Updated EmulationStation for Windows

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 -->

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd Your screenshots show very interesting things. Is there any way you can share your theme with me, so I can "play" with it and analyse it ?

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso Sure, I temporarily uploaded it here. (Some logos were removed for this upload, and I haven't finished adding credits yet.)

jero

@jero said in Updated EmulationStation for Windows:

@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>

Finally I managed to run several cores, I did not know that I had to assign it in ES within the edition of metadata, now it works perfectly for me. I really didn't see anything in git about this, or possibly skip the info and I didn't realize it. I am very happy with this.

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd Your theme is full of very good ideas, and I totally understood the need for saving subset per system in some "conditions". So....

I took time to think & code something, but, I've just commited a new version containing something that will interest you very much : I added support for a new 'hierarchy' for subsets, and added the attribute appliesTo -> You can name the view/customView the "subset option" is for ( and name several separating them with a comma ) & then you can have per system options for your gamelists ( using a "view customisation" screen )

Here's a sample :

<subset name="tileborders" appliesTo="Tiles">
  <include name="yes" />
  <include name="no">./tilesquareborders.xml</include>
</subset>

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso That's actually really nice! I think I've found a bug already though. Replace the List BG subset in my theme with this:

<subset name="> List > BG" appliesTo="detailed">
  <include name="Retro">./options/list-bg-2.xml</include>
  <include name="Pixel">./options/list-bg-1.xml</include>
  <include name="Shapes">./options/list-bg-3.xml</include>
</subset>

Now change it to Pixel or Shapes under Theme Configuration. Trying to select Retro under View Customisation will change it to whatever you just selected for all systems. It basically locks out selecting the first option if something different is selected under Theme Configuration. So far it's doing it for all the subsets I'm writing out like that.

Edit: Looking at es_settings.cfg, it might be because all options are no longer saved there if the first is selected.

mitu

@CarissaIsWierd The > character should be escaped when used in an XML file, your fragment above is not valid XML. Use > instead.

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd True... Fixed..

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso Almost perfect! But I can't get it to appear for two views with a comma like you mentioned. It should be like this, right?

<subset name="tileborders" appliesTo="detailed, grid">
  <include name="yes" />
  <include name="no">./tilesquareborders.xml</include>
</subset>

I'm probably being a nuisance now, but I found another issue :x

Step 1. Set up a system with its own options via View Customisation.
Step 2. Select some of the same options for all systems via Theme Configuration.
Step 3. Edit any option for the customised system/s and it'll remove options from es_settings.cfg that now match to what is being used universally.

...Meaning when the Theme Config options are changed again, those system specific options from before are now lost. Making them permanent in es_settings would be a better solution, adding a "Reset Gamelist Customisations" to each system to clear them out. (Changing the theme resets everything as well, so that could be used too.)

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd

I didn't say "a comma and a space" ;-) Try without space.Custom view names can have spaces so, spaces are tested too.
Not an issue to me. It acts just like it should : If the custom setting is the same that the global settings, it has to be set to "default" and then, removed from es_settings. If you don't remove them, changing a global setting will not change anymore views that have been customized at least one time : it's worse...

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso

If you don't remove them, changing a global setting will not change anymore views that have been customized at least one time.

That's the idea, locking those settings so they don't get changed. (Unless they're reset.) I can see how that'd be an issue, if one was to change a lot until they get things right, but that goes both ways. Having a way to "lock" a system subset option (with a button?) and a lock icon with it could work, but that could be making it too complicated. Oh well! I still appreciate all the time you've put into this fork. Looking at the commits on Github is like wizardry. My brain is too squishy for it ϵ( 'Θ' )϶

MiL0

excuse the really n00by question, but if I want to update my existing Emulation Station build, am I okay to replace all of my existing Emulation Station files with the entire contents of the latest build from github? Or if I do that, will I lose all my custom settings? Thanks in advance!

CarissaIsWierd

@f-caruso I started playing with my 3DS again and forgot all about the great background music so many themes have. So now I'm extracting a bunch of them and wondering if there's a way to make them loop in ES. I've found the code to add them, but they don't loop, and they also don't start up again when exiting a game. (I have to cycle to a different system or return to the carousel for it start playing again.)

Themes also have very short sound files for opening games. Is there ES code for similar functionality?

As for an idea, pointing <path> to a folder rather than a file could play a random file each time:

<sound name="bgsound">
    <path>./assets/sound/bgm/</path>
</sound>

@MiL0 Settings are stored at C:\Users\----\.emulationstation, so it's save to replace the files in Program Files.

f.caruso

@CarissaIsWierd it already exists for a while. Use the name "directory".

<sound name="directory">
    <path>./assets/sound/bgm/</path>
</sound>