Pixel Theme

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik

I love the look of the Pixel theme, but is there a way to get the game's metadata (game summary and number of players are the main ones I care about) in the space under the main image, instead of the console details?

[Rookervik]

@mattrixk Yep, code it! It's pretty easy!* I meant to do it months ago but... yeah.

*"easy" depends on your region and your background

[Rookervik]

There's currently a massive debate on what is the most important meta data to include. One persons' most-important is much different from the next persons'. The only way to make everyone happy is to put all of the meta data in that bottom right area. But that doesn't give us enough room for description.

I could use a different font and make it much smaller and fit everything, but that would look nasty against the pixel art. I really don't think there's a great way to add it and make people happy.

I say if you really want those couple of metadatas, you can use my theme helper and work the code. It's really not too bad once you understand the percents.

If I have 20 or 30 people ask me for the same meta data, and we all agree that's what needs to go there, then by all means, I will add it. It's just so blooming hard to make everyone happy without making someone else post irate ramblings against it. :-(

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik I've downloaded Pixel v8 and your Helper tool, and I found this url:

https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/blob/master/THEMES.md

So I have enough to get me started. I don't have any dirext xml experience, but I do have HTML/CSS/PHP/JS experience, so I might be able to muddle my way through. I think I'll also get the files for the Carbon theme and compare it to Pixel. I might have the time for it this weekend (but probably won't get to it for a few weeks knowing my time management skills).

The next step for me after this would be integrating it with the Child Friendly version.

[Rookervik]

@mattrixk

Knowing that ES goes by a "Percentage of Screen" measurement system should help you. "0.5" is 50% across the screen, or 50% the size of the screen. Depending on which tag you're editing.

So the <image> tag will have a <size> or even <maxSize> ....

<size>0.5 0.25</size>

would make the image 50% of the screen wide, and 25% of the screen tall. First number is X (width) and second is Y (height)

Let me know if I can help more. I really intended to add the meta data myself, but found there wasn't really enough room.

[mattrixk]

Thanks @Rookervik

The space issue was one I noticed too. I was actually considering doing some rejiggering to the space everything takes up. I was going to make the border squares about half the size, and make the main (box art/screenshot) image smaller so that there was more room for the metadata.

I was even thinking I might just duplicate the Carbon theme and replace the graphics, colours and fonts, and add the border box graphics to make a theme that has a layout out like Carbon, but looks just like Pixel.

[hiulit]

Would it be possible to pixelate the images in RetroPie settings? They doesn't fit with the rest of the art, don't you think?

[Rookervik]

@hiulit

The pixel theme actually has it's own set of icons for the RetroPie menu. They can be found in "/retropie/icons" inside the theme's folder. Note: Because of how ES uses gamelists to display art, we were not able to have per-theme RetroPie system icons. You can, however, edit the retropie gamelist.xml and point each menu entry to the art in this folder.

[hiulit]

Hey, sorry, is this the path ~/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/retropiemenu/gamelist.xml that I should be looking for in order to change the icons path? Because I tried change the path and restarting EmulationStation and also restarting the system and nothing changed.

I've already found the path to the pixel theme icons /etc/emulationstation/themes/pixel/retropie/icons, is that right?

Thanks!

[Rookervik]

@hiulit To be COMPLETELY honest, I don't know which to edit. There is another one in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/retropie. -_- So many of the same thing in so many places.

Load that one up and save it in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/retropie... I think ES will actually load a gamelist from the rom folder. Then, change that one to point to the icons? I hope that works. LOL

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik
I've started playing with your Pixel theme (just starting slow, changing border colours and such while I get a feel for it), and I have a question about your workflow.

I saw on another thread you mentioned using the Windows version of EmulationStation because it was easier to work with and get screenshots (oh boy to I agree with you there), so I've done that and I have it all set up so it works fine, but...

Do you have an easy way to see your changes as you make them? The easiest way I've found is this:

1. make a change to the XML.
2. save XML.
3. go into ES and change the theme to something other than Pixel.
4. change the theme back to Pixel.

This works fine to show the changes, but takes many button presses (start, down, down, A, down, down, down, down, down, down, left, B, B, start, down, down, A, down, down, down, down, down, down, Right, B, B) just to switch between 2 themes.

Is there maybe a hot-key I can set up to switch themes, or some way to refresh ES? Is this how you do it, or have you found something a bit more efficient?

[Rookervik]

Nope, that's how I do it. Either change themes and back, or close it and re-open it. That's all you can do. -_-

[Parzival]

YES!!!! i wants it!!!

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik said in Pixel Theme:

Nope, that's how I do it. Either change themes and back, or close it and re-open it. That's all you can do. -_-

Oh well, thanks for letting me know. It can get a bit tedious at times can't it. I suppose once I've wrapped my head around how everything works and what does what, then I won't have to refresh as often to see the changes.

Onwards!

[Rookervik]

@mattrixk Just be glad you don't have to transfer the theme over to the Pi and refresh EmulationStation there. :P

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik Heh yeah. The whole thing was pretty daunting until I read your other post^ about using EmulationStation on Windows. I wasn't even aware ES was made for platforms other than the RPi.

^I think it was over on the old forum at petrockblog.

[Vega]

I want to say gorgeous theme im currently using this, I downloaded it from emulation station. Im curious as a total noob, how do i access the turbo cd and sega cd folders? Im not seeing them in my rom directory? or is there something im missing? I noticed you said choose the tgcd theme but i dont see that option unless im missing it.

thanks for any help you can give.

[Rookervik]

@Vega SegaCD already has a rom folder. Put your games in there and it should show up. I don't think I made a MegaCD logo. Just SegaCD.

Turbo Grafx CD has a theme, but no link to it as RetroPie doesn't want to add that right now. You can edit your es_systems.cfg and duplicate the pcengine section and rename everyting to TurboGraphicsCD. Tell it to use the "tgcd" theme.

Duplicate this section:

<system>
    <name>pcengine</name>
    <fullname>TurboGrafx 16 (PC Engine)</fullname>
    <path>~\.emulationstation\roms\pcengine</path>
    <extension>.pce .zip .cue .PCE .ZIP .CUE</extension>
    <command>%HOME%\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -L %HOME%\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.dll "%ROM_RAW%"</command>
    <platform>pcengine</platform>
    <theme>pcengine</theme>
</system>

And change it to this:

<system>
    <name>tgcd</name>
    <fullname>TurboGrafx 16 CD</fullname>
    <path>~\.emulationstation\roms\tgcd</path>
    <extension>.cue .CUE</extension>
    <command>%HOME%\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\retroarch.exe -L %HOME%\.emulationstation\systems\retroarch\cores\mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.dll "%ROM_RAW%"</command>
    <platform>pcenginecd</platform>
    <theme>tgcd</theme>
</system>

Note: If your TGCD games are in a different format than CUE, add that format above in the <extension> section.

That will add a Turbo Graphics CD section. After you create a folder called "tgcd" in the rom directory and place your cd images there, it should appear after restarting emulationstation.

[edmaul69]

@mattrixk adding emulationstation kids makes it really easy. Set it in kiosk then all you have to do is press start, a, a

[mattrixk]

@Rookervik
I finished my take on your Pixel theme.

I called it MetaPixel and I made a post about it here.

I think I did the attribution correctly, but if you would like me to change it, let me know.