Help using pdxinfo and card.png

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1

I'm trying to pin down why my card.png does not work. (I don't have hardware, but it ought to show up in the .pdx Finder icon on Mac, with spacebar/Quick Look, right? The Flippy Fish example shows its card that way.)

The docs say your pdxinfo imagePath can point to EITHER a single image, or a directory with specific contents.

To keep it simple, I'm using just a single 350x155 card file for now: "card.png" (no transparency) in root alongside pdxinfo. My pdxinfo is:

name=Playtime
author=Morgan Adams, Adams Immersive
description=A quirky timepiece to fidget with.
bundleID=com.adamsimmersive.playtime
version=1.0
imagePath=card.png

EDIT: This does work fine just like this. See solution below for the right way to test a card image.

But no luck... However, the docs also say: "At minimum, all games should include card.png and a launchImage.png"

So do you always need a "launchImage.png" as well, or not? If I do need it, how do I specify it, if I'm using the single image instead of a directory for imagePath?

(I tried just making a 400x240 launchImage.png, and throwing into root as well, but my card.png still doesn't work in Quick Look.)

TIA!

2

imagePath should lead to the folder that will contain specific images, not to the file:

 ​imagePath=assets/launcher/
3

Quick look of the pdx is sometimes showing the launch card, but not always. So you shouldn't rely on it to check if your launch card work on not.

To check the launch card, the best way is to put the pdx in PlaydateSDK/Disk/Games and to launch the simulator. Your game should be listed in the system menu.

I never tested imagePath with just an image but I would think you will have to drop the file extension (the png file will be converted in a different file format when the project is build)

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4

Cool, I did not know about the Disk/Games folder! I don't think it's in the docs. I also see the Data folder, which answers a question I was going to ask next :slight_smile: Thanks.

Turns out my card image already does work just fine as is. (I'll ignore Quick Look now that I know a better way to tell!)

The way I had it in pdxinfo (single filename.png, not a directory) does work fine—and no need for launchImg. (I see that one of the examples, SpriteCollisionMasks, does it that same way.)

imagePath=card.png
5

Yeah, I forgot that you need to "install" the game

6

A shortcut will also do

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7

I'm still trying to get this to work (even for FlappyBird) - on Windows, I put FlappyBird pdx into PlaydateSDK/Disk/Games and the text shows the game is there, but still not sure where to see the card/etc. images, but it's no place I can find so far. I can't really explore to find out as I get into a 'you need to register' doom loop:

(and I can't register either, as described here):

So, I'm currently 0 for 2 (can't see any card/etc images, can't register the simulator).

9

Well, I finally got the sim registered (not quite sure how, was just poking at things and some sequence 'worked'): Where are the card images?

But still don't see any card images anywhere (see second half of image above). Where should I be looking?

Edit: Ok... 2 rabbit holes solved.

You just have to know how to show the card images... there doesn't seem to be a system or other menu for it. You just have to know to press 'Up' on the D-pad. And there they are.

10

I can see how that might not be obvious if you don't have a device full of games! The Home screen is a scrolling list of all your games (plus Settings), which starts out at zero games in the Simulator, until you add one or more pdx's.

I guess I knew from PD marketing vids that the Home screen is a list of cards, so I scrolled up/down with the D-Pad without considering how I knew to do that. (The crank works too.)

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11

Placing a symlink in .../PlaydateSDK/Disk/Games has been very helpful, but I still couldn't get my card.png to appear in either the simulator or on a device until I realized that my pdxinfo file was not in my source folder, so my pdx contained a generic pdxinfo file that did not have an imagePath set.

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