EmulationStation has a few dependencies. For building, you'll need CMake, SDL2, Boost (System, Filesystem, DateTime, Locale), FreeImage, FreeType, and cURL. You also should probably install the `fonts-droid` package which contains fallback fonts for Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters, but ES will still work fine without it (this package is only used at run-time).
(Remember to copy necessary .DLLs into the same folder as the executable: probably FreeImage.dll, freetype6.dll, SDL2.dll, libcurl.dll, and zlib1.dll. Exact list depends on if you built your libraries in "static" mode or not.)
(If you don't know how to use CMake, here are some hints: run cmake-gui and point it at your EmulationStation folder. Point the "build" directory somewhere - I use EmulationStation/build. Click configure, choose "Visual Studio [year] Project", fill in red fields as they appear and keep clicking Configure (you may need to check "Advanced"), then click Generate.)
When first run, an example systems configuration file will be created at `~/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg`. `~` is `$HOME` on Linux, and `%HOMEPATH%` on Windows. This example has some comments explaining how to write the configuration file. See the "Writing an es_systems.cfg" section for more information.
**Both new and old devices can be (re)configured at any time by pressing the Start button and choosing "CONFIGURE INPUT".** From here, you may unplug the device you used to open the menu and plug in a new one, if necessary. New devices will be appended to the existing input configuration file, so your old devices will remain configured.
**If your controller stops working, you can delete the `~/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg` file to make the input configuration screen re-appear on next run.**
The `es_systems.cfg` file contains the system configuration data for EmulationStation, written in XML. This tells EmulationStation what systems you have, what platform they correspond to (for scraping), and where the games are located.
**NOTE:** A system *must* have at least one game present in its "path" directory, or ES will ignore it! If no valid systems are found, ES will report an error and quit!
`%BASENAME%` - Replaced with the "base" name of the path to the selected ROM. For example, a path of "/foo/bar.rom", this tag would be "bar". This tag is useful for setting up AdvanceMAME.
`%ROM_RAW%` - Replaced with the unescaped, absolute path to the selected ROM. If your emulator is picky about paths, you might want to use this instead of %ROM%, but enclosed in quotes.
The gamelist.xml file for a system defines metadata for games, such as a name, image (like a screenshot or box art), description, release date, and rating.
If at least one game in a system has an image specified, ES will use the detailed view for that system (which displays metadata alongside the game list).
*You can use ES's [scraping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping) tools to avoid creating a gamelist.xml by hand.* There are two ways to run the scraper:
* **If you want to scrape multiple games:** press start to open the menu and choose the "SCRAPER" option. Adjust your settings and press "SCRAPE NOW".
* **If you just want to scrape one game:** find the game on the game list in ES and press select. Choose "EDIT THIS GAME'S METADATA" and then press the "SCRAPE" button at the bottom of the metadata editor.
You can also edit metadata within ES by using the metadata editor - just find the game you wish to edit on the gamelist, press Select, and choose "EDIT THIS GAME'S METADATA."
By default, EmulationStation looks pretty ugly. You can fix that. If you want to know more about making your own themes (or editing existing ones), read [THEMES.md](THEMES.md)!
