Input needed: ES theming improvements

mattrixk · 14 Jan 2017, 21:16

@Nismo there is a pre-compiled version here (you can find it a bit further up this thread). I haven't had the chance to test it yet as I'm on mobile, but Rook said it works.

Rookervik · 14 Jan 2017, 22:46

I only just got the ES with themable carousel to work. The logos are still extremely small, and the right hand logo loads slowly. I will try theming the bar now. ES also crashes on exit. So it doesn't seem terribly stable.

Getting a lot of "lvl1: OptionListComponent too narrow!" Errors in debug.

And in trying to get the carousel themed, I had no luck. With the download mattrixk provided in the comment above.

mattrixk · 15 Jan 2017, 03:16

@Rookervik My bad, I must have misread what you said. Too lazy to go up and check.

Rookervik · 15 Jan 2017, 03:55

@mattrixk No bad on your part. I just couldn't get the carousel to theme. Not your fault in any way.

ben0bi · 16 Jan 2017, 03:26

@Zigurana Is it done? I really could use it for my carbon based special theme here: http://github.com/ben0bi/esLIEB

Need to adjust y position.

Regards
ben0bi

ben0bi · 16 Jan 2017, 03:29

@Zigurana Cool. Did not see it, sorry for the other reply.

EctoOne · 23 Jan 2017, 14:27

wow, i think i need to try to build this on my pi so that i can get from this

to this
.

Awesome Job!

mattrixk · 24 Jan 2017, 00:50

I like the look of that theme @EctoOne. I'm curious to see the rest of it.

lilbud · 24 Jan 2017, 00:53

@EctoOne

EctoOne · 24 Jan 2017, 01:16

@mattrixk It's basically a Mix of NBBA and your Systemlogos from the Io theme. I just removed the dynamic graphics from NBBA, googled for a dark wallpaper and a different font (for the carousel mod, I actually had to add an invisible font as well to completely hide the 'XX Games available' text).
I was looking for a theme that had the same look as the Quartz theme I use on Kodi. And NBBA was almost perfect in terms of layout, although I'm kinda missing the description text but it would look bad with my square Mix Images from the Universal XML Scraper.
Maybe I can upload a screenshot of the basic and detailed view later when I'm back home.

mattrixk · 24 Jan 2017, 01:47

@EctoOne That sounds good. If you have the time I'd like to see it. Is it a work in progress? Are you planning to release it to the world?

I'm surprised anyone knows of Io. I made it mainly to practice using <include>.

Sorry to hijack the thread. I'll be giving this build a test today during my lunch break.

EctoOne · 24 Jan 2017, 02:03

@mattrixk Io was the first theme that caught my attention when I got my Pi a few months ago because it was dark and simple. Then I found DarkAde but since then I kept the black and white Systemlogos from Io.
But I don't think I will release it, because I'm not sure about all those copyright things. Maybe we can make a new thread about custom modded themes and use pastebin and some instructions to get around that, I don't know. In my case people just have to get their on wallpaper and font, download Io and paste my main theme.xml over yours (should work I guess).

Edit: Here are Images of Basic and Detailed View

Nismo · 24 Jan 2017, 03:26

@lilbud Sorry for the offtopic but... are you from spain?

mattrixk · 24 Jan 2017, 03:51

Hi @Zigurana, I had a little play with this Carousel Mod during my lunch break. I love it and can't wait for it to be a part of the main RetroPie install. I do have a small list of issues, and another list of questions/ideas.

Issues

Changing themes will occasionally send the start menu down to "Quit" instead of staying on the "UI Settings" option.
The right hand logo takes a second to "pop" in (you already know this one).
There seems to be a slight overlap or border (about 1px) between the Carousel and Infobar. You can see it if both are set to <color>FFFFFF33</color>.
Transparency doesn't work for <infobarfontcolor> (I don't know if transparency is supposed to work for text in general).
If you make the <height> less than the <logosize>, the <infobar> sits over the bottom of the logo. Maybe swap their z-index so the carousel is "higher" than the infobar?
If you only have 3 systems and set the <maxlogocount> to 4 or 5, it still only shows 3. I don't think many people would only have 3 systems, but it's worth mentioning.

Questions

Is it possible to set the origin point of the carousel? At the moment the <ypos> works from the top of the carousel. It would be handy if we could set the <origin> point to either the center or the bottom.
Are we able to set the Infobar font to lowercase (or capital case)?
Is it possible to have the Infobar above the Carousel?
Is it possible to add a background to the Carousel (and Infobar), like a pattern or image? I realise we could just add <image name="behind_carousel" extra="true"> or something, but that image would disappear when you scroll between systems. It's not a big thing, I just thought I'd mention it.

I think that's it for now. I'll keep playing with it over the next few days. I also want to the give the Video Mod a go too. This is fun.

EctoOne · 24 Jan 2017, 09:46

I was wondering if it's possible to change the width of the carousel and move it sideways.
I was looking for some wallpapers for my personal theme and I found some where it would be awesome if I could set the systems to show only one and have that slightly of center to the right. It would be a good option too if you could get the vertical carousel to work. Kinda like we have now with the gamelists.

lilbud · 24 Jan 2017, 11:21

@Nismo No, I'm in the US.

It is a popular picture here.

mattrixk · 24 Jan 2017, 22:29

@EctoOne said in Input needed: ES theming improvements:

I was wondering if it's possible to change the width of the carousel

I was thinking the same thing this morning. I'd like to be able to set the width of the carousel as well as the height, so I can make it not span the whole screen.

It could even work like a normal element with <size>0.8 0.4</size> instead of having <width> and <height>. It could then work with the <origin> and <pos> tags so you could easily place the carousel anywhere on the screen as you would a normal image.

Edit:
That would also help with the eventual vertical carousel possibility.

Edit 2:
I'd also like to be able to position the InfoBar separately. The fact that it's attached to the Carousel and the only way to change it is to change its size is messing with the design I want to do.

mattrixk · 26 Jan 2017, 22:25

@Zigurana: I also noted that if you try to use <systemcarousel name="carousel"> in a theme on vanillaES, it breaks the whole theme (turns it back into the plain white background with black text and no extra images). So that means the theme isn't backwards compatible.

sigh, if only XML could do if/else statements.

fieldofcows · 26 Jan 2017, 22:28

@mattrixk We discussed conditional XML a while ago. I came up with this: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/6964/video-view-for-all-themes/62. I think it would be good to do something like this for new theme features.

mattrixk · 26 Jan 2017, 23:51

@fieldofcows Oh yeah, I remember that thread now. That seems like it would be a good way to go about it, that way you can target everything in a theme, and not have to worry about it breaking for people how don't have systems that support them.