[foleyjo]

I thought that would be the case but wasn't sure if there was a command line that might open an add-on on launch.

I can't wait to see the big things

[krola]

I managed to set up AEL to launch Steam games, both local games and games via In Home Streaming.

Here are the steps:
1. Add shortcut to desktop for each of your games. This can be done from the Steam client by right clicking the game. This has to be done on the computer where your
games are installed. It can not be done on the streaming client.
2. Create a games directory on the computer you have Kodi installed. Copy the shortcuts to the directory.
3. Start Steam client on the streaming host if you plan on using In Home Streaming.
4. Test the short cuts by double clicking them in Explorer. The game should start. if it is a local game, it will start locally. It if is a streaming
game, Steam starts a streaming session. If they don't start, make sure that you have the default binding for *.url -files. If you have, for example, bound them to a text editor, the shortcuts don't work.
5. Create a new ROM launcher in the AEL.
6. Set Windows Explorer as the launch app.
7. Set the directory you created in the step 2 as the games path.
8. Set the file extension to url.
9. Remove the apostrophes from the application arguments (e.g. "%rom" => %rom)
10. Set the title and platform for the launcher. I don't think the values matter. I chose unknown platform.
11. After you are finished creating the launcher, select the launcher and bring the context menu and select Scan for new ROMs.
12. Now you can open the launcher. The games should be in there and they start if clicked.

Some notes:
- The shortcuts might work without any launch app. I tried this first and it didn't work. However, there were several other problems in the beginning so choosing the launch app might have been an unnecessary fix,
- I had to exit Launcher4Kodi in order to get this working.

I have a few persisting problems. Any help for these would be greatly appreciated
1. When the game stops, Kodi stays minimized. Can this be fixed somehow? I tried fiddling with AEL settings but could not figure out anything. Is it so that AEL is not running at this time so it can not notice that the game has finished?
2. It would be great if I could open the appropriate AEL launcher by selecting "Games" in the main menu. I have only managed to have it open AEL after which I will have to select the category and then the launcher. I faintly remember that there used to be a way to find out the ID for any Kodi window and then you could create a favorite for that and then put the favorite in the main menu. I tried searching the forum, but didn't find anything. Does anybodu know about this.

[xodiuser]

In Android, when adding new launcher, both "Files launcher" and "Standalone launcher" don't allow me to choose an app as an launcher. It only list the external storage in the system. How can I add the emulator in Android? I remember other launchers let you choose apps. Please help? Thanks!

[Wintermute0110]

In Android, when adding new launcher, both "Files launcher" and "Standalone launcher" don't allow me to choose an app as an launcher. It only list the external storage in the system. How can I add the emulator in Android? I remember other launchers let you choose apps. Please help? Thanks!

To configure AEL in Android devices have a look in this thread.

[Wintermute0110]

I managed to set up AEL to launch Steam games, both local games and games via In Home Streaming.

Here are the steps:
1. Add shortcut to desktop for each of your games. This can be done from the Steam client by right clicking the game. This has to be done on the computer where your
games are installed. It can not be done on the streaming client.
2. Create a games directory on the computer you have Kodi installed. Copy the shortcuts to the directory.
3. Start Steam client on the streaming host if you plan on using In Home Streaming.
4. Test the short cuts by double clicking them in Explorer. The game should start. if it is a local game, it will start locally. It if is a streaming
game, Steam starts a streaming session. If they don't start, make sure that you have the default binding for *.url -files. If you have, for example, bound them to a text editor, the shortcuts don't work.
5. Create a new ROM launcher in the AEL.
6. Set Windows Explorer as the launch app.
7. Set the directory you created in the step 2 as the games path.
8. Set the file extension to url.
9. Remove the apostrophes from the application arguments (e.g. "%rom" => %rom)
10. Set the title and platform for the launcher. I don't think the values matter. I chose unknown platform.
11. After you are finished creating the launcher, select the launcher and bring the context menu and select Scan for new ROMs.
12. Now you can open the launcher. The games should be in there and they start if clicked.

