ConfigurationWizard
On first run when there is no config file available RCB will ask you to create a config file with the wizard. You can also launch the wizard anytime from context menu via "Add Rom Collection".
First you have to choose a scenario:
- Scrape game info and artwork online
- Game info and artwork are available locally
- Scrape game info online and artwork is available locally
In online scraping scenario you will usually just have a set of rom files and nothing else. RCB will scrape different web sites for game infos and artwork and adds them to your collection.
In local data scenario you already have all this data somewhere on your system. In this case you just have to tell RCB where to find artwork, videos and game descriptions on your system.
With the third option you can mix both scenarios and use your local available artwork but scrape game information online.
Select a platform from the list. If you don't find your platform in the list, select "Other" and type the name of your platform. Note: Some scrapers won't work properly without a known platform.
In Kodi version Leia and newer there is the option to use builtin game launcher RetroPlayer to play games for some systems. If you want to use the builtin emulator, RCB will skip all other config steps for configuring emulators. Note: RCB does not check if the builtin emulator is available for the selected system. It just checks the Kodi version to guess if you can use RetroPlayer.
Select the path to the emulator (executable) for the given platform. Only shown if you not use RetroPlayer.
Enter the parameters for the emulator. Use "%ROM%" as placeholder if you need to pass the rom filename to the emulator. Check section Emulator params for a complete list of available placeholders. Only shown if you not use RetroPlayer.
Select the path to your rom files. RCB will also check all sub directories below the given path.
Enter one or more file masks (comma-separated). RCB will search the rom path and all sub folders for files that match the given file mask. Make sure that you use the * as wildcard. E.g. use "*.zip,*.smc" to search for all zip and smc files below the given rom path.
Select the path where you want to store your artwork (or where your artwork is already stored). This folder can be empty. You should store your artwork separated per platform (Rom Collection), so there should be one folder SNES artwork, Amiga artwork or whatever.
In online scraping scenario RCB will create the following sub folders (one for every different artwork type):
boxback, boxfront, cartridge, clearlogo, fanart, gameplay and screenshot
The user that runs xbmc needs write access to these folders. The downloaded files will be named like the rom file with the extension of the downloaded image file.
Repeat these steps for every Rom Collection you want to add.
The first steps of this wizard are equal to the online scraping scenario. You have to choose a platform, the path to your emulator and rom files. After this is done there will be some local data specific configuration steps.
Choose an artwork type.
Select the path to the artwork of this type. RCB will search for image files with the same names as your rom files.
Repeat the last two steps for every artwork type you want to import
Choose the type of description files. In current version there are two different types of oofline scrapers. MAME and Game-database-info.
Select the path to your description files.
Repeat these steps for every Rom Collection you want to add.
RCB supports rudimentary emulator auto configuration. There is a file called "emu_autoconfig.xml" where you can add emulator arguments for all emulators and platforms. There are already emulators covered in this file, so chances are good that the emulator of your choice is already available. By default this file will be copied to RCBs userdata directory (Kodi/userdata/addon_data/script.games.rom.collection.browser) but you can specify a new path via addon settings. RCB also scans your system to check if the emulators available in autoconfig are installed on your system.
In the config wizard you only have to select the emulator of your choice (you can also choose an emulator that is not yet installed on your device and do this later on).
Afterwards you can edit the parameters of the chosen emulator.
The rest of the config wizard is the same as described above for all systems.