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Expanded Playlist Filters to Include Additional Apps

LaunchBox for Windows

Overview

Currently, when creating playlists in LaunchBox, auto-populate filters only target main game entries. This excludes games stored as additional apps, which are often used for:

• 🧩 Hacks and fan-made modifications

• 🌐 Fan translations

• 🧪 Prototypes or unreleased versions

• 🌍 Region variants or alternate versions

This limitation makes it difficult to organize or surface these modified versions through playlists—unless they’re added as separate, standalone games or assigned to entirely separate platforms, which clutters the library and breaks the unified experience.

Request

Expand the playlist filtering system to support searching and filtering within Additional Apps, not just the main game entry.

Proposed Features

1️⃣ New Auto-Populate Conditions

• Allow users to filter by:

• Additional App Name (e.g., contains “translation”, “hack”, “prototype”)

• Additional App Type (if this is defined or can be user-tagged)

• Presence of Additional Apps with specific keywords or file paths

Use Case Example

🎯 You want a “Fan Translations” playlist for your SNES collection

• The translated versions of games like Seiken Densetsu 3 or Mother 3 exist only as additional apps under their main Japanese titles

• Today, these won’t show up when using auto-populate filters

• With this feature, you could create a playlist that detects those alternate versions, without duplicating or restructuring your library

Posted by crusadeRGP ·
Status: Open To Community7 comments

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Comments7

  • AstroBob changed status to Awaiting Further Details
    Team•

    Mar 31, 2025

    Pinned

    Hey there,

    Thanks for bringing this up. we’d love to understand a bit more about your specific use-case for using this. When you're creating playlists and needing those additional apps, how are you organizing them currently? What specific challenges are you facing with the current playlist setup that including games from additional apps would resolve? Any extra detail would be super helpful so that we can flesh this request out

  • crusadeRGP

    •

    Sep 6

    @MysterNybble @AstroBob Now that additional applications can seperate rom versions is this improvement closer to being planned status?

  • masterfulmethods

    •

    Mar 2

    I would also really like to see this feature. I used to have separate platforms for Romhacks & Translations, but (the romhacks mainly) became too much of a hassle to manage. I reworked my LaunchBox setup last year and now I just combine the versions all into a single game. I would like to create playlists like, “Games with Romhacks”, or “Games with Randomizers”, and as crusadeRPG states, the ‘Version-Contains’ logic only targets main games.

    I use a short designation, to try to keep rom names easily readable, example:

    [T] = Translation

    [H] = Romhack

    [R] = Randomizer

    So I would like to see either the Version field for auto-playlist generation be able to discover the “Version” of additional apps, or have a Additional Apps field, so I could do:

    Verion/Additional App - Contains - [H]

    I think being able to create playlists based on versions/additional apps would also fix the problem (unless it’s just the theme I use?) that you can’t see “has additional apps” badges on games in BigBox.

  • crusadeRGP

    •

    Apr 13, 2025

    @AstroBob I’ve also found that when I try to add a program (third party emulator GUI for example) to a set of games there is no way to access the additional apps in the bulk edit wizard. I think this is somewhat related to this request or is it already possible and I’m missing something?

    • AstroBob

      Team•

      Apr 15, 2025

      Correct, there is currently no bulk edit for additional apps, while not really related to this specific request it would be great if you’re happy to put in an additional request, specifically with your use case and what you’d like to use it for.

  • AstroBob

    Team•

    Apr 1, 2025

    Fantastic! Thanks so much for elaborating on that. That makes perfect sense now, since the only real filter you can do on an additional app, is if one exists or not.

    I’ve expanded the scope of the request and opening up to the community for discussion

  • crusadeRGP

    •

    Mar 31, 2025

    If games are added for a specific platform when making a playlist the main entry will only be found when using any auto-populate. Any other version being a combined game (additional app) for prototypes, hacks, translations or anything else will not be found. If you want a playlist created under that system for example a hacks playlist that isn’t the main entry name it will not add anything in the additional apps only the main game. It would be useful if it found them so then you load a playlist and not need to have an entire separate platform. Would be mostly useful for games that have modifications to them that you could easily separate to a playlist and know what games have alternate versions.