Hacking [Release] Vita-Launcher App to launch games and apps

[satel]

I'm starting PSP Games via bubbles create with Adrenaline Bubble Manager and there's no info of what kind of Game it is. I can create new categories if the GameID are created with certain prefixes like PSOEMUXXX for PS1 and PSMEMUXXX for mini. As for PSM games, I don't know of any way to start those at the moment.

ok is there anyway you can add the PS Mobile games to the Vita category ? it's great app & i would like to use it

 

[cy33hc]

Release v1.2

- No longer scans the ux0:app folder to find games and create a cache. Changed to read the game info directly from the Vita's app database. As a results there's no need to include the options to add/remove/rescan.
- Polished up the GUI a little

 

[satel]

Release v1.2

- No longer scans the ux0:app folder to find games and create a cache. Changed to read the game info directly from the Vita's app database. As a results there's no need to include the options to add/remove/rescan.
- Polished up the GUI a little

sorry to ask again but what about PS Mobile games support ?

 

[cy33hc]

sorry to ask again but what about PS Mobile games support ?

Hi Satel
The method I'm using to start the games/apps doesn't work for PS Mobile games. I don't know how to achieve that at the moment. I'll ask around in the Dev forum's to see if anybody knows otherwise I can't support it. Sorry.

 

[satel]

Hi Satel
The method I'm using to start the games/apps doesn't work for PS Mobile games. I don't know how to achieve that at the moment. I'll ask around in the Dev forum's to see if anybody knows otherwise I can't support it. Sorry.

ok thanks for the quick reply & best of luck i hope you can manage to do it,your app is better than OneMenu which already supports PS Mobile games but it's not as good & crashes a lot. i'm hoping i can replace it with your app soon

 

[nowhereman87]

Hello cy33hc, I have tested Vita Laucher and I loved its simplicity, lightness and the use of categories and pages, which allows all the items to be more organized, a bit like ONEmenu by ONELua Team, another alternative UI. I like how here the entire screen is used to show more items per page, unlike the LiveArea, and also the bigger non deformed icons.

One of the best functions is to be able to set favorites, so it would be interesting to incorporate the creation by the user of other custom categories, such as "AAA games", "Indies", "PS1 Classics", "Utilities", "Emulators" etc. Could that be incorporated as an option?

Other interesting options would be to be able to manually sort the order of the icons as in the LiveArea. Also being able to set some apps as "hidden" and an option to set alternative icons per app chosen by the user through a small png.

ONEMenu is also a great all in one app, with many extra functions that make it very practical. However, I always wanted it to be able to run in the background, so as not to have to re-enter and reload the menu every time after closing a game/app or at least automatically skip that "click" in the LiveArea window, so that the transition would be automatic and faster, the same happens with your Vita Launcher.
I know that the developer Graphene and others have worked so that homebrew apps like ElevenMPV-A and BGFTP can be run as system apps that are kept in the "background",... so I wonder if those instructions could be applied in Vita Launcher and thus be able to use it as a permanent replacement for the Livearea, which used in conjunction with a plugin such as Rinnegatamante's Autoboot ( https://github.com/Rinnegatamante/AutoBoot ) which can open Vita Launcher at boot an so allow a complete UI replacement.

I share here some reference links and information by Graphene and his developments:

https://github.com/GrapheneCt

https://www.reddit.com/r/vitahacks/comments/eiqq34/release_lowmemmode_plugin_launch_system/

https://www.reddit.com/r/vitahacks/comments/g48od9/is_it_possible_to_have_a_program_running_in_the/

Graphene : " It is possible to create such apps with DolceSDK. Here's my write-up on that " : https://forum.devchroma.nl/index.php/topic,141.0.html

Anyway, your launcher is already excellent and its lightness is appreciated. Thank you in advance for this generous work done for the PSVita community, take care!

 

[cy33hc]

I'm working on the next version of the app, I'm adding more categories for games and splitting homebrew category to match up with the categories in VitaDB from Rinnegatamante.

The next feature will have the ability to launch game ROM directly without bubbles. Also adding the ability to launch N64 roms directly too without bubbles.

I would like to ask what categories to add for RetroArch and what are the best default cores for each.

For now I have these
NES - nestopia_libretro.self
SNES - snes9x2005_libretro.self
GB - gambatte_libretro.self
GBA - vba_next_libretro.self

Also looking at launching Adernaline PSP, PSX, PS Mini games directly without having to create bubbles.

Hopefully in the end, this app is an All-in-one app/game launcher.

 

[satel]

@cy33hc

did you ask others about adding ps mobile game support ?

 

[cy33hc]

@cy33hc

did you ask others about adding ps mobile game support ?

Yeah. I got PS Mobile games working. It will be included also.

 

[satel]

Yeah. I got PS Mobile games working. It will be included also.

this is great,the beautiful layout of your launcher does make a huge difference at least to me. it makes me want to play games

regarding Retroarch i can share these

Atari - 2600 : stella2014_libretro.self
Atari - 7800 : prosystem_libretro.self
Atari - Lynx : handy_libretro.self
Bandai - WonderSwan Color : mednafen_wswan_libretro.self
CaveStory : prboom_libretro.self
Commodore - 64 : vice_x64_libretro.self
GCE - Vectrex : vecx_libretro.self
Handheld Electronic Game : gw_libretro.self
Microsoft - MSX2 : fmsx_libretro.self
NEC - PC Engine : mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.self
NEC - TurboGrafx 16 : mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.self
Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System : fceumm_libretro.self
Nintendo - Famicom : nestopia_libretro.self
Nintendo - Family Computer Disk System : nestopia_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy Advance :gpsp_libretro.self but some games require vba_next_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy Color : gambatte_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy : gearboy_libretro.self
Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System : fceumm_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Famicom : snes9x2005_plus_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Nintendo Entertainment System : snes9x2005_libretro.self
Sega - Game Gear : smsplus_libretro.self
Sega - Master System - Mark III : genesis_plus_gx_libretro.self
Sega - Mega Drive - Genesis : picodrive_libretro.self
Sinclair - ZX Spectrum : fuse_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Nintendo Entertainment System : snes9x2005_plus_libretro.self
SNK - Neo Geo Pocket Color : cap32_libretro.self

there is much more but personally i prefer to just launch the Retroach app from the homebrew category

