Imported from GitHub: coderkevin/mini-nes · commit 5b6a0ac · license GPL-3.0

Description

Support code for my version of a RPi-based Mini NES

README

RetroPie Screen Manager

This is a script that manages what shows on the screen for RetroPie. It is installed in place of emulationstation, and provides a system-level way of starting roms or emulationstation.

Installation

After cloning the repo, simply cd to this directory and run sudo make install. This will copy the script to /var/lib/screen_manager and embed it into the RetroPie autostart script. (/opt/retropie/config/all/autostart.sh)

Operation

On startup, the screen_manager.py script will be run instead of emulationstation. However, default action is to run emulationstation, so if you have no config file, it will look the same as before.

Configuration File

This script looks for a configuration file at /dev/shm/screen_manager.cfg

The screen_manager.py script actively watches this file, so as soon as the file is written, the script will respond and run the action. If the parsing of the file ends up with an identical action as before, the action will be ignored. (so it's okay to write the same action to it multiple times.)

This script and configuration file is designed to work with other system processes such as:

• A daemon that monitors GPIOs for button presses, then starts a rom.
• An nfc reader daemon that watches for a tag and starts a rom, then runs the dashboard after the tag is removed.

All you have to do is handle your input the way you need to, and then write the config file in response.

For an example, look at my NFC Poll Daemon

The existing code for this script handles two action types by default (although you can add more!)

dashboard (emulationstation)

This action type simply runs emulationstation.

[Action]
type=dashboard

rom

This action uses runcommand to start a rom with the appropriate emulator.

[Action]
type=rom
system=<console name (e.g. nes)>
path=<absolute path to rom (e.g. /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/myrom.zip)>

Logging

A log for the script is kept at /dev/shm/screen_manager.log Log level can be modified by editing the script itself (at /var/lib/screen_manager/screen_manager.py)

Known Limitations

• If after running an action, the process exits, no further action will be taken by this script. The most likely scenario for this is exiting RetroArch by hitting [select]+[start] In that case, the user will see the console and a different action must be run.