Making a theme: In-depth questions (gamelist, font, hide emulationstation help... etc)

bobibrown

Hello,

So, I have an idea for a theme, which I hope I'll be able to do. It will be inspired by the alien isolation game UI, and will use video preview, and screenshots + game logo if no video preview is available.
I hope you guys can help me achieve what I have in mind.

My first question is quite simple. How do you set vertical alignment for your font in the gamelist? Is it possible? Or maybe you have to modify the font itself? If so, what software do you use?

bobibrown

I found the solution here on the forums. Too bad we can't find this in the emulationstation documentation.
So you can manipulate the selector height and offset using this:

<selectorHeight></selectorHeight>
<selectorOffsetY></selectorOffsetY>

But I have others question now.
How do you set your font size to render correctly on screen?
Some lines of my gamelist appear a little distorted.

Also how can you hide the helpsystem and replace it with your own?
Even if I use an image using zIndex to cover it, it's not working.

Because there is also this, that I had to find in forums (I don't remember where exactly, but it was way easier to find):

<zIndex></zIndex>

I renamed the topic so if I ever find solutions to all the problems I had while making my theme, which are not documented, I'll add them here.

Sorry I'm not clear enough, english is not my native language.

EctoOne

<fontSize></fontSize> inside an element is used for the font size.
To hide elements, you have to move them of screen with the <pos> tag. If you don't change the <origin>tag, <pos>-1 -1</pos>should work in most cases.
For more information, you can take a look at this: https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/blob/master/THEMES.md

bobibrown

I know how to set the font size, but what I don't know is how to set it (or chose it) so it renders properly for let's say 1920x1080. Because as of right now, I have lines that shows ok, and others that shows a little distorted (not pixel perfect)

Thanks a lot for the link, everything is there actually! How come I never found it? Even searching more information on google typing "selectorOffsetY emulationstation", I never found this page. I only get 2 results on google for this research, and this page is not one of them.

EctoOne

I have no idea why you have render issues. Have you tried a different font to see if it's a problem with the font you're using?

The document is linked in the "Create your own Emulation Station Theme" section of the docs.

bobibrown

Damn, I read the whole thing but didn't check the "important links".
Thanks a lot @EctoOne, I was completely lost.
I will check with another font.