EmulationStation mod

meleu

Let me share some thoughts...

@ben_thatmustbeme said in EmulationStation mod:

If I made PRs to that effect for both Retropie's branch and @jacobfk20 would that be acceptable?

It seems that the RetroPie's branch is a very "conservative" one (my perception). I think in it being like Debian in the Linux distros universe.

The thing I love most in RetroPie is its flexibility. It is its main feature. Therefore you don't need to be so concerned to implement new features in RetroPie's ES branch.

Maybe the best path is you and other ES developers deliberate about a github repo to create/focus on. And then write a RetroPie scriptmodule to let the users install your ES branch via retropie_setup.

If you guys make your branch compilable the same way that the RetroPie's branch is, the scriptmodule can be quite simple. This is exactly what happens to the Zigurana's Child-friendly branch, look how simple the scriptmodule is:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/supplementary/emulationstation-kids.sh

I think this simple attitude (make your branch installable via retropie_setup) and the creation of a wiki page at RetroPie's wiki showing your ES branch's features, would help it to grow in popularity.

Where would the best place for conversations of this nature be? here? IRC?

I had this feel too. For some reason we tend to view this forum as a place for end-user questions only... "Where do I have to post my development questions? Here or github?"

Then I remembered that I asked for a "Development" section and was attended. Thereafter I decided to post all my questions/suggestions here (using the "Ideas and Development" section). And I'm enjoying using the forum for it. So, my suggestion is to use this forum as well.

jacobfk20

For right now I would love to just make a script module to install my build and continue to iron out the kinks that anyone finds that is brave enough to run it. It would be nice to have Gridview in the main branch but after reading the last few posts in here and going through the retropie es branch it seems like it may not happen, or maybe be a stripped down version of it.

To be honest, Gridview is the least modular thing I added to ES. For example, in order for the user to be able to change to the grid view there had to be a menu added to gamelistoptions.cpp. The saved options in that menu get saved to SystemData-- but SystemData doesn't have a save function... so one had to be added.
If these are removed then the user would have to manually go to their es_systems.cfg file and add <view>GRID</view>... or maybe just have a separate theme made that can enable grid view.

So for right now, I will look into just creating a script module and making sure my changes (based on the main ES branch) do not conflict with this branch.

InsecureSpike

i know i've asked this in the past, but as a theme maker, please please remove or make that white middle carousel bar or make it editable, and make art viewable in folders too please,

i'd gladly test out your build, if you wanna share an img

lilbud

@InsecureSpike I wonder what could be done without that carousel.......(Insert evil laugh here)

InsecureSpike

@lilbud said in EmulationStation mod:

@InsecureSpike I wonder what could be done without that carousel.......(Insert evil laugh here)

lol..... for me its just so annoying, i know its not a huge thing, but i'd love to see it rid of

lilbud

@InsecureSpike I'd love to see something like retrofx done.

ben_thatmustbeme

@jacobfk20 I think putting grid view option in the theme config makes the most sense there. Or are themes pretty good at switching between the two?

What do you say to working together on one repo? I don't think we should divide our efforts. I renamed to PieStation just to separate a little logically from the growing pile of ES forks. Like I said, add I get time ill try to merge your changes in to my fork too.

mattrixk

@lilbud said in EmulationStation mod:

I wonder what could be done without that carousel.......(Insert evil laugh here)

I figured something like this would be awesome:

system_view

With the Systems/Consoles listed like the gameslist. I like being able to see more of them at once.

SimonBelmont

@lilbud Do you know if retrofx is open source? I tried googling it but came up with a project that overrides graphics and sounds in ROMS instead of that launcher. I wanted to create a launcher using JavaFX too and I'm just curious to see how this guy did it.

The idea of coding in Java for the Pi is so much more appealing to me because you can compile on a PC and just upload the .jar files to the Pi, taking just a few seconds. Vs the 17 hours it's supposed to take to compile EmulationStation's C code...

jacobfk20

@SimonBelmont On the pi3 it only takes about an hour to compile ES from scratch. Then after you have it built it will only recompile what has been changed. Build time is usually only twenty seconds for me. :)

@InsecureSpike Making System View more customizable would be nice. I may look into that in the future.

@ben_thatmustbeme I don't mind working together. I'll take a look at your fork as I'm looking through Retropie's fork. I'm currently getting up to date with Retropie's latest.

SimonBelmont

@jacobfk20 Well that's not bad at all then. As I mentioned in my first post, I was in the process of downloading the EmulationStation code just as you announced your version. I was in dependency hell, trying to find them all and download them. I kind of hate myself for saying this, but C needs a Maven equivalent. After I saw you had already done most of what I wanted to do I just gave up and downloaded your version :)

One feature you haven't added yet that I definitely wanted is to replace the XML "database" with a real database system. I think performance would greatly improve for people with large libraries.

ben_thatmustbeme

@SimonBelmont interesting idea. I added it to github (https://github.com/dissolve/PieStation/issues/11) just so we keep track of all these ideas. Likewise if anyone has any other things they want to note, please do so

meleu

@ben_thatmustbeme said in EmulationStation mod:

if anyone has any other things they want to note, please do so

did you see this thread?
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/177/emulationstation-feature-requests-here

herb_fargus

@SimonBelmont if you look at the retropie fork there is a branch with a sqlite backend instead of xmls. Still needs testing but it's there if you want somewhere to start

SimonBelmont

@herb_fargus I will definitely check that out. Thanks!

InsecureSpike

@lilbud said in EmulationStation mod:

@InsecureSpike I'd love to see something like retrofx done.

well, could defo be looked into! or get something very close. especiallly if xml gets replaced somehow????

lilbud

@SimonBelmont From what I have seen. RetroFX died with the old forum. Nothing but concept art. But I wonder if that could now be achieved with this ES

lilbud

@herb_fargus What is the difference between xml and sql?

SimonBelmont

@lilbud XML is a verbose data format. Because it is verbose it is easy for humans to read and understand, as far as data files go.

SQL is not a format, but rather a language that you use to look up information in a database. A database in its simplest can be thought of like a dictionary. Each row of data has indexes that allow you to more or less jump straight to it. Like if you want to look up "zebra" you know to jump to the back of the dictionary. You don't have to look at every word from A-Y beforehand.

XML is not ordered in any particular way. So if you wanted to find "zebra" it might be the first word, the last word, or any word in between! Worse than that, you first have to read in the whole XML file and load the contents in memory to be able to walk through the data. As you load more and more data into an XML file it takes longer to read, takes up more memory, and takes longer to walk through it and find data. Whereas with a database, whether you have one row of data or a million, the amount of memory it uses and the amount of time to find data remains fairly constant.

herb_fargus

@SimonBelmont well not to split hairs but technically xml would be a language too as it stands for extensible markup language ;)