Pre-Feature Request: Split MRAs into folders

[theypsilon]

I would like to make kind of a poll out of this question:

Right now, after running the Updater, when you access the Arcade folder of your MiSTer, there are many games in a single folder.

Would you rather have a sorted folder structure to access all the MRA's in a more organized way?


If your answer is yes, maybe we could come up with an idea on how to implement that folder structure. To me, it looks like this could be supported officially and done mostly in the Updater itself. It could be done by using the metadata of the MRA files to decide where they go in the folder structure.

Going with the MRA metadata route, I see a couple of options:
1. Using existing tag to apply some sorting criteria. I.e. sort by manufacturer. This could be even an update.ini parameter that could be configured.
2. Adding some new tag to the MRAs to cover a more interesting sorting criteria. For example, there could be a 'folder' tag where you tell wether this MRA should be on "SEGA System 1" , on "SEGA System 16" or in "Irem M62", to give a few examples.

What you do you think? My intention is just to gather opinions and open a brainstorm if that's useful.

[Sorgelig]

I don't see a need to do such sort. When you want to play a game, you want to find it by name. You don't have to remember manufacturer or base arcade name or genre or other things. Basically you don't have to care of anything but name.

[shaitan]

I agree with Sorg here, there is a lot of history with arcade cabinets that I would think a small minority would be familiar enough with, in turn that would make it difficult to be easily browsable for us more "average joe" types.

I do think it would be interesting to learn the history of certain boards and grouping them together, but for daily browsing I feel this would have more negative value than it's worth.

[lomdar67]

With the number of games we have at the moment I would say no. We had this discussion also on Discord somewhere and the general direction there was also that it is an overkill at the moment.

BTW: There is a script from amoore2600 out there that does that: https://github.com/MAME-GETTER/_arcade-organizer

[theypsilon]

I agree that the amount of arcades right now is not that huge. But with the time the whole set will become less and less manageable.

I think is also interesting being able to explore games of the same board, for example. But is also true that some other games (specially early ones) have manufacturers/platforms that are not well known. A more arbitrary criteria could help with that.

IMHO something opt-in is better than relying on third party scripts. But that script looks really good, glad that you mention it, I wasn't aware of that one.

[zakk4223]

I would leave MRA sorting to third party scripts. Everyone has an opinion on which metadata they care about and how they want to organize things. (My MRA folder structure is vastly different to the point where I can't even use any of the updater scripts for MRAs). Like minded people can use a script that accomplishes what their goals are. The 'official' updater's job is just to get official, working MRAs onto the system. How you organize them after is up to you.

There's probably some merit to making sure the official MRAs have all the metadata tags populated correctly (and adding any tags that are required to keep them up to parity with MAME's metadata info)

[LeftEmpty]

I would say no, and my thinking is simple: people who run updater scripts regularly don't probably care about structure and categories first, but want stuff to work and be updated while not having to second guess it.

I haven't run the updater script in ages, because not only have I organised my MRAs, but my computer and console cores as well. Like zakk's post above shows, I think we are quite a few in that situation. These automated scripts are simply not aimed at those of us who care about their own organisation and enjoy spending their time on it.
Organising was made much more simple too by having all the cores and launcher readily browsable and sortable as default: if they had been split into categories to begin with, the process would have been quite obnoxious.

It's a good thing we can customise the MiSTer however we please, manually or through scripts, but I think the base package shouldn't overdo it.

[Cebion]

And then there are the people who read the scripts manual to use it accordingly so it doesnt destroy the structure every time and still got all updates.

[LeftEmpty]

Nothing like being passive-agressively called “stupid” by a stranger on a random internet board in the morning!

[Sigismond0]

And then there are the people who read the scripts manual to use it accordingly so it doesnt destroy the structure every time and still got all updates.

While I appreciate your snark, the updater script isn't robust enough to work like that for everybody. For example, it only lets you specify a single "console" directory. So anyone who wants to separate their directories into, say "Nintendo", "Sega", etc. can't do that by just editing the updater's ini file.

For anyone that does want everything of a certain type in a single directory, it works fine. But you seem to have reached the assumption that just because something suits your specific needs means it suits everyone's.

[Cebion]

That's true.
Most of the time when I scroll through the arcade list most often I have no idea what the games are.
On the rest it just makes sense from a start.

In the end a script can be customized for the fit for us all.
Even if its a "setup" script to set it up the way you like it.

I think the Symlink way is the way to go.

@leftempty didn't mean to be snarky, just worked with others so hard on scripts, bit harsh words
There are many good scripts out there, but sadly also some who do more damage than good.

[slaps]

I was asking on the classic gaming Discord about this very issue today, and figured something like a RECURSIVE_SEARCH="true" option would work if there's a way to get the MiSTer Updater to simply check for MRA files in any subfolders under _Arcade.

I poked around the ini file a bit, and came up with this temporary solution. If you add this line:

CORE_CATEGORY_PATHS["arcade-cores"]="$BASE_PATH/_Arcade $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/_SubFolder1 $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/_SubFolder2"

... the updater will check the specified subfolders under _Arcade, as long as you separate each $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/_SubfolderX with a single space inside the quotes.

I ran the updater a few times, and after an initial big download, it keeps the MRA files inside their respective subfolder and does not create duplicates in the increasingly cluttered _Arcade folder.

For example, I have separated out all the Namco and iREM MRA files into their own _Arcade subfolders, and the following is the line I've added to my update.ini file:

CORE_CATEGORY_PATHS["arcade-cores"]="$BASE_PATH/_Arcade $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/_Namco $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/_iREM"

This is working for me. Cores are all still kept in $BASE_PATH/_Arcade/cores and no dupe MRAs are made.

[WolfgangBlack]

BTW: There is a script from amoore2600 out there that does that: https://github.com/MAME-GETTER/_arcade-organizer

There's your solution.
Use the script if you want that and let us regular people not have to learn every detail of the arcade machines.
I am thankful for those who do the hard work of making the cores and have to learn all that but do all the users too?

[slaps]

I just don't like the _arcade-organizer structure. I much prefer to sort the folders not alphabetically in groups or by year (who remembers which year a game came out?), but by arcade system. CPS-0, CPS-1, iREM M62, etc.

Unfortunately the updater ini line I shared, while it does keep all the files where they should be, it also creates a second /media tree under /_arcade, and that's not ideal.

It may not be a simple fix, but adding a recursive search function in the updater would allow us to put our mra files under _Arcade in any subfolder we want.

[WolfgangBlack]

It may not be a simple fix, but adding a recursive search function in the updater would allow us to put our mra files under _Arcade in any subfolder we want.

No one is stopping you from writing such a script.