Please Test: Creating Custom Collections

pjft

Thanks all.

I added the final tweaks to the code and just submitted the PR:

https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/pull/210

In particular, @TMNTturtlguy I finally changed the sorting option so that it will sort all systems by name, and then at the end we'll have "RetroPie", then the automatic collections ("Collections", "All", "Favorites" and "Last Played"). I also added the "Exit editing mode" to the collections menu, just in case.

Thank you all for the testing, usage, feedback and support. I hope this will be useful for everyone.

For everyone who has been using it on an ongoing basis and testing it (@dmmarti , @HurricaneFan, @alphatoanant , @hansolo77, @cyperghost and others who aren't tagged here yet), if you'd want to drop by the PR and share your experience (how long have you used it for, and whether it has any pending issues or if it's good to go from your testing) that may help it be approved faster, or at least alleviate concerns with the change, as it is a big change.

Thanks.

@alphatoanant Thanks for the wishes as well.

ohmycommodore

@pjft I had always wanted these other entries being listed toward the start or end of the carousel. Great idea.

darknior

Woaw very impressive, i love your new stuff <3
Thanks a lot for it :)

dmmarti

@pjft --thank you for all of the work you did for this. This is an awesome enhancement to RetroPie and I'm sure the community is going to love it for sure (I know I do!). I was an early adopter of Attract Mode .... but I have to say, with your enhancements and the newer ES theme features, I find myself using ES more and more now.

I hope your move goes well and you get all settled in quickly.

Once again .... thank you!!!

pjft

Thank you all. This is as much my work as it is the community's - and this means each and every one of you.

In fact, none of this would have happened if @meleu and @TMNTturtlguy hadn't started this thread over 2 months ago now:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10849/create-a-custom-es-system-able-to-launch-games-for-many-systems

which raised the valid use case which I kind of had felt the need for in the past, but hadn't really given much thought to.

So all in all, this is really their intuition and ingenuity, and all of your enthusiasm and desire to have it in ES - I just tried to refine it to hopefully make it more accessible to the wider community.

Glad that it's been helpful. Do make sure to chime in on GitHub with your experiences (how much you've used it and if it works or where it doesn't), as the more people to test it, the easier it will be to get some reassurance of what is effectively working and what isn't, which will in turn make it easier to merge.

I'm providing a binary with the effectively last version of ES with this, so that if anyone does want to test it, they can in case something came up during the update to 2.5.2 (possible, certainly).

Full instructions:

mkdir /home/pi/tmp-es
cd /home/pi/tmp-es
rm emulationstation
wget https://github.com/pjft/EmulationStation/releases/download/0.9cc/emulationstation
chmod +x emulationstation
cd /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation
sudo cp /home/pi/tmp-es/emulationstation /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation

Thanks.

ohmycommodore

@pjft so these are the steps to implement this now? if it gets rolled into the next official update is there any downside to having done this pre-release version?

pjft

@ohmycommodore No downside, you can just update ES from RetroPie-Setup at any time - binary is usually faster. In fact, you can do it straight away if you don't like this particular update.

Just make sure to exit ES before running these instructions, but yeah, you can install this and test it out.

Had you tested out any of the custom collection builds in this thread so far (sorry, it's a long thread and has been going on for a month)?

ohmycommodore

@pjft I have some of the themes that support collections, but didn't get into making custom collections yet. Threw a couple of ideas out when I felt it was helpful. Not a coder. Former TV production guy... so a creative guy and idea guy I suppose. Always good to keep the brain sharp and this is an interesting outlet :) Looking forward to trying this enhancement out. I'm all for anything that increases functionality and this certainly does.

So this is an ES thing, not a RPie thing, correct? And I take it your instructions above are essentially removing ES, and getting the permissions to replace it with this alternate version...

So if this is rolled into ES officially, it would then end up rolled into a RP image?

HurricaneFan

@ohmycommodore Yes, this is an EmulationStation feature. If this gets approved to be added into the master branch of ES, it will show up on a users installation if they choose to Update all packages. Or when the next official release of Retropie install image is out.

pjft

@ohmycommodore correct. This will just replace your current version of ES. If in doubt, make a copy of your current ES before running my instructions. Happy to share them when on my laptop tomorrow.

TMNTturtlguy

@pjft Thanks for working on the sorting! That is awesome - you are the best!

ohmycommodore

@pjft why in your instructions would we change to the directory just made? emulationstation isn't in that directory to remove...

HurricaneFan

@ohmycommodore Yeah, I skip this step as it doesn't do anything for the copy.

cd /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation

ohmycommodore

hmmm, i get "no such file or directory" when i try to remove ES. i guess those instructions are not complete enough for me.

pjft

@ohmycommodore it's highly likely I messed up the instructions as I just copied and pasted the old ones. I'll check them out tomorrow on my laptop. Sorry.

pjft

@ohmycommodore ah, I see. That's if you had already downloaded ES there in the past, as I'm this thread I provided several binaries. If it doesn't apply, just move forward. For instance, creating the folder will also give you an error if you have already done so in the past.

Hopefully it's all good.

HurricaneFan

@pjft Just saw that this was merged into the master branch. Congrats! I'm excited that this feature is now going to be available to everyone.

DigitalMonkey

@hurricanefan Does that mean it's available to everyone who updates through the retropie setup menu?

I updated just now and don't see anything different / added after restarting.

pjft

@digitalmonkey correct. If you're on version 2.6.0 - there's already a binary - you should now see, in the game collections menu, options for creating your own.

I'd recommend using a compatible theme for best experience.

ohmycommodore

updated all packages / script / themes and everything seems to be there for me. found the toggle to sort these custom collections to the end of the carousel - very nice :) will have to give setting up some collections a go this weekend.

now i'm not sure which thread the next round of "suggestions" should be posted... (start a new one perhaps?), but the first thing i thought of when scrolling through the "theme folder" collections... it could really use a WWF/WWE, or more useful perhaps, a WRESTLING theme folder.