Announcing Pegasus Frontend

fluffypillow

Weekly update! (it's been a while)

Updated the Qt libraries 5.12.8: this may improve performance and stability, but please report if you run into any graphical issues. This also fixes the crashing on exit.
Fixed the log file getting spammed with PNG profile warnings
Fixed the OpenSSL issues on Ubuntu 19.04 and later
Added support for QtQml.Models to be used in themes
Updated the French translation

Also there have been some updates on the Linux distros in the last weeks (RetroPie 4.6, Ubuntu 20.04), so I've also updated the build configurations:

The desktop Linux release is now built against Ubuntu 18.04, ie. it might not run on older releases
The Raspberry releases are now built against Debian Buster (RetroPie 4.6), ie. it might not run on older releases

If you haven't updated your system yet, do not update Pegasus either. In case you did, you can still download the "stable" releases from pegasus-frontend.org. Let me know if this change ends up to be a problem.

KNOWN ISSUES

Language autodetection fails for some reason (likely a Qt related bug). You can still change the language from the settings menu however.

Updates for package maintainers

Pegasus now requires at least Qt 5.12.0 (the 5.9 LTS reaches end of life this month)

As always, let me know if you run into some issues or have some suggestions!

msheehan79

@fluffypillow Any chance you could elaborate on how QtQml.Models could be leveraged in a theme for someone who isn't an QML expert?

I was able to customize a theme to support adding/removing from a dynamic collection using api.memory and a QtSortFilterProxyModel, but the performance isn't where it needs to be, as I had to use an ExpressionFilter in the virtual collection and that really kills the speed when the api.allGames collection is large.

Wasn't sure if supporting QtQml.Models might mean we could essentially build a new source model within the theme instead of filtering off api.allGames. I had originally tried something along that lines to basically create a new model with the theme games in it instead of the filter approach I ended up using, but I couldn't get it to work quite right - probably more due to my limited knowledge of QML than anything.

Could be totally off the mark here, but even if not curious where I could go to understand what other potential use cases there would be for this new support!

fluffypillow

@msheehan79 QtQml.Models can be used mainly to create new item lists, especially of visual types, that can be used as models. For example, see the first section here: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtqml-models-objectmodel.html. Actually I haven't used this yet, but someone wished to use it and was missing. Might come useful in the future though.Also you can find the full documentation here: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtqml-models-qmlmodule.html.

PlayingKarrde

@msheehan79 Qml.Models will mostly come in handy for making menus that don't consist of just a single item type (such as a game model). You can make an object model of your different buttons then use that model to populate a ListView. That's basically why I requested it as creating menus was a huge pain in the ass before.

It's interesting you point out ExpressionFilters being slow though. That's concerning as I've started implementing them in a big way. I haven't seen a performance impact yet but I'm only testing on PC and Nvidia Shield. I had hoped my next theme would be performant on pi as well. Is that where you're seeing this slowdown? I guess it's possible my collection isn't large enough to cause such a slowdown too though.

msheehan79

@fluffypillow @PlayingKarrde Ah ok, thanks for the insight. I was thinking more around building a data model (i.e. my dynamic games collection) than for visual components, so this helps clarify.

The challenge I believe with ExpressionFilters is it evaluates every row in the collection. My setup is definitely an extreme example, with something like 20k items, as I just haven't gotten round to actually whittling it down to stuff I'd actually play yet :) I am also doing a lot of custom collections, I am not sure if this is double counting games when they are in multiple collections.
But this provides a good barometer of performance. It takes about 15 seconds to iterate the full collection, so its noticeable. By comparison, a simple filter against say Favorites using ValueFilter took about 7-8 seconds, so about half the time.

I only evaluate the collection once on load or when the dynamic collection is added/removed, so its really only noticed when you leave a game and return to the frontend, or when you click the "Add to collection" button, but if you are surfing through games I can see the slow return to the frontend being a bit of a drag, so I'm probably going to try another approach.

