Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots

herb_fargus

@meleu I personally don't care about metadata but I know lots of others do.

Once gridview is incorporated I think those extra flags will be more useful (though I presume that it may be possible to theme metadata in with that at some point) might be a cool design to have a box on the side that changes with each game. I'll have to play with that in the future.

Also have you tested your code changes ;)

herb_fargus

@meleu I tested your code changes and they work :) thanks for the refactor. I've updated the wiki page accordingly.

meleu

@herb_fargus said in Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots:

Also have you tested your code changes ;)

hahaha... after one acquires a bad reputation it's hard to miss it...

yes! I tested my code! :D
I'm glad it works for you too.

meleu

@herb_fargus I'm currently working on a simpler way to achieve what we want here (take and scrape your own screenshots). No need for those ~~runcommand-on{start,end}.sh~~ sselph scraper options complexity, just take your screenshots as you like and then execute a script to put the most recent screenshot as the scrape image. Hope to show something useful soon...

meleu

@herb_fargus
Well...
After reading this series of brainstorming posts, reading the gamelist.xml doc, and taking a look at some gamelist.xml files, I found a simpler solution for what we want.

Let me talk about another method...

user point of view

Take screenshots of a game and set the most recent screenshot as the emulationstation image for this game.

prerequisites

auto_screenshot_filename = false in global retroarch.cfg. It will be the flag to turn on/off the "scrape your own screenshots" functionality (it can be confusing, because "false" means "on", we can think about another flag later.).
screenshot_directory must be set to some directory in retroarch.cfg (system specific or global, system specific takes precedence).
it was made to work after a scraping (the $HOME/.emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml or /etc/emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml files must exist).

how it works

Summing up: put the game screenshot full path file name in the respective <image> entry, replacing the old content. If the game isn't present in gamelist.xml, create an entry for it.

Let's take a look at the runcommand-onend.sh:
[EDIT: the script below is just a "proof of concept". A robust and updated version is in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/screeper.sh]

#!/bin/bash
echo "--- start of $(basename $0) ---" >&2

readonly system="$1"
readonly full_path_rom="$3"
readonly retroarch_cfg="/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"
readonly system_ra_cfg="/opt/retropie/configs/$system/retroarch.cfg"
readonly gamelist="$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/gamelist.xml"
readonly gamelist1="$HOME/.emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml"
readonly gamelist2="/etc/emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml"

rom="${full_path_rom##*/}"
rom="${rom%.*}"
scrap_img="$rom.png"

source "/opt/retropie/lib/inifuncs.sh"

iniConfig ' = ' '"'

# only go on if the auto_screenshot_filename is false
iniGet "auto_screenshot_filename" "$retroarch_cfg"
if ! [[ "$ini_value" =~ ^(false|0)$ ]]; then
    exit 0
fi

# getting the screenshots directory
# try system specific retroarch.cfg, if not found try the global one
iniGet "screenshot_directory" "$system_ra_cfg"
screenshot_dir="$ini_value"
if [[ -z "$screenshot_dir" ]]; then
    iniGet "screenshot_directory" "$retroarch_cfg"
    screenshot_dir="$ini_value"
    if [[ -z "$screenshot_dir" ]]; then
        echo "You must set a path for 'screenshot_directory' in \"retroarch.cfg\"." >&2
        echo "Aborting..." >&2
        exit 1
    fi
fi

# if there is no screenshot named "ROM Name.png", we have nothing to do here
if ! [[ -f "$screenshot_dir/$scrap_img" ]]; then
    echo "There is no screenshot for \"$rom\". Exiting..." >&2
    exit 0
fi

# if there is no "customized gamelist.xml", try the user specific,
# if it fails, get the global one
if ! [[ -f "$gamelist" ]]; then
    echo "Copying \"$gamelist1\" to \"$gamelist\"." >&2

    if ! cp "$gamelist1" "$gamelist" 2>/dev/null; then
        echo "Failed to copy \"$gamelist1\"." >&2
        echo "Copying \"$gamelist2\" to \"$gamelist\"." >&2

        if ! cp "$gamelist2" "$gamelist" 2>/dev/null; then
            echo "Failed to copy \"$gamelist2\"." >&2
            echo "Aborting..." >&2
            exit 1
        fi
    fi
fi

