Hi.

I have created a simple script that can be used to toggle the command line access on and off in RetroPie.

You may ask “why on Earth would I want to do that!?”, well by turning the command line access off it means you get a nice fade-to-black when opening or exiting a game, instead of lines of text.

With my toggle script you can turn it on and off at will, so if you decided you need to tweak something via command line, turn command line access back on again and away you go. When finished, turn it off again. Sounds simple… and it is, but it is effective and in my opinion it makes all the difference having a smooth fade through black instead of lines of code, but each to their own Im sure.

Anyways – enough of my rambling, here is how to install my script should you be interested:

Download this attachment:

[attachment file=”102242″]

– extract the zip file contents and you should be left with a folder named “text_switcher”. Copy the folder onto your Raspberry Pi via FTP (or using Linux, if you run it), into the /home/pi/ directory, so it should look like:

/home/pi/text_switcher/

Now log into the pi via SSH and type in the following exactly:

cd text_switcher/
sudo ./install.sh

It is very important that you are inside the ‘text_switcher’ directory when running the above install script, so do not run it from another directory as it will not work!

Your Pi will now reboot and you will notice 2 extra items in the RetroPie menu. Select Command_Line_Disable to turn off command line access, allowing smooth fades between game switching, and select Command_Line_Enable to turn access back on again (at the cost of showing command line text between game selection / exit).

It is now safe to delete the “text_switcher” folder in /home/pi/, but do not delete the /home/pi/backup/ folder! This is where the magic takes place! ;)

I have also attached a cmdline.txt file which if you copy over into you boot partition (replaces the existing file so you may want to create a backup!), it will turn off all boot text, logo and splash screen, for a 100% clean look throughout.

Hope this helps people who are wanting that clean look. Appreciate it is not for everyone, but this is how I like it and having the option to switch command line access back on without using SSH or FTP is somewhat handy.

Cheers.
Steve

Please ensure you use this attachment:[attachment file=”102242″] for the installer.

The other text switcher attachment has the wrong directory name (text_switcher (copy) ) but I cant seem to delete it from my post?! :s