Last Played Collection - Possible to limit?

Clyde

@alturis So, someone™ could write a bash script that scans the gamelist.xml and deletes all <lastplayed> entries but the newest x ones. The script could be run at startup or shutdown time, or at a timed interval.

hiulit

@clyde @Alturis I've got something in the works :D

pjft

You're all correct on all accounts.

@hiulit if you're going through that work yourself, and from recalling the code, you probably don't really need to delete the <lastplayed> entry, but set the playcount to 0.

Test that and see how it goes. It might be that that's sufficient, or that you need to delete both.

Best.

hiulit

@pjft Right now I don't have my Pi with me. I'm testing it in a VM with Pixel and RetroPie installed on it.
I think I have managed to create a little script that gets all <lastplayed> tags, sorts them in a descending order and removes all the tags starting at nth (so it only leaves tags from 1 to nth, the most recent).
Do you think it would be better to just reset <playcount> to 0?

pjft

@hiulit I am not fully sure, as that was put together over 6 months ago.

I am very much under the impression that the playcount plays a role in determining whether it shows or not. I'm not sure whether it is the only factor, though, but I think that that would really be the key factor.

hiulit

@pjft I'll try and play with both <lastplayed> and <playcount> and see how it goes :)

hiulit

@pjft Do you know which file does EmulationStation uses to create the Last played collection? Because I can't find a gamelist.xml in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/collections/.
I've seen that there's a gamelist.xml in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/ but there's also the one in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/<SYSTEM>/ so I don't know which one to use :P

mediamogul

I'm no coder, but in all the digital arts, the best practice is to always to work as non-destructively as possible. Wouldn't it make more sense to implement something like this directly into ES, to where the user could set a numbered limit to the list and everything beyond that would be ignored, rather than having the MD itself deleted, or reset? Again, I don't know if that would even be possible, it's just a thought. I have to admit, the more I think about it, that never-ending and always growing 'Last Played' list does seem like a strange and unwieldy concept.

Alturis

@hiulit said in Last Played Collection - Possible to limit?:

@pjft Do you know which file does EmulationStation uses to create the Last played collection? Because I can't find a gamelist.xml in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/collections/.
I've seen that there's a gamelist.xml in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/ but there's also the one in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/<SYSTEM>/ so I don't know which one to use :P

Think it depends. In a vanilla install of RetroPie they are stored in .../emulationstation/gamelists but if you installed Steven Selph's scraper it has an option to store them in the roms folders. Not sure where exactly that setting is that Steven Selph's scraper is modifying though.

hiulit

@mediamogul I'm with you. It would be better that this feature would be implemented directly into EmulationStation. But in the meantime, I'm having fun coding this little script. Also, I'm not capable of code for EmulationStation, so we'll have to pressure the developers if we want this feature added :P

hiulit

@alturis Hmmm.. I think you are right. As I always scrape the system with Steven Selph's scraper and always set the option to create the gamelist.xml per system that's what I'm using. I should have this into consideration.

hiulit

Here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/15892/where-are-favorites-last-played-collections-stored/2

@mitu said exactly what we were talking about.

The automatic collections don't have a dedicated folder or configuration file, they're created based on the existing game information/metadata, stored in the gamelist.xml file for each system.

Alturis

Yeah honestly the OCD part of me would rather just wait until its an option built into EmulationStation rather then wipe out the play counts or last played dates on the data itself.

hiulit

@alturis If it's any relief, my script will create a backup of the gamelist.xml :P

pjft

@mediamogul I agree. I personally don't want to add another option to the menu to determine what's the right cutoff point, so I could pick one on my own (100, perhaps) and leave it at that.

That being said, I'm not sure I have the time to make that happen in the near future - my limited time in the coming weeks will be devoted to improving lr-fuse controls - and I genuinely doubt it's a quick change but I'll take a look if I have the time during March.

Alturis

Is there a github for EmulationStation?

pjft

@alturis https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation

The change would be here:

https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/blob/master/es-app/src/CollectionSystemManager.cpp#L698

You'd also need to devise a way to remove one from the end when you add a new one to the top.

The main challenge is likely to include the top X most recently played across all systems, I imagine you'd rely on the "All Games" collection.

hiulit

FYI, just setting <playcount> to 0 is enough to make a game dissapear from the Last played collection. No need to remove the <lastplayed> tag.

Alturis

Well I found where the code change would need to go.

CollectionSystemManager.cpp

void CollectionSystemManager::populateAutoCollection(CollectionSystemData* sysData)

Just needs something like this at the end - need to read some code to figure out the right FileData collection class syntax

	if ( sysDecl.type == AUTO_LAST_PLAYED )
	{
		rootFolder->remove( max( rootFolder->count - 50, 0 ) );
	}

Edit: changed min to max

pjft

@alturis The idea is good, in concept, but that can only be applied if - and after - it has been sorted by last played time.

Edit: after I looked at the code I see that that particular location would already be sorted.

I'd also need to make sure to update the "update" function to keep that number straight.

I'll look through that, and I'll fix it at 100.

Edit 2: for reference, it'd be here:

https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/blob/master/es-app/src/CollectionSystemManager.cpp#L280