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I may add it to AEL wiki on Github in the future

Some notes:
- The shortcuts might work without any launch app. I tried this first and it didn't work. However, there were several other problems in the beginning so choosing the launch app might have been an unnecessary fix,
- I had to exit Launcher4Kodi in order to get this working.

AEL 0.9.3 (you can try it now installing the Github latest revision) incorporates a ROM LNK launcher for Windows users. In this launcher, it is not necessary to configure the launcher application (it is always start.exe).

What is Launcher4Kodi?

I have a few persisting problems. Any help for these would be greatly appreciated
1. When the game stops, Kodi stays minimized. Can this be fixed somehow? I tried fiddling with AEL settings but could not figure out anything. Is it so that AEL is not running at this time so it can not notice that the game has finished?

You need an external tool to maximise/minimise Kodi, and to create a wrapper for your launcher. Have a look at this and related posts.

2. It would be great if I could open the appropriate AEL launcher by selecting "Games" in the main menu. I have only managed to have it open AEL after which I will have to select the category and then the launcher. I faintly remember that there used to be a way to find out the ID for any Kodi window and then you could create a favorite for that and then put the favorite in the main menu. I tried searching the forum, but didn't find anything. Does anybodu know about this.

What skin are you using? That's something related with the skin, AEL has nothing to do. Please post in the particular skin support forum and request they support AEL in the skin.

[foleyjo]

I have a few persisting problems. Any help for these would be greatly appreciated
1. When the game stops, Kodi stays minimized. Can this be fixed somehow? I tried fiddling with AEL settings but could not figure out anything. Is it so that AEL is not running at this time so it can not notice that the game has finished?

You need an external tool to maximise/minimise Kodi, and to create a wrapper for your launcher. Have a look at this and related posts.

FYI
I find it better to use hide/show options rather than maximise/minimise. Using max/min videos don't stop playing and I get speed issues unless I do it twice

[krola]

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I may add it to AEL wiki on Github in the future

No problem and great if you put it in the wiki.

What is Launcher4Kodi?

Launcher4Kodi is a Windows application which autostarts Kodi at boot time. Additionally, it makes the Kodi to stay always on and many other things. I think that the problem was that
Launcher4Kodi was trying to force Kodi to be the top window and Steam was trying to force the streaming client to be the top windows. I am fine without Launcher4Kodi. I just put Kodi in the startup folder.

I have a few persisting problems. Any help for these would be greatly appreciated
1. When the game stops, Kodi stays minimized. Can this be fixed somehow? I tried fiddling with AEL settings but could not figure out anything. Is it so that AEL is not running at this time so it can not notice that the game has finished?

You need an external tool to maximise/minimise Kodi, and to create a wrapper for your launcher. Have a look at this and related posts.

I tried this and this alone is not enough. While starting up the game, Steam seems to exit immediately, so maximize is called even before the game starts. I think I need an AutoHotKey script or at least a more complex batch file. I will give a try.

2. It would be great if I could open the appropriate AEL launcher by selecting "Games" in the main menu. I have only managed to have it open AEL after which I will have to select the category and then the launcher. I faintly remember that there used to be a way to find out the ID for any Kodi window and then you could create a favorite for that and then put the favorite in the main menu. I tried searching the forum, but didn't find anything. Does anybody know about this?

What skin are you using? That's something related with the skin, AEL has nothing to do. Please post in the particular skin support forum and request they support AEL in the skin.

I am using Aeon Mq 7. There is one thing AEL could do to help skins. AEL could have a feature so that any category or any launcher could be saved to favourites. This is because many skins have a feature which lets the user put a favourite to the main menu. Advanced Launcher had this feature.
I did something like this manually to partially solve my problem. I manually added XML-code for a shortcut to AEL favourites to favourites.xml. Like this

Code:

<favourite name="AEL Games">ActivateWindow(10001,&quot;plugin://plugin.program.advanced.emulator.launcher/?com=SHOW_FAVOURITES&quot;,return)</favourite>

Then I bound the "Games" in the main menu to this favourite. So AEL favourites are opened when I choose Games in the main menu.
I also tried to add a shortcut for my launcher but I run into problems with url parsing with multiple parameters. SHOW_ROMS-command in the AEL requires three parameters.

