Marquee Creator v1.3

Marquee Creator is a Windows utility by Cutter81 for generating marquee images for RetroBat collections, including numbered episode/video collections and comic issue collections.

It reads the text it needs from your media filenames. You choose the collection's system folder, select a logo image, choose an artwork-text mode, and the utility creates the marquee images automatically.

Features

• Creates marquee artwork from text extracted from filenames.
• Supports episode-number, episode-name, episode-number-plus-name, and comic-issue modes.
• Sorts episode files by season and episode before generating numbered marquees; episode numbering continues across seasons.
• Lets you choose the logo image used in the marquee.
• Writes generated images to the system folder's media\marquee directory.
• Creates an activity log and lists files that do not match the selected naming format.
• Skips existing output images rather than overwriting them.
• Uses the included RazorBlade icon for the application.

Requirements

• Windows with Windows PowerShell 5.1 or later.
• ImageMagick installed, with magick.exe available on your PATH.
• A logo image to use as the marquee artwork (for example, logo.png).

Getting Started

1. Extract the Marquee Creator files to a folder.
2. Make sure ImageMagick is installed and magick.exe can be found through PATH.
3. Launch Marquee Creator.
4. Under System folder, choose the RetroBat system folder containing the source media files.
5. Under Logo image, select the logo image to use in the generated marquees.
6. Choose the Artwork text mode that matches your filenames.
7. Optionally enable Include episode name with episode number when using Episode Number mode.
8. Click Create Marquees.
9. Review the activity log for successful files, skipped files, or errors.

Generated images are saved automatically in:

<system folder>\media\marquee

The output log is written to:

<system folder>\000-Marquee-Creator-Output.txt

Filename Formats and Modes

Marquee Creator extracts the relevant text from the filename (without its file extension). The files must match the naming convention for the selected mode; files that do not match are skipped and reported in the activity log.

1. Episode Number

Expected filename format:

Series Name - S01E01.ext

For example:

Example Series - S01E01.mp4

The utility sorts matching files by season and episode, then generates sequential labels such as Episode 1, Episode 2, and so on. Numbering continues across seasons rather than restarting at each season.

2. Episode Name

Expected filename format:

Series Name - S01E01 - Episode Name.ext

For example:

Example Series - S01E01 - The First Episode.mp4

The generated marquee text is the episode name extracted from the filename.

3. Episode Number + Name (Optional)

Select Episode Number and enable Include episode name with episode number.

Expected filename format:

Series Name - S01E01 - Episode Name.ext

For example:

Example Series - S01E01 - The First Episode.mp4

The generated marquee text combines the sequential episode number with the episode name, such as Episode 1 - The First Episode. Numbering continues across seasons.

4. Comic Issue

Expected filename format:

Series Name - Issue 001.ext

For example:

Example Comic - Issue 001.cbz

The generated marquee text uses the issue number from the filename, formatted as Issue 1, Issue 2, and so on.

Output Files

For each matching source file, the utility creates a PNG in the media\marquee output folder. The output filename is based on the original source filename, with -marquee.png appended to the filename stem.

Example:

• Source: Example Series - S01E01.mp4
• Output: Example Series - S01E01-marquee.png

If the expected output file already exists, Marquee Creator skips that file to avoid overwriting it.

Activity Log and Troubleshooting

The activity log appears in the application's window. When a run begins, a full log is also written to 000-Marquee-Creator-Output.txt in the selected system folder.

The log reports matched files, skipped files, successful output generation, and errors.

• No files matched: Check that the filenames follow the exact format required by the selected mode.
• Logo image required: Select a valid image file in the Logo image field.
• System folder required: Select a valid system folder containing the source files.
• ImageMagick not found: Install ImageMagick or correct your PATH so magick.exe can be found, then run the utility again.
• Existing output skipped: The corresponding marquee already exists. The utility intentionally does not overwrite it.

Included Files

• MarqueeCreator-v1.3.ps1 — the PowerShell graphical application.
• MarqueeCreatorLauncher-v1.3.cs — the C# launcher source.
• Build-MarqueeCreator-v1.3-EXE-with-RazorBlade.bat — the batch file for building the executable.
• MarqueeCreator-RazorBlade.ico — the application icon.

Notes

• Marquee Creator generates artwork using the selected logo image and text extracted from source filenames; it does not read episode titles or issue numbers from the image contents.
• Source files that do not match the selected naming format are skipped and listed in the log.
• Existing marquee PNGs are not overwritten.

Credits

Marquee Creator v1.3 by Cutter81