Bear with me because I have little to bring to bring to the table (I know some HTML and CSS, and less jQuery and C#), but what are the possibilities of a group of knowledgeable, talented GOGgers coming together and building their own library, focused on giving back the "game room shelf" aesthetic back (classic box art, manual sorting, various shelf colors, etc.)? Each game box would either link to a game .exe or perhaps an already-downloaded installer.

Like I suggested I'm not bright on the logistics of this, but if possible, rather than people banging their heads against the wall at GOG's changes, why not join forces to create what they want? (I doubt I'd have anything to offer programming-wise, but I could do some artistic stuff probably, for an hour or two each day.)

The problem is that it would have to be manually updated and maintained, since we can't very well use GOG's database. So everyone would have to add their own games manually.

Edit:
Actually, MaGOG would be an excellent starting point. Maybe mrkgnao would be interested in expanding the functionality?

Barefoot Essentials might also be a good baseline, since it is able to read your collection and post the results elsewhere (in this case the wiki). A lot of the logic is already done, it just needs a recipient site to accept, process, and render the results. If I could get the output from an Essentials scan, I feel pretty confident I could bash up the rest.

Should be possible, IMHO, but...

1) MaGog's code could be used as a baseline, as it already knows how to collect all the data about one's library (which games, which files, etc.). Would probably have to be ported from Perl to some other language, but shouldn't be too difficult. Could easily be extended to also support GOG downloader links, if necessary.

2) Graphical assets (shelf, boxes) for old games are probably available somewhere (in a pinch, the GOG wiki).

3) Graphical assets for new games (boxes) will probably need to be created as they are released.

4) Manual sort will have to be designed from scratch.

BUT...

The tool will probably hit GOG's IP blocking limit pretty quick for most users. So that should be solved first and I believe only GOG can solve it....

If something comes to fruition, I can probably help with this.

To add to my previous post.

As IAmSinistar said, BE could also be used as a baseline, especially if the tool is to work primarily at the game level and only retrieve file-level information upon request (when a user selects a game). If such a level is sufficient, then IP blocking will also be avoided, but the tool will not be able to have update notification flags (beyond those supplied by GOG, which are at best lacking).

P.S. I will gladly supply code for such a tool, but I don't expect to be a central force behind it.

Thinking further, I was mentally spec'ing out a more static kind of shelf. It would show what you own and link back to the relevant GOG info, but not necessarily be as dynamic as the old shelf, such as flagging up your notifications and all. If that's indeed what is meant by the request, then I think that mrkgnao has a solid approach plan.

Yeah, I was basically thinking of something as simple(?) as "virtual game shelves" where you could add game images as boxes, manually rearrange them, and double-click on them to start up the relevant game.

Just so people know, I'm not asking for myself as the current library doesn't bother me, but I figured it was a topic worth asking about since there have been so many complaints.

If nothing comes to fruition, I understand. :) Like I said above I don't have coding skills to offer but can perhaps help out on the visual side. Or I could do some code work if solid instructions are included on what to do. :P