let's improve ES docs

[meleu]

I see the EmulationStation part of the docs lacks info about many cool new features that our beloved frontend received last months. I see many talented developers doing cool stuff in ES code but newcommers and people who don't follow the forums can't see how cool all the added features are and don't use them.

I would like to invite experienced ES guys to help to improve ES docs on the wiki.

I've made a list of things that I believe would be worth having in the docs. Not sure if it's the same opinion of project's leaders, but here it goes the list (if you wanna help with this task, grab a topic and write something on the ES wiki page):

• filter gamelists by genre, players, ratings and publisher/developer.
• enabling video preview (maybe info about scraping videos should be put in the scraper sections)
• Favorites/All Games/Last Played - done!
• custom collections - done!
• screensaver
• power saver feature

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[original post]

where in the docs should I put info about new ES features?

@administrators and @herb_fargus I see the EmulationStation part of the docs lacks info about many cool new features that our beloved frontend received last months.

I would like to volunteer to add (or at least start adding) some info about some new features @pjft added recently. Notably the All/Favorites/Last Played systems, and the custom collections (which only recently I realized how cool and practical it is).

Where should be the best place (wiki page) to put this kind of info? Do you agree that this info should be put in the main EmulationStation page right below the Introduction and above the Editing ES Configs?

[herb_fargus]

@meleu @jdrassa has kept up a changelog of sorts.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/EmulationStation-Changelog

I'm not sure the best way to organise them. I guess as long as they have well organised headings feel free to add them where you think it makes sense

[pjft]

@meleu Thank you very much for stepping in here, and apologies for taking more time than ideal to take this on.

Please let me know where I can contribute, and how. Thank you. I should also add an entry on the video support and screensaver.

[meleu]

@herb_fargus where do you put the images in the wiki? I thought it was possible to add images there, but I realized that it must be an URL. Is there some issue where you use that trick to store images on github?

[meleu]

I've edited the OP and put a call invite for people to help to improve ES docs.

What I've made so far:

• added info about Favorites/All Games/Last Played (how to enable them).
• added info how to add/remove games to favorites.
• removed the "experimental ES forks" from the docs
  • why I removed? cause @Zigurana is working to integrate kid-kiosk mode to official branch, and there's another PR to add @jacobfk20 grid view feature.
• I'm currently working on the custom collections subject. added info about custom collections.

[lilbud]

This might be pushing the bounds of the discussion a little. I think that since we are looking into cleaning up the ES docs. Lets also clean up the theme list. We have too many and some of them haven't been updated since the PetRockBlog days.

[herb_fargus]

@lilbud said in let's improve ES docs:

We have too many and some of them haven't been updated since the PetRockBlog days.

@wetriner has been doing a good job of keeping the theme gallery updated.

But yeah the ES themes are in various stages of disrepair, not sure if it's worth leaving in hopes someone updates them or if a culling is in order. Idk. Haven't been able to decide myself.

[herb_fargus]

@meleu I upload them on an issue tracker and copy the links from there. It's a hack, but seems to work

[meleu]

@herb_fargus said in let's improve ES docs:

@meleu I upload them on an issue tracker and copy the links from there. It's a hack, but seems to work

can you post the link of the issue so I can post comments with some images too?

[herb_fargus]

@meleu doesn't matter which issue. Can be any issue. You don't even have to post it, just drag an image into the text box area and it will upload and create a URL which you can copy/paste to the wiki

[meleu]

@herb_fargus said in let's improve ES docs:

@meleu doesn't matter which issue. Can be any issue. You don't even have to post it, just drag an image into the text box area and it will upload and create a URL which you can copy/paste to the wiki

This is exactly what I am doing. I just thought that centralizing in an issue would be a good idea. Nevermind, I'll keep doing this way.

[herb_fargus]

@meleu if we were to do it proper we'd have a source like a branch with assets on this repo

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Docs

But the docs change all the time and I didn't want to keep swapping out images. Plus I don't really see GitHub as the best option for hosting images but I digress. Functions for now as is, retropie is a lot to manage as it is, and docs are almost a separate project on their own. Anyways I appreciate your help with this as I've fallen out of form with docs/retropie with the unfortunate responsibilities of real life.

[meleu]

@herb_fargus are you fine if I open and close an issue on that repo for this image storage trick?

[jonnykesh]

@herb_fargus Just my 2 cents...
There are currently ~70 themes available. That seems like a lot. Even half that number would be a lot to choose from. I appreciate everyone likes different things and is looking for something to meet their needs.
Maybe have a cull and stick the others in a themes-extra option or something like that.

[EctoOne]

Missing things I noticed are related to theme creation.

• Carousel Theming (including vertical wheel)
• Variable Support
• Default Theme Support
• Default image Support

And there is the thing to disable the ES splashscreen by editing the es_settings.cfg (or whatever it's called). It's just a little tweak but still. I have to take a look later to find the exact line if needed.

[meleu]

@ectoone My intention is to make the ES part of the docs simple enough for end users. I think the subjects you listed are more for theme makers.

[EctoOne]

@meleu I understand, yet Creating your own theme is in the docs and they are part of ES aren't they? They are documented in the themes.md but not in the tutorial. And THB even I noticed that the themes.md exist and is kinda up to date just recently.
Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. Do what you want. :)

[meleu]

@ectoone Sorry, I didn't express myself well. I think the subjects you've listed are very valuable and need to be documented.

I was refering to this specific page of ES documentation, but I agree that I wasn't very clear. I'm going to edit the OP.

Thanks for pointing that. ;-)

[Hex]

@meleu Can we add developer comments eg. detailed documentation of feature workings so it becomes easier to maintain for others? I am interested in explaining how PS works and what must be handled by new features to get optimal behaviour.

[meleu]

@hex that would be really useful to increase ES longevity, IMHO. But I'm not sure if the ES wiki page is the best place to put this kind of info.

I believe that dev stuff should be at RetroPie's EmulationStation repo. Maybe a wiki on the repo with info for developers? Let's see what @BuZz think about it.