This is on an older but still pretty decent x86 PC, Intel i5-2400 with 8GB RAM. I wouldn't dare try this sized collection on my RPi!

fluffypillow

(Bi-)Weekly update! (2020-05-18)

A large number of internal changes have landed, related to the memory management of how games are stored. There should be no visible changes, but if you run into any odd behaviour, feel free to report it! Other than that:

Theme API: All asset fields can now store multiple files (previously only videos and screenshots could do this). See also the documentation. screenshots and videos are now deprecated in favor of screenshotList and videoList -- they are still there for a while though, so no theme should break.
Metadata files: Added support for custom sorting order for Collections -- similarly to the sort_title of Games, Collections now have a sort_by field. sort_by is also available for Games as an alias for sort title, if you wish to make the two entry types look the same.
Theme API: Added a sortBy field to Collections and Games. sortTitle of Games is now deprecated (but not yet removed) in favor of this field.
LaunchBox: Fixed sort title not being set in some cases
LaunchBox: Fixed command line parameters not getting passed in certain cases
LaunchBox: Added support for images without numeric suffix (ie. other than SomeGame-01.jpg, SomeGame.jpg that older versions used also works)
Updated the documentation to follow last weeks' maintenance changes
Minor performance and memory usage improvements

mandrew

@fluffypillow Pegasus is really awesome. I'm just getting into it now, but wanted to let you know that from a framework point of view, what you've built is much better and more capable than other systems I've seen, especially for Retropie. Thank you.

@PlayingKarrde Not sure if this is something that has been asked before, but I've downloaded your Switch theme (awesome, btw) and noticed that the UI should have sounds. I can't hear them. Is there something silly I'm missing? How do I turn the UI sounds on? I'm using Retropie, maybe that's why?

PlayingKarrde

@mandrew I've noticed there's some issues with the sounds. I'll look into it for the next update. I haven't tested at all on RPi so I'll make sure to do that too.

mandrew

@PlayingKarrde Got it, thank you!

NeoBi

@fluffypillow Hi Fluffy ! I just build your project in release mode, unfortunately when I saw the size of my executable, It is only 4704 KB, while yours is 27704 KB. Do I miss something ? Thank you.

fluffypillow

@NeoBi Hi, when building C++ code you can either build statically, which places the dependencies directly into the executable, or dynamically, which loads them from the system at launch, resulting in smaller file size. It seems you've build dynamically, which is perfectly fine when you're building for yourself. On the other hand, the official releases are built statically, to not depend on system libraries as they may or may not be available on all OSes easily.

SQWK_7500

@fluffypillow Is there any way I could contact you privately?

fluffypillow

@SQWK_7500 Hi, you can also find me on Discord, see https://pegasus-frontend.org/ for an invite.

NeoBi

@fluffypillow Oh ! Ok, thank you for your fast answer !

NeoBi

@fluffypillow I just saw with the build that the sort order of steam games is mess and is not in alphabetical order. is It normal ?

PlayingKarrde

@NeoBi said in Announcing Pegasus Frontend:

@fluffypillow I just saw with the build that the sort order of steam games is mess and is not in alphabetical order. is It normal ?

Are you running latest? That was fixed pretty recently.

Lexx

Hello. Amazing piece of software. I really like it.
I'm currently using it on a PC with extracted Media from Launchbox.

There's one thing that I'm missing though.
A way to check Retroachievements for a selected game.
Is there anything planed to integrate Retroachievements into Pegasus?

fluffypillow

@Lexx Yup, there are plans for that, just haven't got around to it yet.

fluffypillow

Irregularly-timed update!

Well development's a bit slow due to work, covid and lack of time, but here are some recent changes that you might be interested in:

Added support for disabling the shutdown/reboot/quit menu options from the command line. Here are the newly introduced parameters:
- --disable-menu-reboot: Hides the system reboot entry in the main menu
- --disable-menu-shutdown: Hides the system shutdown entry in the main menu
- --disable-menu-appclose: Hides the closing Pegasus entry in the main menu
- --kiosk: Alias for --disable-menu-reboot --disable-menu-shutdown --disable-menu-appclose
Fixed input not working in terminal-based apps
Steam: Fixed games not ordered by title
Skraper: Box3D pictures are now also accepted as box frontal images
Slightly optimized memory usage during loading

Also important changes related to Patreon:

As I was told, Patreon will be required to start charging sales tax/VAT starting July 1st. due to new laws passing in several countries, in particular the following ones: Australia, Belarus, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Canada (Quebec only), Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States of America.

As far as I know, the regular donation there is free from the taxes in most countries (you receive no "tangible goods"), but just in case here's a notice. You should also receive a mail from Patreon about this during the next week.

In case this turns out to be a problem, I've also launched a Buy Me a Coffee page here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mmatyas (and because I'm interested in drinking some coffee).

NeoBi

@PlayingKarrde No, I didn't. I will do that right now, thank you for your answer ! And Thank you Fluffy for the Update.