Idea for experimental: Install Arbitrary ES-branch

Zigurana

I was thinking, with the developments for ES picking up speed, it would be nice to a facilitate the testing of development branches.
For the kids-mode branch, there was a module created in the expermental section, which installs that particular branch.

I would like to extend such a script to allow users to define which branch to install and test on runtime. I expect the user to input the correct branch with a keyboard, and some checking if it was branched from Aloshi or Retropie's ES.

A simple way to return to the orig Retropie master branch is already in place, i think.

My Linux scripting skills are virtually nonexistent, but I hope some of the experts (@herb_fargus, @meleu ?) can step in.

What do you think?

meleu

@Zigurana yeah, it's a good idea indeed. I was thinking the same thing when I saw all those ES hackers around here... I'll try to take a look at it this week. ;-)

Cheers.

dankcushions

@Zigurana i regularly install test builds of other retropie components via editing the install scripts themselves. i've not tested it but it should be simple edit to these two lines:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/supplementary/emulationstation.sh#L139#L140

function sources_emulationstation() {
    local repo="$1"
    local branch="$2"
    [[ -z "$repo" ]] && repo="https://github.com/retropie/EmulationStation"
    [[ -z "$branch" ]] && branch="master"
    gitPullOrClone "$md_build" "$repo" "$branch"
}

then it'll install whatever you want.

of course a fancy script would be better, but this is pretty quick to do.

TMNTturtlguy

@Zigurana this is a great idea. I have a script to @pjft branch as well under experimental options. One thing that happens is if i update the retropie setup script, it reverts back to the main ES build. I then need to reinstall the experimental branch. If there was a script that allowed us to download multiple ES builds and then simply enter a menu and select which ES build to run, that would be awesome.

This may be way to hard, but what if it could be a menu option like themes are? I could have Kids, OMX, Z feature for Themeing and Standard ES all installed, select which one i want to run from the start menu and restart. This may be a dream, but wow how cool would this be.

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy Which branch has the screensaver at the moment? It's kinda hard to keep track.

AlexMurphy

Just to say, I think this is a great idea @Zigurana

TMNTturtlguy

@AlexMurphy the most up to date is @pjft build which was based on @fieldofcows original build. Her is a link to the thread Please test: Random Game selection/launch via Video Screensaver

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy Thanks a lot.

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.