Announcing Pegasus Frontend

fluffypillow

@seya16 it seems like /storage/emulated/0/pegasus-frontend/game_dirs.txt was found, but the directories listed in it were not, or don't contain collection files (collections.txt or collections.pegasus.txt). Do the paths and files exist?

Seya16

@fluffypillow yes
And just so you know I did test it on two different android devices (the GPD XD with android 4.4 and Huwei P9 lite with android Nougat) and the result is the same....

fluffypillow

@seya16 Hmm, I'll add some more verbose logging then, to see what could be the error. Also thanks for testing on multiple devices!

AndersHP

The newest version ruined the favorites filter for me.

My previously dedicated favorites from EmulationStation have a heart in the game info screen alright, but when ticking the filterbox, no games show up. Ticking the multiplayer box seems to be ok, but not favorites, not even if I reassign some new games.

fluffypillow

@andershp Hm that's interesting, will check it. Do you know the last version where it was working correctly?

AndersHP

@fluffypillow Ah, sorry, I don't really know. My previous update was around where PageUp/Down was introduced.
Right now I'm on alpha7-99-gafcfb69 (pretty sure it's the latest - updated a few days ago).

fluffypillow

@andershp No problem; looking back the changelogs after the favorite support was added, I suspect the custom filters update that might have broke it. Will double check.

fluffypillow

Meanwhile I've just finished uploading the first builds of the frontend chooser, you can get them here. The program can also install the frontends, but that requires launching with sudo (because the RetroPie scripts). If you've set to start Kodi on boot, that should be remembered. There's basic gamepad support, nothing special. Just extract somewhere and run, should work out of the box.

halfmanhalfcake

@fluffypillow Good work on the updates

General question on platform compatibility, would it be possible to port Pegasus to the Nintendo Switch as an homebrew app for example? Would like to use it as a frontend for emulation.

fluffypillow

@halfmanhalfcake Well I'm not familiar with Switch development, but in theory if there's at least software rendering support (or better, OpenGL/Vulkan), and the emulator programs can be launched with parameters, then yeah, it might be possible.

fluffypillow

As for the weekly changelog+recap:

Created a frontend chooser for Retropie, downloads here
Fixed the favorites filter not working (thanks @AndersHP)
Pegasus now logs if there are directories in game_dirs.txt that couldn't be opened (might help @Seya16)
Android builds are now properly optimized
Compatibility modules (ES2, Steam) are no longer built for platforms where they aren't available (ie. Pegasus won't search for ES2 on Android)
Cleaned up the code of the main theme a bit
Fixed some minor mouse issues

Seya16

Hi me again,

So with the new update I'm now sure that the directories paths that I put on the game_dirs.txt are recognize (What I did is to change some folder's name in the text file to see if it will be able to find the directories or not) but I couldn't get it to find the games. I did create the collections.pegasus.txt where I put some basic text for testing purposes but nothing still have the same problem... Maybe it's just me, maybe I did somethings wrong but I don't know where :/...
Anyway thanks for your dedication and your hard work on this project.

fluffypillow

@seya16 Hmm interesting, so the directory paths are correct, but Pegasus still doesn't see the txt files (no Found /path/to/whatever.txt). I've just made a version with additional logging, you can get it here. It will also print warnings when

no collection files found in a directory
no games found in a directory
the file opening has failed (though it seems it doesn't reach that point for you)

Seya16

Big thanks mate ! but it does show how stupid I am :/ I didn't see that I have to put the collection text file on the rom directory not on the pegasus-frontend folder. So sorry, I feel that I did waste your time on this :/....
But thanks again, at least it's make me test the app furthermore, so I will come back at you when for feedback purposes.

fluffypillow

@seya16 Hey no problem :) Yes, collection files are local to a rom directory; a kind of global collection file support is also on my roadmap, but not implemented yet.

AndersHP

@fluffypillow Favorites all good again, this frontend is getting better and better, almost perfect for me now.

What's the status in making it possible to remove/turning off the few seconds of code when booting the frontend, booting games, and quitting games?

It would look so seamless without these strings of code in between.

fluffypillow

@andershp Actually I have an idea for improving the seamless launching, I'll see if I can try it out the weekend. The other two issues are somewhat different though:

The startup delay can be reduced by optimizing some lower-level code, which is a bit time consuming, but I've started working on it already (as a side-side-side project).
Pegasus reloads the UI when the launched program says "Ok, I'm done!". Not sure how much that could be improved, but I'll see what can be done. Perhaps it'll also speed up when the startup time gets optimized.

AndersHP

@fluffypillow I didn't mean reducing the delay to zero, just hiding the code alltogether, either with a black screen or maybe using the launch-image for a few seconds longer. Similar to these functions.

Sounds cool that you're willing to test this :)

fluffypillow

So this week I've updated the Qt version (ie. the UI code); this should make Pegasus start up somewhat faster and may fix a color depth issue someone mentioned earlier. It's a big change under the hood, so feel free to report if something's broke. The changes are not available on Android/Windows yet, there are still some build errors to be fixed there.

I've also put up some actual content to pegasus-frontend.org, so you can find the latest downloads there too. Also started working on more seamless game launching, there are just some silly bugs left to fix.

fluffypillow

Today's update:

Finished the work on the seamless launching; the UI now disappears only when the launched program has started successfully. Any delay left now is up to the launched program.
Added a --silent command line parameter, which will make Pegasus not print anything to the terminal. Might come handy for startup, or in case a launched program itself shows the terminal.
Updated the Android release too with the new Qt libs.