Background images, coming back!!!

Muddyhardcore

@emilio1555
Do I need to exit emulationstation and get there from the command line or can I just select raspi-config from the retropie menu?

emilio1555

@Muddyhardcore You can select it from the retropie menu.

AndersHP

Hey @tronkyfran - I really, really love your theme, it just looks awesome on my Bartop Build with the great system pictures, BUT ALAS! On my 4:3 monitor the box-art is soo tiny, it's really sad.

Is there any chance of you making a possible update to the theme or a variant with a larger window for box-art? See below...

alt text

caver01

@andershp @tronkyfran Ditto that! I love the theme and I too use a setup with a 4:3 display. Some of the meta data categories are cut off, like DEVELOPER whick is missing the R. Smaller metadata might accommodate a bigger thumbnail.

herb_fargus

@caver01 you can blame me as I maintain the theme. Tronkyfran just makes the pretty art.

Anyways it's just the simple theme so far as far as the detailed gamelist is concerned so I'm definitely open to other suggestions to improve it as I personally don't like metadata at all, but making it smaller would be a start.

I'm open to pull requests if someone wants to improve the theme

AndersHP

@herb_fargus I don't know how to program unfortunately, but the game-list in the righthand side is fine, maybe the artwork could just fill out the entire top-left side, with the area below getting split between game description on the left, getting a bit less space, with only 4 lines of the metadata on the right, for example: rating, publisher, times played and last played?

Like this:
B O X A R T LIST
B O X A R T LIST
DESC META LIST

~~Maybe the background could reflect the system you're in, like a greyed-out version of the system folder image?~~ Edit: thinking about it, maybe this'll get a little too "busy"?

If the above will be too cramped, maybe the font could get reduced just by a a size or 2?

Don't know what's possible, but that's my suggestion :)

Edit: Here's my suggestion, quickly put together in GIMP. I like the landscape mode, since it'll work great with the Universal XML Scraper images:

alt text

AndersHP

Oh, and sorry if this is the wrong place to talk about the theme. Let me know if this should be moved to a separate thread.

herb_fargus

@andershp I'm almost just keen to kill the metadata altogether. Keeps it simple that way.

If I were to keep it I wouldn't want to split the description column with the other attributes, I'd probably have 4 bits of metadata above the description column

AndersHP

@herb_fargus Yeah, metadata isn't really that interesting in my mind either. Could just be the description below the box art :) simple is good and it suits the theme.

herb_fargus

@andershp yeah I'm not oppposed to that

AndersHP

@herb_fargus Cool! That'll be brilliant. The theme apparently doesn't support video previews, is that true? Is that easy to switch on as well? If not, then never mind :)

AndersHP

Oh, and I just realized that Favourites are now incorporated in ES, having these is something I really looked forward to, so I'm going to abandon the Tronkyfran theme unwillingly, until this is supported. So if this could be supported, I'd really love it!

But @herb_fargus do I understand you right, that it's not you who will end up update the theme?

herb_fargus

@andershp anyone can update it, code is available online. If they don't know how, docs are available online to learn how. I might when I find the interest and time but I don't have much time or interest as of recent. Feel free to tinker around and give it a go if you don't want to wait for someone else to do it. We all do this in our free time so things get done as people have the ambition to do them.

AndersHP

@herb_fargus Apologies, I totally understand, I wasn't trying to be an impatient smartass.

I myself have zero coding experience and wouldn't know where to begin or how to test it, but I guess I could start by searching this forum..

herb_fargus

@andershp im not offended in the least, just saying things matter of factly. honestly with a lot of the recent emulationstation developments I have no idea where to begin either!

This is a good guide for building a basic theme from scratch. Really the tronkyfran theme is just the simple theme with diff wallpapers in it's current state. If we kill metadata for it it just becomes that much simpler.

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Creating-Your-Own-EmulationStation-Theme

AndersHP

@herb_fargus Allright, just making sure :)

I will start with making a portable ES, copying the Tronkyfran theme onto there, and then test removing the Metadata and resizing the box art there. Any pitfalls I should know of?

And for now; this thread can get back on-topic :)

tronkyfran

Favorites, a bit rushed, sorry:

lilbud

@tronkyfran gasp Tronkyfran posted something

ace428

@tronkyfran Hey tronkyfran, i can't seem to find a way to privately message you, but i wanted to ask if it would be okay for me to use your background images on a theme i am putting together?

They are incredibly sharp.

tronkyfran

Sure, you can use and modify them as you want, just crédit to the author anywhere in the post you put the theme and thats it. Go!!! :D