Updated EmulationStation for Windows

LiveFreeDead

@f-caruso Nailed it, got ALL screen choices crystal clear and acting they way they should - 100% perfect, even on my dual screen configuration I was able to switch to using --monitor 1 and it behaved.

Big thank you again for being a great programmer and sharing with the community.

Also the only reason I never started making a program to parse these XML's myself is I get very invested in each project I start, so I could end up writing a whole xml builder with GUI interface instead ;) I was just hoping as you had all the roms listable you might (if I was lucky) make a function that would call each system and output to a text file. But your right, it doesn't really need to be in there for everyone, wouldn't be a total loss if you make a hot key combination copy the current system's rom names to the clipboard tho right :P he he he

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso That's perfect! Thank you. I love the visible system feature too :D

jero

@f-caruso Thanks for the fix, the background and scroll sound already work

ThePlagueIsBack

@f-caruso said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@CarissaIsWierd You are right. I just added a new value for centerSelection : partial.
true -> always center the selection
partial -> center the selection except if at begin or end of gamelist ( in not scrollLoop )
false -> just don't ( considering behaviour has changed for false value, partial was the old "false" )
Default decomes "false" in vertical layout. Default (finally unchanged) is "partial" in horizontal layout.

@LiveFreeDead Your fullscreen problem using high dpi is not easy to solve... But I think I fixed it. Try the latest version.

Maybe you could offer a tools menu so you can generate a GamesLists TXT

Sorry I won't do that. It's absolutely not ES role to do that kind of things...
And I don't know who will ever use that ( except you ) ?
As you have basis in developement, I'm sure you'll find a way to enumerate gamelist.xml files, read them and output what you want ;-)

Amazing work Fabrice, this "partial" feat for the grid is simply amazing, thank you!

ThePlagueIsBack

@f-caruso Question, I'm looking to add a label to a theme that displays the system name, this would allow me to display it using a custom font instead of having to provide a logo for each system. I tried to add an additional variable to the theming system but whenever I open the detailed video game list view the app keeps crashing, I've been editing on my pc and building on app veyor so debugging is not an option for me since setting up VS via cmake is a nightmare that I never got to work...

I tried to create a new "metadata" label called "md_systemname" and used the following to update it with the system name:

 mSystemName.setValue(mRoot->getSystem()->getFullName());

Got it up and running, but crashing...

With such metadata available for theming I would place it on the video detailed view of the theme I'm tweaking:

<text name="md_systemname">
  <zIndex>44</zIndex>       
  <pos>0.100 0.100</pos>
  <backgroundColor>00000000</backgroundColor>
  <color>ffffff</color>
  <fontPath>./_inc/fonts/GROBOLD.ttf</fontPath>
  <fontSize>0.015</fontSize>  
</text>

Any help with getting this to work or if that's something you can easily implement I would be really grateful.

jero

@ThePlagueIsBack
I don't remember well, but I think with this you can

text name="logoText"

f.caruso

@ThePlagueIsBack One line of code is not enough to help. I don't even know where this line is. Don't you have a fork on git ?

ThePlagueIsBack

@f-caruso lol, yeah, I thought I had pasted my fork url here with the dirty commits but now @jero solution did work nicely, thank you.

ThePlagueIsBack

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@ThePlagueIsBack
I don't remember well, but I think with this you can

text name="logoText"

It did work, thank you.

jero

@ThePlagueIsBack said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@ThePlagueIsBack
I don't remember well, but I think with this you can

text name="logoText"

It did work, thank you.

Remember where I saw it, it was here
https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/blob/master/THEMES.md

There are new things that f.caruso added, but they are not in this github. It would be a good idea to update all this information with the new developments of f.caruso.

f.caruso

@jero @ThePlagueIsBack THEMES.md file is "almost" up to date on my Fork's git... If you search a bit : I also have also another ES fork. On this one, THEMES.md documentation is > 95% up to date - knowing that both forks are 100% compatible.

ThePlagueIsBack

My bad, I did not read it carefully, instead just wasted tons of time trying to reinvent the wheel with no success.
Thanks guys

jero

@f-caruso said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@jero @ThePlagueIsBack THEMES.md file is "almost" up to date on my Fork's git... If you search a bit : I also have also another ES fork. On this one, THEMES.md documentation is > 95% up to date - knowing that both forks are 100% compatible.

Excuse me, I think I am badly exiled, if everything is right in your git, everything is new, but I mean it was next to the git of aloshi. It was just a comment.

porterballs

Could someone tell me how I get the boxart to display instead of a title screenshot when I use screen scraper please! The boxart downloads but it's always the title screenshot displayed on emulationstation.

A Former User

Anyone using this build to launch Steam and Epic games? If so, what’s your method that seems to work best?

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

I have a couple more ideas...

