Qt: Add Create game shortcut functionality

[kamfretoz]

Description of Changes

This PR adds in the ability to automatically create a desktop shortcut for a game. macOS are not included.

To use: Right click on a game in the game list -> Create Game Shortcut

Closes #8349

Preview:

Rationale behind Changes

QoL Improvements and accessibility

Suggested Testing Steps

Test creating shortcut, and see if it loads PCSX2 and the game properly.

Did you use AI to help find, test, or implement this issue or feature?

Nada

[kamfretoz]

Shortcut creation has been implemented for Windows.

2025-05-30.22-32-22.mp4

[kamfretoz]

You can now include the launch arguments before creating the shortcut.

2025-05-31.17-16-06.mp4

[bigol83]

Works great on Windows, incredible job. I am using a website with save files icons to add them manually.

[kamfretoz]

Works great on Windows, incredible job. I am using a website with save files icons to add them manually.

Thank you for testing!

In regards to the icons, i decided to not continue exploring for options as its deemed unfeasible. Therefore users will have to manually add their own icons if they desired.

[Calinou]

Is it possible to make it create a start menu shortcut as well? I want to keep my desktop free of any icons (OLED monitor), but I like having start menu entries to run apps/games quickly.

It's esssentially a matter of copying the generated shortcut to %APPDATA%/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs (then optionally a subfolder like PCSX2, if categorization is desired).

I think most of the time, when you create a desktop shortcut, you'll also want a start menu entry, so it's safe to do it automatically. People who don't want the desktop icon can remove it manually, and the start menu entry will still be available.

[kamfretoz]

Is it possible to make it create a start menu shortcut as well?

Done, now you can choose which one you want to create.
I've also made the path be XDG spec compliant.

[fthomys]

very nice, works on windows!

is it possible to add a menu when adding a shortcut to click the arguments like --fullscreen etc?

looking forward

[RedDevilus]

very nice, works on windows!

is it possible to add a menu when adding a shortcut to click the arguments like --fullscreen etc?

looking forward

https://pcsx2.net/docs/post/cli/

-fullscreen was always one dash and the most others now also with Qt GUI, just to make sure you are properly using the command-line arguments.

[chaoticgd]

Found some issues. I haven't gone over the implementation of EscapeCmdLine yet.

[chaoticgd]

Did a proper review this time. Haven't checked some of the Windows API stuff, someone else should look over that.

[SpAGgeTtie]

where can I download this?

[fthomys]

where can I download this?

Currently you need to build pcsx2 by yourself.
See https://pcsx2.net/docs/advanced/building and using this branch

[chaoticgd]

Had another look.

[JordanTheToaster]

Works as expected on Windows.

[chaoticgd]

Found some more issues. Still haven't reviewed all the Windows API stuff.

[chaoticgd]

This is looking good on Linux now. The history is a bit messy, so it should probably be squashed.

I still haven't looked at a lot of the Windows API stuff, so someone else needs to review that. I'm particularly worried about how the command line arguments are escaped on Windows. The fact that environment variables are substituted implies it may be doing a trip through cmd.exe, although I'm not sure if there's any other quirks with how it's parsed, so someone else will have to look into it.

[kamfretoz]

The history is a bit messy, so it should probably be squashed.

Squashed.

[TheLastRar]

I still haven't looked at a lot of the Windows API stuff, so someone else needs to review that. I'm particularly worried about how the command line arguments are escaped on Windows. The fact that environment variables are substituted implies it may be doing a trip through cmd.exe, although I'm not sure if there's any other quirks with how it's parsed, so someone else will have to look into it.

I got asked to look into this, unfortunately I'm unfamiliar with this area of Windows, so most of what I've picked out was either testing or googling.

While shortcuts do resolve environment variables, they don't seem to handle any cmd's metacharacters
I tested specifically & and ^, both had no effect in a shortcut, which suggests cmd isn't involved.
Some googling suggests that Windows uses IContextMenu::InvokeCommand for invoking shortcuts (somehow?) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/links#link-files

As an aside, Everyone quotes command line arguments the wrong way suggests that you need to escape \n and \v, while I don't think you are going to encounter those, adding those should be simple enough.

As for the shortcut creation code, it seems to align with MS's example code.

[kamfretoz]

Addressed everything.

[TellowKrinkle]

I assume you've tested this with paths that contain all the characters you escape (so \, $, %, ", and ` on Linux) to make sure the escaping is parsed properly by the system?

[kamfretoz]

After further testing, turns out there were MORE cases that were unexpectedly handled incorrectly. whoowee i sure do love FreeDesktop Desktop Entry's simple specification!

Drafting for now.

[kamfretoz]

I tested them again and while PCSX2's CLI parser doesn't seem to work with all of them yet, the .desktop file output does seem to work.

[GovanifY]

First, let me preface that I don't really want to let this PR stay in forever limbo and so I'm putting all of this as comments and I'm not requesting formally changes.

The special character handling seems a bit too complex for my liking, the strcspn usage seems like it could easily break, although unsure if it does in this current situation.

WriteLnFmt feels like it could be abused if the name contains format specifies and is then piped to printf.

Also, why do we need an async wanring at all? I assume if a shortcut creation fail, you can just call the warning and then return.

There's a bunch of code duplication in EscapeShortcutCommandLine where the ifdef shouldn't apply to most of the code.

Besides that it looks like a bunch of work went into this PR so kudos! Just make sure to test with a bunch of weird names on purpose to see if you can break the implem

[GovanifY]

I'm assuming everything got tested; If so probably good enough to merge for now and fix later should issues arise

[GovanifY]

A few hours of trial and error can save you 10 minutes of windows testing

[TheTechnician27]

I get this when I download and run the AppImage of the PR.

[chaoticgd]

Looks like the same issue as before. It was probably accidentally reverted somehow.

[kamfretoz]

Looks like the same issue as before. It was probably accidentally reverted somehow.

Whoops, fixed.

[GovanifY]

Advienne que pourra