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Additional App Viewer Support in the Pause Menu

LaunchBox for Windows

šŸ“‹ Summary

Expand Pause Menu support for Additional Apps so users can launch external viewers for files like images, CBZs, walkthroughs, maps, and strategy guides while in game.

ā— Problem

The Pause Menu currently has limited support for Additional Apps:

  • PDF based items can be displayed, but other useful formats are harder to use

  • If an Additional App relies on an external viewer or emulator, the Pause Menu may show the item but fail to pass the needed commands or parameters

  • This makes it difficult to use image viewers or comic readers for maps, cheatsheets, manuals, and guides

As a result, users can set these workflows up in LaunchBox, but not reliably access them from the Pause Menu in Big Box.

šŸ’” Proposal

Improve how the Pause Menu handles Additional Apps:

  • When building the Pause Menu, check the relevant file extension to decide whether the item should appear

  • If the Additional App uses an emulator or external viewer, do not exclude it for that reason alone

  • Instead, look at the target content path and launch it with the correct app and parameters

  • Support common use cases such as:

    • images for maps and cheatsheets

    • CBZ files for manuals or guides

    • third party viewers such as ImageGlass or comic readers

šŸ“¦ Benefits

  • Makes the Pause Menu much more useful for reference material

  • Allows users to check maps, walkthroughs, and manuals without leaving the game flow

  • Expands Additional App support beyond PDFs

  • Better matches real world Big Box cabinet and couch gaming use cases

šŸ’” Notes

  • Ideal flow is: pause game, open guide or map, close viewer, return to Pause Menu, then return to the game

  • Existing PDF behavior should remain unchanged

  • This would improve compatibility with third party viewers already supported in normal LaunchBox workflows

Posted by shredder_guitarist Ā·
Status: Open To Community2 comments

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Comments2

  • AstroBob changed status to Open To Community
    Teamā€¢

    Mar 23

    Pinned

    Hi there!

    Thanks so much for submitting this request and for taking the time to explain your use case ā€” that context is always super helpful.

    Iā€™ve gone ahead and fleshed out the main idea using the info you provided, and Iā€™m opening it up to the community for further discussion and feedback. Please let me know if this fleshed-out version doesnā€™t match your original intended request.

    Feel free to let me know if you have any extra thoughts, examples, or edge cases you think might be relevant!

    Cheers,
    The LaunchBox team

  • shredder_guitarist

    ā€¢

    Mar 23

    Additional App Functionality for Pause menu

    Was speaking with JoeViking245 on the forum regarding this matter.

    Situation:
    I have many Maps/walkthroughs/cheatsheets that I would like to utilize in the Pause menu, but it seems there is no way to do this. These items may be added as additional apps, and that solves for viewing them in launchbox. However, the additional apps will only display and view PDFā€™s in a pause menu item. I would like to have an image viewer for Maps and also have a preference for manuals to be in CBZ form, this would mean having a small and portable 3rd party app set up as an emulator to launch in the pause menu such as Imageglass or Comic rack to use as a viewer for said images. I am able to set this function up in launchbox and it works fine (aside from displaying a loading screen which I find to be unnecessary), but it works, regardless. In the pause menu, the item displays, but doesnā€™t seem to pass commands/parameters to launch the app.

    Request:
    When loading the Pause Menu, have LB look at the Additional Apps Application Path's file extension to determine if it should be added to the Menu. If the Additional App uses an emulator, don't negate it based on that. But rather look at the ROM Path's (which was called the Application Path before checking Use Emulator) file extension and proceed accordingly

    The idea is to be able to be in-game via big boxā€¦launch a gameā€¦.pause the game, be able to check a map/strategy guide/walkthrough then exit from that, back to the pause menuā€¦exit the pause menu and return to the game. This is currently ONLY