guimenu

In the previous post I created some power logging programs so that I can view the power cycles of my RaspberryPi (Check out that post here). I finished by setting up one of the programs to run at boot up. In this post I will be combining the remaining two programs with the menu of EmulationStation.

The file that has to be edited is GuiMenu.cpp. This is the file that holds all the information for the menu when you call up it up EmulationStation. Since everything changed after the new update the first thing that I had to do was locate this file.

pi@raspberry ~ $ sudo find / -name GuiMenu.cpp
/opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation/es-app/src/guis/GuiMenu.cpp
pi@raspberry ~ $

Once I found the location I went into that directory and made a backup of the file just incase.

pi@raspberry ~ $ cd /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation/es-app/src/guis
pi@raspberry /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation/es-app/src/guis $ sudo cp GuiMenu.cpp GuiMenu.cpp.bak

I opened up the file with

pi@raspberry /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation/es-app/src/guis $ sudo nano GuiMenu.cpp

and found that this version is programmed a lot different than the previous one. After a little bit of reading through this file I found the two lines that I have to edit. Below I copied the whole section and made the two lines of interest bold and yellow.

addEntry(“QUIT”, 0x777777FF, true,

[this] {

auto s = new GuiSettings(mWindow, “QUIT”);

Window* window = mWindow;

ComponentListRow row;

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY RESTART?”, “YES”,

[] {

if(system(“sudo shutdown -r now”) != 0)

LOG(LogWarning) << “Restart terminated with non-zero result!”;

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “RESTART SYSTEM”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

row.elements.clear();

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY SHUTDOWN?”, “YES”,

[] {

if(system(“sudo shutdown -h now”) != 0)

LOG(LogWarning) << “Shutdown terminated with non-zero result!”;

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “SHUTDOWN SYSTEM”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

if(Settings::getInstance()->getBool(“ShowExit”))

{

row.elements.clear();

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY QUIT?”, “YES”,

[] {

SDL_Event ev;

ev.type = SDL_QUIT;

SDL_PushEvent(&ev);

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “QUIT EMULATIONSTATION”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

}

mWindow->pushGui(s);

});

I was in luck since it looks like these are regular bash commands, just like how they would be types in the terminal! I simply changed them so that instead of calling out a shut down it will call up my programs. Below shows those two lines changed; I listed the whole section again so that it might be easier to understand what I did.

addEntry(“QUIT”, 0x777777FF, true,

[this] {

auto s = new GuiSettings(mWindow, “QUIT”);

Window* window = mWindow;

ComponentListRow row;

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY RESTART?”, “YES”,

[] {

if(system(“python /home/pi/programs/power_reset_log.py”) != 0)

LOG(LogWarning) << “Restart terminated with non-zero result!”;

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “RESTART SYSTEM”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

row.elements.clear();

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY SHUTDOWN?”, “YES”,

[] {

if(system(“python /home/pi/programs/power_off_log.py”) != 0)

LOG(LogWarning) << “Shutdown terminated with non-zero result!”;

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “SHUTDOWN SYSTEM”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

if(Settings::getInstance()->getBool(“ShowExit”))

{

row.elements.clear();

row.makeAcceptInputHandler([window] {

window->pushGui(new GuiMsgBox(window, “REALLY QUIT?”, “YES”,

[] {

SDL_Event ev;

ev.type = SDL_QUIT;

SDL_PushEvent(&ev);

}, “NO”, nullptr));

});

row.addElement(std::make_shared(window, “QUIT EMULATIONSTATION”, Font::get(FONT_SIZE_MEDIUM), 0x777777FF), true);

s->addRow(row);

}

mWindow->pushGui(s);

});

This is a powerful file and a lot can be down with this once you site down and understand what is going on. You can change the whole menu up or just change the colors! I might end up re-visiting this file in the future.
I saved and exited with:

Ctrl+X
Y
Enter

Now the file has been edited we have to re-compile the program. This is an important step to do so that the changes actually effect.
I have to back out a few directories to the main EmulationStation on and then run the make command.

pi@raspberry /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation/es-app/src/guis $ cd ../../../..
pi@raspberry /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation $ sudo make

This will take a while so I ran it over night. The good news is that once you do it once, every other time will only take a few minutes!
I rebooted with

pi@raspberry /opt/retropie/supplementary/EmulationStation $ sudo reboot

and in EmulationStation I tested the two menu items that I edited and found they still worked! I exited out of EmulationStation and I checked the log file and found that everything was in fact logging!

pi@raspberry ~ $ cd programs
pi@raspberry ~/programs $ cat power_log.txt
System powered on on Sat Sep 20 23:00:31 2014
System powered off on Sat Sep 20 23:02:21 2014
System powered on on Sat Sep 20 23:02:47 2014
System powered on on Thu Sep 25 17:46:37 2014
System restarted on Thu Sep 25 17:56:27 2014
System powered on on Thu Sep 25 17:56:52 2014
pi@raspberry ~/programs $

That’s it! It seems a lot more complicated than it is and this could save you a lot of troubleshooting down the line if you take some added time now to set up some logging file. You can even log every single option in here if you wanted!

