Updated EmulationStation for Windows

lopapa

@jero
Thanks but the cores of the same emulator for retroarch already work for me correctly thanks to the manual that you indicate of the web page. The problem I pose is to configure a standalone emulator independent of retroarch and at the same time a retroarch emulator with its cores.
Having only one tag <command> I don't know how to make the call discriminating

f.caruso

@lopapa Yes you can override the main command :

<emulators>
      <emulator name="libretro">
        <cores>
          <core>flycast</core>
          <core>reicast</core>
        </cores>
      </emulator>
      <emulator name="redream" command="%HOME%\redream\redream.exe -fullscreen %ROM%"/>
    </emulators>

lopapa

@f-caruso

Thanks f-caruso! Works like a charm!

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

I have some feature requests if you ever run out of things to do >_>

Option that can hide and unhide systems from within EmulationStation. Kind of like a checklist similar to game collections. It'd be an alternative to having to comment and uncomment systems in the es_systems file. (I have a lot of systems with 10 or less games that I normally don't want visible.) Games from hidden systems should still be visible in game collections.
Add theme properties to show metadata on each game in grid view, rather than always being located in one spot. It could be like "gridtile.favorite" and "gridtile.favorite:selected" are with the favourite badge. Also maybe a way to show game titles on one line with scrolling for long titles. Here's how I have a theme for Kodi modified and here's the best I can get with ES.
Add colour properties to "gameImage" and "folderImage" under imagegrid. (To allow for different colours per system with a variable, or just to recolour an image without editing it.)
Add a scrollSound property for selecting systems from carousel view, rather than just gamelist view. (And have them separate.)

:)?

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd Interesting I'll think about it.

Always being located in one spot

You can already set the pos/size of the text to align it at bottom. It's just not auto-scrollable.
I'm also interested in having a link to the theme you build ;-)

LiveFreeDead

@f-caruso Your Continuous Master build has failed, no precompiled .exe's have been available for the last 22 hours or so.

LiveFreeDead

@LiveFreeDead Fixed now, guess it was a github issue.

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

I'm also interested in having a link to the theme you build ;-)

Hmm, am I allowed to share it if it's a mod of another theme (spaceoddity)? It also has optional assets from even more themes and edited artwork I've found elsewhere. All I've kept the same is the carousel view (for the most part.) It's so pretty though @_@..

I found "gridtile.overlay" in one of your edited themes, but I can't get the game title to appear on top of it, even using zIndex. I'm trying to add a shadow image (which barely shades just the bottom) from the Kodi screenshot I shared, so I can position the title at the bottom and have it clearly readable without glowColor. Example of it underneath the overlay.

duiz

Is there a way to set screenscraper to only search for games with missing metadata? TheGamesDB is down for the forseeable future and when updating games it makes me rescrape every game.

LiveFreeDead

@duiz It actually has in the Scrapers Filter (top option when you pick Scrape Now), the reason it scrapes all games instead of ones without media is either it doesn't have a description for the game, you have Scrape Ratings enabled or you use a different tool to scrape the existing Meta Data - I found if I use Skraper that if I then use EmulationStation to re-scrape over the top, it would get ALL the games again regardless of the filter choice and place the new meta data (screen shots, videos) in the current ROMS\Images, ROMS\Videos sub folders, once they were placed there it would skip existing properly.

Hope this helps.

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd

I found "gridtile.overlay" in one of your edited themes, but I can't get the game title to appear on top of it

Overlay as its names says displays over others components. I have no zIndex management in gridview child components.
The shadow can be realized using imagegrid.padding ( which can take 4 values, left/top/right/bottom ) & using the background as a ninepatch using gridtile.backgroundImage with a gridtile.backgroundCornerSize (where values have to be >= 1 to define shadow + border size in px )

EDIT : The padding was only a 2 value. I extended it to accept 4 values & tested it - you'll have to download the latest build. See what it looks like using a png with the shadow & <padding>4 4 14 14</padding><backgroundCornerSize>32 32</backgroundCornerSize>

@duiz Yes, see the "only missing medias" option. "The reason it scrapes all games" is that the only way to know which medias you are missing is to ask the server its list of medias. As the option name says : Using this option, only missing medias are downloaded.

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso That's all a bit confusing to me. Can you paste it as working code, or edit one of your themes?

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd

<gridtile name="default">
      <backgroundImage>./art/tileshadow.png</backgroundImage>
      <padding>4 4 14 14</padding>           
      <backgroundCornerSize>32 32</backgroundCornerSize>     
</gridtile>

using this image:

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

I tried that in Carbon and it appears underneath the game image. In my theme, it just distorts the game image a little.