[jaydash]

AEL could have a feature so that any category or any launcher could be saved to favourites. This is because many skins have a feature which lets the user put a favourite to the main menu.

Yeah! THIS! Makes for really simple (on the user end) integration into the main menu on most skins, and allows for some customization -maybe they want a submenu item that leads directly to a "favorited" launcher for a specific system, or genre, or whatever...

Thanks for all your work on this, Wintermute!



...And krola, that tutorial is really helpful! Thanks. I haven't messed with in-home streaming yet (I should... I wouldn't need to maintain two gaming rigs!), but on my HTPC I have all the PC games set up through Steam (even non-Steam games), using shortcuts in a folder that the old Advanced Launcher would scan, and pick up, and launch. I use a batch file that shuts Kodi down when a game is launched, then monitors for some process that Steam runs in the background (hence setting up even non-Steam games in Steam), when I exit the game that Steam process stops too, and Kodi is re-launched by the batch file. It was a pretty simple solution to focus conflicts between a running Kodi and any given game...

[braz]

Or if you're using a skin that implements script.skinshortcuts, you can easily set a menu item or its widget to any section of AEL.

[jaydash]

Or if you're using a skin that implements script.skinshortcuts, you can easily set a menu item or its widget to any section of AEL.

Haha... does your skin -Mimic- do that? 'Cause that's my skin of choice -it rocks!

I'll have to check that out, thanks!

[mac1202]

Yes it does

[braz]

Or if you're using a skin that implements script.skinshortcuts, you can easily set a menu item or its widget to any section of AEL.

Haha... does your skin -Mimic- do that? 'Cause that's my skin of choice -it rocks!

I'll have to check that out, thanks!

Yeah, in Mimic I have a menu item pointing to my Windows game launchers in AEL, along with a widget that points to my AEL favorites virtual folder. There's a screenshot of my setup floating around here somewhere.

[Wintermute0110]

AEL could have a feature so that any category or any launcher could be saved to favourites. This is because many skins have a feature which lets the user put a favourite to the main menu.

Yeah! THIS! Makes for really simple (on the user end) integration into the main menu on most skins, and allows for some customization -maybe they want a submenu item that leads directly to a "favorited" launcher for a specific system, or genre, or whatever...

Thanks for all your work on this, Wintermute!

You are welcomed.

@jaydash @krola "Add to Favourites" was removed from Jarvis context menu for reasons complex to explain easily. For the same reasons, "Add to Favourites" is back in Krypton, so I guess your problem will be solved when you update. Since Krypton is almost ready to get out of the oven, I won't fix that in Jarvis and focus on Krypton development (I already switched my development machine and my "production" HTPC to Krypton).

For those interested in the subject, you have more information about this in this thread and on Github.

[Wintermute0110]

To everyone: I have added to the first post the section "Categories/Launchers metadata and assets". It is a library of NFO files and artwork to help during AEL setup process when creating your Categories/Launchers to get a beautiful and visually attractive setup. You can download the whole asset library from Github using the green button "Clone or download".

Note that I didn't make the artwork, just compiled it and authors will be acknowledged in the repository README file.

I'm constantly improving it and contributions are always welcomed

[foleyjo]

To everyone: I have added to the first post the section "Categories/Launchers metadata and assets". It is a library of NFO files and artwork to help during AEL setup process when creating your Categories/Launchers to get a beautiful and visually attractive setup. You can download the whole asset library from Github using the green button "Clone or download".

Note that I didn't make the artwork, just compiled it and authors will be acknowledged in the repository README file.

I'm constantly improving it and contributions are always welcomed

Thanks for this. One of the things I keep meaning to do is setup the art for my categories so this will help a lot.