Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections

Used2BeRX

@meleu Too much work for me to still do man. Hope you get a chance to look at the issues I'm still having with the script at some point.

Right now I'm working on converting my old romsets as much as possible to no-intro. Yesterday I finished up adding the new games I was going to add (about 30-40 of them on 4 different systems), and I can't wait to play Pier Solar at some point.

Then I have to figure out a good way to distribute this stuff without roms that is easier than github. That site makes no sense to me. I'm thinking that is partially because I'm a Linux dummy or something.

UDb23

@Used2BeRX said in Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections:

github

Initially it may be intimidating but it's not complicated at all.
I upload files just using the web browser both under windows and Mac.
The only thing that's unusual is that there is no direct "make folder" command but, instead, you create folders by adding a new file (even a dummy txt file) and putting the directory path were you want the file to be located.

Used2BeRX

@UDb23 Thanks. lol... I don't even see any options for adding any new files though. All I see is <> Code, Issues, Pull Requests, Projects, Wiki, Settings, and Insights.

I've got a few Insights.... but I'll keep them to myself for now :)

Used2BeRX

@meleu So am I supposed to be uploading just zip files, or the individual synopsis files?

I finally opened a folder to upload to and when I drag and drop it says "YOWZA! That's a lot of files. Try it again with 100 or less."

No. I don't want to try it again with 100 or less. You're the computer. You do what I tell you to do.

meleu

@Used2BeRX don't worry about github. It's a tool for developers and other people can take advantage of it. But if it is confusing for you and you don't see a reason to learn, just move on. ;-)

I was thinking on other guys with the same background as you: people coming from the XBox emulation scene. But I'm not from this scene and don't even know if they want this kind of thing. Let's forget it and move on! We have other stuff in our To Do list, right? :-)

meleu

By the way, I'll improve the script to let you change the art on <image> field. No need for another tool to achieve that.

Used2BeRX

@meleu If you're sure. I just don't want to come off like I'm not contributing. I have a lot of plans for this stuff, but I have to figure out the best way to do it all. I would be more receptive to github if I saw the benefit of it, but since I don't even understand how to use it other than dumbly typing in commands from Console that other people tell me to type I can't envision the value of putting anything up there.

I said it before. I'm just a big dumb donkey. I just kind of brute force my way around everything and hope that other people a lot smarter than me see value in my work and help ease the work load.

Here's a to-do list on the script so you don't have to go back and look at stuff:

Change it so that when you use --full or another option that it doesn't alter the gamelist.xml name. (Eg: no _FULL_ added to nes_gamelist.xml.

With symbolic links I have everything set up to run perfect now after running your script so all you need to do is reboot when it's done. When the names are changed like this it adds the step of having to change names before rebooting.

I actually wrote a guide at the other place that I'm still working on. You can see at the bottom what I did with your script and the symbolic links in depth. I'm going to do a similar write up here as soon as we get this working completely. :)

Make sure that script is checking for both .JPG as well as .PNG for the extra fields on a --full command. --full only found .PNG files that were located in the 3D Boxart folders. It did not find any of the .JPG files in the other folders such as Titles and Action.
Add <marquee> search and entry to standard script run without needing --full. <marquee> is a usable tag in EmulationStation now, even though my packs don't currently contain any artwork with them. A few of my friends are making skins and have made their own marquees by cutting out the title in the title screen of every game. :)
The ability to do a quick switch of which type of artwork has the usable <image> tag after the --full command has been run.

By just changing which type of artwork has this tag after all of the gamelist.xml files have been made, it could literally save about 12 hours by not having to completely re-scan everything on the Pi Zero.

After we can do this stuff, I can go back in and test that all of the other artwork is working properly. I suspect that it all should be, but I do want to verify with my own eyeballs to make sure. Takes quite a while to move through 8,000-10,000 games on the romlist to verify every one has artwork, but it's worth the effort. :)

Used2BeRX

@meleu Hey meleu. I was thinking that maybe you could upload a small synopsis pack to github the way that you think it would be of most benefit. Maybe Atari 7800 or Atari LYNX since they're only 80 or so files.

I believe you could share or even change ownership of a project.

