📝 Feature Request: Carousel positioning improvement for system logos

[Renetrox]

Hello RetroPie team,

I'm working on themes for EmulationStation and would like to request an improvement related to the carousel layout. Currently, the selected system logo is visually affected by the neighboring logos, making it difficult to center or fix its position precisely.

In contrast, other forks of EmulationStation (like ES-DE / Batocera) allow the use of <selected> and <notSelected> tags inside the carousel, which lets you:

Precisely anchor the selected logo to a fixed position on screen.

Keep surrounding logos from pushing or overlapping it.

Control spacing or alignment freely without relying on the number of logos visible.

For example:

In RetroPie: the selected logo is always the second or middle one, but its position shifts depending on how wide the other logos are.

In ES-DE: you can set <selected> to always appear in the same fixed position, and the other logos slide independently.

Here's a visual comparison:

RetroPie (current)
The selected logo is pushed by its neighbors, making themes with precise spacing more difficult.

Desired behavior (ES-DE style)
The central logo is fixed; the surrounding ones move. Clean, consistent layout.

Adding support for something like:

<carousel>
<selected>
<pos>...</pos>
<size>...</size>
</selected>
<notSelected>
<pos>...</pos>
<size>...</size>
</notSelected>
</carousel>

…would make it much easier to design modern, console-like UIs without breaking compatibility with existing themes.

Thanks in advance for considering this improvement. I'd be glad to help with testing or examples if needed.
batocera:

retropie:

[Renetrox]

Hi again! I’d like to add a few clarifications and refinements to better explain the suggestion:

🔧 Technical Insight
Currently, it seems the carousel positioning is affected by the width and spacing of adjacent logos. This makes the selected (center) logo appear off-center or "pushed" when neighboring logos are wider or spaced unevenly.

A possible solution could be adding support for something like:

<carouselCenterLock>true</carouselCenterLock>

...inside theme.xml, allowing the selected system logo to remain visually anchored in a fixed position while the surrounding logos move independently.

🎯 Cross-compatibility Benefit
This would also make theme development easier for those porting designs from Batocera or ES-DE, where the selected item in the carousel is always visually fixed. It improves consistency and opens the door for more dynamic and polished carousel layouts.

📐 Logo Scaling Behavior Issue
Additionally, when a theme increases the size of the selected logo to highlight it, EmulationStation currently scales the logo from its center, which makes it look like it “floats” or moves upward. It would be better to allow the logo to scale from the bottom center, so it stays grounded and aligned with other UI elements (like background frames, labels, or shadows).

🧪 Willing to Help
I'm happy to test or help explore these improvements if anyone on the development team is interested.

Thanks again for considering this!