<view name="grid">

	<imagegrid name="gamegrid">
	    <imageSource>image</imageSource>
	    <autoLayout>3 3</autoLayout>
	    <autoLayoutSelectedZoom>1</autoLayoutSelectedZoom>
	    <animateSelection>false</animateSelection>
	    <pos>.05 .05</pos>
	    <size>.9 .9</size>
	    <margin>.005 .005</margin>
	</imagegrid>

	<gridtile name="default, selected">
	    <selectionMode>image</selectionMode>
	    <imageSizeMode>minSize</imageSizeMode>
	    <backgroundCornerSize>.01</backgroundCornerSize>
	    <backgroundColor>ffffff00</backgroundColor>
	    <imageColor>ffffff</imageColor>
	    <padding>8 8</padding>
	</gridtile>

	<gridtile name="selected">
	    <backgroundColor>ffffff</backgroundColor>
	</gridtile>

	<image name="gridtile.image">
	    <roundCorners>.01</roundCorners>
	</image>

</view>

That's mine, with some unnecessary stuff removed. An overlay (or something similar) with zIndex seems simpler though :x

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd There's no other possibility to draw a shadow.
Overlay applies on the image rect only and can't render"outside".

Anyway, it works fine using your xml & changing :

 <padding>8 8 18 18</padding>           
 <backgroundCornerSize>32 32</backgroundCornerSize>

( <padding>4 4 14 14</padding> works fine also, just it does small borders )
Also the image I provided needs image roundCorners at 0.06, & it renders gray as it is gray inside.

But maybe I didn't understand what you are trying to achieve...
You are trying to add a shadow under the tile ? right ?

CarissaIsWierd

This post is deleted!

LiveFreeDead

@f-caruso I noticed a few weird issues you might be able to have a look in to:

Softening of the window/theme elements is applied when you run ;
set HOME=%~dp0
start "" emulationstation.exe --resolution 1280 720 --windowed

but if you try and just run it without being in windowed mode (running EmulationStation.exe) it doesn't soften the window at all, even makes the fonts jagged and hard to read, it would be good to have this optional, but I would rather it always soften than have jagged edges for non screenshot elements. I also noticed if I run "emulationstation.exe --resolution 1920 1080" without the "--windowed" switch it will fill the screen and be softened how I like - maybe there is already a switch for making it full screen bun to full screen? I tried "--resolution 0 0" but that failed to even run.

2.Once you pick a item, if the Description text is bigger than can be shown it starts scrolling the text up after only 200ms or something, I feel this should either be optional or at least increased to 1 or 2 seconds, nobody could read a line of text before it scrolls IMO.

3.The clock is displayed as 24 hour and not available as am/pm 12h, I'd prefer the latter as it matches my windows OS clock's defaults.

4.Video's for a game will repeat until the screen saver becomes active, it would be nice to be able to set how many times it loops and or, make it possible to add a delay in seconds between each loop (unless you change items of course).

I mainly care about issue 1, but listed the other ideas while at it.

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso Oof, so it was a misunderstanding. No, I wanted a shadow image underneath the game title, not the tile.

f.caruso

@LiveFreeDead

Try "--fullscreen" in the command line. I changed the default mode to fullscreenwindowed, because exclusive fullscreen can create problems (expecially when not hiding when running a game).
I didn't change default timings.
Interesting...
I know, I'm thinking about a theme property to handle that...

@CarissaIsWierd A shadow image underneath the game title ??? What kind of shadow ? On the text, on the image ??? I don't understand what you want...

jero

@f-caruso Well every time this has better things. There could be settings for the videos that appear without making the animation. In other words, an adjustment for on off and maybe put some more animation.

Another thing I do not know if it is already possible to play background music and sounds when moving and selecting the carousel.

Another idea would be a bootscreen video, when you start ES.

Finally, about the padtokey. there is a possibility that it is something within ES without having to be outside of ES. You plan to make a github of padtokey. I think it is a fundamental part of ES in windows, but I understand that everything is done as long as it is to back up as well and that Padtokey makes no sense in retropie. Scheme padtokey is amazing when it works. It would be incredible to be part of It is also that with padtokey could also be used as a mouse also for retro games that are tactile or have 3D gameplay.

For example, the padtokey doesn't work for me now, it's because of a problem with windows. Because if I change it from hdd it works for me I don't know how to solve it, if some place to delete a file or registry so that it works again

As always, thank you for your work.