If you did that, I might be able to figure out how to do the rest of it on my own. I'm pretty sure you have old synopsis data for all the systems now, but that doesn't matter. If I can just get an idea of how you would like to see it presented for the end user I might be able to figure out how to do it.

Been adding a lot more files on my end. Currently in the middle of a project adding hundreds of translated games to the NES and SNES. :)

meleu

@Used2BeRX I'm a little busy currently. Maybe I'll do it when I have a chance. :-)

Used2BeRX

@meleu No problem...

I was just thinking today while I was putting more of these synopsis files together that it would be great if they were online and people could have access to make altered versions of them.

I was thinking that if they were all out there, somebody might want to go through and make things like the <genre> uniform so any sort functions would work even better.

Stuff I'd like to do some day, but I'm just way too busy doing bigger things right now.

Used2BeRX

@meleu Been keeping busy with a huge project I've undertaken, but I didn't want to lose touch man.

In the process of adding 158 translated games to the NES I realized how lousy the quality of artwork for boxes and carts were for the Japanese games that were collected years back compared to what they are now so I've been upgrading all of them. I've even upgraded all the pirates and I'm working on unlicensed and prototypes now. So far for the NES alone there are about 600 upgraded boxes and another 600 upgraded carts.

Sometimes you just can't get good artwork though and you have to go the extra mile for it. I'll use the Japan game Flappy for an example.

Our original looked like this:

alt text

It was clean, but it was tiny. The only larger image I could find online had a pricetag on it:

alt text

I managed to find this pretty huge one on ebay though:

alt text

And with a little plugin magic on a program called paint.net I was able to change the perspective and end up with this upgraded images that is about 6 times the size of the original one we had:

alt text

Now I'm just hoping I can finish all of this crazy work I've given myself before my cash runs out and I need to start working again. :)

Used2BeRX

@meleu Hey bud. How's things?

Just a few highlights of what I've been doing here. Getting the artwork prepared for your script update whenever you get around to it. Not rushing you. I have plenty to keep myself busy. :)

alt text

I've got about 650 new and/or upgraded boxart and matching cartridge artwork for Japan, Translated, Pirate, Unlicensed and Prototype games, and a majority of them I've tweaked in one way or another. I'd say about 100-150 of them I've put significant effort into beautifying.

I can say with confidence this is the prettiest Obscure NES artwork collection in existence at this point. :)

Hope things are going well for you.

meleu

@used2berx if the kids are healthy everything is fine. :-) I'll try to take a look at that script this weekend.

Cheers!

Used2BeRX

@meleu Good to hear it man. :)

Let me know when you get a chance to work on it. I could use a break from this artwork upgrade / synopsis upgrade / translation adding project. I've been working about 12-15 hour days on it for about 2 weeks now. I haven't even actually turned on my pi for weeks.

meleu

@used2berx I had a busy weekend but I think I can take a look at it in the next couple of days. Can you remember what's the ToDo list here? :)

Changing the <image> based on the user choice between 3dbox, boxart, frontcover, cartridge, etc... Is it?

Used2BeRX

@meleu Awesome man. Looking forward to it. :)

I just went back and found the post with the to-do list. Here's what I had on there.

1. Change it so that when you use --full or another option that it doesn't alter the gamelist.xml name. (Eg: no _FULL_ added to nes_gamelist.xml.

With symbolic links I have everything set up to run perfect now after running your script so all you need to do is reboot when it's done. When the names are changed like this it adds the step of having to change names before rebooting. (Maybe it would be worthwhile to also have a copy with the _FULL_ or other identifiers as well, but the main file should also be edited).

2. Make sure that script is checking for both .JPG as well as .PNG for the extra fields on a --full command.

--full only found .PNG files that were located in the 3D Boxart folders. It did not find any of the .JPG files in the other folders such as Titles and Action.

3. Add <marquee> search and entry to standard script run without needing --full.

<marquee> is a usable tag in EmulationStation now, even though my packs don't currently contain any artwork with them. A few of my friends are making skins and have made their own marquees by cutting out the title in the title screen of every game. :)

4. The ability to do a quick switch of which type of artwork has the usable <image> tag after the --full command has been run.

