Announcing Pegasus Frontend

fluffypillow

Been a while since we last had a proper changelog; here's what happened this week:

Added page up/down support to the default theme (keys are PageUp/PageDown and L2/R2 (>> @AndersHP)
Fixed some games appearing multiple times
Improved shutdown/reboot implementation (somewhat more important on Windows and Mac)
Added program icon and Windows .exe icon
Fixed a bug where some assets were missing from symlinked dirs
Fixed some formatting errors in the log output
Slightly reduced the memory usage
Slightly faster startup time
Builds for all platforms are now also available here

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Any luck re-producing this?

fluffypillow

@halfmanhalfcake hm it seems to be working fine for me, on a Windows 7 test setup. I've created a new E: partition, a Games folder on it, and a fake E:/Games/test/hello.txt file. Then added E:/Games to the game_dirs.txt, and created E:/Games/collections.txt with the following content:

collection: My Games
file: test/hello.txt
launch: notepad {file.path}

Then, Pegasus detects the game_dirs entry, the collections file and the text file, and opens it in notepad on select. So with the Windows paths working, I'd guess the issues might be caused by something else. Probably you've already checked, but make sure that the file names are correct (D:/Games/collections.txt, not Collections or collection, and not .txt.txt -- some editors save it like that). Also there's no need for quote marks in game_dirs.txt(not sure if that's part of the file or just forum formatting). The direction of the slashes (\, /) shouldn't matter either.

fluffypillow

@hooperre the hidden tag ended up somewhat more complex than I've imagined from such a small feature. In Pegasus' config files the games to ignore are defined in the collection file, and so they aren't included in the first place. But if it's in the metadata file, like with gamelist.xml, then the list of games will have to be modified again after the reading. While that isn't hard to do, I'd prefer to do it only on the collections' level for now. As a workaround, you could use the Pegasus-style collections file: use ignore-file to exclude individual files, or comment out a whole collection block to hide a system.

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Thanks, I've got it working... somehow.

I re-downloaded and overwrote the files and it now works?

fluffypillow

Computers are powered by magic ;)

fluffypillow

@Darksavior You've mentioned an FXP bug earlier (embarrassingly long ago, sorry); did you mean using the FXP protocol directly in whatever program, or just a regular FTP connection? I've tried opening an SFTP channel before both reboot and shutdown, but everything seemed to work fine on my side. If it's only with FXP, what kind of setup do you have exactly?

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Now the artwork doesn't work.
It's not meant to be :(

I have the /media folder, which worked for ES2 xml files, but not for this new config. I've tried to add the -boxFront suffix, copied the filename of the rom, but no luck.

fluffypillow

@halfmanhalfcake that might be a bug, I'll check tomorrow.

Darksavior

@fluffypillow I haven't had that bug in like the month+ I've used the stretch version of retropie. I use flashfxp in Windows 10 to transfer files via ssh (port22). I figured it was either the new os or something you did. Thanks, though.

The keyboard not working is still there,though. So for something that requires a keyboard like the alsa mixer, I'll have to exit pegasus first.

fluffypillow

@Darksavior Yeah that keyboard issue is quite annoying, but I couldn't fix it yet. It seems as if some underlying component fails to get the input, so I might need to contact the Qt devs.

@halfmanhalfcake I can confirm that bug, will fix it as soon as I can!

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Thanks mate, I thought it was me being stupid again :)

fluffypillow

Weekend update:

Fixed asset searching for Pegasus-style metadata files (> @halfmanhalfcake )
Fixed make install paths on Linux
Set up an APT repository for desktop Debian/Ubuntu users; see the Readme

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Thank you :)

EDIT: Nope, still no luck. Tried renaming with suffix, clearing cache, fresh install but no artwork yet

fluffypillow

@halfmanhalfcake you're right, I've forget to fix the case where games are in subdirectories. Fix incoming in 5 minutes.

