PyMenu for RS97 – User Guide

PyMenu is a menu/launcher that aims to replace the default gmenu2x with a more modern look.
The main menu replicates the look & feel from the well known emulationstation used in
RetroPie. While PyMenu has some unique features like animated previews, it currently lacks
other features to be a complete replacement of gmenu2x.

Installation
Just install the latest ipk from the release page(​https://github.com/JackD83/PyMenu/releases​)
using the build-in explorer of gmenu2x. PyMenu will be installed as an application and can be
launched from gmenus application tab. PyMenu will be active till power off or reboot of the
RS97. To install PyMenu as default launcher, use the explorer from gmenu2x and navigate to
/home/retrofw/apps/pymenu/installer and run the installer.dge file. To revert back to gmenu, run
the uninstall.dge.

Usage

Main Menu

Unlike gmenu, all available entries are shown in one horizontal bar and can be scrolled through
with the left and right keys and the shoulder buttons. Rather that base entries on single installed
emulators, PyMenu is, like emulationstaion, more system oriented. Every installed emulator
provides emulation capability for one or more systems. If an emulator is installed, the system will
automatically be enabled in PyMenu.
Remark: This was configured manually. If you come across an emulator that does not enable
the expected entry, write a bug entry and it will be included in the next release.

The main menu distinguishes between two types of entries: Emulated system and native apps
and games. Opening either applications or ports will show a list of all installed
applications/games. The preview on the left is taken either from the current theme if it provides
a preview image, or the default icon used in gmenu. Opening an emulated system will either
show the rom selection or directly launch the emulator (like scummvm). A special entry is “last
played”, it will show you a list with the last 20 last played games or roms
In the lower left of the main menu, you find the general settings menu and in the lower right the
power menu.

General settings

In this screen, you can set some basic configuration options for PyMenu. It also shows the
current installed version
· Display Timeout: Timeout after the display will go dark without activity
· Suspend Timeout: Timeout after which the device will enter sleep mode
· Show Last Played: Display/hide the last played entry in the main menu
· Show FPS: Display FPS in the top left corner. Requires a reboot to show
· Allow editing: Disables all editing of entries. Useful if you give it to your kids
· Theme: The current used theme. Currently we have two themes. The default theme
provided by Jutley /Bitboy and the Pixel theme made by Kegg. You can switch between the
two on the fly
· Volume control: Flag for other devices without a volume wheel, not relevant for RS97
· Show All: Display all entries in the main menu weather the emulator is installed or not.
Required to create new entries or to debug.
Power menu

The power menu provides some often used functions to PyMenu

-​ ​Reboot: Reboot the device

-​ ​Mount USB: Enable the USB connection to a PC

-​ ​Run Gmenu2x: Return to gmenu2x

Rom Selection

Entering the rom selection, you will see a file browser and the content of your configured start
folder. You can navigate using the arrow keys. Pressing left will bring you one folder up. Using
the shoulder buttons will jump one page up or down. The names displayed in the list are either
the original file names or the correct game name for systems like Neo-Geo or other arcades.
On the left there is either nothing, a static preview image, an animated preview or a description
text.
Pressing the X key, you can toggle between a view with previews or a larger list to display long
file names. For better performance, all preview images should be scaled to 128x128 pixel. The
preview has to be named exactly like the rom without the extension. Only png images are
supported!
Viewing folders with many files (500+) takes very long and a hourglass will be shown. If it takes
to long, you can go back using the left key. Do not put too many files in one folder!

Some systems are supported by multiple emulators. To select an emulator to start a rom, press
start instead of select on the rom. A list of all suitable emulators is shown, select the one you
want. The default emulator is the first emulator in alphabetical order.

Changing system configuration

A new menu is show, select edit entry and press a. This will take you to the configuration screen
where you can change various options.
· Name: The name that is used as identifier. Used to link theme options to this
· Gmenu Identifier: The name under which the emulators are listed in the systems tab of
gmenu2x. Some emulators do not provide an entry, then the complete name of the emu link
is used (like “handy”). A comma separated list is used for multiple entries (like
“fbasdl,fba-gcw)
· Description: The description of the entry, shown under the icon
· Background Image: Image that is used as background in main menu and rom selection.
Changing this will only change it in the current theme!
· Icon: The icon used in the main menu
· Folder Icon: The icon shown in the top left of the rom selection
· Use File Filter: Flag to show only files that are supported by the installed emulators. The list
of extensions is provided by the emulator it self and can be edited using gemenu
· Use Gamelist: If enabled, tries to match the filename with a list of known game names.
Mostly for arcade games
· Rom folder: The folder your roms are stored
· Preview folder: The folder where all your previews are stored. Remark: Like mentioned
earlier, it takes a long time to access large folder. Preview folders can easily contain
thousands of files. To make it easier to select the folder, don’t enter the folder itself but
select it in the list, press start. The current highlighted folder will be chosen instead of the
current folder.
· Overclock: The CPU frequency this entry should be run at. Be careful with anything above
600Mhz, it can lead to some crashes
After you finished setting all up, press start to save your changes. Pressing b will take you back
without saving!
Animated Previews

The animated previews are a kind of custom format. Like the still preview images, their
animated counterparts are just 128x128 pixel images stitched together in a grid and saved as
one large image. To batch process a lot of videos, I created two converter scripts (windows and
linux/macos) found under "tools" on github.

They rely on image magick and ffmpeg to convert any video to a 6 seconds preview animation.
Please use the latest versions of both tools. On windows, the version of ffmpg that comes with
image magick is too old!

Simply call convert.sh with all the videos you want to convert as parameter (like ./convert.sh
videos/* ). This will create a folder called "output" with all converted previews