Comic Book Theme 16:9 Full Release

chrisdodgen

@AlexMurphy He mentioned this on the other board. He's kinda beta testing it right now, with plans to try to get it incorporated once he's sure there's no major bugs.

AlexMurphy

@chrisdodgen Did he not just announce the release last night?

chrisdodgen

@AlexMurphy There was another comment in there somewhere that mentioned he was holding off until he'd made some final tweaks, I believe. I may be mistaken, but that's what I thought I read.

TMNTturtlguy

@AlexMurphy not yet, I wanted to get feedback first to make sure it is working properly, which it appears it is. I am also creating a special edition which will replace the classic logo above the video preview with wheel art for each game. This will only work for users with wheel art in their gamelist as <marquee> so it will be for advanced users. Once this is ready I will request to get this on the retropie theme menu!

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy At some point you will need to stop tinkering with it and just "Let it GO!" I understand that we love our children but... bugs can be worked out.

TMNTturtlguy

@chrisdodgen no it won't play video for all games. You need to put 1 video on the same location as your images for the system. In your gamelist you add the path to that video for just one game. This will tell the theme to play a video for that specific game, all the other games will then show the large image in the black box.

chrisdodgen

@TMNTturtlguy Interesting. I'm going to try something crazy. I'll report back.

AlexMurphy

@chrisdodgen Don't try to influence space/time by busting open your microwave oven. Please!

herb_fargus

@TMNTturtlguy I posted an issue on the old repo explaining what steps you need to take for it to be included in the retropie installer, but it seems it got deleted when you created the two new repos.

The way the installer works through git takes into account any changes so if you go to update the theme if you've made any changes to the repo since the original download it will just pull the changes, so users can always be on par with any of your development changes,

Though from your commit history it looks as though you're using the web interface which is pretty limited in terms of development, I would recommend at the very least using the windows desktop gui so that you can make multiple changes at once without having to manually do things over the web interface.

chrisdodgen

@AlexMurphy "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr. 'I'm My Own Grandpa...'"

TMNTturtlguy

@herb_fargus Thank you for the note. I apologize for deleting the old repo, i am new to github and when I decided to create 2 different versions i abandoned the first one and deleted it without looking at it.

I also did not realize that there was another way to use github outside the web interface which is horrible to use as you have stated. I will now research better ways to use the site.

If i could bother you to re-post the instructions i would greatly appreciate it. Thank you again for your time and I apologize for asking you to double up on the work you had already done to help me. Thank you

AlexMurphy

@TMNTturtlguy github is a pox on humanity, but it is needed.
EDIT For now.

CyberOptek

@chrisdodgen that was the same question I was going to ask. I've spent the last 3 months cleaning up the image that I have now and making sure every game had art work. On a lot of the games I actually did game shots for my art work. I would be fine having screenshots in place of the videos

herb_fargus

@TMNTturtlguy no worries, I would have used the same thing except the first time I used github the web interface wasn't really as usable so I was forced to learn the command line.

The command line is really useful but if you're running windows the desktop app is pretty straightforward for the most part if you're just modifying files and whatnot, and you can get by without the command line.

Basically for inclusion in the retropie theme downloader the repos have to be named with this format (you can rename the repo from the settings):
es-theme-yourthemename

and then you just add a line in the retropie setup script for your repo eg:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/supplementary/esthemes.sh#L88

TMNTturtlguy

@CyberOptek you can follow the steps I posted above to remove the video features. You will need to edit each theme.xml you want to run to take the md_image info out.

I have built the theme for use with video, and unfortunately with the current limitations of themeing in ES I am only allowed to place the scraped image in one location, thus it is in the small lower grey box. I can't have it show in both boxes. I have basic view set to show the image in the big black box, but when I want to have it also show in video view in the altenate location, it won't work as I would like it. To resolve this issue I added the image to the theme.xml, but this over rides the the comic_book.xml. I suspect you could leave the video feature in the main comic_book.xml and just remove the md_image from each theme.xml and it will work for you.

Edit: I know this will work because that is how the 4:3 version is set up!
Edit#2: I will continue to look at how i might be able to adjust the theme code to allow basic view work properly in the 16:9 version. There must be a way!

TMNTturtlguy

@CyberOptek @chrisdodgen Problem Fixed!

Ok, so thank you for posting enough to make me think about this a little bit harder. I figured out the error I had in a previous build which made me change the way i was handling the md_images. I have made the correction already! unfortunately it will take a bit to get uploaded for your use. I will let you know when it is up.

I really need to read up on git and follow directions to get this onto the retropie menu!

TMNTturtlguy

16:9 Updated! same link as the first post, EDIT Now available through the retropie menu. Be sure to update your retropie-setup script.

Detail view has now been corrected. If you do not have any videos for a system, scraped images will now display in the Large Black box!

Ok, so i have to apologize, i have learned a lot in the last hours bout github, and i am slightly embarrassed. I spent hours cleaning up all of the files and folders in the themes prior to release to make sure they were clean, spotless, all the files located where they need to be, and no unnecessary files hanging out taking up space. PROBLEM: i was using the web based github browser and assuming that when i replaced an entire folder, it was deleting the folder and updating it with the new contents....WRONG - it was simply adding and changing, not deleting, so what you are seeing is a lot of garbage in the folders.

I have now learned how to use the desktop app for git, way faster and now i can see exactly what i am doing. NOW the 16:9 theme is posted with only what is needed and nothing extra! If you want to re-download, you will get a smaller file size, as well as the detailed view update. You can also wait for me to get this onto retropie menus if you prefer.

I apologize for this confusion, it should not affect the use of the theme, but is rather embarrassing.

pjft

@TMNTturtlguy not at all. The only embarrassing thing is someone who doesn't want to learn!

Glad to hear you managed to get this to work as expected on both video and non-video collections. It should look stellar!

Thanks for digging into it.

TMNTturtlguy

@herb_fargus wow, the desktop app is a miracle compared to the web browser. I followed the above instructions and sent a commit to the setup script. After hitting merge I wondered if I was supposed to create another branch and a pr? If i was, please forgive me. Thanks

herb_fargus

@TMNTturtlguy dont worry, any changes to the retropie master script have to be reviewed and accepted by jools before they are included.

the process for merging to repos is:

fork the original
create a branch on your fork
make changes and commit to your branch
submit a pull request to the master repo (which can be done from the web interface if you like)