4 hours ago
Hello mGBA community and developers!
First off, huge thanks to endrift and all contributors for maintaining the gold standard of Game Boy / Game Boy Advance emulation.
I’d like to propose a quality-of-life feature request for the desktop interface (Qt UI): a Visual Box Art / Grid View for game selection.
Concept Overview
While the traditional file tree/list picker works great for fast navigation, having an optional grid view displaying cover art (similar to frontends like OpenEmu, RetroArch, or Steam) would make navigating larger GB/GBC/GBA collections much more engaging.
Core Features Proposed:
View Toggle: A simple layout toggle button (or View > Library Grid) to switch between the traditional list view and a grid gallery.
Local Box Art Directory: A designated folder (/boxart/ or similar in user config) where mGBA checks for matching artwork (.png, .jpg, .webp) based on ROM file names or internal CRC/No-Intro header names.
Manual Custom Art Option: Right-clicking a game in the list/grid to select "Set Custom Cover Art..." and link a local image file.
Fallback Design: If no cover image is found, display a simple, clean cartridge silhouette (GB/GBC/GBA style) featuring the title text.
Optional Scraping (Nice-to-have): Ability to pull thumbnails from standard open repositories (like Libretro's thumbnail archive) via a toggle in Settings > Interface.
Why this would be a great addition:
Keeps mGBA complete as a standalone desktop player without strictly requiring third-party frontends (like Playnite or LaunchBox).
Greatly enhances usability for home-theater setups or users who prefer visual browsing.
What are everyone's thoughts on this? Is a simple grid/box art view something that could fit into the scope of the Qt desktop frontend?
Thanks for considering!
First off, huge thanks to endrift and all contributors for maintaining the gold standard of Game Boy / Game Boy Advance emulation.
I’d like to propose a quality-of-life feature request for the desktop interface (Qt UI): a Visual Box Art / Grid View for game selection.
Concept Overview
While the traditional file tree/list picker works great for fast navigation, having an optional grid view displaying cover art (similar to frontends like OpenEmu, RetroArch, or Steam) would make navigating larger GB/GBC/GBA collections much more engaging.
Core Features Proposed:
View Toggle: A simple layout toggle button (or View > Library Grid) to switch between the traditional list view and a grid gallery.
Local Box Art Directory: A designated folder (/boxart/ or similar in user config) where mGBA checks for matching artwork (.png, .jpg, .webp) based on ROM file names or internal CRC/No-Intro header names.
Manual Custom Art Option: Right-clicking a game in the list/grid to select "Set Custom Cover Art..." and link a local image file.
Fallback Design: If no cover image is found, display a simple, clean cartridge silhouette (GB/GBC/GBA style) featuring the title text.
Optional Scraping (Nice-to-have): Ability to pull thumbnails from standard open repositories (like Libretro's thumbnail archive) via a toggle in Settings > Interface.
Why this would be a great addition:
Keeps mGBA complete as a standalone desktop player without strictly requiring third-party frontends (like Playnite or LaunchBox).
Greatly enhances usability for home-theater setups or users who prefer visual browsing.
What are everyone's thoughts on this? Is a simple grid/box art view something that could fit into the scope of the Qt desktop frontend?
Thanks for considering!