Plugins Setup

What are WiiFlow Plugins?

WiiFlow Plugins are mostly homebrew emulator apps modified to be used by WiiFlow and return to WiiFlow.  Some others can play music, play movie files, show WUM (a WiiFlow User Manual), and allow you to browse the internet.  They come with the modified dol and matching plugin config file (.ini).  Some come with matching sound (.ogg) played when selecting a game.  The advantage to using the plugins is being able to use WiiFlow's coverflow interface to browse your emu games and movies using their covers and having one app to launch them all.  Some plugins that are available are fceugx, vbagx, snes9x-gx, genplus-gx, wii64, wiimednefan, scummvm, and mplayer-ce.  Below is a video by Mastershoes showing what your collection could look like.

Note: He also uses the Source Menu but you don't have to, you can use the plugin select menu found in settings instead.

Steps to setup your plugins

• 1. Download Abz's Masterpiece pack to get all the plugins and needed files.

  2. Extract his wiiflow/plugins/ folder to your root:/wiiflow/plugins/ folder.  Note some plugins will require additional files found in their rom directories.

  3. Install the WiiFlow Loader Hidden Channel v2.  Wii U vWii users MUST use WiiFlow Channel Installer v1.1 by Fix94 to install both the WiiFlow forwarder channel and the hidden (return to WiiFlow) channel if they have not already done so.  Wii users can do the same since the channel installer also works for Wii, or they can use a wad manager to install the WiiFlow Loader Hidden Channel v2 wad included in the wad folder of Abz's pack.  The hidden channel is needed for the plugins to properly return to WiiFlow.

Notes:

• • To use the Mplayer CE plugin you will need Mplayer CE in your root:/apps/mplayer-ce/ folder.  This can also be extracted from the apps/mplayer-ce/ folder in his pack.

  • Scummvm requires you to run scummvm normally once to create scummvm.ini and then copy it to your wiiflow plugins folder.

  • Other plugins may require files found in their roms folder or elsewhere. 

Adding roms and covers

• • You will need to open up the plugin config file (.ini) in a text editor.  Below we will use the NES plugin fceugx.ini as an example.

  • The setting 'coverFolder' tells you where the covers go.

  • The setting 'romDir' tells you where the roms and movies go.

  • Be sure your roms and movies match the 'fileTypes' list in the config file.

  • Once you get your roms, movies, and covers in the right folders you will need to rename the covers to match your rom/movie names including their extension.  The extension MUST be include in the cover image filename.  So for example, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.z64 the cover name must be Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.z64.png.

If you are an advanced user the plugin config files can be edited to your liking.  Check the descriptions below to know what each setting does.

Note: when changing paths to folders be sure to use forward slashes '/' not back slashes that your PC uses.

For Advanced Plugin Setup click here.

 [PLUGIN]

magic=46434555 //This is the magic number for the plugin.  Each plugin has it's own unique 8 digit hexadecimal magic number.  Each pair of hex digits are the ASCII value of a character so you end up with a four character ID.  You can use this Hex to ASCII converter to see what the magic number really is.  Set delimit to nothing.

46 = f, 43 = c, 45 = e, 55=u (46434555 = fceu)

arguments={device}:/{path}|{name}|{loader}  //This is the arguments sent to the plugin app itself.  For more than one argument a '|' is used to separate them and when words are in between { and } wiiflow knows to get that info and put it in place of that word. So {device} would be SD or USB for example.

coverColor=ff0000 //This is the cover spine color in hexadecimal of the games that use this plugin. So you can tell the difference between SNES games and SEGA games for example. There are only six choices - ff0000 red, 000000 black, ffffff white, fcff00 yellow, 01a300 green, and 00E360 green 2.

coverFolder=fceugx //This is the folder where your covers will be kept. This folder should be in root:/wiiflow/boxcovers/ or root:/wiiflow/covers/.  So in this example your NES full covers will go in root:/wiiflow/boxcovers/fceugx/ and flat covers in root:/wiiflow/covers/fceugx/.  Boxcovers is for your full covers (back,spine,front) and covers is for 2d flat covers (just the front no spine).  If you edit your wiiflow.ini file and change dir_box_covers and/or dir_flat_covers be sure to use those paths instead.

fileTypes=.nes|.fds|.nsf|.unf|.nez|.unif|.zip|.7z //This is a list of file extensions associated with this plugin dol. You can add or delete extensions if you want. Seperate multiple extensions with a |.

romDir=fceugx/roms //This is the folder where your roms or movies will be kept. In this example NES roms should be in root:/fceugx/roms/. If you have it in a different partition or device (SD, USB) than WiiFlow you will have to go to emu mode>config and change the partition. Note - this will affect all plugins.

dolFile=fceugx-mod9.dol //This is the name of the dol app associated with this plugin.

bannerSound=nes.ogg //This is the sound played whenever you select a game associated with this plugin.

displayname=FCEUltraGX //This is name that WiiFlow will display on screen when using the plugin select menu.

consoleCoverID=nintendo //That's for cover downloading, currently it is not used, it was meant to be used for gametdb, but for some reason this never got implemented.