIStheBLADE1

Just to clarify.. This doesnt scrap art, it uses art you have?

Thanks

Jax

@BORIStheBLADE1 said in Gengal - Gamelist XML Generator:

Just to clarify.. This doesnt scrap art, it uses art you have?

Thanks

No it doesn't scrape, at least not yet. Might do it in the future, but it's not what I needed it for at the time so it doesn't have the feature at the moment.

qanba

Hi @Jax !, thats a ultra good program but in mi opinion for be perfect you need to apply one thing more in the suffix mode:

1- the option for edit the suffix you like not predefined like in version 1.11.
2- an option to chose the 3 folders , at this moment marquee and cover shares folder in suffix mode obliged.

With that i think is perfect program! thanks a lot!.

numotiv

Any chance of an upload somewhere else? I can't for the life of me get the link to work.

A2ra3L

Probably a REALLY stupid question but I tried to scrape my roms today with sselph, universal XML and the built in scraper and none of them found any of my Atari 2600, NES or SNES roms. Will this create an XML file that will allow universal xml to find them and scrape them or do I need something else? I am still very new to this :P

theWinterDojer

@jax How do I use it to update an existing xml? I only see the option to add my ROM folder.

EctoOne

@thewinterdojer If you want to update your xml with videos/marquee i think you need to use suffix mode from the tools menu or press F5. I'm not sure tho, so make a backup of your xml first.

lukeslens

Curious what is going wrong here. Whenever I try to update the xml, it spits out this weird garbled mess of a filepath. I've tried it on numerous ones thus far and it all looks like this...

<image>./boxart//hompRetroPiromn6007 - GoldenEye (USA).png</image>
<video>./snap//hompRetroPiromn6007 - GoldenEye (USA).mp4</video>

I'm THIS close to being able to solve being able to fix a lot of gamelists with this tool, but this little bug is preventing me and I can't figure it out.