Edit: I've just pushed an update, if you have eg. D:/Games/Firewatch/Firewatch.exe and create an asset like D:/Games/media/Firewatch/Firewatch-logo.png, Pegasus should pick it up correctly now.

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Thanks, works great now

sikboy

@fluffypillow Hey great work on your frontend, it brings a lot of great features. Im starting to set it up on my Windows PC and have a couple of questions.

Can it be set to be portable? I think that this is a feature that people will love. I myself have my current setup on a 64GB USB drive and keep my games on the go.
Setting up scripts or command lines prior to launching of after ending an emulator or game. This to setup controller profiles before launching a game and close it after so it doesn't mess with anything else, also command lines or scripts with instructions for software like AHK.
Other languages. As i see that this project is running pretty fast under your hand it will give you a lot of exposure and users. I can help with Spanish. I'm not a programmer but if you provide a file with the strings to translate i can help with this.

I'm aware that this is in early stages. But just wanted to share my thoughts and possible pointers for future releases.

fluffypillow

@sikboy thanks! The portable mode is a bit incomplete at the moment, as Pegasus can read themes/scripts/config from its directory, but it'll write the log and settings to the system. I'll see this fixed in the future. As for the translations, you can find the language files here, and a guide here. There's even a fancy translation tool you can use if you wish.

sikboy

Hey @fluffypillow sorry to bother, is there a simple guide to load games into Pegasus? I have read the thread and find very confusing and contradicting info. I just want to get in. I'm almost done generating the Spanish translation and want to compare the presentation and sentences used in context for each screen. I'm on Windows. Thanks in advance.

halfmanhalfcake

@sikboy Assuming you mean the new config file format, then the way I did on windows for .exe files:

Let's assume you have 3 .exe Windows games installed (Firewatch, The Witcher 3 and Sonic Mania just to use as an example)

You need to place a game_dirs.txt file in your config area, mine was in location C:\Users\Me\AppData\Local\pegasus-frontend
So in this text file. you need to specify a location where you want Pegasus to look for games. So for example I install all my windows/GOG files into my D drive, into D:/Games/ so my game_dirs.txt file simply contains D:/Games/
Now for each location you have specified int he game_dirs.txtfile, you need to place 2 files, the collections.txt and the metadata.txt. You also need to add a new folder called 'media' which is where I store my artwork. So the folder should now look like:

D:/Games/
- collections.txt
- metadata.txt
> media/
> Firewatch/
> Sonic Mania/
> The Witcher 3/

I then manually entered the config of each.exe file that I have installed in my D:/Games folder, into my collections.txt. So for example mine contains:

collection: Windows Games
files: Firewatch/Firewatch.exe
files: The Witcher 3/The Witcher 3.exe
files: Sonic Mania/Sonic.exe
launch: {file.path}

So I've called this collection 'Windows Games', you can call collections whatever you want I think.
The files: needs to point directly to the Folder and .exe file. You can have as many files as you want. In this case I have 3 as I have those 3 games installed in that location.
Lastly the launch: parameter is simply saying launch that filepath we specified above in the files: parameter.

Now Pegasus should find those files, but there will be no artwork or metadata as we haven't specified those yet. This is where metadata.txt comes in handy. Simply enter the parameters listed here for each file

So mine for example for Firewatch:

file: Firewatch\Firewatch.exe
title: Firewatch
developer: Campo Santo
genre: Adventure
players: 1
summary: Firewatch is a mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio. The year is 1989. You are a man named Henry who has retreated from your messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. 

file: Sonic Mania\Sonic.exe
title: Sonic Mania
developer: Sega
players: 2
summary: Play as Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles as you race through all new Zones and fully re-imagined classics, each filled with exciting surprises and powerful bosses.

..... (and the same for more games )

The last step is to add the artwork for each game in the /media folder. So my media folder layout looks like (Firewatch example):

D:/Games/media/Firewatch/
>Firewatch.jpg
>Firewatch-logo.jpg
>Firewatch-background.jpg

Hope that helps.