Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?)

Folly

@Lord-Vek said in Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?):

@Folly Hello,

May I ask, is there a way to get B-em to begin in fullscreen? Something to write to the config for example?

In the past I tried to edit the source but could not get it working.
( for elkulator I could however )
xdotool could be a solution to simulate the key-presses at start.
I think I experimented with that before.
I certainly have implemented xdotool to autoload the `roms.

Lord Vek

@Folly Yes, but how exactly can I do that? What should I edit, what commands...?

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Have a look at :
/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh

You would only have to add "alt+enter" before loading the software.
( https://gitlab.com/cunidev/gestures/-/wikis/xdotool-list-of-key-codes )

When quitting however you would probably have to do it manually.

The code would probably be something like this :

xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return

(code is working !)

For example you can test it by editing line 12 in b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh for the disc load commandline into this :

/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12

(tested and it looks like it's working ok)

Lord Vek

Yep! It worked! Thanks again, my friend!

Folly

@Lord-Vek @MrNoHolster

For quitting the emulator from fullscreen and with keyboard or joystick I will have a look later if I have the time.
Just to see if I can extract key-presses and joystick-presses while the emulator is running and break the script so the emulator will stop and exit.

I think the "Alt+Return" fix has to be implemented in the module-script together with an exit fix once I found that.

Lord Vek

@Folly It would be nice if the B-em was to be even better!

MrNoHolster

@Folly Thanks for your hard work on this! So much love for this emulator that it'd be a superb addition to Retropie gaming.

Lord Vek

@Folly said in Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?):

For example you can test it by editing line 12 in b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh for the disc load commandline into this :

/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
(tested and it looks like it's working ok)

Hello,

I discovered that, when I make this change, it is changing back, probably after an update. What I should do to make this change permanent?

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Hmmm...
If you update my scripts than yes it's overwritten.

Perhaps I can add it to my module-script, though I have to add a message on how to quit before the emulator is loading.
Will have to think about it.

mitu

@Folly said in Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?):

If you update my scripts than yes it's overwritten.

Own/user 'emulator' lines in emulators.cfg won't be overwritten by updates.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

As @mitu said the own/user 'emulator' lines in emulators.cfg won't be overwritten by updates unless you install it again.
Did you do that too ?

Lord Vek

@mitu No, I didn't. So, should I edit \retropie\root\opt\retropie\configs\bbcmicro\emulators.cfg? And what lines should I change into what?

mitu

@Lord-Vek You should duplicate the line that was overwritten by the update/upgrade and save it with a custom name. I.e. if the emulator start looks like:

..
emulator1=/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
..

just add a similar line, but name the emulator entry differently:

...
emulator1-custom=/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
...

You can then use the runcommand launch menu to choose this custom emulator to run games.
Since this is a custom emulator (using @Folly's scripts) I don't know what the defaults are and what is the emulators.cfg looks like.

Folly

@mitu

Thanks for the help.

Though the structure of the loading the emulator is a bit different.
The runcommand loads a script that will detect if the media is tape or disk and with what system to load and loads b-em with the appropriate options..
So the part @Lord-Vek is asking about is the part of simulating Alt+Return implementation in that script.
So if he changed the loading script and then reinstalled it with my module-script the loading script will be overwritten and the key simulation presses of getting full-screen are gone again.
That is because the solution hasn't been implemented in my module-script.

So the solution for him is to change the loading script again like suggested in post 42.
Note : editing has to be done as root (super user) otherwise changes in the file /opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh will not be saved.

Or I have to change my module-script and add that solution so in the future the key simulation presses of getting full-screen is added from the install and not by manual editing.
I will have a look at this solution when I can, seems the best one.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

I have updated the script :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/893fc7dc4259ded92f827f604c9cd366843eda71

Replace your old module-script with the new one and re-install it.

Optional :
Or if you don't want to compile the b-em emulator, if it is already there, then do the following commands to only configure and save the loader script :

cd RetroPie-Setup
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh b-em-allegro4 configure

Lord Vek

@Folly I replaced the b-em-allegro4.sh with the new one, then from Retropie's setup I uninstalled the b-em allegro emulator, then installed it again from source. But now the emulator is hanging up, it doesn't even return back to game selection.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

I have that same issue.
I seems you have to press Alt+Return fist before you exit.
This prevents a crash.
I think that issue was there all along you probably forgot.
I updated my script again to fix some more.
I added a message about quitting before the emulator starts so we don't forget.
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/0600e67d96004925bd1b35c9e16417aa06620f57

Sadly not all perfect solutions.

Edit :
Found that the dialog msgbox creates the issue of hanging totally when not using linux desktop.
Will test some other stuff or just remove it.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Sadly I didn't expect my changes to have an impact on the crashing before even loading the emulator.
But it seems I had so, I have removed the dialog message.

I think everything is good now :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/6b36f162832696ad5d7db0925c4dc707ca5f7c2c
(remove and install it again)
Let me know if it works for you ;-)

As a reminder here, I added this to the help :
QUIT information:

Press ALT + RETURN to quit full-screen.
(use above to prevent a crash when quitting)

Press F11 to go into the menu.
Then use the mouse or press ALT + F and press E to exit.
Or use ctrl+c instead !

Supported ROMS/MEDIA : .uef .ssd
ROMS/MEDIA have to be in $romdir/bbcmicro

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Some latest news :
I took a look again at the b-em source code.
To my surprise I was able to implement :

booting in full-screen
adding a hotkey to exit (with leaving full-screen first so the resolution is still good after quitting)

I choose the hotkey to be Alt + Esc so we still can use the Esc key.
I also found that there is an autoboot option for loading discs.
This means I can remove simulating the autoboot key presses.
Will have to see how I can implement it.
I also have to do some tests first.

Lord Vek

@Folly Yes, it is working OK now. Thanks a lot to you and mitu and be well!