what about adding a cheevos flag in gamelist.xml ?

pjft

@meleu Would you have a way to scrape the data from retroachievements.org?

Maybe a clumsy wget from http://retroachievements.org/gameList.php and regexping the hell out of it?

And then having a script go through the user's gamelists and populating that tag?

meleu

@pjft said in what about adding a cheevos flag in gamelist.xml ?:

@meleu Would you have a way to scrape the data from retroachievements.org?

Yes. But it talks JSON. I'm able to easily parse JSON data in shell scripts using the very handy jq tool (btw,I use it to fill the ES repos/branches from opened PRs in my es-tests tool).

That's how I'm planning to populate user's gamelist.xml.

pjft

@meleu Sounds good. Let's do it then. So you'll be putting together a small script that will go through users' gamelists and populate a "<retroachievements>true/false</retroachivements>" tag. Is that the spec?

meleu

@pjft said in what about adding a cheevos flag in gamelist.xml ?:

@meleu Sounds good. Let's do it then. So you'll be putting together a small script that will go through users' gamelists and populate a "<retroachievements>true/false</retroachivements>" tag. Is that the spec?

yep!

I suggested "cheevos" because it's a widely used slang for "retroachievements" (btw, the RetroArch config is cheevos_enable).

If it would be "true/false" or "0/1" depends on how ES manage boolean data. What happens with the favorite field?

Well, I became excited after reading that "Let's do it" part! :)

I'm going to have some free hours tomorrow. I'll try my best to write the script! If I succeed, I'll try to convince/help @sselph to add this feature to his scraper. :-)

Cheers.

pjft

@meleu let's call it achievements then. It's more generic. Thinking about it, it's better if it's not tied to a source - in the future there may be others.

Still unclear if the use case of every time filtering by achievements is really that functional as opposed to having a pre curated collection/list, though.

Do you really see yourselves doing that use case on a day to day basis?

meleu

@pjft said in what about adding a cheevos flag in gamelist.xml ?:

Do you really see yourselves doing that use case on a day to day basis?

My answer is an emphatic yes! :-)

When I was building my arcade cabinet I spent a lot of time curating games with cheevos for each system. It wasn't a pleasant task...

Also, it's a dynamic info. Games that doesn't have cheevos today can have in the future. And then you have to curate games again. There are cheevos developers around that site. They are very friendly and like to develop cheevos as you like to develop ES stuff. :) (btw, I am really grateful to the guy who created cheevos for "G.I. Joe" (NES) when I requested it).

For a cheevos hunter, it's better to leave all the ROMs he/she has, run the "cheevos scraper", and then filter the game list in ES.

EDIT
Tagging other guys who seems to like the retroachievements feature:
@mediamogul @edmaul69 @Sano @grenade44 @hansolo77 @R1n0X @cabrunco @muehltime @orymer @backstander @fun4stuff @Trotts @Keysersoze77 @PokeEngineer

Hey guys, can you please answer the @pjft 's question: Do you really see yourselves doing that use case on a day to day basis?

R1n0X

@pjft Yeah man!! This is a great enhancement for Emulation Station!!! I always use cheevos function!!

pjft

@r1n0x I'm specifically referring to the use case of filtering vs having a pre curated collection/system with the games that support achievements.

R1n0X

@pjft i would love to use the filtering feature!!!!

PokeEngineer

@meleu said in what about adding a cheevos flag in gamelist.xml ?:

EDIT
Tagging other guys who seems to like the retroachievements feature:
@mediamogul @edmaul69 @Sano @grenade44 @hansolo @R1n0X @cabrunco @muehltime @orymer @backstander @fun4stuff @Trotts @Keysersoze77

Hey @meleu, you can add me to the list too.

meleu

@pokeengineer done! Now how about answering that question? :-)

You are looking at your EmulationStation, in the NES game list. If you had a chance to filter only the games that has cheevos would you use this filter frequently?

PokeEngineer

@meleu

Yeah, I would.

hansolo77

Absolutely count me in!!! I would test the bejesus out of that. :) But I'm not sure I really like the idea of having to go through a custom sort to get to my cheevo games. The way I have it now, my cheevo games are copied in the system folder in a subfolder. ES displays that folder as a ROM, so I select it and it opens up a list of games I've got in that folder. I know instantly that every game in there has cheevos. If I understand you current plans, it's to add an extra field in the metadata, which can be selected as a sort option. "Sort by Publisher, Genre, Players, Date Released, Cheevos". That would just make the gamelist present itself with games containing cheevos at the top, and the others at the bottom. BUT maybe I don't want to necessarily play a cheevo game. I'd hate to have the sort be to cheevos then have to go back in and change the sort to alphabetical. What I'd like to see is a metadata field (boolean meaning true or false right?) that allows me to create a collection like "Favorites" or "Last Played" so I can instantly select it from the main system menu without being limited to a sort, or even having to enter a system.

As for the scraping, this is a great idea. Up till now, I've had to manually go through my rom folders with a copy of the website up in a separate window looking at what's been added recently (once a week I check) and copy roms from one folder to the subfolder. It's long and tedious but gets the job done. If a method to scrape from the website lists automatically, and just add that "true" to the metadata can be made.. HELL YEA. :)

And yes, I would use this daily (when I'm not hacking around adding new features!). When I learned about RetroAchievements, that's pretty much guaranteed the 99% of the games I will play. I love trying to play for them. It is exposing me to a lot of games I wouldn't have even tried before. It's just more fun. And if we can make the RetroPie project include support in ES for this on the front lines, I can almost promise you more and more people will looking to use it. It's like before we had videos, people were happy with the way it was. Then video screens became a possibility, and now EVERYBODY is hopping on board. It really is the next best thing.

And @meleu is right. The RA team is developing cheevos on a daily basis. You literally can go there everyday and find a list of new cheevos and games that support them. Hell, I bet you could create a script as part of the ES boot up (if you have internet established) to check and see if any new games are supported and have it update your lists then and there. Although it would probably be better if it was an optional feature.

Keep me updated. I'd love to test out whatever you guys come up with!

grenade44

This is a great idea. What would be cool if the flag changed colour to say if you have completed the game as well. But I know that would be hard to code.

pjft

So, just to make sure we're clear on what we're asking here:

Assuming ES will have a way to know if a game supports achievements, do you see yourself using that by manually setting a filter for games with achievements every time you want to play them, or would you manually create a list/collection of such games, for easy access?

That is the question.

@grenade44 As for the term "flag", it's not a visual flag. There will be no visual representation for whether a game supports achievements or not, at least not now.

Thanks all.

R1n0X

@pjft I think that we could use a filter in the option "SORT GAMES" in menu

meleu

@r1n0x @grenade44 @hansolo77 and all cheevos users. I'm trying to be very clear now of what I am asking for ( @pjft please confirm).

I want to "enter" in a system (that view where you see the games of a system), press select (it will open the "OPTIONS" screen), choose the "FILTER GAMELIST" option (it will open the "FILTER GAMELIST BY" screen) and there will be a filter named "ACHIEVEMENTS".

Look the screenshots below:

press select when you are in system's game list

in the menu below there will be an ACHIEVEMENTS option

hansolo77

Well, seems like I'm getting outvoted. Everybody is more or less going with the filter option. I'd still really like to have a custom menu on the systems screen. Might just have to use a collection like originally planned.

meleu

@hansolo77 maybe my "cheevos scraper" can be useful for your use case too. I'll post here when it's usable.

hansolo77

No doubt it'll be useful. Up till now it's all had to be done manually, but if a quick and easy automated way to at least identify the games in your list that ARE compatible can be done, that's the way to go.