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Beta Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Printable Version

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RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Finalzero - 2021-11-02

Hello there, I wanted to know what kind of arguments can be used by this add-on. I tried to set up PCSX2 in a way that it should load different ini-files depending on the game that is being launched. So my command line would look like this: 
"%rom%" --cfgpath="inis\%romname%" --nogui --fullscreen

But this doesn't work. Is %romname% even supported by AEL? Or is there a different variable I have to use?


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-11-02

(2021-11-02, 13:12)Finalzero Wrote: Hello there, I wanted to know what kind of arguments can be used by this add-on. I tried to set up PCSX2 in a way that it should load different ini-files depending on the game that is being launched. So my command line would look like this: 
"%rom%" --cfgpath="inis\%romname%" --nogui --fullscreen

But this doesn't work. Is %romname% even supported by AEL? Or is there a different variable I have to use?

Here is the list of variables you can use in the arguments.

python:

# ~~~~ Argument substitution ~~~~~
log_info('_command_run_rom() raw arguments "{}"'.format(arguments))
arguments = arguments.replace('$categoryID$', categoryID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$launcherID$', launcherID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$romID$', romID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rom$', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('$romfile$', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('$rompath$', rompath)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rombase$', rombase)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rombasenoext$', rombase_noext)
arguments = arguments.replace('$romtitle$', romtitle)
arguments = arguments.replace('$apppath$', apppath)
# >> Legacy names for argument substitution
arguments = arguments.replace('%rom%', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('%ROM%', ROMFileName.getPath())
log_info('_command_run_rom() final arguments "{}"'.format(arguments))



RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Finalzero - 2021-11-02

(2021-11-02, 15:34)Wintermute0110 Wrote:
(2021-11-02, 13:12)Finalzero Wrote: Hello there, I wanted to know what kind of arguments can be used by this add-on. I tried to set up PCSX2 in a way that it should load different ini-files depending on the game that is being launched. So my command line would look like this: 
"%rom%" --cfgpath="inis\%romname%" --nogui --fullscreen

But this doesn't work. Is %romname% even supported by AEL? Or is there a different variable I have to use?

Here is the list of variables you can use in the arguments.

python:

# ~~~~ Argument substitution ~~~~~
log_info('_command_run_rom() raw arguments "{}"'.format(arguments))
arguments = arguments.replace('$categoryID$', categoryID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$launcherID$', launcherID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$romID$', romID)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rom$', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('$romfile$', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('$rompath$', rompath)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rombase$', rombase)
arguments = arguments.replace('$rombasenoext$', rombase_noext)
arguments = arguments.replace('$romtitle$', romtitle)
arguments = arguments.replace('$apppath$', apppath)
# >> Legacy names for argument substitution
arguments = arguments.replace('%rom%', ROMFileName.getPath())
arguments = arguments.replace('%ROM%', ROMFileName.getPath())
log_info('_command_run_rom() final arguments "{}"'.format(arguments))
Thanks for the list! I manage to get it working with the argument "$rombasenoext$". Now every game I launch via PCSX2 will have its own ini-folder.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - zachmorris - 2021-11-20

I'd like to request an advanced option for Disabling controllers when launching / then re-enabling them after the launched game is closed, similar to the option to disable Audio thats already present.

Reason:
For some reason, several windows games I play do NOT disable kodi input in the background (I think it depends on if the game is displayed windowed or not). I was playing Firewatch, and I could hear movie audio starting and stopping. Took me a while to figure out that my game inputs were being also input into Kodi in the background and causing all kinds of mayhem.

