How to add custom catalogue systems?

Customisation
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This question is related to the latest release of Golden Goose. How do I add a custom catalogue system? I see things on forums talking about a global.ini file located in info/assign, but my system doesn’t have the assign folder, and I can’t find any configuration file that lets me edit the mapping for the systems and the catalogue folders. What I’ve done so far is add a custom system so under the “Game” menu where it lists all your systems, I have a custom system that is not one of the defaults in the OS. I want to add the box art to those games and need a way to add a catalogue category for it. Any information you can provide on this?

Thanks,

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Hey did you ever figure this out? I’ve got a bunch of systems I can’t add box art too bc they’re not in the catalogue.. and yea I was thinking of just trying to create a new folder using the name of the roms folder (or even what MuOS is displaying it as) and then copying the file structure that it requires but I don’t think that’ll work bc of that .ini file you mentioned and I have no idea how to create that or anything..

it’s weird it’s set up like this.. rly wish they could’ve just let us have the box art stored in a folder within the systems rom folder itself like I’ve seen on other CFW’s/frontends. Would’ve made things so much easier. I also find it strange that muOS identifies most of my rom folders correctly and displays the names right inside the content list (like for “FDS” it’ll display as “Nintendo Famicom Disk System”) yet it’s weird it doesn’t have a corresponding folder in the catalogue.

Crazy how few people I’ve seen even talk about this also. It had to reword my question like 10x in Google to even find this post as it just kept giving me like general info on the on adding box art to MuOS. Surprised more people haven’t been talking about it and wanting box art for their other systems (especially since there’s a lot of systems the catalogue doesn’t include)

so if you or anyone knows how to fix this I’d rly appreciate it! Thx

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The frustration here is interesting to say the least, but calling it “weird” is really just projecting expectations from other CFWs and frontends onto a system that was intentionally designed differently. We created MustardOS to not be built around static, name locked folder structures. Most other frontends assume a rigid relationship similar to:

Content Folder Name
  - fixed system id
  - fixed artwork folder

Now, that approach looks simple, but it comes with major limitations. For us, folders are content containers, not system identifiers.

You can name folders literally anything, nest them however you want, and even mix organisational schemes (genre, region, alphabetical, etc.). What actually matters is the system + core assignment, not the folder name or location. Once content is assigned, it resolves artwork through our catalogue system, not through the content path itself.

This is very much intentional…

Keeping artwork inside content folders sounds convenient until you want to

  • Reorganise content folders without breaking artwork
  • Use the same content set with different folder layouts
  • Share artwork across multiple collections
  • Avoid duplicated stuff across mSD cards

By simply decoupling content…

  • Your content can move freely, you can even mix content from different systems
    • As long as you assign the correct system and core…
  • Artwork stays consistent
  • Assignments remain valid regardless of structure

That is why our catalogue system exists, and why users should not manually create or edit catalogue folders. Let me give you a bit more of an idea, you could have something like this:

Fun Coin Op Arcade Games
  ├─ Adventure
  │   └─ Fun adventure game!
  ├─ Platform
  │   ├─ Hard Hat
  │   └─ Lode Runner
  ├─ Racing
  │   ├─ Cannonball
  │   └─ F1 Championship
  └─ Shoot 'em up
      └─ Cowboys

You then press SELECT on the Fun Coin Op Arcade Games folder, assign MAME Arcade recursively, and everything under it automatically resolves to:

Arcade/box
Arcade/splash
Arcade/text
etc.

No need for renaming folders. This flexibility is the entire point of the catalogue and using the correct assigned system. Okay, so about “FDS showing correctly but missing from the catalogue”… This is a misunderstanding of two separate systems:

  • Friendly Folder Names
    This only changes how folder labels are displayed in the frontend, nothing more. You can see the file at MUOS/info/name/folder.json and modify it if so desired.

  • Catalogue / Artwork Resolution
    This is driven by system assignment, not display names. Has nothing to do with the aforementioned naming schemes.

So when FDS displays as Nintendo Famicom Disk System, nothing magical is happening on your mSD card. The filesystem remains unchanged. It is simply a UI label change. Also, for the record the catalogue entry does exist:

So if artwork is not showing, it’s not because the catalogue is missing. It’s because the content hasn’t been assigned to that system/core correctly. And if for some reason the catalogue folder has not been created, you can head to the Task Toolkit found in Applications and run the Refresh Automatic Core Assign task.

So just wanting again to reiterate here…

  • You do not create or modify catalogue folders
  • You do assign systems and cores to content
  • The system then resolves artwork automatically

Nothing needs “fixing” because it’s not broken. The system is working exactly as designed. It just doesn’t follow the assumptions, and your expectations, set by older, static frontend systems. Hopefully that clears things up for you, and that one day it will click for you.

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