Add a "Completed" metadata tag that could be toggled where "Favorite", "Hidden", and "Kid Game" are. Completed games should have a checkmark next to them (rather than a star) in list view. Grid view should have "gridtile.completed" & "gridtile.completed:selected" to style it. Additional options should be "Hide Completed Games" and "Show Completed At Bottom" (similar to "Show Favorites At Top".) That probably sounds like a lot, but it's all piggybacking off features already in ES, so hopefully it's simple?
Allow saving subset options for individual systems. As of now, systems can only choose "Gamelist View Style" and "Grid Size", saving them to es_settings. Being able to choose any option created with the subset property would be great.

And a couple issues...

Custom Collections, Favorites, All Games, and Last Played don't show anything inside parentheses. If I have two games named "Pokemon (Ruby)" and "Pokemon (Sapphire)", they'll both appear as "Pokemon [GBA]" in Custom Collections and the others. I realise most people don't have this issue because they don't rename their files.
Configure Input doesn't allow defining "pageup"/"pagedown" like old ES did, but they (thankfully) can still be added manually into es_input. On list view, it works fine, but on grid view, it cycles systems. (Even with it set to something like the right analog stick.)

Obviously you can ignore all these, but I wanted to mention them anyway :)

dschachm

Hi, I am new to this forum and emulationstation, but I think I have a pretty good handle on it. I am not sure if it is a bug or I just need to change a setting. I have some window games like forza horizon 4 and madden nfl set up under a windows system and I use emulationstation to launch the shortcut. When I launch Madden, everything works perfect. My issue is when I Launch Forza, I guess it take a while to load, so emulationstation thinks it didn't load, and it goes back to the menu with all the games. Meanwhile, in the background, it does start to load, but then I can't get into it becuase it is back in emulationstation. Is there a way to create a delay in the es_systems.cfg before emulationstation returns to it's menu?

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd

Add a "Completed" metadata tag.

Why not...

Allow saving subset options for individual systems.

I don't like the idea. Subsets are global settings that can apply to everything ( colors/screen view ). This is why I designed "customViews" -> It applies only to gamelists... The only subset that has interest be saved by system is the "gamelist subset". The theme can be refactored to use customViews instead.

Collections don't show anything inside parentheses.

Never rename your roms : scrappers don't like it ! Or if you do it : don't use parenthesis.

Configure Input doesn't allow defining "pageup"/"pagedown" like old ES did.

I didn't change anything in the input configuration. What "old ES" version are you talking about ? Aloshi's 2.0.1a ?

@dschachm

ES launch games and wait for the launched exe to finish. If it returns immediatly to ES this is because the exe you launch runs another one and returns immediatly. You'll have to find another command line to run this game. I know that when you create links to Windows Store games, links return immediatly, but, I don't know any way for those shorcuts to wait for the process to end...

jero

@f-caruso

I try to use two cores for a system, and only use the first one in the list. In other words, I have a system that I have called capcom with games of alpha2012 and others of mame2003_plus, I have done the same thing that you have in your git but only the first one is there.
I know I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.

<system>
   <name>fba</name>
   <fullname>Capcom</fullname>
   <path>~\..\emulationstation\roms\fba</path>
   <extension>.7z .zip .ZIP</extension>
   <command>%HOME%\systems\RetroArch\retroarch.exe -L %HOME%\systems\RetroArch\cores\%CORE%_libretro.dll %ROM%</command>
   <platform>fba</platform>
   <theme>fba</theme>
   <emulators>
     <emulator name="fbalpha">
       <cores>
         <core>fbalpha2012</core>
       </cores>
     </emulator>
     <emulator name="mame">
       <cores>
         <core>mame2003_plus</core>
       </cores>
     </emulator>
   </emulators>
 </system>

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

I don't like the idea. The theme can be refactored to use customViews instead.

I've got 16 subsets (and counting), which would take hundreds of customViews with all the possibilities! See here and here. Changing bg, colours, font, and all the other little things on a per system basis would be more ideal. (And being able to quickly change them again, meaning not editing the system xml files to do this.) I already have 2 customViews, but I guess I'll have to make some awkwardly specific ones ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

Never rename your roms : scrappers don't like it !

Scrapers actually read the hash of most roms fine. For me, renaming is the way to go for pretty much anything but ES/RetroArch, so it's what I've always done to give myself information on the genre and release year. I've made some batch files with regex find-replacing to clean up my gamelist xml's, so I'm fine now.

I didn't change anything in the input configuration. What "old ES" version are you talking about ? Aloshi's 2.0.1a ?

Yep. Just adding a page up/down to grid view would be good. Add this xinput to es_input to test. (It works on basic/detailed.)

<input name="pageup" type="axis" id="4" value="-1" /> <!-- Right Analog Up -->
<input name="pagedown" type="axis" id="4" value="1" /> <!-- Right Analog Down -->