Note that I already do this in my addon, and it works just fine. You can disable Kodi controller input with:
xml:

xbmc.executeJSONRPC('{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue","params":{"setting":"input.enablejoystick","value":false},"id":"1"}')
And then re-enable it with
xml:

xbmc.executeJSONRPC('{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue","params":{"setting":"input.enablejoystick","value":true},"id":"1"}')



RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - 1deep - 2021-12-10

Quick feature request. I've setup my PC games launcher as a menu item and would like to take advantage of widgets. Right now I just have a widget that displays my whole rom collection basically mirroring the launcher. It would be great if there was a way to have the widget just display unfinished games while going into the menu entry would display the entire rom collection. I see it's already an option within the settings so it seems possible but checking that option would not display my whole rom collection when I go into the menu.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-12-17

(2021-11-20, 01:33)zachmorris Wrote: I'd like to request an advanced option for Disabling controllers when launching / then re-enabling them after the launched game is closed, similar to the option to disable Audio thats already present.

Reason:
For some reason, several windows games I play do NOT disable kodi input in the background (I think it depends on if the game is displayed windowed or not). I was playing Firewatch, and I could hear movie audio starting and stopping. Took me a while to figure out that my game inputs were being also input into Kodi in the background and causing all kinds of mayhem.

Note that I already do this in my addon, and it works just fine. You can disable Kodi controller input with:
xml:

xbmc.executeJSONRPC('{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue","params":{"setting":"input.enablejoystick","value":false},"id":"1"}')
And then re-enable it with
xml:

xbmc.executeJSONRPC('{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Settings.SetSettingValue","params":{"setting":"input.enablejoystick","value":true},"id":"1"}')

I will include this in the TODO file and implement it ASAP. ASAP currently means a long time, life is complicated for me right now and have little free time.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-12-17

(2021-12-10, 10:55)1deep Wrote: Quick feature request. I've setup my PC games launcher as a menu item and would like to take advantage of widgets. Right now I just have a widget that displays my whole rom collection basically mirroring the launcher. It would be great if there was a way to have the widget just display unfinished games while going into the menu entry would display the entire rom collection. I see it's already an option within the settings so it seems possible but checking that option would not display my whole rom collection when I go into the menu.

I need to create a special URL command for the widget to display the unfinished ROMs of a launcher unconditionally. Then, the URL when you click on the widget can point to the standard URL of the launcher and that will display all the ROMs or not depending on your setting. I will include this feature request in the TODO list. It will take some time to do it.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - 1deep - 2021-12-18

(2021-12-17, 14:25)Wintermute0110 Wrote:
(2021-12-10, 10:55)1deep Wrote: Quick feature request. I've setup my PC games launcher as a menu item and would like to take advantage of widgets. Right now I just have a widget that displays my whole rom collection basically mirroring the launcher. It would be great if there was a way to have the widget just display unfinished games while going into the menu entry would display the entire rom collection. I see it's already an option within the settings so it seems possible but checking that option would not display my whole rom collection when I go into the menu.

I need to create a special URL command for the widget to display the unfinished ROMs of a launcher unconditionally. Then, the URL when you click on the widget can point to the standard URL of the launcher and that will display all the ROMs or not depending on your setting. I will include this feature request in the TODO list. It will take some time to do it.
Awesome! I was a late adopter because of the size of my PC game collection. I held on to the original advanced launcher as long as I could. I had to scrape then manually enter 250 pc games in the transfer when I upgraded to kodi 19. I'm sure there was an easier way but I created the .lnks for all my games, scraped them and then manually added my original fanart again. Tough transition for a library that big. I'm so glad I finally did though much better addon. This request is just icing on the cake take your time no worries.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Smokeycoles - 2021-12-20

Hello

I have downloaded and installed on Ubuntu Kodi 19
I want it to launch external applications (I read elsewhere it can do this, taken over from the shelfed autolauncher) - Steam and Spotify are the external apps I want to launch.

I cannot work out how to do this and the wiki, I think the section on the Wiki is - Getting Started Standalone Launchers (but its to be written).
Do you have a guide on how to do this, or provide instructions?

Also I want to make a start on launching some of my roms, but I've no idea how to get the roms into the program; again that says to be written - is there any guide anywhere you have (video or forum posts)?

