Carbon Light
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@Flavor There really aren't any themes that work real well on very small screens. I've been asked to make a small theme, but I haven't made it very far on it yet.
The main things you need is larger font size. Which can be achieved in the main xml file pretty easily.
Pixel works ok on small screens so long as you don't scrape data. That way you are presented with the "basic" game list with only system logo and game list...
Otherwise, I suppose I should go ahead and work on the small screen theme. Do you have any suggestions when working on that one?
My idea for my Sega Nomad Raspberry Pi Zero was to have a massive screenshot, a couple lines of game name, and just the system title at the top. Like this:
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@Rookervik Thanks for the quick reply. Maybe this idea of an small LCD-specific theme should be its own topic, as I don't want to hijack this one.
The Pixel theme is a good one for just about everything besides text. I don't prefer the dark background with light text, and the highlighted (currently selected) text is tough (on pretty much all themes, really).
I like your idea of the big screenshot (or box art) with just a little text. I do also like to see a list of game names, so I know what's available. I wonder if there's a good way to combine these.
Currently, the themes that show metadata (rating, release date, publisher, etc) don't seem to show the game name. They just highlight the game name (in the list of games) in a negative color scheme.
What if you had the list in one pane and the screenshot/boxart with a LARGE version of the game name (maybe multiple lines) in the other pane. This would be like your Streets of Rage II mockup, but that would just be one pane with the list next to it.
I do get your point about the Pixel theme without the scraped data. That makes it more readable. However, I do really like the boxart, because it gives a larger representation of the game where a player doesn't need to rely on the theme text font/color.
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Sadly, and I really wish this was possible (I will add it to Zigurana's post about ES updates), you cannot put the game name anywhere on the screen other than the gamelist. I really really wish we could have the game name available as a theme element, buuuuut there's no way to add it to the theme.
Splitting the screen in half and having text on one side and pictures on the other will, in my opinion, be very hard to read. It depends on if your screen is truly 320x240 digital, or 320x240 composite where the chip actually scales a larger image down (thus making things a little easier to read)
In this example, it cuts off the text of most games -_-
I'll make a post about a low-rez theme in the main Themes section.
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@Rookervik Here are some shots of my current testing setup.
I know the photos aren't top quality, but you can see the difference in readability. Pixel is pretty bad. The other 2 are readable with the black text on the light background being the best.
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Yeah, looks like your display is digital. Mine is composite. So the chip scaled the image and made it a lot more readable than that. But I'd still rather have a digital display. Much more crisp.
We already know Meta-data has to go. There's no way you can read it on a small display, and there's no room for it.
You're right, the light background seems much more readable with dark text over it. Still, the text needs to be bigger.
Maybe keep the light theme, increase the gamelist width to fill more than half the screen and increase the font size , then squeeze the box art on the other side.
I can also hide the help text at the bottom. It's really really small on all the displays. Should also be able to make it a larger font if it's needed.
Pixel could work if the font was changed and increased in size. That's as easy as dropping a new font in the /art folder and editing the pixel.xml to use 0.3 or 0.32 or so font size on the game list.
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@Rookervik I actually have both a digital and a composite. I'm working with the digital one now, as I think it'll ultimately be better. I do like the "just works" aspect of the composite screen, though. :)
I do agree that Pixel has a nice layout and that its main downfall (for this) is the text font/color/size. I tried editing the XML, but it didn't seem to help. Maybe I did something wrong. I think the fontSize was set to 0.033 before I messed with it. If you have a pixel.xml for me to try, that'd be cool.
Is there a way to show the currently selected game in a way other than highlighting the whole line and changing the colors? I have yet to see any of the themes show the selected game in a very readable way. The most high contrast way to show the list would be white bkg with black text. Then, instead of recoloring the selected game, could it just draw a box around it, put an arrow in front of it, bold it, double its font size, etc?
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@Flavor Go ahead and post more Low Resolution suggestions over in the thread for Low Resolution...
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2700/low-resolution-theme -
Hmm, wondering if I can try something? What would happen if I removed the Meta Data names? Such as: "Released:, Developer:, Genre:," ? Would that be too confusing? So instead of this:
Released: 01/15/1997
Genre: Role Playing
Developer: NintendoIt would look like this:
01/15/1997
Role Playing
NintendoThis would make adjusting the elements WAY easier. And also anyone without meta data would see nothing, rather than a bunch of meta data names and no information.
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@Rookervik said in Carbon Light:
01/15/1997
Role Playing
NintendoThis would make adjusting the elements WAY easier. And also anyone without meta data would see nothing, rather than a bunch of meta data names and no information.
I like that idea a lot, actually. I don't think it would be confusing. What else would those things mean? In some cases, I could see the developer being slightly confusing.
01/15/1997
Role Playing
RARE"I know plenty of people that own that game. It's not rare. It's pretty common." :P
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@Flavor I'm working on it right now. Positioning the meta data is so hard. Each element is formatted a little differently, so you can't just line them all up and give them the same Y and X positioning. You have to tweak each one. -_- Also, you can't give them justification... such as: right, center, left... like you can in some of the other tags. This is another reason meta data sucks a-hole.
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I HATE META DATA! Hahahaha! It's really hard to make it look good.
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Ok, I think this theme is pretty much finished. If anyone could check the RetroPie menu for me, that would be great. I've got Pipplware installed at the moment, which has RetroPie installed but tweaked a little, so I'm missing the RetroPie menu. >_< On the plus side, the theme works on Pipplware. Haha.
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This looks really nice, will the text for unscraped lists be as big on a small screen as carbon is?
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@Belowstupid At the moment, yes. Detailed and Basic screens should have the same font size. What are your concerns?
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@Rookervik I use Carbon Centered for my adafruit 2.8" tft screen because it's the only theme with text big enough to comfortably read. I'd prefer to use a brighter theme like this if the text were big enough.
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@Belowstupid Check this thread out. https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2700/low-resolution-theme
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@Rookervik Curious if this theme will be getting video support. Still my go to theme as it supports all the platforms I use. Thanks for your work! :)
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@hooperre Did I even finish a carbon light theme? LOL. It's basically Luminous. I didn't know even a single person used it. Haha.
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@Rookervik Oh. I thought it was Luminous under a different name. Haha. My bad.
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@rookervik
Have you got a GitHub page for it?
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