[Theme] Art Book Next

[alphatoanant]

@pjft! wow awesome to see and hear from you too =).

If you get to try it out, I am here to talk through things you find or have an interest in seeing being added. I have a template built out for the color theming and a template for the system view artwork so can help there for sure. Rock and roll my friend.

[pjft]

@alphatoanant Thanks. I'll see when I have some time and look into it.

[stephensmattlee]

@alphatoanant I just wanted to say this theme looks amazing. Incredible work and really love the clean and sleek look with the way everything is presented.

I was wondering if I could get some help with regards to the scraping and the way you have the previews presented in the way you do in the preview image with Sonic? When I try scraping - was using the Skraper application - and select the screenshot, marquee and box art 2D options when scraping, as a default all it would show is the screenshot of the game without the logo and box art over the image. Was wondering how and what options you’d choose when scraping, or after the games have been scraped, to get them to present in the same way you have in the preview image? I know there’s the mix v1 and mix v2 options in Skraper too, but they seem to look quite different when compared to your preview image. I hope that makes sense.

[alphatoanant]

hi @stephensmattlee, its been some time since i used skraper so I am not sure yet how to config things to get the same visual set up (I mostly use ES-DE and JELOS these days which have built in support for screenscraper). I'll try to get a fresh build off retropie set up in the next week or so to see if I can help figure it out.

[rvirmoors]

@alphatoanant said in [Theme] Art Book Next:

https://github.com/anthonycaccese/art-book-next-retropie

hi! i don't suppose there's a way to automate the aspect ratio detection? i sometimes plug in my Pi into a 4:3 monitor, other times into 16:9. It would be great to be able to autodetect the aspect ratio

[alphatoanant]

@rvirmoors sadly I am not aware of a way to do that on retropie

[laserbones]

@alphatoanant Thank you so much for the amazing theme! How can I scrape to get the no metadata video previews with the logo overlayed in the center? I use Skraper and can't figure out how to achieve your layout. What scraper do you use for retropie? I'd love to have the same layout you have and don't mind switching scrapers. I'm just lost at where to start.

[aphyx]

Hi @alphatoanant, I'm using the Art Book Next theme with Jelos on my new RGB30 in its 1:1 ratio and really enjoying it. I'm having one small problem, though. I have some custom system logos I like to use (using LaserDisc instead of Daphne, for instance), and I followed the instructions on the Jelos wiki to add them to the theme-customizations folder. It works perfectly on the "Centered Artwork (Custom)" variant, with the custom logos showing correctly. When I switch to the "Multi Artwork (Custom)" variant, though, the original logos show, and no matter how much I try rebooting and refreshing, my custom logos won't show. Any ideas why they won't show on the Multi Artwork variation? I like the Multi variant as well and would like to see it working with my custom logos. Thanks in advance.

[alphatoanant]

Hi @laserbones I don't currently have a retropie build set up and have been meaning to do so but just haven't had the time. As soon as I am able to i'll try to document options for scraping that would work for retropie (the instructions in my original post look like they may not apply any longer and I am not sure why)

[alphatoanant]

@aphyx thank you for helping me find a bug =)

I had missed adding the logic needed to switch out to custom logos for the "Multi Artwork (Custom)" variant. So I just made that fix and pushed the latest to github. It will be updated in the next release of JELOS.

Here is a test with a custom NES logo:

If you want to test it ahead of time though you can download the theme directly here: https://github.com/anthonycaccese/art-book-next-jelos

And then upload it following the instructions here: https://jelos.org/configure/themes/#adding-additional-themes (e.g. make sure to upload it in its own folder / don't replace the system-theme files)

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant That's awesome, thanks!

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant I've found another minor issue with the Art Book Next theme on my RGB30. I've added some of the pre-defined genre auto collections (pinball, strategy, etc.) and created some custom pixel artwork for them, and although the logos for those collections show on the game list screens and the "Centered Artwork (Custom)" variant, they refuse to show for me on the "Multi Artwork (Custom)" variant. The custom artwork I've created displays fine, but not the logos. Any idea why they're not showing on the Multi Artwork variant? Thanks in advance.

[alphatoanant]

@aphyx just tried a quick test and found its working ok on my end.

Can you check that you have color scheme set to 'custom' in theme configuration? I tied the display of custom logos to color scheme to enable the creation of color schemes that tie directly into logo changes (without the need for setting 2 different values). The custom color scheme setting has a fallback to use the standard art book next colors if no color scheme file is found so it should work out ok in your use case I think.

Here is a test I just made using final-fantasy as the custom collection:

and my folder setup:

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant I've got the Custom Color Scheme option selected, and Custom Fonts, together with the Multi Custom option.

I see from your folder setup that you've provided a background and a logo. Do I need to supply both in the customization folder? I was hoping to be able to use the default logos for the genre collections as they match the other logos in that section (Tools, Vertical Arcade etc.), with me just creating custom artwork using your template.

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant I should add that it's only the pre-defined genre collections (Pinball, Strategy, Adventure etc.) I'm having the issue with. The other pre-defined collections such as Vertical Arcade, 2 Player, 4 Player etc. are all showing their logos fine.

[alphatoanant]

@aphyx hmm i think i am tracking. how are your custom collections named?

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant I've named the background artwork for the automatic genre collections "auto-platform", "auto-pinball" etc. and the theme finds them with no problem. I couldn't find the default logos for these genre collections in the theme files -- are they generated on the fly?

[alphatoanant]

@aphyx awesome thank you, that confirms what I was thinking. I don't currently have logos included for the auto genre collections. Those logos would need to be added in order for them to show up - what you are seeing on the gamelist is the fallback text if a logo is not available. That same logic unfortunately does not work on system view.

For now you can pull any of the logos you are interested in from here: https://github.com/anthonycaccese/art-book-next-es/tree/master/_inc/systems
And place them in the theme-customizations/logos folder.

I haven't pulled them into the JELOS version of the theme yet because I don't have backgrounds created for them yet. That said, if you are cool with contributing some of the backgrounds you have made i'll gladly give you credit in the theme readme.

[aphyx]

@alphatoanant Many thanks, I've grabbed the logos from your link and that's got it working great now!

As for the backgrounds, I'd be very happy to share what I've created so far. I really enjoy making them (gives me an excuse to search through all those lovely old game screenshots) and I'd be more than happy to make the others you need for the genre collections to finish off the set. I've been using and enjoying your themes for years, I'd like to contribute something back.

[alphatoanant]

@aphyx thank you! I have a ToDo item on github where I am tracking the backgrounds that are open to be created.

Here: https://github.com/anthonycaccese/art-book-next-es/issues/9
(the genres are under the header "Auto-Collections (Genres)")

I am with you regarding... "gives me an excuse to search through all those lovely old game screenshots" - creating these backgrounds has been a good way for me to learn about games for the systems I had not played in the past.

Easiest way to contribute would likely be to comment on that topic along with the images you have created. I can port them into the themes from there and mark them off as complete.

If you are comfortable with github another option is to make a pull request against the theme with your new files. I am glad to walk through that option if you are interested.

Thank you for any help ❤️