Favorites?

ckp

Is there really no way to mark games as favorites so they are at the top of the list or in a Favorites menu? I have retropie 4.2 and pi 3

cyperghost

@ckp There are afaik four possible solutions right now
@meleu script by using symlinks
@cyperghosts Little Favourite Launcher binary
@Zigurana ES kids mode
@pjft Work in Progress... Adding Favorite system to ES

The first two solutions might be easy to use but you have to do a bit of setup and scripting. The ES kids mode must be compiled like @pjft 's ES fork ...

But @pjft is hopefully finalized in a few weeks ....
So you decide! Keep aware of your RetroPie setup!

A Former User

What about going into the UI menu in ES and choosing the stars rating? It's not ideal but before @pjft finishes could be a substitute.

I'm not sure though, think I read somewhere this is a valid Favourites option and was using it fine tuning my Megadrive collection. Hope it's true :)

cyperghost

@arkive Full Ack!
Also possible but it took ages imho set the right filter and after you deselect the current emulator you have to set filter once again.

I think it's better to wait some weeks... to wait for pjft's ES branch

ckp

@arkive , i checked but that would mean i would have to reset the star ratings for all games. or i could maybe just filter on 5 start and just modify the 5 star ones that aren't my favorites. but if i have to set a filter each time i go in, that's won't work very well for the guests that will play and don't know anything

pjft

For the time being you can compile and use my branch. It's based on the latest EmulationStation code and it's functional - meaning, no bugs have been reported so far on the latest version.

You will need a compatible theme for it though. So far the comic book, IO and steampunk are the ones that have been updated for it.

Mind you, this doesn't quite do what you're asking for. This will create a new system that contains all your favorite games in a single list, regardless of the system.

lilbud

@pjft said in Favorites?:

comic book, IO and steampunk are the ones that have been updated for it

The Switch theme was also updated to support your branch.

cyperghost

@pjft Nice to meet you here

This will create a new system that contains all your favorite games in a single list, regardless of the system

Is it possible for your branch to have the auto-favorite VS and inside there are folders that can be "created" and named Mame Row, CapCom, Megaman... Then you have single list with dedicated subsystems and the user can decide to get a system in the carousel view if there is a theme already present.

I hope you understand:
If there is no system for "MEGAMAN" available in theme art then it is not possible to make the system viewable in carousel selection. But there will be a folder (just simple text) "MEGAMAN" inside favourite list.

pjft

@lilbud you are correct, apologies. You were actually one of the first to pick it up straight away - thank you!

I've been mostly skimming through the forum these past few days as it's been a bit packed at work. Sorry for the omission.

@cyperghost it's an interesting idea. Let me consider it. I won't promise anything there, but I'll keep that idea in the back of my mind and see if/how it could be used.

That would be slightly more complex than what I was designing, so don't hold your hopes up for the short term, but I'm keeping it open for now.

My main considerations are two fold:

we don't yet have a proper data entry mechanism in EmulationStation for people without a keyboard. Creating such custom systems would require people to be able to type names. In the theme folders version, everything can be done with the controller. I believe there's a fork with an on screen keyboard, but I don't think it's on the main branch yet?
I haven't seen the use case for adding all of those under sub folders being mentioned by many yet. As such, I'd rather have it get a bit more critical mass before investing seriously in tackling the challenges involved in making it happen in a correct fashion.

That being said, it is a nice workaround for the previous limitation of having the collections depend on the theme. So yes, let me entertain that thought for a while. I think there may be something in it that can be used, for sure!

Thank you for sharing that idea!

cyperghost

@pjft said in Favorites?:

My main considerations are two fold:

we don't yet have a proper data entry mechanism in EmulationStation for people without a keyboard.

I think we have a prober possibilty - but that would leave your idea of a non writing file system. If we create a folder "auto-favourite" inside the roms then this system is available via SMB and could easily accessed by any computer system. Regardless of it's OS (that's the point imho)

The movement and sorting of the favourites could be solved in two steps. We are always inside ES. We select a system GB and the ROM Tetris. We press Y and the entry Tetris is inside auto-favourite. We open auto-favourite and see Tetris here then we press once again Y and select a folder were it will be stored in.

We are in SMB and want to "create" folders. We have a file folders.txt
Here are all folders listed and and we can create new folder by just editing this file. One entry could be TETRIS Games

The Tetris-file gots already the rompath+romaname >> ~/RetroPie/roms/gb/Tetris (JUE) 1.1.gb#TETRIS Games

if there is no entry of the folder present, then all games are viewable in usual Favorite list.

I know.... it's realy string processing. I hope you will find a better idea. But consider the access via SMB.

EDIT:
Why not use real folder structure?
Create folder Tetris Games inside ~/RetroPie/roms/auto-favorite/ and an every restart of the system scans the folders/subfolders and make the structure visisble....

I haven't seen the use case for adding all of those under sub folders being mentioned by many yet.

Well I have currently 41-42 games listed under my Little Favorite Launcher and they are sorted via the system name... for ex. GB - Tetris, GB - Super Mario Land, ARCADE - Gryzor and this helps a lot.

That being said, it is a nice workaround for the previous limitation of having the collections depend on the theme.

Yes, then all the wonderfull themes out there needs only slight updates at a minimum of three system and it it's much easier to maintain.

Thank you for sharing that idea!

You're welcome mate

mattrixk

@pjft said in Favorites?:

So far the comic book, IO and steampunk are the ones that have been updated for it.

Just a note, IO currently does not support video previews. I started to do it, but I got distracted.

cyperghost

@mattrixk
I prefer IO because of it's simpleness. I think it won't look good if you have coloured videos within a light grey/black theme. It may be interesting for GB videos instead :)

Maybe in future update the video player can use overlays ... then I think a grey/black filter would be nice.

enderandrew

Is there a place where I can download a compiled Windows build of an updated ES with this and video preview?

If not, where should I download the source and is there a guide on how to compile it in Windows?

pjft

@enderandrew

Instructions to compile on Windows:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5202/step-by-step-how-to-build-emulationstation-on-windows

The branch and repository you're looking for:

https://github.com/pjft/EmulationStation/tree/RetroPie-Virtual-Systems-PR

Let us know how it goes!