So let’s say I have a rom called “pokemon yellow.gb”, I feed it through the scanner, it automatically matches it with the correct database entry, and lets me download the correct thumbnails. Now the name in the playlist ends up as “Pokemon - Yellow Version - Special Pikachu Edition (USA, Europe) (CGB+SGB Enhanced)” which I think is a bit excessive so I use the rename function in the menu and change it to just “Pokémon Yellow” and now the connection to the database entry is broken and the thumbnails disappear.
Is there a reason the database matching was coded to the exact name of the game? To me the obvious way to do it would be to give each game a numeric ID, and once a playlist entry was connected to that ID you could change it however you wanted and you’d still have access to the relevant metadata like year, developer, and thumbnails. It would also make it easy to get the metadata for unofficial translated/patched games for example by just connecting it to the ID of the original game.
Assuming it’s not likely the database system will be overhauled, is there an easier way to customize the playlists, preferably while retaining the metadata? Because from inside RetroArch it seems unless you want to keep the exact name you will definitely lose the metadata, and in order to get thumbnails for a patched version of a game for example (while still having it clearly labeled as such), you’d either have to download and rename them manually, or also have the original version there at the same time, match and download the thumbnails for that, then copy/rename those to the patched name (after which you could remove the original.)
I think if the rename function in RetroArch had an “also rename existing thumbnails that match this name” that could be useful, but optimally you’d somehow want to keep the database connection so as not to lose the metadata.
Anyway I just got into RetroArch again after a long time, trying to finally do a proper setup. The Ozone UI was huge improvement, as well as the individual download tools, so thank you for that, and keep up the good work on this great application!