[Competes2win]

As many of you know, the retro-x script is a script that enables the booting of emulators and even the direct booting of roms from supported emulators through xbmc. I feel that this would be a great way to fully integrate peoples' emulators with xbmc...

[Gamester17]

This discussion was taken from this other topic-thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=32150

Know that emuLauncher for XBMC is a similar python script to Retro-X for XBMC, maybe both are worth a look before anyone take on a the project of writting such a emulator launcher python plugin for XBMC (as maybe the scripter would take the best of both scripts to make one great plugin)

You could possibly write a python plugin for the PROGRAMS section of XBMC (there is already two existing python script, called "Retro-X" and "EmuLauncher", that could maybe be ported into a plugin).

Plugin python directory services for XBMC:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=28031
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=29911
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=30351

If you made a python plugin for XBMC's plugin python directory services then the the emulator games would be listed just as music, movies, and TV-Shows in XBMC, you could also have information on each emulator and each game grabbed from the internet similar to a scraper (but using python instead). Since it is a plugin which uses XBMC's own directory services it would also work with all skins for XBMC.

yes you would need the plugin to read the descriptions and any info you want displayed.

the script is in the scripting svn http://xbmc-scripting.googlecode.com/svn...in%20Maker

the main file you want for the plugin is http://xbmc-scripting.googlecode.com/svn.../plugin.py

in there is a basic way to list a directory, you would need to add the file or http scraping for each rom information.

plugins are pretty simple, there are plenty of examples to learn from, the plugin maker script is a good example of how to create a plugin that lists a directory, could be modified easily enough for what you need.

[blittan]

Emulauncher is being looked at, since I am the original author of it. But I have my hands tied down into real life, family and another xbmc project.

[Competes2win]

Emulauncher is being looked at, since I am the original author of it. But I have my hands tied down into real life, family and another xbmc project.

Good to know you're looking into it. Real life comes first though.

I actually couldn't get the emulauncher to work for me. I only tried it with zsnexbox but it would freeze while trying to boot any rom.

[tvdb-scott]

I know there are some emulator scripts out there, but I think a program plugin would be even better. I have my emulators set up a very specific way with shortcut files and covers that makes it seem like they're completely integrated into XBMC.

I'd like to help a python developer implement this same concept with a plugin, which I think anyone using emulators with XBMC would greatly appreciate. If anyone is interested, post here or send me a PM. I think it would be very simple coding for someone who has done any XBMC plugin work already.

[chunk_1970]

Stanley87 was going to look into writing plugins for launching emulators.He's the author of XinBox so is more than capable of getting it done. I presume he got side tracked onto something else since..

[Gamester17]

@blittan, have you and/or Nuka1195 begun with this?

One or several emulator ROM launcher plugin(s) would be simply awsome!

[blittan]

spiff was going to do some work, havent heard any news.. but we can discuss that on the devcon

[KnottyD]

I’ve asked this before (and have been told it would never work….) and I was wondering if someone could explain to me as to why it won’t. My question was whether it was possible to search through a directory of roms (over a network) then when you select one it FTP’s the file to your xbox. (to a temp folder) then executes it with a compatible emulator.

The reasons why I don’t understand why this wouldn’t work are as follows:

- You can manually FTP over files to any folder on your xbox. (So presumably you could make it so when you click on a file it FTPs it to a pre-defined xbox based temp folder, no?)

-With compatible emulators (ie: ) You can run a command line to auto-exec a rom.

So why can’t you combine the two?

(sorry if this was the wrong section but thought about it and it is kinda a request....)

[blittan]

you could surely do that with a python script, skip the ftp though and use smb instead

i really dont see the ftp thing either, how do you do that.. run a ftp-server on the computer? then it might work.. but it would be a lot more work than doing it via smb

[KnottyD]

well yes I meant samba, but.... xbmc does have ftp capabilities...

So I was right, technically this is possible?

[KnottyD]

Couldn't find an edit button, just wanted to say thanks as well (seeing as last time I asked everyone flamed me and said it was just a stupid idea that would never work).

[blittan]

yes, both with smb and ftp (running a ftp-server on the computer with the roms)

take a good look at emulauncher and retro-x for launching roms..

[KnottyD]

I have tried those but they seemed a bit buggy (well this was about a year ago).
Those still being worked on, are they capable of playing files from over a network or just local files?

[blittan]

I haven't worked any on emulauncher and I belive retro-X isn't activly developed either.

But python isn't that hard to learn, might want to look into it yourself?