# the <image> entry MUST be on a single line and match the pattern:
# anything followed by rom name followed or not by "-image" followed by dot followed by 3 chars
old_img_regex="<image>.*$rom\(-image\)\?\....</image>"
new_img_regex="<image>$screenshot_dir/$scrap_img</image>"

if grep -q "$old_img_regex" "$gamelist"; then
    sed -i "s|$old_img_regex|$new_img_regex|" "$gamelist"

else # oh! there is no entry for this game yet!
    gamelist_entry="\\
    <game id=\"\" source=\"\">\\
        <path>$full_path_rom</path> \\
        <name>$rom</name> \\
        <desc></desc> \\
        $new_img_regex \\
        <releasedate></releasedate> \\
        <developer></developer> \\
        <publisher></publisher> \\
        <genre></genre> \\
    </game>"

    sed -i "/<\/gameList>/ s|.*|${gamelist_entry}\n&|" "$gamelist"
fi

echo "--- end of $(basename $0) ---" >&2

limitations

Currently this is a kind of "proof of concept". The limitations below can be overcome if we feel that this is the way to achieve what we want.
[The updated and more robust version of the script is available here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/screeper.sh]

This method ~~only~~ changes the <image> entry of a particular game. ~~So, if this game is NOT present in the gamelist.xml, nothing happens.~~ [EDIT: if the game is not present in gamelist.xml, the script creates an entry for it]
The <image></image> entry in the gamelist.xml must be in a single line (it seems to be the default, so probably we don't have to worry about it).
The original image filename in the <image> entry must be named as ROM Name.ext or ROM Name-image.ext (ext can be any 3 characters, eg: png, bmp, jpg, etc), otherwise the sed command won't replace it. [EDIT: it wasn't a problem in my first tests here]
After a succeeded image changing, the respective <image> entry will have a full path to the image. It can be an inconvenience if the user wants to copy the gamelist.xml between computers (IMHO it's not so important. Besides that it probably won't be a problem to those who use the pi user).

"I didn't like how it looks! I want my old scrapes back!"

Change the auto_screenshot_filename to true in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and then delete the system specific gamelist.xml that is at the system roms directory (example for SNES: ~/RetroPie/roms/snes/gamelist.xml). Now emulationstation will get the gamelist from $HOME/.emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml.

Restart emulationstation and you'll get back your old scrapes.

where to go from here?

After learn how to use the scraper with -append=true option (no success on my first tests) and if it proves to be good enough, we can evolve it to what I think would be a cool feature: scrape with screenshots only the games that aren't scraped. In other words: if the user is playing a non-scraped game and takes screenshots, then scrape this game with the most recent taken screenshot.

I think its done! :D
Maybe some minor bug fixes (if we found some) and minor improvements.

meleu

Yes, I tested the code. ;-)

If you want to avoid the copy'n'paste process you can get it with this command:

wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/screeper.sh"

And then rename it to runcommand-onend.sh.

meleu

@herb_fargus
Man! I've updated the script to create an entry for the games that aren't present in gamelist.xml. I updated my big post above including the changes (yes! I tested my code!).

You can get the updated code at github:

wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/src/master/screeper.sh"

Dude, it was really fun to accomplish this task. Thanks for this challenge!

When you have time to test it (and agree with my method) maybe we can edit the wiki to use this method. It's up to you. (If you agree I can edit it next night).

Cheers!

herb_fargus

@meleu so where does metadata fit in with this ;)

meleu

@herb_fargus
one of the prerequisites is:

it was made to work after a scraping (the $HOME/.emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml or /etc/emulationstation/gamelists/$system/gamelist.xml files must exist).

I think it's better to leave the scraping up to the user, because it is very time consuming to be in runcommand-onend.sh.

herb_fargus

@meleu that is true. and the download-images-false flag with sselphs scraper can pull the metadata without the images- or I guess they may have to scrape metadata first unless its appended.

sselph

I think the code as is may have a bug. I haven't run it but just reading it over and following the logic.
ROMs named:
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Eye of the Beholder (USA).smc
Zool - Ninja of the 'Nth' Dimension (USA).smc
Will scrape to something like:
<image>./images/Zool - Ninja of the 'Nth' Dimension (USA).png</image>
so the regex used to find and replace the old entry won't work and a new entry will be appended.

That brings up a second bug with the appending code. If a rom is named with a quote in it will probably parse okay but an ampersand would be considered invalid and skipped:
<path>./Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Eye of the Beholder (USA).smc</path>
instead of
<path>./Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Eye of the Beholder (USA).smc</path>

If the file named happened to have a < or > things would be very bad
test <US>.bin
would convert to:
<path>test <US>.bin</path>
and the extra <US> would throw off the parser.
it should be something like
<path>test <US>.bin</path>

Using something like passing the file name through
sed "s/\&/\&/g;s/>/\>/g;s/</\</g;s/'/\'/g"
might work to convert things to a similar the escaped XML.

sselph

Something else that may be an issue, but I'm not 100% certain, is having files with names like test [!].bin this seems like it would create a grep statement like grep "test [!].bin" which means the [ and ] wouldn't be taken literally. Also the ! probably causes issues.

meleu

@sselph good points! I'll fix it!
Thanks!

meleu

@sselph
Thanks a lot for your comments! I googled a bit about what you said and I think I've fixed it.

Sharing some info...

