Is there a way to set a path for media files without editing games one by one?

Imgema

@mitu Yeah it works in Retropie. Tested it on Windows though and it won't work there.

mitu

@Imgema said in Is there a way to set a path for media files without editing games one by one?:

Tested it on Windows though and it won't work there.

Which version do you have on Windows and where did you get it ? If it's the original EmulationStation site, then it doesn't have this feature.

Imgema

@mitu Pretty sure i have the jrassa build. It gets updated more often and my exe has a 20-March-2020 date.

I also used caruso's build but i didn't like the way it displays the videos.

mitu

That should work, it's the same as the RetroPie's version. I don't have Windows system to test right now, maybe it's behaving differently on Windows.

Imgema

@mitu said in Is there a way to set a path for media files without editing games one by one?:

That should work, it's the same as the RetroPie's version. I don't have Windows system to test right now, maybe it's behaving differently on Windows.

"Well, i made an "images" folder in the rompath and got some images inside with the correct names and a "-image" at the end, basically the same steps as with Retropie and it doesn't work. And even if it did i don't see any way to change the path since i wouldn't want the media to be in the rompath.

mitu

@Imgema Just to be sure, you did enable the corresponding option in the settings ?

Imgema

@mitu I'm thankful you asked that because i must be an idiot. The option for local files was there and i never saw it for some stupid reason.

So yeah, it works the same way like Retropie. Now if only there was a way to change the path...

Imgema

@mitu I can't find a way for ARRM to help me. It doesn't seem to have an option to load a gamelist i already have so i can edit it. And i can't find how to add paths anyway. It's overcomplicated and way over my head :(

Imgema

Ok, i think i found a method to do this.

First of all, i can't avoid not scrapping the media files but i can avoid scrapping videos. So what i do is scrap only the screenshots and boxes, the idea is to scrap 2 files that are less likely to have gaps and have the smallest size (for faster scrapping).

Luckily, there won't be many gaps this way and the scrapping will take only a few minutes. I'm using SkraperUI.

The result in the gamelist file is something like this:

<image>../../../EmuStation/Database/media/gb/images/Adventures of Lolo (Europe).png</image>
<thumbnail>../../../EmuStation/Database/media/gb/videos/Adventures of Lolo (Europe).png</thumbail>

This is good because that's what i needed. Two lines that have the gamefile name in them. The bolted parts are the ones that matter. Notice how i set the "thumbnails" to be saved in the videos folder. All i have to do now is use notepad++ and bulk-replace all the <thumbnail> with <video>, ".png</t" with ".mp4</t" (so the .png extension i need from the above line isn't changed) and then </thumbnail> with </video> . This way all my paths are set in the gamelist.

Then i place my videos in the video folder, delete the placeholder images that were downloaded and that's it! I have both all paths and metadata in one gamelist.

Can't believe i had to squeeze my brain to come up with something like this just to set some media paths... But at least so far that's the most efficient way to do it.

simonc

i made a software to do something like this specially working with xml.
it is not public release

Texacate

This is quite an old thread, but it does show up in google searches. I thought I'd update it with links to gamelist.xml apps/tools that that I've found, and similar discussion threads. By no means is this an exhaustive list.

ES_XML_Maker - Updated Gamelist XML Creator
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4471/updated-gamelist-xml-creator

RetroPi Media - gamelist.xml generator
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/23534/retropi-media-gamelist-xml-generator

Gengal - Gamelist XML Generator
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/9486/gengal-gamelist-xml-generator

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