Request: Metadata image expansion

AlexMurphy

@Syhles That seems like a reasonable request. Get one of the ES coders on-side and convince them. Personally I'm not a fan of metadata, I like the gamelist on the left and some nice box-art / mix image / arcade flyer on the right.

Syhles

@AlexMurphy
I'm only talking about image side of the metadata, I feel we have enough text/information metadata available as it is.

@Hex is the one who told me to open this thread.

This is sort of an alternative to mix images that I feel could be more flexible for themeing.

I'd really love to be able to use the carousel for any kind of image and on the gamelist. That open up themeing alot in my opinion.

AlexMurphy

@Syhles Well, I like the 3 mix, which is a screenshot, 3D box-art and a Marquee image, so yes it would be nice to separate and position those independently. I assume you have used LaunchBox before? I think 4 has a cart image too.

Syhles

@AlexMurphy
I'm sorry if it seemed like I was complaining about you liking/using mix images, I used them at one point as well.

Actually I've never used launchbox, I've seen lots of videos on it and yes that's basically the direction I was going with the extra images and carousel.

AlexMurphy

@Syhles To be fair when I first started using ES I was annoyed that it was so restricted. I was used to just jumping into the xml files in Kodi and changing whatever I wanted in the theme.

Syhles

@AlexMurphy
I was in the same boat, still slightly annoyed with it though, wish we could have background music like recalbox and I wish the remaining themeable sounds were available.

I've never messed with themeing kodi, is it difficult?

AlexMurphy

@Syhles Kodi skins are just all xml files. Err we do have background music. I do, anyway.

Syhles

@AlexMurphy
Is it part of theme via XML though?

AlexMurphy

@Syhles Oh no. I use mpg123 for music in ES

pjft

@Zigurana @jdrassa @sokiee FYI

Hi all.

There are conversations about this going on in https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/issues/132 .

The first step requires a bit of a refactoring of the code. @Hex You should certainly join there if interested, definitely!

Other than that, though, I'd refrain from reinventing the wheel at this stage or making any meaningful changes to themes in the current state as it's quite patchy and hardcoded, so we're just keeping something on life support.

Just to get everybody on the same page so we don't start doing the same things in parallel and differently!

Syhles

@pjft
I've read through the whole issue on GitHub, this seems like the best direction and really what I want.

If I was reading correctly it amounts to being able to use anything in any given view as long as it's defined in the theme and it's something that we can define?

Which would fix my marquee issue allowing it to be used in Detailed view. Which I guess technically wouldn't exist in the same way it currently does.

Quick question would this mean that we would be able to do this

resulting in a new view mode called test?

My only suggestions as someone who doesn't code is that during this refactoring is

We finish up some of the themeing aspects such as allowing use of all of the metadata image fields we have currently available but can't use.
Adding the ability for the transitions to be used on all of the themeing elements giving a cleaner user experience (I'd be fine if it was just whatever transition that the user had selected through the ui).
Make the menu themeable (it's really about the only part of the theme we can't theme).
Themeing of the Icons (A, B, Start, Etc.) for the help menu.
Implementing the remaining sounds (System Select, System Scroll, Back, Background Music ala Recalbox).
Define an origin for the carousel so it actually be aligned somewhere like the top or side of screen.
Using the carousel function for other images such as md_image, md_marquee, etc.

That's about it, sorry for how long this is and also I don't want to make a GitHub account so that why I posted this suggestions here. Feel free to add them to the discussion there if they make sense.

I understand most if not all of this could be done after the refactoring. Also I feel #5 is the least important on this list but still important to me.

Sorry for this wall of text and I sincerely thank you if you actually took the time to read through it all.

screech

Maybe I will say nonsense but :

In video view, if there is no video, ES put the md_image.
So simply use the "video view" without video ^^
so you will have md_image and md_marquee.
At least you have 2 possibles images.
(Or use MIX ^^ creating your own mix isn't so hard ;) it's like theming :p)

Syhles

@screech
You're good it's not nonsense.

That's a valid way to work around it, but at the end of the day it's still a work around it doesn't fix the root problem.

Zigurana

@Syhles said in Request: Metadata image expansion:

would this mean that we would be able to do this
<view name=test>
resulting in a new view mode called test?

That's the idea, yes.
In a nutshell: we want to go from a situation where the theme xml goes from a supplier-role, to a requester-role. So rather than supplying the location of a fixed set of theme-elements, it will request the generation an arbitrary set of elements from ES.

Syhles

@Zigurana
Thank you for the clarification.
I feel like that is the better and more flexible option for themeing.