 

[cy33hc]

this is great,the beautiful layout of your launcher does make a huge difference at least to me. it makes me want to play games

regarding Retroarch i can share these

Atari - 2600 : stella2014_libretro.self
Atari - 7800 : prosystem_libretro.self
Atari - Lynx : handy_libretro.self
Bandai - WonderSwan Color : mednafen_wswan_libretro.self
CaveStory : prboom_libretro.self
Commodore - 64 : vice_x64_libretro.self
GCE - Vectrex : vecx_libretro.self
Handheld Electronic Game : gw_libretro.self
Microsoft - MSX2 : fmsx_libretro.self
NEC - PC Engine : mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.self
NEC - TurboGrafx 16 : mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.self
Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System : fceumm_libretro.self
Nintendo - Famicom : nestopia_libretro.self
Nintendo - Family Computer Disk System : nestopia_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy Advance :gpsp_libretro.self but some games require vba_next_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy Color : gambatte_libretro.self
Nintendo - Game Boy : gearboy_libretro.self
Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System : fceumm_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Famicom : snes9x2005_plus_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Nintendo Entertainment System : snes9x2005_libretro.self
Sega - Game Gear : smsplus_libretro.self
Sega - Master System - Mark III : genesis_plus_gx_libretro.self
Sega - Mega Drive - Genesis : picodrive_libretro.self
Sinclair - ZX Spectrum : fuse_libretro.self
Nintendo - Super Nintendo Entertainment System : snes9x2005_plus_libretro.self
SNK - Neo Geo Pocket Color : cap32_libretro.self

there is much more but personally i prefer to just launch the Retroach app from the homebrew category

Thx. That's quite a bit.

 

[satel]

Thx. That's quite a bit.

this is why i think it's best just to leave Retroarch as is in the Homebrew category.

any idea when can you release v 1.3 i can't wait to test Ps Mobile, also is the CopyIcons.vpk still needed for your Launcher.vpk to work ?

 

[cy33hc]

this is why i think it's best just to leave Retroarch as is in the Homebrew category.

any idea when can you release v 1.3 i can't wait to test Ps Mobile, also is the CopyIcons.vpk still needed for your Launcher.vpk to work ?

Nope. That's if you have missing icons only that you would want. You won't need it if you have under 500 bubbles becuz the vita will extract all that icons for you. But if you have over 500 bubbles, the vita cannot handle it so it won't extract the icons for the remainder.

This CopyIcons app will just extract those missing icons for you.

I mainly developed this app is for that single purpose, I couldn't access all of my games. I used Onemenu, but each time I start the app, I needed to wait for couple of minutes for it to scan all the games. And Onemenu isn't loading all the icons.

Oh, and I'm not removing RetraArch from the homebews. It's still there.

 

[satel]

Nope. That's if you have missing icons only that you would want. You won't need it if you have under 500 bubbles becuz the vita will extract all that icons for you. But if you have over 500 bubbles, the vita cannot handle it so it won't extract the icons for the remainder.

This CopyIcons app will just extract those missing icons for you.

I mainly developed this app is for that single purpose, I couldn't access all of my games. I used Onemenu, but each time I start the app, I needed to wait for couple of minutes for it to scan all the games. And Onemenu isn't loading all the icons.

Oh, and I'm not removing RetraArch from the homebews. It's still there.

thanks for the explanation & i agree OneMenu is slow & tend to crash a lot for me plus all icons for Ps Mobile are blank no images !! i can't wait for the next release of your launcher app,

btw there is an app that can auto boot your launcher,i will have to search more info about this after the next release.

 

[kristianity77]

Psp games loading from your app without having bubbles first on the vita homescreen? Wow! That's brilliant if you get that to work! Would it pull though the psp game icons, sound loops etc too when highlighting a psp game to play?

 

[jasonkhoo87]

Nice homebrew, could you submit to homebrew database so that we can update via PS Vita itself?

 

[cy33hc]

Nice homebrew, could you submit to homebrew database so that we can update via PS Vita itself?

It's in vitadb now and available in to download from HB Browser.

https://vitadb.rinnegatamante.it/#/info/583

 

[Shadicluigi]

Any way we could hide games and run them on this only?

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

[satel]

@cy33hc

i'm not sure if the option to delete games is available from your launcher if so any chance you can please release a version ( kids proof version ) where games or apps can't be deleted from your launcher ?? many thanks

 

[cy33hc]

@cy33hc

i'm not sure if the option to delete games is available from your launcher if so any chance you can please release a version ( kids proof version ) where games or apps can't be deleted from your launcher ?? many thanks

Yep. That can be easy done. And that option isn't to delete the game/app. It's to remove from the cache. I'm caching the game data in a file in the ux0:data/SMLA00001 folder. The cache is for bring starting the app quickly.

The problem is that if you uninstall a game/app the cache still have it. So that option is to remove the cache app data only. It's not removing your game