Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More)

[RapidEdwin08]

@cdaters Do you recall what version of IMP gave you the issues on Removal?

I'm wondering if it was just an issue with 0lder version IMP or if there's still something to adjust with the Install/Remove in Latest version.

This Latest version should accommodate the <extensions> for both locations on Install and Removal.

EDIT I checked and an 0lder version like v2021.10 could give you this issue on Removal, as it Simply Restores the es_systems.cfg backup File, but 0nly if it was there to Backup upon Install of IMP...
I suspect you did not have an [es_systems.cfg] Backup file to Restore in [~/emulationstation/], so it 0nly Restored [/etc/emulationstation].
As a result, a mismatch was created on Removal of 0lder IMP, since the Custom es_systems.cfg you created after still contained MP3 <extenstions>...

I tested latest version with x2 es_systems.cfg files, and it did accommodate appropriately in Both [es_systems.cfg] Locations on Install/Removal.

[cdaters]

That was probably the case. Everything is all good now! Thank you for checking!

[RapidEdwin08]

ReadMe has been updated, and a few minor tweaks have been made to v2022.02 to ensure the startup song does not interrupt the current playlist.
Feel free to report any issues here.
Thanks all for the input.

[buzzardbait]

@rapidedwin08 Congrats- great update! I also had some issues uninstalling to upgrade.. My old version was from late 2021, for what it's worth- so I was skipping a few versions to the current one. I went through the uninstall, then tried to reinstall, and no luck. The software gave me messages that a current install existed, when I had already gone through the uninstall.

Checked es_systems.cfg.. That wasn't the issue.

As it stood, I had a host of other issues going on and I just bit the bullet.. I grabbed another SD card and just did a fresh install of everything again. That did the trick.

So I am back up and running and really happy with the newest version. I have all my tunes on A-SIDE randomly playing starting at boot, which is awesome, and I am working up another set of music for the B-SIDE that it will shuffle from (which I could switch to any time I feel like a different genre of music).

Thanks again!

[RapidEdwin08]

@buzzardbait said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@rapidedwin08 I went through the uninstall, then tried to reinstall, and no luck. The software gave me messages that a current install existed, when I had already gone through the uninstall.

IMP checks for the existance of one directory for the install, you can Rename/Remove if needed:
/opt/retropie/configs/imp

@buzzardbait If you still have the old card with issue, can you list the contents of this directory so I can see what the Uninstaller missed?:

ls /opt/retropie/configs/imp 

Thanks for the feedback.
...and the idea for the Randomizer

[buzzardbait]

@rapidedwin08 Ack, I'm sorry.. I formatted the card before I saw this.

I can tell you that I deleted the imp folder in configs as well as the imp folder in home/pi.. Then attempted to re-install, and got the message that a current install existed.

One other thing I'm noticing on my new install, (and it could be user error). I have randomizer on, A-Side ON, and B-Side OFF.

Upon boot up, random music plays from A-Side. Great.
Unfortunately, IMP seems to select the single track left in the B-Side folder among the A-Side music. Is that supposed to happen with B-Side set to OFF while "randomizing" tracks, or is there a setting I am missing?

Thanks again!

[ExarKunIv]

@buzzardbait im really enjoying what you have made here, but i have come across something very odd

Im using pegasus and well i get this

it is showing all the song in the main menu

and as you know when its ES

im going to play around with it and see what i can figure out

[RapidEdwin08]

@buzzardbait said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

I can tell you that I deleted the imp folder in configs as well as the imp folder in home/pi.. Then attempted to re-install, and got the message that a current install existed.

One other thing I'm noticing on my new install, (and it could be user error). I have randomizer on, A-Side ON, and B-Side OFF.

Upon boot up, random music plays from A-Side. Great.
Unfortunately, IMP seems to select the single track left in the B-Side folder among the A-Side music. Is that supposed to happen with B-Side set to OFF while "randomizing" tracks, or is there a setting I am missing?

Deleting the imp folder in configs was not needed, and probably caused your issues.
For the uninstall process, really you only need to:

• replace /home/pi/imp with the latest version
• Run the Uninstall with the latest version
• Run the Install with the latest version

As stated in the ReadMe, the Randomizer will generate Playlist based on All the BGM/Music folders.
It does Not respect the BGM Settings.
Saying this out loud makes me think it should... I'm open to suggestions.

[RapidEdwin08]

@ExarKunIv said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

i have come across something very odd

Im using pegasus and well i get this
it is showing all the song in the main menu

I recall seeing this when I was initially testing IMP, but I don't really use Pegasus, so I never pursued it...
All menu entries for IMP and Songs.mp3 were available in Pegasus-FE, but they were not Sorted like in ES.
They did appear to be in alphabetical/numerical order if I remember correctly?

I would assume there's some kind of gamelist.xml or similar that can be tweaked to make it just as pretty as ES?
If there's a way to make IMP appear more organized in Pegasus-FE like in ES I'm open to incorporating it.

