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Kart!!

:warning: This repo and project is defunct. It is not maintained and was originally created when Electron was named Atom Shell.

Kart is a frontend to the amazing multi-emulating system RetroArch.

Kart aspires to be an extremely simple front end that lets you get up and running fast with a classy way to pick and choose your games.

Kart is targeted at running on a TV in an HTPC type set up, but can be run from a desktop window just fine.

kart emulator retroarch frontend

Platforms

Kart is powered by Electron, a cross platform application shell.

While it's being developed in Mac OS X, Electron is multi-platform so Kart will easily eventually work on Windows and Linux.

Tech Stack

From the Electron README:

Electron lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on node.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.

Electron wraps up Chromium and integrates it with Node.js so you have access to the local system. This allows for really fast iterative development for an application of this nature.

Kart is developed using these technologies.

How To Use

Kart is very simple right now. To use it, click on the settings button and set your paths.

Settings

There are only 2 settings for Kart right now. That's all it needs!

Convention over Configuration

Kart follows a model of Convention over Configuration. Instead of making you specify a million different things or keeping a library of metadata, Kart makes certain assumptions. This means as long as you follow some set guidelines, it's very easy to set up.

For example, the name of a game is taken from it's rom's filename. The art for the game should have the same name as the rom. By using this convention, its easy to load in all of your roms without a complicated scanning process.

tl;dr

Configuring Kart is actually pretty easy, here's the gist:

Rom Directories

Your roms should be organized into directories based on the console they are for. You should have a single rom directory that contains them. Your rom directory hierarchy should look like this:

/roms
  /gb
  /gba
  /megadrive
  /nes
  /snes
    /Super Mario World.smc

Your rom names should be named exactly how you want to them appear in Kart.

Rom Art Directories

Art for your roms should be inside a directory named images within each console's directory. Art for each rom should have the exact same file name as the rom it's for. The art should also be a PNG.

/roms
  /snes
    /images
      /Super Mario World.png

Simply add this directory and add the art for all of the roms you want to show up.

Kart uses Steam styled art. You can find art for your games all over the internet, but the easiest place to find it is http://steambanners.booru.org.

Supported Consoles

Right now, kart only supports these consoles (directory names are in parenthesis):

Console Art

Add an image.png image to a console's directory to set it's art.

Key Navigation

Kart supports browsing by the keyboard.

The keys up, down, left, rigth, enter, esc all do exactly what you'd think they do.

In addition, backspace is an alias for esc to allow you to map controls better.

For best results, use a keyboard mapper to map your joystick/controller to these keys so you can navigate Kart with your controller.

RetroArch Configuration

In the future, Kart will provide it's own bundled version of RetroArch or the ability to download a pre-configured one. But for now you need to use your own.

There are a few assumptions made about your RetroArch setup.

First, every console needs to have it's own config. Inside that config should have a setting for the libretro emulator core you want to use.

For example for :

libretro_path = "/Applications/retroarch/libretro/libretro-snes9x-next.dylib"

The libretro_path is the minimum required setting, but you can add any extra settings that you want. This may be different key settings, filters, or whatever.

Your config hierarchy should look like this:

/retroarch
  /config
    /gb
    /gba
    /megadrive
    /nes
    /snes
      /retroarch.cfg

Again, in the future this will be simpler.

Roadmap

Kart is in it's early days. It's extremely simple right now, but there are lots of plans.

Hopefully, by the time Kart is more mature, downloading it and setting it up will be easy as pie.

Development

To get started working on Kart:

Voila, Kart will be running.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome and encouraged. Please create pull request from a feature branch.