Check out these other helpful links:
Mapping Controllers (1 of 3): For EmulationStation
Mapping Controllers (2 of 3): Mapping Controllers to a File
Mapping Controllers (3 of 3): Setting up Controllers in RetroArch
Auto detecting controllers in EmulationStation 2.0+
RetroPie: Adding game roms, BIOS files, and enabling save states
Setting up GameBoy Advance for RetroPie
Adding a XBMC tab in EmulationStation
Adding an Apps tab in EmulationStation
Setting up Playstation for RetroPie
Creating power logs for EmulationStation (1 of 2)
Creating power logs for EmulationStation (2 of 2)

One thing that I like to do is have a few log files where I can refer back to just in case I run into errors. One of the important one’s is the power log. What this will do is log every time you power up the Raspberry Pi ans well as whenever you reboot or shut down the Pi through EmulationStation, this will be good especially if your system is on all the time. You will be able to refer back to this if you are starting to get errors on your system to see if power was cut or to see if the system wasn’t shut down properly.

I had two main motivations for doing this:
1. I keep my RaspberryPi on all the time so it is the easiest way to see if I lost power.
2. I have built a few of these in the past for some friends and I wanted to create this log file so if they run into any errors I will be able to better diagnose it (Since the SD Card can get corrupted if the Pi isn’t properly shut down.).
I also used this as a learning exercise to learn how to program in python and some of its libraries.

The end result of doing all of this in the next few posts will integrate these programs into the EmulationStation menu so all of this will be done automatically and out of site.

First step is to create a directory for the programs and logging file!

pi@raspberry ~ $ mkdir /home/pi/programs

I made the log file by creating an empty test file with:

pi@raspberry ~ $ cd programs
pi@raspberry ~/programs $ touch power_log.txt

The touch command is the easiest way that I found to create an empty file.
Then I wrote the first program which was the the power on program:

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ nano power_on_log.py

In that document I added the following:

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess
import time
from datetime import datetime
date = time.strftime(“%c”) #This gets the full date#This will write the current date and time to file test.txt
f=open(‘/home/pi/programs/power_log.txt’,’a’) #Opens power_log.txt in append mode
f.write(“System powered on on ” + date + “\n”) #This will write a message on the system boot
f.close()

And save and exit with:

Ctrl+X
Y
Enter

What this program does is simple and I learned how to do it in about 10 minutes of playing around! Once the program is set up to run it:

Saves the current time and date to a variable.
Opens the power_log.txt file that was created in append mode.
Writes “System was powered on on ” + the current time and date + enters to the next line.
Closes that file and exits the program

The other two programs are almost identical with the addition of one additional line at the end.

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ nano power_off_log.py

In that document I added the following:

subprocess.call(“sudo halt”,shell=True)

Save and exit.

And

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ nano power_reset_log.py

In that document I added the following:

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess
import time
from datetime import datetime
date = time.strftime(“%c”) #This gets the full date#This will write the current date and time to file test.txt
f=open(‘/home/pi/programs/power_log.txt’,’a’) #Opens power_log.txt in append mode
f.write(“System restarted on ” + date + “\n”) #This will write a message on the system boot
f.close()

subprocess.call(“sudo reboot”,shell=True)

Save and exit.

That last line, subprocess.call enables you to run commands in a python program like you would in a bash program or straight through the terminal.

More information about these libraries can be found here:

Once done, these programs have to be made executable with:

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ chmod +x power_on_log.py power_off_log.py power_reset_log.py

You can run these programs with the command:

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ python ./power_on_log

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ python ./power_off_log

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ python ./power_restart_log

and if you check the power_log file then you should see that it will add lines similar to:

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ cat power_log.txt
System powered on on Thu Aug 28 23:27:32 2014
System powered off on Fri Aug 29 19:08:10 2014
System powered on on Fri Aug 29 19:08:36 2014
pi@raspberry ~/programs $

Since these programs are all set up now one thing to do is to edit the boot file so that it will run power_on_log.py when the system boots up. If you followed my setting up the image series then this should look familiar. If not take a quick look here for some useful information!

Open the .bashrc file with:

pi@raspberry ~/programs $ cd
pi@raspberry ~ $ nano .bashrc

Scroll to the bottom and in my case I located the following lines:

if [ $DISPLAY == ”]; then
echo “hello”
vncserver :0 -geometry 800×600 -depth 24
fi

I have this already since I am running a VNCServer at start up (Check this post to install TightVNCServer.). I added the program call line just like how I would type it in the terminal. My file now looks like this:

if [ $DISPLAY == ”]; then
python /home/pi/programs/power_on_log.py
echo “hello”
vncserver :0 -geometry 800×600 -depth 24
fi

I saved and exited and whenever I turn on my RaspberryPi or SSH into it this program will log it in power_log.txt!

In the next post I will be integrating the other two programs into the heart of EmulationStation!

➟ Weekend Engineer

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