EmulationStation mod

gomisensei

Here is my wishlist:

Multiple Images in detailed view, possibly by pressing left/right trigger, switching between however many images there are, so, <image1><image2>, or even just multiple <image> items.

Adding Total Time played along with Last played, and times played. These (along with maybe a record of which image was showing) could be saved in an alternative xml file (Stats.xml) on exit, so the other metadata wouldn't need to all be saved on every exit if it wasn't changed.

thank you for taking the time to work on this for us.

meleu

@Zigurana sorry for that misunderstanding about your position.

Your post clarify that the problem is (can be) in the way that ES manages XML, and not in the XML itself.

I read what @Arcuza said and googled about XML vs DB, and it seems (at least in theory) that XML is good enough for this application (ES). But I would like to compare it in practice.

Do you guys know any ES fork with a DB approach instead of XML? I would like to make some tests.

Zigurana

@meleu said in EmulationStation mod:

@Zigurana sorry for that misunderstanding about your position.

Do you guys know any ES fork with a DB approach instead of XML? I would like to make some tests.

No worries :-)
The fork I meant is this one: https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/tree/gamelistdb, although I am not quite sure it's ready to use as is. It could be that it tries to convert/import your existing gamelist xmls into the database upon every startup. I never took the time to fully understand it.

jacobfk20

I put together a simple quick branch that will only save metadata if that system has had any changes to its metadata. So if you were to change something in SNES it will only save SNES's gamelist. Changing metadata in Gamelist Options or scraping for that system (fail or succeed) will trigger that system to save.

https://github.com/jacobfk20/EmulationStation/tree/Metadata

This will not save times played. Ever. Will probably make "Save MetaData on Exit" be a list where you can pick Save/Don't Save/Save On Change Only.

Hopefully this will make it slightly more bearable on ES exit for those with huge gamelists, like @meleu . I may try something more complex soon but not right now.

Please backup all gamelists if you try it. The chance of this destroying them is pretty much none-- but you never know.

@Rookervik Like create a pallet? such as <pallet><primary>00AAFF</primary><secondary>AA8FDD</secondary></pallet> Or something similar?

Rookervik

@jacobfk20 Uh, I don't understand that. But yes it would be used for a palette. So a themer could put in say "themecolor"=ff0000 and then in the theme you could go to the <color> of an item and instead of having to put <color>ff0000</color> you could do <color>themecolor</color> That way if you make a color change, any item with "themecolor" in it would change as well. Would even be more amazing if you could change color inside ES but that's TOTALLY dreaming. Don't bother with anything like that right now.

Or even let the variable act as text in general. You could do anything with it. "boxheight"=440 and then you could use boxheight instead of the number 440.

mattrixk

If anyone is considering the Tag idea, I had a thought about how we could use the the X and Y buttons as shortcut keys.

@Zigurana's Child-Friendly ES uses the X and Y buttons as shortcut keys for favourite and kid-friendly, and it got me thinking if there is a way (once the tagging system is working) to specify what the buttons do within ES.

Say you've created a few tags:

favourites
2_player_brawler
games_to_play
best_vert_shmup

You could then go into Tag Settings and choose which Tag to attach to the 2 spare shortcut buttons (X and Y). This could potentially save a bunch of time, and also make it so those 2 buttons can be used for more than just 2 set things.

simbz23

@jacobfk20 Great job on this new ES! Makes using many of the internal functions much easier!

Only issue I am having is the available wifi networks aren't showing up when I select the "connect to wifi" option in the network settings. All it shows is "Available Networks" and the back button. I can see my current info for the wifi I'm connected to, and can turn on and off the wifi.

I did see this error in the terminal when I exited out of emulationstation:

wlan0 interface doesn't support scanning: Device or resource busy

I put the wificonnect file in /home/pi/.emulationstation/app/wifi/

Right location? :-/

4.0 RC1
pi3
Logitech F310

jacobfk20

@simbz23 Try backing out of "Connect To Wifi" then go right back in. That may work. Let me know. :)

jacobfk20

@Rookervik I haven't done much with ThemeData but I'll keep that in mind. I can't make promises on variables being a thing though. The thing I would want first is giving more theme control over system view and adding more alignment options.

simbz23

@jacobfk20 said in EmulationStation mod:

@simbz23 Try backing out of "Connect To Wifi" then go right back in. That may work. Let me know. :)

No go :-/....Tried restarting as well, and still won't show the networks. Sounds like no one else is having this issue?

jacobfk20

@simbz23 Are you using the Pi 3's internal wifi? can you run ifconfig wlan0 and not get an error?

Rookervik

@jacobfk20 yeah, any options to move the bar or change the bar's opacity ffffffxx like you do with text and images would be great. Then we need a version for PC so I can theme for it. LOL. Copying theme stuff over to the pi while working on a theme is a hassle. Haha

jacobfk20

@Rookervik I have a branch that is just gridview that is windows friendly. I will compile a windows version of it sometime in the next couple days.

ben_thatmustbeme

I am trying to keep up with any new code in my PieStation branch as well as merge in anything anyone has added. Attempting to pull in the kid friendly branch has caused some issues with it. But I would love anyone who has more time than I do, to feel free to poke around.

The latest attempt to merge herdinger's code, @Zigurana and @jacobfk20's grid view code all in to mine is on the 'allmerge' branch, but a test run showed it clearly had problems on the main system list, haven't dug in to what happened yet.

https://github.com/dissolve/PieStation/

Once it gets a little more stable i'll create the PR for a setup script

https://github.com/dissolve/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/supplementary/piestation.sh

in the meantime, anyone can easily create that on their own system for whatever github repo / branch and you can have it install it all for you.

mattrixk

@jacobfk20 said in EmulationStation mod:

The thing I would want first is giving more theme control over system view and adding more alignment options.

Yay, alignment options! Just a reminder I had a bunch of ideas/requests upthread and the first few were theme related.

simbz23

@jacobfk20 said in EmulationStation mod:

@simbz23 Are you using the Pi 3's internal wifi? can you run ifconfig wlan0 and not get an error?

ifconfig works fine actually! Reports my IP and MAC correctly, and yes I'm using the internal wifi :-/

jacobfk20

@simbz23 You said you were able to see the info of your current connected wifi correct? If so I may have an idea on what is happening. I'll take a look tomorrow and may post an update.

Zigurana

@Global-Moderators: This thread needs moderation, maybe split it into several topics?

ES: db vs XML
ES: feature requests
ES: troubleshooting
ES: Ideas for further dev

simbz23

@jacobfk20 Sweet, thank you! :-)

meleu

@Zigurana
For feature requests we can continue in this existent thread:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/177/emulationstation-feature-requests-here

Or, better yet, the "issue" section of the specific github repository.