Any input from avid Pegasus-FE users would be appreciated.

[buzzardbait]

@RapidEdwin08 said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

Deleting the imp folder in configs was not needed, and probably caused your issues.
For the uninstall process, really you only need to:

• replace /home/pi/imp with the latest version
• Run the Uninstall with the latest version
• Run the Install with the latest version

Thanks. Definitely user error! I keep backups of my game setup and careful notes on my install & settings, but I'm far from a Linux wizard or anything.. More a "careful tinkerer" who sometimes gets into trouble.

As stated in the ReadMe, the Randomizer will generate Playlist based on All the BGM/Music folders.
It does Not respect the BGM Settings.
Saying this out loud makes me think it should... I'm open to suggestions.

I read the ReadMe again- Probably more user error here on my part, but hear me out. I have confused what Randomizer will do, and what Shuffle will do.. I did a little trial and error with settings again, and here's what I found out based on my use case:

I have a group of tracks in A-SIDE and another group in B-SIDE..

If I set:
A-SIDE on, B-SIDE off, Shuffle on, Randomizer off.. IMP plays tracks from A-SIDE, shuffled up differently. If I reboot- It will shuffle the tracks again differently. Great!

If B-SIDE is on and A-SIDE off, Shuffle on, Randomizer off. IMP plays tracks from B-SIDE, shuffled up differently every time I reboot. Also just what I want it to do.

I think it would be great to have an option for IMP to pick a "side" randomly at reboot and play it.. (I would use Shuffle ON in conjunction with this feature to make it shuffle the tracks each time at startup). So it would give me a shuffled A-SIDE, or a shuffled B-SIDE, but NOT a mix of both.

RANDOMIZER as you currently have it is a great option that I wouldn't change.. If I set Randomizer ON it shuffles ALL of my tracks. Which sometimes I'll want to do! I would suggest renaming the option to avoid confusion. Maybe change it to "RANDOMIZE ALL TRACKS" or something like that, to make it a bit clearer?

And then SHUFFLE - I'd rename it to SHUFFLE CURRENT PLAYLIST..
I just think I got the two options confused.

One other thing I have noticed.. When I use the Current Settings option, it does not display whether Shuffle is ON or OFF.

Thanks! You've done awesome work here.. It's been a great add for my arcade cab!

[RapidEdwin08]

@buzzardbait Thanks for the input.
I'll definitely keep all that in mind and will consider relabeling Randomizer/Shuffle in the next release.

The Shuffle Setting status is listed in Current Playlist, not in Current Settings.

[ExarKunIv]

@RapidEdwin08
i dont know if this will help any or not, since as you said you dont use Pegasus-FE

https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie_BGM_Player
(i did not make it, i just got it working with the newer RP)

this installed a menu in the RetroPie settings a little different so the menu item is a bash file i think. so it is only one thing in the list

I Know 0 when it comes to programming, i just know enough to get me in to trouble.

[RapidEdwin08]

@ExarKunIv Thanks, I'm familiar.
That particular BGM script offers it's settings/0ptions via Dialogue bash script.
The reason Pegasus looks different/cleaner, is because you only have one menu entry for BGM in that case

IMP differs from that BGM script (and many others) because it allows you to see MP3s as ROMs, which in turn creates menu entries for each one.

Pegasus is seeing all those entries.
So even if I was to convert all IMP settings/0ptions into a Dialogue bash script, you'd still have Menu entries for all of the MP3s...

For ES I was able to edit the gamelist.xml to make the menu entries look pretty and well organized.
I think the equivalent for Pegasus would be
metadata:

[ExarKunIv]

@RapidEdwin08 i get that, not sure if it can be done, but can the music folder just sit in the roms dir,
that way the Pegasus does not see them, since using BGM script it does see the music folder at all since it sits in the roms dir.

and yes Pegasus uses metadata, but there is no metadata for retropiemenu so im not sure if trying to make one will do much or not,

i have tried look at the metadata and im lost on that.

[RapidEdwin08]

@ExarKunIv said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@RapidEdwin08 i get that, not sure if it can be done, but can the music folder just sit in the roms dir,
that way the Pegasus does not see them, since using BGM script it does see the music folder at all since it sits in the roms dir.

The Main Reason I put everything including the MP3s in the retropiemenu, is to separate them from your actual Games/ROMs in ES.
0therwise they will get grouped with AllGames/Favorites/LastPlayed.
In addition, I did not want to create a custom System (es_systems.cfg) just for Music, because there is no Theme for RP that has an Entry/Artwork for Music.

Keeping all that in mind, using roms/music was initially my plan.
The Problem is ES did not like the symbolic link in retropiemenu to roms/music.
It would crash when trying to load up.

