Hide systems/consoles and only show "all games" section

kap5ule

Hi guys,

I want to make an image for my father with just a few games of diferents systems/consoles and kodi, is there any method to hide all systems/consoles and only show the "all games" section?

pjft

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that if it's just a few games you probably could manage by creating a custom system and then editing the default emulator for each of those games. It's slightly hackier and manual (meaning that you would have to manually edit some text files, but not much).

I believe @meleu, @TMNTturtlguy and @cyperghost had worked on something like that in the past. Maybe you can find some posts about that approach of creating customer systems.

meleu

@kap5ule if you use unzipped ROMs we can create a script to launch the right emulator. But, as @pjft mentioned, it would be a bit hacky.

EctoOne

@pjft Now I'm curious, isn't it possible to remove all systems from es_systems.cfg or are the entries needed for the custom collection system to work?

@meleu why would it require unzipped roms? Can't he just use your old script to create a new all games collection? I combined some systems with that some time ago. I can't remember if I had to manually combine the gamelist.xml, but that would be relatively fast to do. Including adding the new system and removing the unwanted systems from es_systems.cfg.

cyperghost

@ectoone said in Hide systems/consoles and only show "all games" section:

@pjft Now I'm curious, isn't it possible to remove all systems from es_systems.cfg or are the entries needed for the custom collection system to work?

You need the runcommand call for the specific emulator. No emulator in list -> no call. But I don't know what happens to the custom collection. Physical the ROM files are available and should be shown up but as the system is not available via es_systems.cfg then nothing would be showen up.

@meleu why would it require unzipped roms? Can't he just use your old script to create a new all games collection? I combined some systems with that some time ago. I can't remember if I had to manually combine the gamelist.xml, but that would be relatively fast to do. Including adding the new system and removing the unwanted systems from es_systems.cfg.

Afaik, you need the file extension to determine correct emulator. But please corrrect me if I'm wrong.

btt
@kap5ule
Yes @pjft is right .... I created a "Favourite launcher" before this feature was introduced in ES. And I think it will solve your request. You can find it here - there are also some screenshots of how it's looking - the trick is that it creates the exact runcommand call as in es_system.cfg but don't needs it as it uses it's own copy and it is independent of system extension as it uses it own. So indeed you can delete all shown system and just use the Favourite Launcher to call all system. The file extension created are *.fav so it can be registered as "own" system. Indeed as @pjft and @meleu already told it is a hacky way.
Because for creating the favourite files you need full access to your system (or use commande line). So for easy setup you need two es_system.cfg

Stripped down to show only the favourite folders/systems
The original one for creating and setup your favourite (if you don't want to mess around with the CLI).

This is all doable and for your fathers sake an easy controll solution but needs some hacking and outfindings ;)

But also @meleu created a launch system that depends an symlinking and should also work - but I never used that and can't tell you about setup pros and cons but you can step in here

All in all we recommand you to use the favourite and custom collection system provided by ES - btw @pjft & @Zigurana are the fathers of this nice feature!

pjft

@ectoone Well...

The custom collections rely on games that ES knows about.
ES only knows about games that it loads.
ES only loads games from systems that it knows.
ES only knows about systems defined in es_systems.cfg.

So yeah, in concept it could be an option, but unfortunately in practice it won't work.

meleu

@kap5ule undoubtedly the best and easiest approach is you putting the ROMs in their right places AND enabling the "All Games" collection. And then tell your father "Hey dad, you can launch the game choosing from the specific console menu, or from the "All Games" list."

@EctoOne you're right. Using that symbolic link approach and removing the unwanted systems from es_systems.cfg would work too (I think).

cyperghost

@meleu said in Hide systems/consoles and only show "all games" section:

@kap5ule undoubtedly the best and easiest approach is you putting the ROMs in their right places AND enabling the "All Games" collection. And then tell your father "Hey dad, you can launch the game choosing from the specific console menu, or from the "All Games" list."

The easiest method indeed ;)

@EctoOne you're right. Using that symbolic link approach and removing the unwanted systems from es_systems.cfg would work too (I think).

Hmmm.... Are you sure? Where are the runcommand calls stored? Or do you create them by your custom control script?

EctoOne

@pjft Yeah, i figured that after i went to bed. :D

@cyperghost The script @meleu created has indeed an extra control script. He mentioned it here.

kap5ule

Thx for all the answers, I'll try the "favourite launcher" of @cyperghost, the one of @meleu and maybe motion blue v5 base image that i read it has collections but i think only in attract mode.

"Hey dad, you can launch the game choosing from the specific console menu, or from the "All Games" list."

Hehehe, yes, that's the easy and best option for me but i want to try, if i find it very complicated, yes, that will be the final solution XD.

meleu

@kap5ule using a third party image is a discouraged action here.