Before embarking on your first scrape with ARRM, I invite you to read the previous paragraphs (Application Setup, and Interface Overview) to fully understand the ARRM mechanism.

The different ARRM options must be set before proceeding.

Video Tutorial

View video

BatoceraNation made an english tutorial on how to use ARRM Scraper : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMPB--STsw&ab_channel=BatoceraNation

View BatoceraNation video tutorial

To activate this mode, simply select more than 1 system from the list of systems on your Recalbox / Batocera

When multiple systems are selected, the 'Show' button changes to a 'Screenscraper' button. This mode only works with Screenscraper.

If you want ARRM to apply a different template depending on the systems, do not forget to tick the box 'Template auto association'. ARRM relies on the file %appdata%\Nexouille Soft\arrm\database\template_association.txt (which you can modify via the template selection interface) to determine which template to apply to which system.

To choose your template, see this section : Choose template

Operating mode:
Select a single system, then click on 'Show Mix Model' to select the desired template, then confirm.
If you wish to modify the default template: Do not select any system and click on 'Choose Mix Template', then confirm.
The system / template association will be saved in the template_association.txt file

Sample content of this 'template_association.txt' file

;; format of line :
;; system(in lower case)|path to xml template from %appdata%\nexouille soft\arrm\ressources\template\
;; remove the ; to activate system template
;; if no template is found for a system , default template will be assign (the one define in default line)
;; do not delete default line (but you can change the template assigned)
;; you can add new systems, but be careful to respect the syntax 
;;
default|mix_monitor_cartridge\mix_monitor_cartridge.xml
3do|mix_3do\mix_3do_cartridge.xml
3ds|mix_3ds\mix_3ds.xml
amiga600|mix_amiga600\mix_amiga600.xml
atari2600|mix_atari_2600_cartridge\mix_atari_2600_cartridge.xml
fba_libretro|mix_arcade_red_profile _v2\mix_arcade_red_profile_v2.xml
snes|mix_snes\mix_snes_cartridge.xml
...

In order to know the list of templates and their directory, just go to %appdata%\nexouille soft\arrm\ressources\template\ If a system is not present, ARRM will take the template associated with the line starting with 'default'

If auto-association is not enabled, ARRM will take the template selected in the 'image option' control panel and apply it to all systems.

When you press the 'Screenscraper' button, ARRM will treat each of the selected systems and will:

• Load the existing gamelist.xml, or create a new one with the found roms
• Search Screenscraper for game information
• Apply the different options chosen in the settings
• Will save the gamelist.xml once the searches are done for a system
• Will switch to the next system

At any time you can stop the scrape by pressing the ' Stop ' button.

When all systems have been processed, a summary appears showing the number of games found per system and the time spent.

Apply a global filter to treat only certain Roms

You can only process certain Roms, for example those for which you do not have a description or no boxart. To apply this global filter, before clicking on the “ Screenscraper ” button, you must enter the filter / query in the “Global Filter” textbox.

Examples:

description_rom is null or boxart_rom is null
favoris_rom = true and (image_rom is null and manual_rom <> '')

The fields available for the conditions are:

adult_rom
annee_rom
arcadesystemname_rom
boxart_rom
boxback_rom
cache_rom
cartridge_rom
core_rom
description_rom
developer_rom
emulator_rom
fanart_rom
favoris_rom
fichier_rom
gameid_rom
gametime_rom
genre_rom
genreid_rom
hash_rom
image_rom
kid_rom
lang_rom
lastplayed_rom
manual_rom
map_rom
marquee_rom
md5_rom
mix_rom
nomjeu_rom
numauto_rom
playcount_rom
players_rom
publisher_rom
rating_rom
region_rom
screenshot_rom
temporary_rom
thumbnail_rom
titleshot_rom
video_rom
wheel_rom

To choose your template, see this section : Choose template

ARRM allows you to scrape an entire system, or only certain games of a system.

For this you need to select only 1 system in the system screen:

Click on the 'Show' button to display the found Roms. ARRM loads the existing gamelist.xml and verifies the existence of the Roms files. If the file does not exist, the ROM will not appear in the database. And conversely if a game is present on the disc but not present in the existing gamelist.xml, it will be added to the Database.

Once the Database is filled with the Roms found, you can

• Apply filters on the Database to process only certain roms

If you only want to scrape the Roms that do not have an image or description, you just have to check, in the Filters tab: Image , Description , without , or then click on the Filter button.
Roms without image or description will be displayed in the database.
You will be able to select them and start a scrape on these Roms.
At the end of the scrape, click on No Filter to remove the filter and find all your roms, then save your gamelist via the button Create gamelist.xml

• Select all or part of the elements of the Database

• Execute actions on selected items

• Start a scrape using one of the 6 scrapers proposed (HFS-DB, LaunchBox, TheGamesDb, GOG, SteamDb, Screenscraper (recommended because very complete)) .You can stop at any time a scrape by pressing the button 'Stop'

See on the wiki the specifics for

• Scrape on HFS-DB
• Scrape on TheGamesDB
• Scrape on Steam-DB
• Scrape on GOG
• Scrape on LaunchBox

When you are done with the Database manipulations, remember to save your content in the gamelist.xml by clicking on the button 'Create gamelist.xml'

ARRM has a data recovery system when an application crash occurs. When loading a system, if ARRM detects that a crash has occurred, it proposes to restore the recovered information until the moment of the crash.

You can also consult after each operation a log by clicking on the 'View Log' button