Game List and Gif ideas (ES)

[lilbud]

@paffley well, if we have a carousel that shows only the box art. I think it would be good to also have the 'md_title' so that you could be able to tell which game is what. Or if you have a special name for it, it will show.

Also, I just think that 'md_title' would be a good addition to ES as a whole.

[paffley]

@lilbud I totally agree that a md_title would be a good option but I'm believing the gamelist carousel is going to be a separate class than to the <textlist name="gamelist"> therefore it is still optional to display the game title name within the theme if set to 0.08 in height, think of it as the same method as the md_players etc.

But.....like I say and totally agree with you, any new addition to the md_ family is always a great option! :)

Keep em flowing :D

[paffley]

This post is deleted!

[paffley]

It wouldn't let me upload a pic :|

[lilbud]

@paffley said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Keep em flowing :D

Oh, you want ideas for new ES additions? I'll get back to you once I eat breakfast, got a long list. :)

[paffley]

@lilbud said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

@paffley said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Keep em flowing :D

Oh, you want ideas for new ES additions? I'll get back to you once I eat breakfast, got a long list. :)

haha I like it! :D...lets see if your list is as big as mine *high5

[lilbud]

@paffley okay, got some ideas.

• Bilinear scaling for boxart - the scaling of box art looks awful with nearest neighbor. Maybe bilinear would make the boxart look better scaled.

• ES element scaling - there are a few themes that have very specific positions for certain elements. They have to be designed at certain resolutions and will not work at others. I was wondering if ES could be modified to scale elements to any resolution.

• This is more for when a image carousel is made, but maybe we can have the option to use the marquee as the image on the carousel.

And now some ideas going forward towards 3.0.0

• Videos on the system view

• the obvious plug for gridview.

[RichardBr]

@lilbud This looks nice, but yeah would be great if you add the title of the game in, like clicking on the game and the title also appears. I didn't read the below posts so I'm not sure you fixed this already. If so, don't worry about my comment :)

[paffley]

@lilbud

• Videos on the system view

Thumbs up

[EctoOne]

@lilbud said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

• This is more for when a image carousel is made, but maybe we can have the option to use the marquee as the image on the carousel.

I like that. I recently did a full reinstall of my system and while doing that I rescraped all images and this time I separated them all in different subfolders while using the same filename (without suffix). With that I'm able to change what image I want to use as marquee (or boxart) by simply search/replace the folder in my gamelists.
But I wish there was something like <imagetype>boxart|marquee|screenshot (whenever we get that added to the gamelist)</imagetype>.

Edit: I meant that i can change my image type by renaming the folders directly and not that i have to edit my gamelists.
And i also want that <imagetype>tag for md_video so that we can select which image should be shown when using showSnapshotDelay.

[paffley]

@Zigurana The more I'm thinking of this, the more I'm swaying towards @lilbud 's idea of using the md_marquee as the carousel. This would then give the option to display boxart also and optional title name.

Whats your thoughts?

[EctoOne]

I would prefer boxart images as the carousel and to get md_name as optional element, because I asked for md_name for some reason i can't remember before.

But now that i think of it, the option to set which type of image we want to use is important. Because if someone wants to use marquees as carousel and edits the gamelists to have md_image to show marquees instead of boxart and vise versa, it would (maybe) break some themes that uses the delay thing for videos. It then would display the marquee as well before starting the videos and the boxart can be also look weird when it's shown by using md_marquee.

For someone like me, that wouldn't be a big problem, because i use my personal theme. But even if i wanted to test other themes they might look weird, just because of the way i've set up my gamelist (i already have that problem by using screenshots as marquees).

[Zigurana]

From the programming side of things, this is not really an issue, you want to have a carousel element where the theme definition sets the source of images.
Now the real question is: do you want to enable your end-users to set the source, or should it be locked in the theme (requiring changes to the xml to change the source).

[paffley]

@ectoone said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

I would prefer boxart images as the carousel and to get md_name as optional element, because I asked for md_name for some reason i can't remember before.

But now that i think of it, the option to set which type of image we want to use is important. Because if someone wants to use marquees as carousel and edits the gamelists to have md_image to show marquees instead of boxart and vise versa, it would (maybe) break some themes that uses the delay thing for videos. It then would display the marquee as well before starting the videos and the boxart can be also look weird when it's shown by using md_marquee.

For someone like me, that wouldn't be a big problem, because i use my personal theme. But even if i wanted to test other themes they might look weird, just because of the way i've set up my gamelist (i already have that problem by using screenshots as marquees).

Very good points there @EctoOne

[paffley]

@zigurana said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Now the real question is: do you want to enable your end-users to set the source, or should it be locked in the theme (requiring changes to the xml to change the source).

@Zigurana I think both your points are valid, it all depends on the theme creator, is it a nes classic style carousel (boxart) or a hyperspin style carousel (wheel/marquee). This is where the option would be great in the xml, to pick what is the source.

Update: The above could also be used by the end user renaming the folder to the relevant md_ as @EctoOne suggested in his personal build.

[EctoOne]

@zigurana said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Now the real question is: do you want to enable your end-users to set the source, or should it be locked in the theme (requiring changes to the xml to change the source).

That's a hard question.
Normally i would say that a way for users to choose what to show would be best but the problem here would be that some themes are pretty restricted in terms of element positions. So a theme can look good because it's optimized for a marquee carousel but it might look weird when using boxart.

The problem with having the carousel determined by the theme is that maybe some creators want to offer both variants and therefore have to maintain multiple variants. This would be the lesser problem IMO.
Another solution would be to add some sort of new view type where the themer can create layouts for both options inside the theme and it then would use whatever the user selects.

Example:

 <view name="detailed" type="boxart">
  <carousel name="systemcarousel">
   <imagetype>boxart</imagetype>
some position settings and stuff
  </carousel>
 <view name="detailed" type="marquee">
  <carousel name="systemcarousel">
   <imagetype>marquee</imagetype>
different position settings and stuff
  </carousel>

I assume that this would be overkill to add tho, so i would say that the themer should decide what to use. And if they want to have both options available they can "simply" offer one. With that solution there will be no problems with breaking other themes (at least none that i can think of right now).

Speaking of it, will the carousel have the same theming options as the system carousel? Like can we make a vertical or vertical_wheel one? If so, was there any progress made on adding the horizontal_wheel option?

[paffley]

My thoughts are just to use the md_marquee tag for the carousel, the user can then decide what to put in the marquee folder, wheelart, boxart, screenshot etc. This way it is a separate entity and everything can be kept 'as-is' without jeopardising anybody's current setup.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

Personal build...

Those are collections on the carousel wheel, I'm thinking maybe the vertical_wheel on the gamelist view could look very similar.

[sturbek]

Second vote for a minimal graphics only theme using Marquee art.

Here’s a rough mock-up of a vertical carousel, with the selected game highlighted
https://m.imgur.com/0F981lZ

[darknior]

@lilbud said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Videos on the system view

I like all your ideas, but this one is the most important for me :)

I have create a new thread for the other idea i have with some mockup to come...
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/15029/savestate-loading-from-es-like-on-snesmini-with-screenshot

[paffley]

Hey @Zigurana any more thoughts on this? What do you think regarding a marquee only carousel?