So I ended up putting the actual Music Folder in retropiemenu, and putting the symbolic link in roms/music instead.

and yes Pegasus uses metadata, but there is no metadata for retropiemenu so im not sure if trying to make one will do much or not,

I'd say the metadata or collection idea is still worth a shot...

[RapidEdwin08]

@ExarKunIv you unknowingly helped me discover an issue with IMP.
While looking around for gamelist options for PegasusFE, I realized I never added <folder> Tags for all the IMP Sub-directories in the retropiemenu gameslist.xml for ES.
If you were to set Parse Gamelists 0nly to 0N, ES may fail to load.

Incorrect <game> Tag for Sub-directory:
<game>
<path>./imp</path>
<name>Music Player</name>
<desc>[IMP] Integrated Music Player.</desc>
<image>./icons/imp.png</image>
</game>

Correct Tag for Sub-directory should be <folder>:

<folder>
<path>./imp</path>
<name>Music Player</name>
<desc>[IMP] Integrated Music Player.</desc>
<image>./icons/imp.png</image>
</folder>

I'll address this in next release, but for now if you have this issue,
Here's a one-liner to Disable Parse Gamelists 0nly:

sed -i 's/\"ParseGamelistOnly\"\ value=\"true\"/\"ParseGamelistOnly\"\ value=\"false\"/g' /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_settings.cfg

[cdaters]

I have created a directory called InternetRadio and a directory called PersonalMusic in /home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu/imp/musicand I have moved the Internet radio station directories into my new folder and all my music into the PersonalMusic folder.

I have edited the splashscreen\gamelist.xml to reflect the appropriate paths for the new location of the Internet Radio stations. I've added new <game> and <desc> attributes for the Internet Radio and Personal Music folders, but none of these changes are reflected in ES after restarts, etc. and my graphics (which I created and put in the icons folder) are showing up...

Is there somewhere else I should be editing files?

Nevermind... I realized that I had copied this file from ~/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml into ~\splashscreen for whatever reason in the past and that I have been working on the wrong file this entire time, lmao!

[cdaters]

As I have been moving things around and adding Internet Radio station configs to my new Internet Radio directory, I have been swapping <game></game> attributes with <folder></folder> where those entries are actual folders, and now I am thinking of how I can easily create the requisite xml data for my actual music library to insert meta data and artwork for my music into the gamelist.xml file so it all looks pretty in ES, lol!

Too bad that you cannot utilize <include></include> attributes in XML files? That would make it a lot easier to add custom Internet Radio and Personal Music libraries into IMP and keep the original ~/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml file mostly intact/original?

[cdaters]

@RapidEdwin08 said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

you unknowingly helped me discover an issue with IMP.
While looking around for gamelist options for PegasusFE, I realized I never added <folder> Tags for all the IMP Sub-directories in the retropiemenu gameslist.xml for ES.
If you were to set Parse Gamelists 0nly to 0N, ES may fail to load.

I can attest to this <folder> tags issue, lol! I've been playing around with ES and Pegasus trying to work out the best way to accommodate .m3u files and hiding the multi-disk/tape/carts from showing in gamelist.xml files and when I went to turned on "Parse gamelists" only trying to troubleshoot that issue, I broke ES! It took me some digging and --debugging to figure out what was going on, lol! All fixed now, I just went in and swapped out all the <game> tags to their appropriate <folder> tags accordingly...

[RapidEdwin08]

@cdaters If you turn ParseGamelistsOnly ON, any/all Music files not in your gamelist.xml will not be visible in ES, unless you manually enter them or select them one-by-one to create the entry.
For multiple disc ROMs you could try to rename them a different extension like .CD1 .CD2 and update the .m3u accordingly.
This may work for some systems, like PSX, but may not work for others like SegaCD.
You'll have to try it out and see what works...

Update coming soon with fixed Folder Tags, and a set ParseGamlistsOnly to OFF Utility in the Installer Menu.

Randomizer [ALL] will now pick a Random Track and make the sub-folder of that Track the current playlist. It will also respect the current BGM Settings.

Ranomizer [BGM] option solely for BGM will be added, it will exclude all other music, pick a Random Track from BGM, and make either BGM A/B the current playlist.

Adding a Shuffle Playlist at Boot option.
Currently IMP retains your shuffled playlist (like an iPod), which is nice to have, but not all the time. This will give you the 0ption to shuffle your current playlist at boot.

@buzzardbait you might have thought it shuffled the songs at boot if you were using LITE Mode, as it does NOT retain the current track at boot (just the current playlist), so it would have just played the 1st song in the playlist, which may differ from the track last playing depending it's last creation.
EDIT: Actually having the BGM Flags re-creates the playlists at boot based on the content of the BGM Dirs, so this would have shuffled the playlist in that case.
This will be updated to retain parity with the Shuffle Playlist At Boot option.

Also adding another streaming station.
Feel free to add any other recommendations or issues here.