Adding Images and Description to System Sub-Folders

mattrixk

I want to separate my roms into sub-folders, sorted by Genre and one for Favourites.

eg:
SNES

Favourites
Racing
Fighting
Beat Em Up

It's easy enough to move the already scraped roms into the folders and update the gamelist.xml.

I want to display a different image for each folder, and maybe a short description.

Here's an example of what I've tried:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gameList>
	<folder>
		<name>-Favourites</name>
		<desc>A folder for my favourite games</desc>
		<image>./media/folder_favourites.jpg</image>
	</folder>
	<game id="3782" source="ScreenScraper">
		<path>./Advance Wars (USA).gba</path>
		<name>Advance Wars</name>
		<desc>This turn-based strategy game hails back to a classic Japanese strategy game titled Famicom Wars.</desc>
		<image>./media/Advance Wars (USA).png</image>
		<rating>0.8</rating>
		<releasedate>00000000T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Intelligent Games</developer>
		<publisher>Nintendo</publisher>
		<genre>Strategy</genre>
		<players>1-4</players>
	</game>
	<game>
		<path>./-Favourites/Ace Combat Advance (USA, Europe).gba</path>
		<name>Ace Combat Advance</name>
		<desc>The Air Strike Force (A.S.F.) is the most advanced aircraft squadron on the planet.</desc>
		<image>./media/Ace Combat Advance (USA, Europe).png</image>
		<rating>0.6</rating>
		<releasedate>00000000T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Atari</developer>
		<publisher>Namco</publisher>
		<genre>Shooter</genre>
		<playcount>1</playcount>
		<lastplayed>20170503T063100</lastplayed>
	</game>
</gameList>

Note the first game is outside the folder, while the second is inside the "-Favourites" folder
Note also, the folder has a "-" at the start to keep it at the top of the page.

According to the Official Gamelists.md, what I want to do should be possible, but I just can't get the image or description to show up.

Has anyone had any luck with this?

Sano

Shouldn't you just add a line <path>./-Favourites</path> in your folder section ?

mattrixk

That's exactly what I needed @Sano, thank you. (ironically I had to wait until I got back to work before I had a chance to actually test this out).

For anyone interested, my gamelist <folder> tag now looks like this:

<folder>
  <name>-Favourites</name>
  <desc>Favourites folder</desc>
  <image>./../../folder_art/folder_favourites.jpg</image>
  <path>./favourites</path>
</folder>

Create a folder (eg: "favourites")
The <path> tag points to the folder
The <name> tag is what is displayed in ES (I put the "-" in so it appears at the top of the list)
I made a new folder called "folder_art" and put it in the same place as my "roms" and "themes" folders, that way the folder images aren't dependent on a specific theme.

Now, if only I could make a change to the Folder View so I can tell at a glance what folder I'm in, either by adding some text or an image to the folder, or maybe changing the background colour. Or maybe adding a "<- Back" icon to the top of the gamelist.

mattrixk

@mattrixk said in Adding Images and Description to System Sub-Folders:

Now, if only I could make a change to the Folder View so I can tell at a glance what folder I'm in

I figured out a way to do this:

Create a new .txt document and put some random characters in it (I just use the text "this is a fake rom"). There seems to need to be some content in the document or it won't work properly (at least for me).
Save the .txt file as [folder].[system], so for a Favourites folder within the Gameboy System, you could save it as favourite.gba.
Add the following code to your Gameboy gamelist.xml

<game>
  <path>./favourite/favourite.gb</path>
  <name>- Favourite Games</name>
  <desc>These are the best games</desc>
  <image>./../../folder_art/folder_favourite.jpg</image>
</game>

Done. The "-" before the name ensures it will be at the top of the list.

You can also add things like ratings, number of players and developers if you want, as ES just views it as a normal game. If you try to play the game, it will just go black for a moment and then go back to the gamelist.

KillerQ

Nice work! Where are you placing that favourite.gb file? In the new folder you created?

@mattrixk said in Adding Images and Description to System Sub-Folders:

@mattrixk said in Adding Images and Description to System Sub-Folders:

Now, if only I could make a change to the Folder View so I can tell at a glance what folder I'm in

I figured out a way to do this:

Create a new .txt document and put some random characters in it (I just use the text "this is a fake rom"). There seems to need to be some content in the document or it won't work properly (at least for me).

Save the .txt file as [folder].[system], so for a Favourites folder within the Gameboy System, you could save it as favourite.gba.

Add the following code to your Gameboy gamelist.xml
<game>
  <path>./favourite/favourite.gb</path>
  <name>- Favourite Games</name>
  <desc>These are the best games</desc>
  <image>./../../folder_art/folder_favourite.jpg</image>
</game>
Done. The "-" before the name ensures it will be at the top of the list.

You can also add things like ratings, number of players and developers if you want, as ES just views it as a normal game. If you try to play the game, it will just go black for a moment and then go back to the gamelist.

mattrixk

@KillerQ It would just go in the same folder as the other roms, so if it's a folder called "favourite" within the NES directory, it would be placed in nes/favourite/favourite.gb, then in the gamelist.xml the path would be <path>./favourite/favourite.gb</path>.