By just changing which type of artwork has this tag after all of the gamelist.xml files have been made, it could literally save about 12 hours by not having to completely re-scan everything on the Pi Zero.

After we can do this stuff, I can go back in and test that all of the other artwork is working properly. I suspect that it all should be, but I do want to verify with my own eyeballs to make sure. Takes quite a while to move through 8,000-10,000 games on the romlist to verify every one has artwork, but it's worth the effort. :)

meleu

@used2berx

1. Change it so that when you use --full or another option that it doesn't alter the gamelist.xml name. (Eg: no _FULL_ added to nes_gamelist.xml.

Done. Use the option --default-gamelist for this result. See --help for more info.

2. Make sure that script is checking for both .JPG as well as .PNG for the extra fields on a --full command.

Done. But didn't test. Please test it.

3. Add <marquee> search and entry to standard script run without needing --full.

I need to know where the marquees are stored. Is it Artwork/marquee?

4. The ability to do a quick switch of which type of artwork has the usable <image> tag after the --full command has been run.

Not yet implemented. Will try to implement it tomorrow.

Used2BeRX

@meleu said in Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections:

@used2berx

1. Change it so that when you use --full or another option that it doesn't alter the gamelist.xml name. (Eg: no _FULL_ added to nes_gamelist.xml.

Done. Use the option --default-gamelist for this result. See --help for more info.

Awesome. :)

2. Make sure that script is checking for both .JPG as well as .PNG for the extra fields on a --full command.

Done. But didn't test. Please test it.

Will do. Let you know if it works now. Should be able to get back to you today on this.

3. Add <marquee> search and entry to standard script run without needing --full.

I need to know where the marquees are stored. Is it Artwork/marquee?

That will be fine. I haven't even made the folder at all on my end. I saw somebody on here talking about them in another thread and put them in the folder "Marquees", but why confuse things? The tag is <marquee>, so let's just make the folder /Marquee/.

Let's make it a capital M though, for consistency. All other folders in the Artwork folders are capitalized. :)

4. The ability to do a quick switch of which type of artwork has the usable <image> tag after the --full command has been run.

Not yet implemented. Will try to implement it tomorrow.

Excellent. I'm a REALLY excited to see how this will work out. Once you finally get the gamelist.xml files the way you want them, this will be the absolute quickest way that you could switch the type of artwork displayed in the romlist.

BTW.....

Is it too late for a 5th ask? I swear this is a tiny one. :)

I just thought of it this morning. I was wondering if you could throw in some sort of IF/ELSE statements in there that would create a /backup/ directory in whatever directory you're running the script from if it doesn't exist. Then, if a particular gamelist.xml already exists, whether you're appending to it or writing over it, it would copy the old one into the backup folder?

(It would also have to overwrite any previous files already existing in the backup folder so you're not away from the pi for a day and you're thinking it's going to do all of the gamelists, not realizing that it's paused to ask you if you want to overwrite "x" file.

Thanks again man! I'll let you know when I test it out.

meleu

@used2berx said in Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections:

if a particular gamelist.xml already exists, whether you're appending to it or writing over it, it would copy the old one into the backup folder?

It's a fair request, and really easy to implement. Will do when I have a chance.

Used2BeRX

@meleu Hehe... I don't know how to do the magic you do, but I am familiar enough with basic coding to know that this was probably just about the easiest thing I've asked you to do so far. :)

BTW... I'm running the nes_gamelist.xml with --full now. Everything looks great. It seems to be picking up all of the images!

I'm going to let it finish running so I can test it out when you get around to #4 on the list and we can see how this will work changing the image type displayed.

BTW... I also used the --default-gamelist command and immediately could tell that it worked. I'm having a brain fart though.... wasn't there another option besides no option and --full? This --default-gamelist should be able to be used no matter what option you use. I see in the help file it only mentions using it when using --full.

Thanks again for this awesomeness man.

I've run out of time with my brother's pi, but he had a few of them so I'm going to make another one with the work I've done so far. He's giving one to both his brother in law and sister in law, and all he wanted me to do was get NES and SNES running on it back in May. Whoops! I got a little carried away. :)