Thanks
Chris


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-12-20

(2021-12-20, 12:46)Smokeycoles Wrote: Hello

I have downloaded and installed on Ubuntu Kodi 19
I want it to launch external applications (I read elsewhere it can do this, taken over from the shelfed autolauncher) - Steam and Spotify are the external apps I want to launch.

I cannot work out how to do this and the wiki, I think the section on the Wiki is - Getting Started Standalone Launchers (but its to be written).
Do you have a guide on how to do this, or provide instructions?

Also I want to make a start on launching some of my roms, but I've no idea how to get the roms into the program; again that says to be written - is there any guide anywhere you have (video or forum posts)?

Thanks
Chris

I am sorry the documentation is not great. You can search tutorials for Advanced Launcher which is the old version of the addon. Many of them are very dated but 90% of the information in the old tutorials is still valid as AEL is an evolution of Advanced Launcher.

In any case, it is not difficult at all to use AEL. First thing you must do is to get familiar with Kodi context menus. Then, if you need to launch an application and just launch the application then create a standalone launcher. If you want to setup an emulator then you need to setup two directories: one for your ROMs and other for your Artwork.

If you have more specific questions of course I can help you in this thread.

I promise I will try to improve the documentation ASAP... however it's going to take time. Sorry Rolleyes


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Smokeycoles - 2021-12-20

No problems at all, I'm grateful you've made it.
I will look into it, sometimes its just finding a starting place - and now I've got one!  Smile


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Smokeycoles - 2021-12-21

Hi I'm hoping you can help?  A few questions below.  I have made a number of launcers, roms and scraped artwork.

1) How do I update the virtual category database?
2) Non of the kodi retroplayer launchers are working?  Have I missed something really simple, as they work in IAGL?
3) Atari Lynx and Watara Supervision don't scrape, are there better scrapers to use than teh GamesDb (I know Moby says about an API key, and the other says about a username/password) - is it worth doing?
4) Is there any pre-made artwork for the different emulators, e.g. I've seen some people they have neat posters for snes, famicon, atari etc - mine looks like a kodi file.  Just wondering if someone has compiled something ready to go, or its a case of downloading posters of google?

I got the application launchers working great!


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-12-22

(2021-12-21, 16:41)Smokeycoles Wrote: Hi I'm hoping you can help?  A few questions below.  I have made a number of launcers, roms and scraped artwork.

It seems you did a quick progress. Now we can talk business!

(2021-12-21, 16:41)Smokeycoles Wrote: 1) How do I update the virtual category database?

Context menu is the key. Go to [Browse by...] in the main window, open the context menu (C key on keyboard) and select [Update all databases].

(2021-12-21, 16:41)Smokeycoles Wrote: 2) Non of the kodi retroplayer launchers are working? Have I missed something really simple, as they work in IAGL?

I need a debug log as instructed in the first post to track down the problem. Does Retroplayer work outside of AEL? To test this, go to the Games section on Kodi's home screen, create a games source pointing to a directory where you have some ROMs, and try to execute some of them with Retroplayer.

(2021-12-21, 16:41)Smokeycoles Wrote: 3) Atari Lynx and Watara Supervision don't scrape, are there better scrapers to use than teh GamesDb (I know Moby says about an API key, and the other says about a username/password) - is it worth doing?

The best scraper by far is ScreenScraper, however it greatly depends on the platform you are scraping. Definitely is worth getting a SS username/pass/

(2021-12-21, 16:41)Smokeycoles Wrote: 4) Is there any pre-made artwork for the different emulators, e.g. I've seen some people they have neat posters for snes, famicon, atari etc - mine looks like a kodi file. Just wondering if someone has compiled something ready to go, or its a case of downloading posters of google?

Yeah, you should have a look at the AEL asset library. There you have artwork you can configure using the context menu. However, now that you have some knowledge about AEL, I recommend to get familiar with the XML files to configure launchers. You have plenty of examples in the library. The advantage of the XML configuration files is that you can makes changes very quickly and in order to test you changes you just load the XML file in the [Utilities] menu and it's really quick. When loading a launcher XML configuration file you can define the artwork files and then AEL will present the files so you can choose.

