What am I doing wrong with shortcuts?

Folly

We tried, looks like we are on a dead end.

I even used a linked directory now :
/home/pi/nespics (link to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/downloaded_images/nes )
That work too for me.

How is it going when you edit the gamelist.xml directly ?

smartgenes

@JimmyFromTheBay Try adding -image.jpg instead to your non-link example in the sub folder images and see if that works.

smartgenes

@JimmyFromTheBay You can quit to a command line from emulationstation I think and enter the ls command there. (I have a raspbian desktop alongside with a terminal window myself)

Folly

@JimmyFromTheBay

You talked about symlinks, how do you create them ?

smartgenes

@Folly I'm pretty baffled that there's symlinks being created without a terminal or ssh... Using Windows network folder?

Also at one point there was the mention that the regular, non-link method didn't work.

So I think there may be two issues.

Understanding the general method of doing the images
Something wrong with the link you made

For 1.
A.) Make sure the game file name and image are exactly the same (no capitals, no extra fullstops, extra spaces etc)
B.) Make sure that the image actually works and is not a partial download or something - and that it is actually a .jpg not .png or something else
C.) At the moment you're editing in emulationstation, so it doesn't apply, but if you edit the gamelist.xml in a terminal, create some metadata for the game first in emulationstation, such as genre or developer, as there needs to be some data for the game to have an entry in the gamelist.xml (editing the .XML is a much better method than typing it in emulationstation).
D.) Restart emulationstation to see the changes

Check the text of those links - what you posted here has some discrepancies, e.g. one says configs another says configs.hdmi. Does your nonworking link have a typo in it? Are you sure that your nonworking link method is actually a functional link?

Make sure the relative path is ./blah/blah not /blah/blah

Make sure the image is actually where you are looking for it: in a sub folder /nes/ in your link

Am I right in thinking that you might be describing links on two DIFFERENT raspberry pis?

There was something odd you said about not being able to add a link because you didn't have permissions further down, but the roms folder is further down, so I'm not sure exactly what you meant.

Hope we can find the issue.

Folly

@smartgenes said in What am I doing wrong with shortcuts?:

@Folly I'm pretty baffled that there's symlinks being created without a terminal or ssh... Using Windows network folder?

Also at one point there was the mention that the regular, non-link method didn't work.

So I think there may be two issues.

Understanding the general method of doing the images

Something wrong with the link you made

For 1.
A.) Make sure the game file name and image are exactly the same (no capitals, no extra fullstops, extra spaces etc)
B.) Make sure that the image actually works and is not a partial download or something - and that it is actually a .jpg not .png or something else
C.) At the moment you're editing in emulationstation, so it doesn't apply, but if you edit the gamelist.xml in a terminal, create some metadata for the game first in emulationstation, such as genre or developer, as there needs to be some data for the game to have an entry in the gamelist.xml (editing the .XML is a much better method than typing it in emulationstation).
D.) Restart emulationstation to see the changes

Check the text of those links - what you posted here has some discrepancies, e.g. one says configs another says configs.hdmi. Does your nonworking link have a typo in it? Are you sure that your nonworking link method is actually a functional link?

Make sure the relative path is ./blah/blah not /blah/blah

Make sure the image is actually where you are looking for it: in a sub folder /nes/ in your link

Am I right in thinking that you might be describing links on two DIFFERENT raspberry pis?

There was something odd you said about not being able to add a link because you didn't have permissions further down, but the roms folder is further down, so I'm not sure exactly what you meant.

Hope we can find the issue.

@JimmyFromTheBay

The post is meant for you.

Btw.
I will go on vacation tomorrow so I will probably not reply for 2 or 3 weeks.

JimmyFromTheBay

@smartgenes said:

@JimmyFromTheBay Try adding -image.jpg instead to your non-link example in the sub folder images and see if that works.

No difference.

@Folly said:

@JimmyFromTheBay

You talked about symlinks, how do you create them ?

In WinSCP, just right-click in the folder, select "New" and then "Link".

@smartgenes said:

Make sure that the image actually works and is not a partial download or something - and that it is actually a .jpg not .png or something else

There's nothing wrong with the image, it works fine using the normal full links.

@smartgenes said):

one says configs another says configs.hdmi

configs is just a shortcut to configs.hdmi.

@smartgenes said in What am I doing wrong with shortcuts?:

./blah/blah not /blah/blah

I've tried every imaginable combination of slashes, dots, tildes and nothing.

@smartgenes said:

Am I right in thinking that you might be describing links on two DIFFERENT raspberry pis?

No.

@smartgenes said:

not being able to add a link because you didn't have permissions further down

Sorry, I should have been clearer - what I meant by that was further BACK, ie in the root folder where the home and opt folders etc are.

@smartgenes said:

create some metadata for the game first in emulationstation

All the games are already in gamelist.xml. (The reason I want to do it in ES is that it's MUCH quicker if you're only adding a couple of pics, because to do it by editing gamelist.xml you basically need to reboot the Pi twice, which takes about 3-4 minutes.

sleve_mcdichael

@JimmyFromTheBay said in What am I doing wrong with shortcuts?:

The reason I want to do it in ES is that it's MUCH quicker if you're only adding a couple of pics, because to do it by editing gamelist.xml you basically need to reboot the Pi twice, which takes about 3-4 minutes.

You don't need to reboot at all. Just logout or ctrl-d and it will relog you as if you had rebooted, but it takes mere seconds.

And why especially would you need to do it twice?

F4: exits emulationstation.

nano /path/to/whatever_file_I_want_to.change

ctrl-d to relog. I do this all the time. The slowest part is the ~6 seconds while ES reloads its gamelists.

JimmyFromTheBay

@sleve_mcdichael F4 does indeed quit me out of ES to a Pi commandline prompt. Ctrl-D, on the other hand, does absolutely nothing at that point.

smartgenes

@JimmyFromTheBay You can also output that ls command there mentioned earlier. Just type emulationstation to relaunch (just type em and TAB should fill the rest, hopefully).