# Adding Shortcuts to "Retro Games" on Clockork Menu **URL:** \ **Category:** GameShell\ **Created:** [October 5, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796 "2018-10-05T20:49:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![StaticHex](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/statichex/32/105_2.png) [@StaticHex](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/StaticHex)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/1 "2018-10-05T20:49:12Z")
Hello all, This is a guide of sorts (if this has been done before I apologize; it did not come up in search). I just spent a bit of time adding a Sega Game Gear section to my retro games folder for easy access without having to load a core from retroarch every time and I thought I would share my knowledge. Before we begin, and to keep the guide from being ridiculously long; I assume you already know how to do the following. - SSH into your gameshell - Download cores from retroarch - Copy files from your computer to your gameshell Now, assuming you have all three of the bullet points above checked off; let’s get into the guide which will add a sega game gear emulator option to your retro games menu. However, the steps are basically the same for adding any emulator core to the menu so feel free to follow along. Also, for your convenience I will provide a config file and an icon for you to use in case you just want the game gear folder. I will also be dissecting the config file in the post itself in case you’d rather just create the config on your device. link to config file + image: [http://www.teragentech.net/downloads/ggear.zip](http://www.teragentech.net/downloads/ggear.zip) NOTE: You can also just download this straight to your gameshell by sshing into it and running wget [http://www.teragentech.net/downloads/ggear.zip](http://www.teragentech.net/downloads/ggear.zip) if you just want the game gear stuff and don’t want your own icon. Finally, before starting the guide; mandatory disclaimer to only use this emulator if you already own the roms you will be using as anything else is piracy and is bad. 1. Open retroarch and download the gearsystem core (or whatever core you want to download) 2. SSH into your pi and from the home directory navigate to /home/cpi/.config/retroarch/cores 3. copy gearsystem\_libretro.so to /home/cpi/apps/emulators 4. navigate to /home/cpi/apps/launcher/Menu/Gameshell/20\_Retro\ Games 5. make a new directory (mkdir GGEAR) for your emulator 6. inside the directory you created, create a file called action.config. 7. Either copy one of the action.config files from one of the other emulator folders or copy the action.config from my link above. 8. Modify the action.config with your desired settings. 9. Navigate to /home/cpi/apps/launcher/skin/default/Menu/GameShell/20\_Retro\ Games 10. copy either the .png file i gave you or whatever png file you want to appear in the retro games menu for your emulator icon. it should be noted that you need to name your .png file whatever you named your emulator folder back in step 5. e.g. if you named your folder SNES, your icon needs to be named SNES.png 11. exit the ssh session by typing exit and reboot your GameShell. you should be able to see your new icon under the retro games section (you may have to scroll with left or right) and if you click on the icon you should be brought to a menu similar to the other emulators preloaded. ## action.cfg ``` ROM=/home/cpi/games/SEGA ROM_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/gearsystem_libretro.so EXT=md,gg LAUNCHER=retroarch -L TITLE=GGEAR Roms SO_URL=https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/x86_64/2018-10-01_cores/gearsystem_libretro.so.zip ``` Most of this is pretty self-explanatory; the title is the title that displays when you boot into the emulator menu so you can put whatever you want here. The only thing I’m not sure about is the SO\_URL. I went ahead and found a link to the zip and pasted it there and that site had a lot of the other cores there but I’m not sure if that link is just for update purposes or if it actually does something under the hood. I really hope this guide helps people and if I missed anything or anyone has any trouble following the steps please feel free to comment ---
**Author:** ![Lix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lix/32/3394_2.png) [@Lix](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Lix)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/2 "2019-04-01T18:19:45Z")
I have a complicated question about the launcher file. Its hard to explain since my english is far from perfect. How would you write the code in a action.config for dos games that uses folders? Ex. I have a DOS game folder in **~/games/DOS/** and I have **.sh** scripts in **~/launcher/Menu/GameShell/20\_Retro Games/DOS** to launch all games. So when I go in the Gameshell at Retro Games - DOS, I see all my games but they are shown with round icons. I would like them to be shown as a text list, like I get with other emulators using an action.config. I tried moving all my .sh scripts to my **~/games/DOS** folder and create a new action.config in the Launcher folder but dosbox load with an error. I am using dosbox-svn through a vanilla install so I am not launching through RetroArch. So what should the action.config file look like? ---
**Author:** ![lasvegas](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lasvegas/32/769_2.png) [@lasvegas](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/lasvegas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 5:51am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/3 "2019-04-02T05:51:19Z")
Could you post a properly formatted command line to launch a DOS game? That would help in formatting the action.config file. Since I don’t currently use DOSBox, I’m not familiar with the package. ---