If you have more questions please feel free to ask.

Future plans for AEL

I'm currently doing a big refactoring of AEL's code. This refactoring will be available for Python 3 only (Kodi Matrix and up). Some of the changes will be disruptive and that means people will need to rebuild theirs setups because the layouts of the artwork files will change. However... one of the advantages of the new AEL is that all the platform/category/launcher artwork names will be normalized. That means users will be able to create themes similar to EmulationStation Themes that include artwork for all platforms and AEL will pick the launcher artwork automatically. By pointing to a different directory the whole artwork for all the launchers can be changed at once. Some of these changes are kind of a preparation for a future Kodi games database.

All in all, I have a lot of plans which is good. However, in order to avoid disappointment here's disclaimer; Currently have a lot of real-life issues and hence very little free time (and motivation) for development, etc., so these plans/features could take a long time to materialize if ever.


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Smokeycoles - 2021-12-26

Hi

Many thanks for the above; as suggested I took your advice and downloaded the pack and got my head around the xml’s. I just have to find a way to make it look nicer now; which I think I need a skin mod for artic zyphur.

I am however experiencing a problem.

I am using AE Sink Alsa for Kodi.
In AEL settings I have suspend/resume audio.

When I start steam in bigpicturemode; there is no audio.

I’m sorry I know your busy; but I’ve tried asking for help elsewhere with little success. I’m at the point where Linux is really annoying me and I’m thinking to migrate back to windows as it’s just so problematic.

Have you any ideas? I’ve tried with the audio suspend-resume on and off.

When I go into steam audio settings - it says audio settings unavailable. When I launch with Kodi off - I see TU116 high definition audio controller 7.1 surround and it works.

Many thanks
Chris


RE: Advanced Emulator Launcher - Multi-emulator frontend for Kodi - Wintermute0110 - 2021-12-27

(2021-12-26, 14:17)Smokeycoles Wrote: Hi

Many thanks for the above; as suggested I took your advice and downloaded the pack and got my head around the xml’s. I just have to find a way to make it look nicer now; which I think I need a skin mod for artic zyphur.

I am however experiencing a problem.

I am using AE Sink Alsa for Kodi.
In AEL settings I have suspend/resume audio.

When I start steam in bigpicturemode; there is no audio.

I’m sorry I know your busy; but I’ve tried asking for help elsewhere with little success. I’m at the point where Linux is really annoying me and I’m thinking to migrate back to windows as it’s just so problematic.

Have you any ideas? I’ve tried with the audio suspend-resume on and off.

When I go into steam audio settings - it says audio settings unavailable. When I launch with Kodi off - I see TU116 high definition audio controller 7.1 surround and it works.

Many thanks
Chris

If you are getting audio using the HDMI cable, TTBOMK Alsa by default does not enable mixing. Basically, this means that only one application can use the Alsa audio system at any given time. The reason for this is unknown to me, but there must be one. In Linux there is always rationale for everything (although errors were made sometimes as well...).

OK, there are various solutions you can use:

1) Create a dmix device in ALSA. You have some information in the Gentoo Wiki. The Archlinux wik Alsa web page is another good source.

2) Install PulseAudio. PulseAudio by default enables concurrency in all sound sinks and also have graphical configuration tools. Pulseaudio is somewhat easy to use than alsa.

3) Buy a cheap USB sound card. This is what I did in my setup. I bought a 20 dollar USB sound card so Kodi outputs movie/music sounds to my Denon amplifier/skeapers. The sound quality of the cheap USB sound card is excellent and Linux supports 99% of them out of the box. Retroarch/MAME sound outputs via HDMI to the TV, this creates a more realistic TV sound for the games.

Do not desperate. Linux can be frustrating at times, and so does Windows (I have no experience with MAC so I cannot talk first hand). But I guarantee you that overall you get a much better experience with Linux for HTPC and emulation setups.