Does a UI like this exist?

BJRetro

@tackett1980 yes I think so but one (hack) solution if you otherwise like this approach over other alternatives is you can modify the input config file to delete the button that you use to set favorites once you get it set up and then accidental changes can’t occur. This will only impact the inputs in the emulation station menu system not the games. For instance in the emulation station menus I have the start button start games instead of the a button using the same sort of approach. If this makes sense I can try to find what file I had to modify to do that.

lostless

Or you could use the USB memory stick option. Put a subset of ROMs using a usb memory stick in a folder called RetroPie-mount. What that does is replaces the internal roms folder as long as the usb stick is in. Just restart emulation station when you plug in the usb stick to show the right roms on the stick, and when your done, unplug the USB stick and restart emulation station to show the roms on the SD card.

tackett1980

@lostless

Now that’s interesting.

What happens if you have a orphan rom on there with the parent on the pie?

tackett1980

@BJRetro

Yes, that’s also a great idea!

Both of these are good ideas, the usb mount and doing it in favorites.

I actually started making another games collection today, hopefully it doesn’t get rando deleted like the last one did.

lostless

@tackett1980 the pi does a symbolic link to the Usb drive that logically replaces the one on the SD card when the usb drive is plugged in. And it logically goes back to the SD card when the usb drive is unplugged. Basically the path of the roms folder either points to the sd card or the usb drive depending if it’s plugged in or not.

lostless

@tackett1980 further note, the reason you have to restart emulation station when using my method is because emulation station looks at what ROMs are in the roms folder when it starts up and makes the rom lists to what it finds. so if your usb stick is a subset of the whole rom collection, emulation station will show the whole list of the ROMs on the SD card but will only open the ones on the usb stick. After a restart it’ll show the proper ROMs on the usb stick

Capeman

Emulationstation supports subfolders.
Let’s use just NES as an example, all you need to do this:

Put your catered gamelist in the main folder for nes roms, like a good solid 50 gems.

Now inside the roms folder, make a sub folder and call it “all games” and drop the entire good nes set into it.

You’re main list of games will be short, but you’ll be able to pick the sub folder and see the whole set.

See my screenshot, i named the folder with a space before the name so it would appear first on the list. Name the folder “ZZ ALL GAMES” and it will go to the bottom of your list.

tackett1980

@Capeman

You are a genius! That worked swimmingly!

I have two further questions that will make this perfect. Likely the answer will be “yes” then the how will be too complicated for me to comprehend ha!

1: can I change the back button from a single button press to a multi button press to make it more difficult to back out of the games list folder?

2: can I hide the retropie/options menu or lock it?

I’m running into an issue where my littlest is ending up in the retropie options menu. I can’t remember if this is happening in kiosk mode or not but it seems like it is.

IanDaemon

@tackett1980
"2: can I hide the retropie/options menu or lock it?"

You can hide it. Just set the various things in there to "Hidden" and then use Kiosk mode. The entire section will disappear if nothing in it is visible.

tackett1980

@IanDaemon

Ohhhhhh so now I more understand kiosk mode.

I didn’t know that.

IanDaemon

@tackett1980 You can selectively show/hide various games or entire systems that way.

I have some ROMs set to be hidden if they're not working great (or at all) and then I put my system into "Kiosk" mode when people come over to play games. You can hide systems that way too. I have some ROMs identified as kid-friendly and then when I put EmulationStation into "Kid" mode...only those "kid" games are visible.

tackett1980

@IanDaemon

Hey I just tried this....and it didn’t actually do anything.

I clicked on edit meta data.
Set some stuff to “hidden”
Turned on kiosk mode and they are still there?

As far as I can tell too there’s no difference between kiosk and kid mode either.

I’m currently using the comic theme, maybe it’s something with the theme not supporting the feature?

The sub folder suggestion is working fantastic though.

tackett1980

@tackett1980

Ok, I figured it out.

You have to go into the menu and turn on filters.

I’m a moron.

mitu

Note that filters are not persistent - i.e. restarting EmulationStation (or RetroPie) will revert to the un-filtered view.

tackett1980

@mitu

Yup thanks, figured that one out too lol.

This actually has worked out perfectly. The sub folders are nice and neat and I don’t have to go through and decide who’s a parent and who’s not.

I may actually just get all these organized that I want and hide the “other games” folder entirely until someone comes to the house with some obscure request.

Thanks community!

IanDaemon

@mitu Since when? It's always worked for me. Is that a recent change?

mitu

@IanDaemon said in Does a UI like this exist?:

@mitu Since when? It's always worked for me. Is that a recent change?

Since always ?

IanDaemon

@mitu Huh. Maybe I have a buggy set-up. Things always "stuck".

mitu

@IanDaemon said in Does a UI like this exist?:

Things always "stuck".

Even if you restart EmulationStation ?

IanDaemon

Yeah, I power-on the cabinet and I get a filtered view. Kiosk. Turn it off. Turn it on. Filtered kiosk.