**Author:** ![Lix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lix/32/3394_2.png) [@Lix](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Lix)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/4 "2019-04-02T12:46:47Z")
Currently I use the code like this in a .sh **/home/cpi/dosbox-svn-master/src/dosbox ~/games/DOS/aliensyndrome/ALIEN.EXE -exit -exit** ---
**Author:** ![lasvegas](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lasvegas/32/769_2.png) [@lasvegas](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/lasvegas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/5 "2019-04-02T22:21:02Z")
Okay! Create, in the **~/games/DOS** folder a file titled, **Alien Syndrome.bat** containing the following: ```auto echo off cd aliensyndrome ALIEN.EXE -exit -exit ``` …or name the bat file **aliensyndrome.bat** and create an additional text file named, **aliensyndrome.alias** containing only: ```auto Alien Syndrome ``` Now write your **action.config** file with the following: ```auto ROM=/home/cpi/games/DOS EXT=bat LAUNCHER=~/dosbox-svn-master/src/dosbox TITLE=DOS Box Games ``` You also want to create an **action.json** file in the same folder, containing: ```auto { "ROM":"/home/cpi/games/DOS", "EXT":["bat"], "LAUNCHER":"~/dosbox-svn-master/src/dosbox", "TITLE":"DOS Box Games" } ``` That should do it! ---
**Author:** ![Lix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lix/32/3394_2.png) [@Lix](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Lix)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/6 "2019-04-02T23:21:57Z")
Wow I was far from this method. lol Thanks very much good sir, I will try this first thing in the morning. 🙂 Could not wait so I tried it right away. Well its not working, I get an error message when dosbox boot. Its pretty hard to read what it says but I think it this: **c:\call ALIENSYNDROME.BAT** **Illegal command: ALIENSYNDROME.** Found it, its the length of the names. **Dosbox cannot use names longer than 8 characters** … I then use your **.alias** method with a shorter name. Now it boot! Good. Other issue now, when I quit a game, it fall back to the dos prompt, not to the Gameshell menu… Found the solution for this. Your code become for the **action.config:** ```auto ROM=/home/cpi/games/DOS EXT=bat LAUNCHER=~/dosbox-svn-master/src/dosbox -exit -exit TITLE=DOS Games ``` And I added the same to the **action.json** ```auto { "ROM":"/home/cpi/games/DOS", "EXT":["bat"], "LAUNCHER":"~/dosbox-svn-master/src/dosbox -exit -exit", "TITLE":"DOS Games" } ``` ---
**Author:** ![lasvegas](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lasvegas/32/769_2.png) [@lasvegas](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/lasvegas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/7 "2019-04-03T03:36:45Z")
Then you’ll want to remove the **-exit -exit** from within the **bat** file. This is where you would place conditions for the specific DOS game. ---
**Author:** ![Lix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lix/32/3394_2.png) [@Lix](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Lix)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/8 "2019-04-04T22:44:30Z")
Good! Quick last question on the same subject. Would it be possible somehow to call a specific mapping file for certain games? ---
**Author:** ![r043v](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/r043v/32/672_2.png) [@r043v](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/r043v)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/9 "2019-04-04T23:15:56Z")
it seem you could have a custom conf file for each game > Different games will naturally work best with different configuration settings. Something to consider is to define a conf file for each game that will set the appropriate configurations and start the game for you. Then, create a shortcut such as DOSBox.exe -conf “DOSbox-GameName.conf” so that you can start your game in the least possible number of steps. [https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf#Creation\_and\_Location](https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf#Creation_and_Location) * * * also, it seem that instead of loading game you could load a conf file : > **[MS - DOS (DOSBox) - Libretro Docs](https://docs.libretro.com/library/dosbox/#loading-content)** > > This is RetroArch's document page, modification or development information outside of this repo may be incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Lix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/lix/32/3394_2.png) [@Lix](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Lix)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/10 "2019-04-05T00:16:11Z")
Thanks for your quick answer, I’ll try that this weekend. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rodgadala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@rodgadala](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/rodgadala)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/11 "2019-07-05T16:54:08Z")
hello can anyone help me setup shortcuts for my snes9x2010 it works from retroarch the shortcut and icon appear on the menu also the rom directory is fine but it wont run when i click a rom it just takes me back to the main menu this is what my action file looks like 🙂 ROM=/home/cpi/games/SNES9x2010 ROM\_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/snes9x2010\_libretro.so EXT=sfc,zip,smc LAUNCHER=retroarch -L TITLE=snes9x2010 SO\_URL=http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/armv7-neon-hf/latest/snes9x2010\_libretro.so.zip ---
**Author:** ![guu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@guu](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/guu)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/adding-shortcuts-to-retro-games-on-clockork-menu/1796/12 "2019-07-05T21:22:24Z")
I’ve tested this action.config with Rockman/Mega Man ,it works very well