EmulationStation Updates and Guide

mediamogul

My examples were really just for myself and to get the creative juices flowing. Carbon is a democratic endeavor and I've even added system artwork to the project myself, but having the skin's creator would certainly help keep a consistent look throughout.

Rookervik

@pjft Well, Herb_Fargus and I designed the theme. I did all the graphics and Herb did the code. That was back when ES only had a couple themes and we were still learning how to theme it. So once Carbon was updated to a full theme with all systems, I sort of handed it off to Herb to keep updated.

There are so many features being added to ES that we simply cannot keep up. If you have a team adding features to Carbon, then that is fine. Let me know if you need some graphics. That's my category.

I will be going in and trying to edit in the variables and then hopefully writing a script to allow people to change the color of Carbon easily. It already comes with ~8 colors now. I don't think there is a single person that has used it tho. It even has bright orange, just for Jools. But I think he still uses default red. Haha.

-Right now I'm trying to find an ES feature request post. Every rom launcher I've ever used has been able to load screenshots/box-art from a sub folder in the rom folder. So if the image name matched the game, it was displayed. I was wanting this added. It would reduce my boot time from 25 seconds down to 5 :D

pjft

Thanks both.

I am certainly aware of the idea of Carbon being a democratic endeavor, but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with the direction. :)

As for a ES feature request post, I'm not sure there is one such post that is actively monitored or checked, but you can probably file a bug over at the GitHub repository?

https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/issues

That's probably the best bet, as at least there'll be a centralized repository where everyone can check things. I'm not sure of the proper recommendation for feature requests.

jdrassa

@Rookervik Since there have been several requests now for a more accessible changelog of EmulationStation, I am going to attempt to create and maintain one. My current plan is to go back as far as when video support was added. That was around the time that I first got involved here and appears to be when development really picked up. I will also try to update the wiki/docs with tutorials on how to use the newer theme features, but those will take a bit of time to write.

@herb_fargus Are you OK with this being on the RetroPie-Setup wiki/docs or would you prefer it to be in the forums?

herb_fargus

@jdrassa yeah that would be much appreciated. there are some generalised readmes in the emulationstation GitHub that @pjft has added some to, it would be good to have those completed at some point but I think it would also be good to have something in the docs as that's generally where most people go

@mattrixk did a good job with his basic theme tutorial but perhaps it's worth having a emulationstation theming page that just lays out the features and/or variables.

I'm sure whatever you come up with will be lovely

DD-Indeed

Small request: add option to change the menu controls info bar buttons to different ones. It now uses the default ABXY-system, but would be nice to have Playstation-buttons on it as well.

mattrixk

@herb_fargus I want to go back and redo the tutorial with all the new stuff, but there's been so much new stuff that I've fallen behind. I can't guide others in how to do something if I don't know how to do it myself... I'm not management material.

jdrassa

Forgot to post this early, but I have created a changelog page for EmulationStation on the wiki. I will do my best to keep this updated as changes are added. I am also working on adding documentation/tutorials for some of the newer theme features.

EctoOne

@jdrassa you're the best! I'm actually surprised about how many features have been added from which I thought have always been there. :D
Time to do some reading and try all the theme enhancements.
I found a broken link under point 2.1.3, it shows a 404 page.

Edit: That also reminds me, didn't you set up a method to get the latest build for Windows?

jdrassa

@ectoone Link is fixed. You get an updated build of ES for Windows here.

InsecureSpike

guy's is there anyway i can use digits insted of stars for ratings?

eg; 1 2 3 4 5

jdrassa

@insecurespike not currently

InsecureSpike

@jdrassa thought as much, thanks for the reply