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How To Use The ES Toolkit

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mattrixk edited this page Mar 13, 2017 · 2 revisions

###Step 1 Download ES for Windows

So far I've found 3 different versions of EmulationStation that you can download and use on Windows without too much hassle:

  • Portable ES by @herb_fargus. This version is the one that got me started. It's an older version that doesn't have any of the nifty new features like Video Previews, but it does have all the required Retroarch files to actually let you play the games. As such, it's a much larger download than the others in this list (about 150MB if I remember correctly).
  • Video Preview by @fieldofcows. This version lets you use the new Video Previews functionality. The download is about 50MB.
  • Carousel Mod by @Zigurana. This version lets you style the carousel in the System View, which is AWESOME. It also has Video Preview functionality, but before it will work you need the "plugins" folder from the "Video Preview" mod listed above. This download is only about 5MB, so if you don't care about playing games, or having working Videos, then this is the one for you.

I would recommend maybe just downloading all of them, then adding the "plugins" folder from "Video Preview" to "Carousel Mod", and adding the Retroarch files from "Portable ES" to "Carousel Mod" to make a super install that does it all!

Note: I haven't tried adding the retroarch files, so I don't know if there is more to it than that. I can guarantee however that putting the "plugins" folder into "Carousel Mod" will get the Video Previews to work.

###Step 2 Extracting the .zip file

From this point onward, to avoid confusion, I'm just going to assume you are using the "Video Preview" build. Everything should work the same for all 3 builds though.

This bit is pretty straight forward. Just unzip the file to the desired location.

Personally, I like to keep all my Theme Making stuff in the same place, so I have a 32GB thumbdrive specifically for this purpose. I'm going to continue on as though you are doing the same.

My thumbdrive is 'E' drive and I've extracted the file to a folder called "EmulationStation", so my path looks like this:

E:\EmulationStation\

I'm going to refer to this as "ES-root" from now on.

###Step 3 Adding the .bat files

Grab the 3 .bat files from the "Launch Bats" folder of this Repo and paste them into "ES-root". If you start EmulationStation by double-clicking the .exe file, it opens full-screen and the only way you can get back to desktop is with the Windows key, or shutting down the program. I prefer to work in a Windowed mode so I can easily get to the rest of my programs (code, art, file manager, etc).

You can launch ES in Windowed mode by double-clicking any of these .bat files and it will open in the corresponding Windowed mode. I mainly use the 1280x720 for theme making, then test in full size and 4:3 when I get closer to the end.

###Step 4 Updating the .emulationstation folder

You will need to activate the "View Hidden Files" option in your File Manager of choice (I use Q-Dir because I love the tiled windows) so that you can see the ".emulationstation" folder. This is the folder that holds all the Roms, Themes, Gamelists and Images/Videos.

Go into the ".emulationstation" folder and delete everything inside it. Then copy the contents of the "emulationstation" folder of this Repo and paste it inside. This will give you 100 (fake) Roms and all of the required Media and Gamelists for them. It will also give you a custom Theme called BaseVid that you can use as a base for your own themes, or as a learning tool to wrap your head around how it all works.

That's it. You're good to go. Have fun. Make themes.

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