Game actions

Introduction

Extensions can "inject" game actions dynamically when a game is started rather then assigning them permanently to a game. How this works is that when starting a game, Playnite asks all installed plugins if they know how to handle specific operation for a selected game and if they return controller for that specific action, Playnite will give user an option to use implementation from those plugins.

Note

Make sure you are returning actions only for games your plugin is able to handle properly. For example by checking if game's source PluginId matches yours if you are implementing a controller for a library plugin. You should not be returning any controllers for a game that you can't provide support for.

Play actions

Play actions control how a game is started and are also responsible for play time tracking. To implement play action handling, override GetPlayActions method from your plugin and return PlayController object implementing game startup functionality.

In your play controller: call InvokeOnStarted after the game is started and InvokeOnStopped when the game stops running. InvokeOnStopped should provide information about last game session, mainly how long the session lasted, for Playnite to record play time properly.

"Automatic" play actions

If game startup procedure for your plugin doesn't require any special handling, you can use AutomaticPlayController to simplify play action controller implementation. AutomaticPlayController mirrors functionality of manual play action configuration you can assign via Playnite UI, it provides the same fields and functionality.

public override IEnumerable<PlayController> GetPlayActions(GetPlayActionsArgs args)
{
    yield return new AutomaticPlayController(args.Game)
    {
        Type = GenericPlayActionType.File,
        TrackingMode = TrackingMode.Process,
        Name = "Notepad",
        Path = "notepad.exe"
    };
}

Install and uninstall actions

Similar to how Play controllers are implemented, override GetInstallActions and/or GetUninstallActions methods. Install controllers should provide GameInstallationData when calling InvokeOnInstalled for installation status to be set properly.

Examples

You can check built-in Playnite extensions for various examples of controller implementations.