Configuration

A clean setup means creating a mehstation database from scratch. You will need to configure each platform (which are the emulators, the virtual machines, and so on) and each of their executables (which are the roms of the emulators, the images for the virtual machines, etc.)

To do so, a complete configuration tool called mehstation-config has been created.

The full list of steps to setup mehstation:

1. Init the configuration file and database
2. Configuring mehstation: the resolution, fullscreen or not, etc.
3. Creating a platform in mehstation-config
4. Setting some resources for the platform: a name, an icon, a background to use in the menu, the command to execute,
5. Adding executables to the platform: for each executable you can fill information such as: the filepath of the executable, a full description, an icon, screenshots, fan arts, a preview video, etc.
6. Repeat at step 2 for each platform.

The steps 3 to 4 could be automatized due to features in mehstation-config such as "Automatically scrape games resources" and "Import from EmulationStation".

Step 1 - Init the configuration file and database

You just have to start the mehstation executable to initialize the database and the mehstation.conf file. As it'll probably be the first launch, you can take the time to configure the mapping of your keyboard.

See Mapping to do again the mapping step.

Step 2 - Configuring mehstation

Simple step, the first thing to do is to edit the mehstation.conf file to customize some of the runtime options: the resolution, do you want to have a fullscreen window, the repetition frequency of the input...

Linux

The file can be found in:

~/.config/mehstation

Windows

The file can be found in:

C:/Users/<USER>/AppData/Local/mehstation

Where <USER> is your account username.

Step 3 - Creating a platform

In the mehstation directory, there is a file called database.db. This file contains all the information to display the platforms, the executables, their images and so on.

A tool called mehstation-config has been created to easily edit this file and configure your assets. Starts mehstation-config, it'll automatically opens your database.db file (if it doesn't or if you want to open a custom mehstation database.db file, go to the menu File > Open then indicate the location to open it).

If you were previously using EmulationStation, you can import your existing emulators configuration. (See Import from EmulationStation)

Your database.db is ready for edition. To create a platform, click on the 'Add platform' button in the bottom left of the window. The name of the platform will be prompted, and when finally provided, the platform will be added.

Step 4 - Configuring a platform

You can now click on the newly created platform to start editing it.

Two tabs are available on the right:

• The first tab 'Executables' is here to configure each executable of the platform.
• The second tab 'Platform settings' are a few fields to configure the platform itself.

Directly goes to the second tab to edit the platform settings.

Fields explanation:

• Platform name: the name displayed inside mehstation for this platform
• Command: which command should be launched to start this platform. Important: an extra parameter %exec% must be set to indicate to the launcher where the executable file must be replaced. Ex:
  • /usr/bin/dosbox %exec%
  • C:\Emulators\RetroArch.exe -L core.dll %exec%
• Icon filepath: the icon which will be displayed for this platform in mehstation
• Background filepath: the background to display when this platform is selected in the mehstation platforms list.

Don't forget to click on the "Save" button to apply the changes.

Step 5 - Add executables to the platform

NOTE - If the platform is an emulator and you want to automatically configure all your games go to "Automatically scrape games resources".

You'll now need to add the executables you want to launch with this platform. Go back to the tab 'Executables' and click on the 'New executable' button. A new executable will be created and selected in the list and you'll have something like this:

Basics

Right now, you can start editing the information on the executable in the 'Basics' tab.

Fields explanation:

• Name: the name that will be displayed inside mehstation
• Filepath: this is where you direct to the file that the platform will need to execute (it will replace the %exec% flag set in the platform launch command). For example, if the platform is an emulator, the filepath would be the absolute filepath to the ROM to start the emulator with.
• Genres, Publisher, Developer, Release date, Players, Rating and Description: extra information you can set on this executable, which will be displayed inside mehstation.

This is straight-forward but don't forget to save your changes by clicking on the "Save" button.

Resources

After having set those basics information, you can add resources to the executable to have a nicer display of the executables' information inside mehstation. Nothing is mandatory here but to add some of them create a really nicer overview of the executable during the executable selection.

There is 5 kind of resources:

• Screenshot: screenshots displayed at the bottom of the executable description, to display what the executable looks like, these images can also be used as the background image during the executable selection.
• Fanart: a fan-art is displayed in the same manner as the screenshots inside mehstation.
• Cover: the cover is the main image representing the executable, it is displayed in the top-right corner inside mehstation. For example with an emulated game, it would be the box cover of the game.
• Logo: the logo is most-of-the-time a nice banner of the title of the executable.
• Video: if provided, mehstation will play a video during the executable selection. It's great to be able to preview what'll be launched.

Creating a resource:

1. Click on the 'New resource button',
2. Select the filepath of the resource (except for videos, a preview of the image will be available),
3. Select the type of the resource,
4. Finally, save.

If you want to have a lot of resources into the executable, there is keyboard shortcuts set on the actions ('Save' can for example be activated by doing Alt-S, 'Screenshot' can be selected by doing Alt-T, ...).