"NES Classic UI"-Like Theme/runcommand ideas...
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OK, so I wish I know how to program/script at this point because I have an idea and I wish I could build it myself. I'm not opposed to learning as I go, but this would be a large undertaking and I doubt one person could do it anyway.
My idea is this:
What if you took the general layout of the NES Classic as well as the UI elements that make it so desirable and you built a custom theme/UI/runcommand/etc set to simulate that environment in general?
Wouldn't it be cool to have a retropie UI that scrolls a single horizontal line in infinite loop of boxart for a system and when you select a game to start and play, all retroarch overlay text is disabled (like what controller you plugged in, save state load/save, etc) and when you exit the game retroarch is set to autosave to slot 0 and a macro of sorts takes a screenshot just before exiting.
Upon exiting that rom and retroarch auto saving to slot 0, you come back to the UI with an onscreen representation of your savestate 0 and matched screenshot thumbnail and there you can press down on the dpad to pick one of 4 or more slots to save to. A script then simply renames savestate slot 0 to that slot number you picked and the screenshot that represents it as well.
On subsequent game loads you could first press down on the dpad when highlighting a game to see savestates to choose from (if any). Should you load the game based on choosing a savestate slot the runcommand loads the rom and that specific savestate automatically.
Of course, exiting a game (auto save to slot 0) and shutting down or choosing another rom to load could either leave that savestate 0 there to waste space or it could be deleted to keep the clutter down.
You would also want a way to first choose a system before being in the NES Classic like setup (NES, SNES, Mega Drive, etc) that goes nicely with the interface once in a specific system.
I realize this would be an interface only very well suited to console games and perhaps maybe some arcade formats like Neo Geo and thus would have a smaller audience than retropie as a whole, however I really think a setup like this would simplify usage of retroarch on a Pi further still - beyond what retropie has already done so well when compared to other Pi gaming images.
What are your thoughts? Anyone care to take a stab at the idea? All I ask is whoever picks up this ball and runs with it link me to it's progress and let me participate in alpha/beta testing it!
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I tried to make a theme based off of the nes mini menu, did not go so well.
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It's a swell idea but will either A: require some wizardry in ES to make work
Or more likely B: require you to code a new frontend entirely so the animations etc match.
Good luck!
If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/
Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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@herb_fargus More completely new UI and less ES theme.
Though I would love to see an Android TV ui for Retropie
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One is in development for Attract Mode
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1222.0
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