[Feature Request] Patch Picker

Background

Softpatching represents a significant advancement in RetroArch, shifting the burden of managing content patches away from the file system. However, patch releases have become so popular that you might have dozens of mutually exclusive patches for a single piece of content. This becomes cumbersome to manage, as you must rename or move files around to choose which patch is active.

Requested Feature

Enable users to place patches in the file system one time and then, within RetroArch, select which patches to apply to content before running it.

Proposed Usage

1. Adopt an extension format content.patch-name.ips[N], where .patch-name. is a user-defined key, distinguishing each patch or group of patches. Ex: My Content.Patch Name.ips, My Content.Patch Name.ips1, My Content.Another Patch.ips
2. Within the content view—the interface for setting core associations, adding favorites, etc.—introduce a "Set Patch" menu item. This feature would enable users to choose a patch/patch group from a list based on the patch-name key. Perhaps in the future, a patch hash database could pretty-print patch names automatically.
3. The menu item would also allow a "No Patch" option, making it possible to run the unpatched content, which would be valuable for both users and patch developers in testing.

Start by reviewing RetroArch's content view and its existing softpatch behavior. The feature is done when users can select a named patch group or no patch before launching content, using the proposed extension format; the issue does not name specific files or tests to run.