Idea for experimental: Install Arbitrary ES-branch

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy Sorry to bother you again! Do you know quickly if this supports images or is it just videos? Is this based on VLC?

TMNTturtlguy

@AlexMurphy No worries! It supports video only. The video screensaver runs off of OMX and there is a menu option which allows you to select VLC or OMX for the video preview in the detail/video views.

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy Cheers. I appreciate it. I thought this. Just wanted to check before I dived in. I was looking for a simple image screensaver. Might have to try it myself...

Zigurana

@TMNTturtlguy
Re: autopopulating a list of all possible ES branches: I think that would be a tall order indeed, as there are 438 forks from Aloshi's ES branch. Many/most of those will not be useful or current, so how to discriminate?
I think that starting with a user input (mabey just the github user, repo, and then offer a list of possible branches, if you want it even more fancy).

The goal is to make testing something that is doable for more people, so auto enabling debugging would also be nice.

AlexMurphy

@Zigurana My view is to ignore the Aloshi release and concentrate on the RetroPie branch only. It's more focused and a lot more active these days.

Zigurana

@AlexMurphy sure, you are completely right, but Retropie-ES is part of the same large collection of forks, so the selection issue remains.

TMNTturtlguy

@Zigurana I think i should have been more clear in my original post because i agree that we can't have a script for all of those forks.

What i was thinking is that a user could either download, or get the github links to the builds they want and place them in a folder within retropie, maybe in supplementary or even in home/pi/.emulationstation, maybe like home/pi/.emuilationstation/ESbuilds

Then the script would just look to the links or the actual ES files in that location. The menu would then act like it does for themes, and look to the folders where ES files are located. When you select a build you have a link or file to, it executes the script to set that build so that it is the one recognized as the correct file to use to start es form at launch. Thus i have 5 builds in my ESbuilds folder, i select Screensaver, the script runs to make that the current emulationstation. It would require the user to place ES builds they want in the folder, but that is pretty easy to do and provide instructions for.

The hard part is the coding, and i have no idea on how to make that happen, so as I said, you have a great idea, and this would be a dream wish of mine.

BuZz

I don't want to implement this in RetroPie-Setup gui, but it can easily be done via the commandline/small script

REPO=https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation
BRANCH=master
for action in depends sources build install configure clean; do
    [[ "$action" == "sources" ]] && action+=" $REPO $BRANCH"
    sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_packages.sh emulationstation $action
done

Zigurana

@BuZz said in Idea for experimental: Install Arbitrary ES-branch:

I don't want to implement this in RetroPie-Setup gui,

Why not? I was thinking it could be a good addition to the experimental collection?

AlexMurphy

@Zigurana I see BuZz's point. It may well confuse some people. Perhaps a DEV mode for RetroPie may be appropriate. A setting you need to manually enable in order to access certain options / features.

BuZz

@Zigurana Because I don't want to cause confusion - and retropie-setup is not supposed to be some development / testing gui.

Zigurana

@BuZz
ok, maybe I've misunderstood what the experimental section is for.
If not for trying out new things that might break, what is it for?
I'm not seeing how an option to "install ES from branch X" is any more confusing than "install Kid-mode ES".

I'm not trying to fight you on this, just seeking to understand.

AlexMurphy

@Zigurana BuZz just likes things done a certain way. His way. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just the way he likes it.

BuZz

@Zigurana I don't see why I have to explain myself and it's irritating to be questioned like this over choices. I don't have time to go over every decision (Surely my first reply is sufficient?).

It's not something I want to include. I don't want more ES fragmentation, and it will cause confusion (especially when they update from binary and it gets overwritten etc). The Kids mode ES module has caused problems in itself.

The experimental section is for emulators that may have issues etc, and there are already too many modules in it. Bear in mind that it is me who ends up maintaining all this.

AlexMurphy

@BuZz You should learn to delegate, man.

BuZz

@AlexMurphy To who ? People come and go all the time and I don't know of anyone else who has the time to put into maintaining modules. Look at the RetroPie-Setup PR / Commit history and you get a picture of it.

AlexMurphy

@BuZz Really? I understand how much work you put into this stuff. Most regulars do. It was a joke. Don't stress Jools. If you need help, just ask.

BuZz

@AlexMurphy said in Idea for experimental: Install Arbitrary ES-branch:

@Zigurana BuZz just likes things done a certain way. His way. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just the way he likes it.

That's not true - I take on board a lot of ideas/suggestions. But I think I have the right to say no to something if I don't like it.

AlexMurphy

@BuZz Of course you do. I was just being flippant. Don't cry.

TMNTturtlguy

@Zigurana I can totally understand where @BuZz is coming from and it makes sense. I don't think that we need to have a script or menu out there that is part of the standard Retropie that everyone else will use. We need to remember that there are only a select few of us who enjoy playing around with all the different aspects of the system, there are a whole lot more people who like to use it because it can be very easy to setup and just play!

I think we can still create a script or a menu or something for those who are interested in testing and development. There is an entire thread devoted to this on the forum! Once again I have to hold my head down a bit and bow to those of you who know how to code as I don't have those skills, but i do believe a script can be created, similar to what buzz has provided that can be manually installed by the users. If you write a script as an .sh file, you can simply copy it into /RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary. This will permanently place that script into your experimental packages menu. No one else on the planet will be affected by this, but your build. BuZz and others won't have to maintain it either, but you, and I and pjft and jdrassa and anyone else who would want to install it could do so. Then we could have the ability to switch between builds on our machines. As others are interested in testing we could offer the script to them as well. @buZz, I hope that doing something like this to our own builds, and sharing the knowledge would be ok by you? and @Zigurana I hope something like this might be an acceptable solution for what you are trying to accomplish? just some thoughts for consideration.