EmulationStation Toolkit - Theme Making Helper

mattrixk

@herb_fargus If there was some way to have a Windows version of ES stay more or less up to date with the RetroPie releases, it would be fantastic. I have no idea how to do it, or how viable it would be (considering RetroPie has lots of stuff that isn't applicable to plain ES).

One of the main things for me is Video Previews can now use the <maxSize> property on the <video> element, but if you try to use it in the latest Windows build by @fieldofcows, it breaks the theme, so I still have to use <size>.

There are also things like Z-index, <feature> support, and variables (I think it was @jdrassa working on all of those), that I would love to see in a Windows build, but I'm not sure how close any of them are to completion.

herb_fargus

@mattrixk I'm sure there is a way to do it, just need to look into it when I get some time.

just a few suggestions on your repo, It may be more portable to keep the roms/scrapes in with the rom folders (that's my personal preference) but I suppose its fine either way.

and then for the repository you can keep all the configs in the repo and then keep any binaries like ES uploaded as a release for people to download

mattrixk

Also, I should add: If anyone finds something broken, wrong or weird, let me know. Either on this thread or using the "Issues" tab on GitHub.

jdrassa

@mattrixk @herb_fargus I spent some time recently trying to setup an automated Windows build using appveyor. I am able to complete a build, but I get errors when actually trying to run the executable.

mattrixk

@herb_fargus:

"keep the roms/scrapes in with the rom folders"

Do you mean the roms/snesfolder will look like this:

Aladdin.sfc
Aladdin-mix.png
Aladdin-screenshot.jpg
Aladdin-video.mp4

Or would the images and videos be in a "downloaded_images" folder within roms/snes?

@jdrassa Good luck getting it working.

herb_fargus

@mattrixk they would be in a downloaded images folder (I typically just call it images) in the ROMs folder

mattrixk

@herb_fargus: Like this?

Imgur

Disregard the file path, it's just a quick photoshop mockup. I used "media" because it holds Videos as well as Images, so calling it "images" seemed disingenuous.

"and then for the repository you can keep all the configs in the repo and then keep any binaries like ES uploaded as a release for people to download"

I'm not sure I really follow this. I understand keeping all the Roms and Media together, that way you can just move the Roms folder and take all the media with you (but you'd still have to take the Gamelist folder too). Which configs are you referring to? The UXS stuff? Also, this Repo doesn't have any binaries... I'm confused.

herb_fargus

@mattrixk yeah media is probably more accurately named. Some people separate them out to images/ snaps /marquees just so their paths are standardised and then I believe the gamelist.xml is just kept with the ROMs. Really just personal preference though.

Referring to binaries for example once we get an ES Windows build working you can upload a portable binary of that with your configs as a downloadable release or I can update my portable gamestation with it and this repo can just be metadata supplements. Either way

mattrixk

@herb_fargus Ahh, I see what you mean. At the moment I just link to the 3 Windows ES builds I've found (yours, Zigurana's Carousel Mod and Fieldofcow's Video Preview). If we somehow ended up with a complete build, would we link to that from the Toolkit Repo, or host it on the Repo itself? (I'm not much for knowing GitHub. I still don't know how to do a pull request).

pjft

@mattrixk this is a great toolkit, not only for Windows but for ES development as well in general.

robertybob

I had a quick look at this last night and found that upon attempting to load the .bat files, Emulationstation didn't load and a Windows "Emulationstation is not respondnig" messahe appeared (there was an error message too but I forgot to c&p it somewhere). Do they work ok for everyone else?

mattrixk

@robertybob: Does ES start normally when you open it with the .exe?

What does your file path look like? eg:
C:\Users\RobertyBob\EmulationStation\Launch ES Mid Size (1280x720).bat
or
E:\EmulationStation\Launch ES Mid Size (1280x720).bat

robertybob

@mattrixk I'm at work at the moment but I think it's:

C:\Program FIles (x86)\Emulationstation

It worked ok when using the .exe

mattrixk

@robertybob Hmm... I don't know what could be causing it, but I'll have a play and see what I can find. I stole the .bat files from @herb_fargus's Portable EmulationStation build, so I don't really know how they work, just that they do work for me.

The .bats start with set HOME=%~dp0, but I don't actually know what that means or does. Maybe Herb can tell us.

herb_fargus

@mattrixk ah so it's my fault now is it ;)

Put it in a path without spaces and then see if it works. The launch bats are supposed to be for the portable builds where everything has relative paths. Eg if you install emulationstation on Windows possibly wont work, vs extracting the zip which should.

mattrixk

Hey don't blame me @herb_fargus, I'm just the thief using other people's hard work :D
(I just realised I never actually gave you credit for them, so that has now been fixed in the README.md file)

herb_fargus

@mattrixk I'd like to streamline the testing as much as possible.

I wrote up a guide on installing a portable ES here
https://github.com/HerbFargus/Portable-Game-Station/wiki/Manual-Installation

But for your testing repo I'd like to:

get automated test builds for retropie ES (I'll see if I can do that this weekend)
add rookerviks theme helper (I'll ask him)
make a quick guide on installation

Then I would also like a wiki page of sorts on integrating video view for ES (perhaps may be a nice addition to your theme making guide) and then also would be nice to have a guide on scraping videos

backstander

@robertybob

I had a quick look at this last night and found that upon attempting to load the .bat files, Emulationstation didn't load and a Windows "Emulationstation is not respondnig" messahe appeared (there was an error message too but I forgot to c&p it somewhere). Do they work ok for everyone else?

I haven't used this toolkit yet but I have used @herb_fargus Portable EmulationStation build and I had the same issue with the .bat files and after some troubleshooting, I discovered it was because of spaces in the directory name(s) so I just moved everything to C:\EmulationStation\ and after that I didn't have these issues.

robertybob

@backstander

Awesome, thanks for letting me know :)

mattrixk

@herb_fargus Sounds like the beginnings of a plan. I'll see what I can do on my end. I have a Pi on the way , so I'll be able to test out video preview on the latest image properly. Once I've wrapped my head around exactly what can and can't be done with videos, then I'll update the How-To guide.

I have some time off coming up next month, and I plan on spending at least part of it with RetroPie* (I may even spend some time playing games, which I don't actually do very often).

* I eventually want a single portable unit with LED, power button, fan and hard drive, but I'll be happy with just a power button to start.

Edit: Thanks @backstander, that's good to know. I've made a note of it in the README.md file.