@mitu thanksss

I just discover how to do it now, my bad.
https://github.com/JungleJim42/es-theme-collections
this provides some help.
Basically i was putting the folder in themes with the same name as the .cfg (ex: custom-test).

To make this work the Collection .cfg in .emulationstation\collections should be custom-NAME

and

The Theme .emulationstation\themes (create the folder if u didnt have one) copy existing theme that u want to customize from Theme folder in /etc/emulationstation/themes to the new folder that u just created, then the new folder should have the name of the collection "NAME" and not the full .cfg name "custom-NAME".

U can copy the .xml from other collection then just tweak it, it is actually super ez.

Edit: for Automatic collections just do the same process but the names for the folders are "auto-lastplayed", "auto-favorites" and "auto-allgames".

To play the shitty games that suck ass.....

@Yobiwan for Windows I personally like notepad++ for editing text files.

You can add an XML tool that helps if you're editing your gamelist.xml files and accidentally mess up the syntax.

OK, I found what was causing this issue : I've put the metroid folder in /home/pi/ in order to copy it in /etc/emulationstation/themes/showcase/ and it was interfering...

@oskeeeddie Re-install/Re-enable the RetroPie shares from the RetroPIe-Setup script and see if you get all 3 shares back.

@mitu That's what I thought as well, and that's why I found it really strange.

You want TWO collections, that's the hurdle.

If you wanted ONE... You could switch off "quick system select" in the ES menu and start ES on the collection. The person wouldn't necessarily see the systems unless they "backed out" of the collection. The system/collection wouldn't change with Left/Right. The person would be able to "back out" with a button though.

I wonder if there was some CFG hack that could make the wording of the systems "blank" and they'd be there, but the people wouldn't know that they could select them. To them it may look like ES is stopping in dead space. (In which case they'd most likely just keep moving left or right.) This is just me thinking out loud. Is this plausible Mitu?

Thanks for the positive comments! I uploaded the files in a github repository:

https://github.com/JungleJim42/es-theme-collections

They will work as-is (only copy them to your theme folder) with the Nostalgic ES-theme by Supermagicom. For other ES-themes, you will need to fiddle with the xml files a bit.

@mitu said in Custom Collections Not Showing Games/Roms:

If your collection ROMs are not part of an existing system, they won't show up. So if you created a roms/cps1 folder and put the ROMs there, then created a collection with the filenames of those ROMs, that won't work.
EmulationStation needs to know that roms/cps1 is a system, you probably had - in your previous build - cps configured as such.

If that's not your exact setup, then you should post the configuration files for EmulationStation's system list and the custom collection you've created. And it would be nice if you added the info asked in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first, just to know what version of EmulationStation/RetroPie we're talking here.

@mitu Thank you for your reply and I apologize for missing the other information. As soon as you mentioned the es_systems.cfg file was the moment I realized "yup, that's not there". All is good with this build now. Arg I knew it was going to be something silly.

Hi,

I just want to ask for any updates? Am I really the only one who uses the theme? :/

Thanks, @mitu.
I'll try.

@mitu Thank you so much again. This is why RP community is second to no one!

Finally I made it... with no luck. I don't want to bother you. I will assume custom collections won't work for me.

Thanks!!

@Clyde said in [Solved] How to rename a Custom Collection?:

You both just told me the same solution in different ways. It's good to know both.

Yeah, I noticed a little later that we posted about a minute within each other. Of course he got there first, so now I owe him a Coke.

@ballboff said in Collectors, how big is your stash of Pi games?:

I don't see the point of this. Scrolling through that many games isn't fun. Take the gamecube for instance, out of the 600 games released, there are only say bout 5 or 6 that are playable.

Wait, what? 5 or 6 playable games on the GC? Er no!

However I do agree that having too many on the Pi is a pain. I've tried to hand curate my collection down to a more reasonable 64GB, and personally I think that's a good limit for the Pi. Any more and it's overkill for me, plus it slows Emulationstation down too. I'm currently trying to manually curate my MAME collection and it is proving hard work, but it has to be done. There are too many obscure puzzle games and mahjong games, clones and many other games that don't work and will never work on the Pi. They have to go. I've got it down to about 1700 right now and I think I'm nearly done. Hope I am anyway! Be nice to just download a finished set but everywhere you look it's complete set or nothing.

I do support the idea of going much further with a more focused setup, say a few dozen titles for each system comprised of games that you know you'll want to play, but I do like the discover-ability of having a nice large MAME set. Like for example, this morning in fact I discovered a marvellous 1983 game I'd never played or even heard of before and it is truly superb - Blaster. Rather than feeling like a retro game it plays more like a modern take on a retro game. Absolutely superb gameplay, and without a good set I would never have found it.

@sexbeer Awesome, I'm glad it worked out.

@mitu said in Custom collection does not seem to exist?:

@djaay OK, so you get the error from Emulationstation or from your editor ? The content seems ok. I get the same 'validation' errors with my ES configuration file - which is fine.

Just for the "heck" of it...i tried loading it in a C# parser and tried to parse the doc (XMLDocument)...and it complained about "multiple root nodes". I´m not an XML specialist...or anything, but i´m not sure this is actual a valid XML markup.

But even so, it works in ES. But i noticed it first when my editor (Notepad++) complianed when i tried to save it.

@stephendm I'm glad you now have everything running as you wish.

The spurious dot/period originates from the command I gave in an earlier post that creates a copy of es_systems.cfg , which I copied from the documentation, which I initially wrote so the error is on me.

I cannot edit the wiki at the moment but I will fix once permissions are restored.