Differences

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--- game_collection_settings [2020/06/20 18:34] – [DYNAMIC COLLECTIONS] lbrpdx
+++ game_collection_settings [2023/06/23 17:17] (current) – [Dynamic collections] maioni
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-~~NOTOC~~
+====== Game Collection Settings ======
-===== GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS =====
-Several options are available in this menu:
+==== Custom collections ====
-  * **AUTOMATIC GAME COLLECTIONS**: Batocera can create automatically some collections, based on the information scraped in your ''gamelist.xml'' files. You can create automatically collections for **2 and 4 players games**, **all games** (on all systems), **favorites** (across all systems) and the **never played** or **last played** games. For arcade systems, you can also have automatically created collections by editor or arcade system, like **sega**, **snk**, **namco** and so on.
-  * **CUSTOM GAME COLLECTIONS**: to manage the personal collections you have created.
+<WRAP center round info>
+Custom collections are deprecated and should be replaced by the more powerful **dynamic collections** described below. Batocera 36 still supports existing static custom collections, but the ''batocera-create-collection'' helper tool has been removed.
-  * **CREATE NEW CUSTOM COLLECTION**: in order to create your personal collections. Once you have given a name to your new collection, you can add games from the menu by pressing the ''Y'' button on your controller. When you are done with adding games in your collection, a new item **FINISH EDITING COLLECTION** will appear in this menu to let you close it.
+</WRAP>
-  * **GROUP UNTHEMED CUSTOM COLLECTIONS**: toggle on if you want your collections to all appeared in a dedicated **COLLECTIONS** item at the top level on the menu, otherwise each of your custom collection will appear at the top level.
-  * **SORT CUSTOM COLLECTIONS AND SYSTEMS**: in case you have set to "off" the previous option, do you want your collections to appear amongst the other systems, ordered from their alphabetical names among the other systems (toggled on), or would you prefer to see all your collections grouped together at the end of your systems list (off)?
-  * **SHOW SYSTEM NAME IN COLLECTIONS**: toggle on if you want to see the ''[SYSTEM]'' added after the game names in your custom collections. Otherwise only the game name will appear. Useful if you have the same game name across multiple gaming consoles.
-====CUSTOM COLLECTIONS====
 Personal custom collections are stored in ''/userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/collections/''. They are simple text files that you can edit manually, or edit through the UI described above.
@@ Line 25: / Line 15: @@
   /userdata/roms/gb/Super Mario Land (World) (Rev A).zip
-If you are using Batocera 5.26 or later, you can use the command ''batocera-create-collection'' to help you create custom collections.
+If you are using Batocera **5.26** or later, you can use the command ''batocera-create-collection'' to help you create custom collections.
 For example, if you want to create a collection for your "Mario" games like on the example above, you can use it with ''batocera-create-collection mario'' and it will create a ''custom-mario.cfg'' custom collection file, with all the games that have "Mario" in their names or descriptions.
@@ Line 31: / Line 21: @@
 You can tune your custom selection with command line switches to select only a specific system, or a specific genres of games, and invoking the command subsequently. For instance, if you want all "ball" games on NES and Gameboy in a "ballers" custom collection, you can start with ''batocera-create-collection -c ballers -s nes ball'' and then add GB games to the same custom collection by typing ''batocera-create-collection -c ballers -s gb ball''. Note that you need to have your games correctly scraped in order to have this command search in the game names (especially for Arcade games on MAME of Final Burn Neo) or in the genres of the games.
-====DYNAMIC COLLECTIONS====
+From https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera.linux/blob/master/package/batocera/core/batocera-scripts/scripts/batocera-create-collection
+<code>
+batocera-create-collection [ -c collection_name ] [ -g genre ] search_terms
+  -c foobar  : The resulting collection will be stored
+               as "custom-foobar.cfg" in the collection directory
+  -g Shooter : Only games matching "Shooter" <genre> in your gamelist.xml
+               files will be added to the collection
+  -s snes    : Only games in the /userdata/snes/ directory (to filter out
+               systems -- 1 system only after '-s')
+  -h         : Display this help file
-Batocera 5.26 and later also let you create Dynamic Collections from EmulationStation.
+Note that existing game collections with the same name will have newly
+found games added to the list.
+Examples:
+  "batocera-create-collection zelda" creates a custom collection
+  of all your roms matching "Zelda" in their names.
+  You can use it with "final fantasy", and it creates a collection file
+  named "custom-final.fantasy.cfg".
+  Invoke "batocera-create-collection -c basketball 'nba '" if you want a list
+  of NBA games named "custom-basketbell.cfg", without 'pinball' games in.
+  "batocera-create-collection -c plateformers -g Plateform" creates a
+  collection of all plarform games (into custom-plateformers.cfg).
+  Finally, "batocear-create-collection -c all" creates a custom-all.cfg
+  collection with all your games. It can take a while to create, if you have
+  a lot of games on your system.
+  If you want to create a collection with Zelda games for both nes and gb,
+  you can start with "batocera-create-collection -s nes zelda" and then
+  add gb games with "batocera-create-collection -s gb zelda".
+Gotchas:
+  - 'search_terms' for games amd 'systems' are case insensitive...
+  - ... but 'genres' are case sensitive (blame scapers disparities)
+</code>
+==== Dynamic collections ====
+Batocera **5.26** and later also let you create dynamic collections from EmulationStation.
 Think of dynamic collections like rules you set up in your e-mail client to automatically create "smart folders": when you receive new e-mails that match the predefined rules, they are showing up in the right smart folder automatically. Dynamic collections on Batocera are the same: you start by creating rules to set up your dynamic collections (match a string in the game name, a gaming system, a genre...) and when you add new ROMs matching those rules, they show up automatically in your dynamic collection. This way, you can share dynamic collections with your friends, even if they don't have the same ROMs, or if their ROM file names aren't exactly the same as yours.
@@ Line 39: / Line 62: @@
 Let's create a dynamic collection for all Capcom Games, for example.
 Go into **GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS** -> **CREATE NEW DYNAMIC COLLECTION** and call it "Capcom".
 On the next menu you can select the filters your want to apply for this dynamic collection: systems, genre, publisher/developer, number of players, if the game is a favorite or not, rating, safe for kids, language, region already played or not... many options are available there. To pre-populate those option, all your `gamelist.xml` files are parsed, so it **might take a while to load**. For example "publisher / developer" on my system with 12,000 ROMs it takes over a minute to load. For my example here, let's select all the editors that seem relevant for Capcom.
@@ Line 58: / Line 80: @@
+==== Setup folders at Gamelist ====
+Not just files but folders can be hidden, favorited or set as a kid, but you need to do this manually by editing the gamelist.xml with the tags below:
+<code>
+<folder>
+    <path>./_HACKS</path>
+    <favorite>false</favorite>
+    <kidgame>false</kidgame>
+    <hidden>true</hidden>
+</folder>
+</code>