From what I understand we have three levels of interpretation to take care of:

shell
XML
sed/grep

shell

As we are getting the file names from runcommand.sh, they are already valid. I know that file names with strange characters (eg.: percent sign) don't work in emulationstation... So, there's a lot of filtering before the filename gets in the runcommand-onend.sh.

XML

As far as I know (from this source), we have five characters to take care:

"   &quot;
'   &apos;
<   &lt;
>   &gt;
&   &amp;

I did it this way:

function echo_xml_safe() {
    output="$(sed 's#\&#\&amp;#g' <<< "$@")"
    output="$(
        sed "
            s#\"#\&quot;#g
            s#'#\&apos;#g
            s#<#\&lt;#g
            s#>#\&gt;#g" <<< "$output"
    )"
    echo "$output"
}

[EDIT: echo has a limitation: it won't print these exact strings: -e or -n. And the use of the printf alternative would add another series of strings to be escaped. Well... the "scrape your own screenshot" trick won't work for roms named -e.ext or -n.ext. We can survive with it... :-) ]

sed/grep

For a safe sed/grep used this function:

function echo_regex_safe() {
    echo "$(sed 's#[][&\^]#\\&#g' <<< "$@")"
}

meleu

@herb_fargus
I've created another wiki page describing my method.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Take-and-Scrape-Your-Own-Screenshots-(method-2)

I took the freedom to take several parts of your text. I hope you don't mind. :-)

A huge thanks to @sselph for predict the bugs!

Cheers!

meleu

Now I would like to share some info I obtained during the time I was working on this script for future references.

I made intensive tests with several really% $trange&char*cter's [in] ^ROM\ <file> "names".ext and I've got some conclusions:

Linux file systems (and most of the UNIX-like file systems) are very permissive with characters used in filenames. Actually, the only two reserved chars for filenames in POSIX systems are / and null char (source).
Many of the files with strange chars don't even launch the emulator.
Some failed launches occur due to ES limitations: the ES try to launch a game and I can't see the runcommand dialog, then it goes back to ES.
Aloshi says in the gamelists documentation: "One thing to be aware of: the EmulationStation text rendering code doesn't currently support Unicode. If I fix this in the future, it will probably use UTF-8. For now, you'll just have to convert names and descriptions to ASCII. Sorry!"
Some other failed launches occur due to runcommand limitations: I can see the runcommand dialog, then it goes back to ES.
if the rom name has two or more consecutive spaces, the game launches OK, but the RetroArch isn't able to create a screenshot for this game. Everything seems to be OK, I play the game, I take screenshots with no failed messages, but when I look at the screenshots directory the image isn't there. It seems to be a RetroArch bug.

All the games I managed to launch AND take screenshot, my scrape method worked fine.

Example of strange rom name that worked fine: mega$ man[vs]dr& willy\< USA >[!].nes

herb_fargus

@meleu I don't like the idea of two wiki pages explaining the same thing. It would make more sense to just have a heading in the original wiki page for each method. The less pages we can have in the wiki the better as its getting quite large

meleu

@herb_fargus
I'm gonna try to edit and put both methods in one page.

meleu

@herb_fargus
When trying to merge the common info I realized a few things that I would like to know your opinion:

retroarch.cfg

method 1

The runcommand-onstart.sh always force the configs

auto_screenshot_filename = "false"
screenshot_directory = "$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/images"

Pros:

no need to manually edit the retroarch.cfg.
simplifies the scraper command.

Cons:

if the user want to configure these options with different values in retroarch.cfg the script will always overwrite the changes with those from the script. It can bring confusion.
if the user wants to disable the script, he must to delete the runcommand-onstart.sh AND manually edit every single system retroarch.cfg (therefore, it invalidates the first pro).

method 2

The user must to edit retroarch.cfg manually.

Pros:

Respect what is in retroarch.cfg.
Only user comfortable with file editing will feel confident to do it. (ok, ok... putting this as a pro is a matter of opinion)

Cons:

Inexperienced users will avoid it. (the very same thing of the 2nd pro, but put in other point of view).

My question

Do you want to keep that runcommand-onstart.sh in the wiki?

[EDIT]
We can instruct the users to manually set the configs in the system's retroarch.cfg as expected by the method 1 instead of using the script.

herb_fargus

@meleu yes I think we should keep the runcommand option, I didn't think about the whole configs staying thing but I think we could technically add a function to remove the configs with onend or really tbh if people are going to be using this method I would expect they have a basic competency in editing files and if they dont I would expect they have a basic enough competency to learn.

I think we've coddled people too much with RetroPie . The pi is for learning and doing cool things and that requires taking the time to learn it and make mistakes.

I think both approaches are valid and as you mentioned both have their pros and cons. We should allow the user to make a decision on what will work best for them, and if they become confused on it they should take the time to troubleshoot and learn why so they can actually learn.