Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation
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So just a few days ago, I updated EmulationStation to 2.3.1RP, and for whatever reason certain themes have the "game selection" text misaligned. For example, Metapixel has it's text too close together, but the selected game highlight is still aligned, making it nearly impossible to tell what game is selected unless it's been scraped. Another example is the NES Mini or Famicom Mini themes, which are also horribly misaligned. I've already tried updating all my themes, but that didn't fix the problem.
Anyone know what might be the possible cause?
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@SuperCatFooz I noticed the same on some of my UI themes as well. Work Bench them is one of them.
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It's related to some recent alignment fixes - it's possible the themes just need updating now that some alignment issues were fixed, or it could be an issue with the fix.
To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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@BuZz Ah, got it. Thanks for letting me know
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Interesting. I had noticed a minimal difference between 2.2 and 2.3 but assumed it was minimal in all themes.
In that case, I'll see what they outcome is - whether themes needing to be updated or new defaults set in EmulationStation - before escalating further.
Thanks for reporting it and tracking it down.
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@pjft I checked most of the themes that are available through RetroPie-Setup before submitting this change and noticed only minimal differences.
In the case of the nes-mini themes @ruckage is aware and is planning to release an update, in fact the fixes were made at his request.
As for MetaPixel, I must have missed checking that one. @mattrixk If you would like, I will gladly submit a PR to your repo to fix it.
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@jdrassa yeah. I only observed the selected text being a couple pixels lower than before in the Comic Book theme from @TMNTturtlguy . Is there anything he'd need to add while we're at it?
But I agree: if I had seen anything extremely concerning I would have brought it up. Thanks for testing upfront!
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@pjft If he wants to adjust it, the options are documented here
The relevant options areselectorHeightandselectorOffsetY.Get latest build of EmulationStation for Windows here
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@jdrassa thanks.
Just out of curiosity, what's the main challenge in getting a set of defaults that keeps previous themes looking the same if they don't set those properties? Is it the different font sizes? Something else?
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Would Increasing VRAM help? Or should it be left at 100MB? Since I was going through TronkyFran theme and noticed some slow down here and there.
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@RedBatman I wouldn't increase VRAM. I mean, you can try, but your mileage may vary. You may get it to a point where you're requesting more VRAM than the available allocated GPU memory, and then your textures won't load. You may try to increase it 10 by 10, restarting EmulationStation at each time. From anything more than 120 or so, with a lot of systems, you'll get into that state every now and then.
I keep saying that I should try to figure out how to get that to fail more gracefully, but the few attempts I've done didn't yield particularly convincing results...
I have mine at 80 and I find it stable enough.
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@jdrassa: You're more than welcome to fix that up. I've not heard of
<selectorHeight>and<selectorOffsetY>before. How new are they, how do they work, and are there other new items I need to be aware of? -
@pjft @jdrassa i am traveling so I have no idea what is happening, but it is very concerning that all of these changes affect existing themes. There is no notification system that this is taking place and I had no clue of these new settings I now need to figure out how to incorporate into my themes, and then users all need to know to update the theme as well.
If these new update me continue to negatively affect existing themes it would be nice if a post could sent that tags the theme makers that have their themes posted on the Es downloads through retropie. Thank you
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Also, if we add the new
<selectorHeight>and<selectorOffsetY>and whatever else, will they break themes on older versions of ES, or do they have to be wrapped in<featured>tags? -
@pjft said in Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation:
@jdrassa thanks.
Just out of curiosity, what's the main challenge in getting a set of defaults that keeps previous themes looking the same if they don't set those properties? Is it the different font sizes? Something else?
@pjft The change that is causing these issues was attempting to fix the scaling of gamelist items across different resolutions. I experimented with different approaches to determining the proper of the and compared the values as percentages of the screen height across the different resolutions. The change I made is using the approach that resulted in the gamelist item more likely to be a consistent percentage of the screen resolution regardless of the resolution.
In the case of the nes-mini theme the font was specifically altered to compensate for another bug that fixed as part of this work.
As for MetaPixel, something odd is going on. The font is being rendered at a much larger size than the value that is set in the theme. The old way of calculating the item height accounted for this, the new way does not.
I need to looking into the cause more. For now, if it is desired, I am willing and able to submit a change to revert back that specific change vs reverting the whole commit since there are other bug fixes included that shouldn't have any negative effects on themes.
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@jdrassa Hah, had to be mine that stuffs up. Sounds about right.
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@jdrassa I don't think anyone is suggesting reverting anything at this stage. I was mostly curious about the problem we were tackling, and what made it tricky to solve in a compatible manner. Thanks for the explanation.
Do let me know if you'd like a second set of eyes looking into those calculations - happy to take a look if it helps. Feel free to comment me in on the line/change and I'll see if anything stands out, if it'd help.
Thanks for the prompt replies as usual!
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@TMNTturtlguy said in Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation:
@pjft @jdrassa i am traveling so I have no idea what is happening, but it is very concerning that all of these changes affect existing themes. There is no notification system that this is taking place and I had no clue of these new settings I now need to figure out how to incorporate into my themes, and then users all need to know to update the theme as well.
If these new update me continue to negatively affect existing themes it would be nice if a post could sent that tags the theme makers that have their themes posted on the Es downloads through retropie. Thank you
You can follow development progress on github. It wasn't intended that this would break existing themes - problems happen sometimes.
There was discussion on the forum and on the ES github about this change.
I don't have the free time to do any "update thread" with ES changes. Feel free to do that yourself if you think it's important.
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@jdrassa said in Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation:
I need to looking into the cause more. For now, if it is desired, I am willing and able to submit a change to revert back that specific change vs reverting the whole commit since there are other bug fixes included that shouldn't have any negative effects on themes.
I'm happy to leave it until you have had time to look into it, as it only affects this one theme that I know of. But up to you.
To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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@BuZz said in Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation:
There was discussion on the forum and on the ES github about this change.
I don't have the free time to do any "update thread" with ES changes. Feel free to do that yourself if you think it's important.Point taken, I am not suggesting that you or another moderator needs to do this, I am requesting that @jdrassa or whomever is making and submitting the changes send a quick update that tags us. There are a ton of threads on the forum and I try to stay up to date, but with travel and family it is easy to miss a few topics. All it would take is starting a single thread that tags the theme makers in the first post, we then follow it, and a simple note or link to any updates/changes could be posted there and we would all know. I could set this thread up, but I can't make anyone use it, thus the request.
@BuZz said in Certain themes suddenly started misaligning text selections in EmulationStation:
it only affects this one theme that I know of. But up to you.
per the posts above it appears to affect nes-mini/famicom mini, metapixel, as well as the ComicBook Theme.
@jdrassa, Your work is awesome and I really appreciate all you do, i apologize for firing off a negative toned message yesterday. No need to undo what you have done. I will look into adjustments without adding the selector height and offset code as i don't want to break the themes for older versions of ES when i have a chance. Moving forward and improving is always the main goal and I don't want to slow down or stop your great work. I was/am just requesting a heads up is all. Thank you for all you do and again, sorry for the rude post.
@BuZz same to you and the moderators, sorry for the rude message, I had no ill intentions towards anyone including the moderators, @jdrassa, @pjft or yourself. I was coming out of some very important and stressful work meetings and am running on no sleep! I appreciate your time and all you do. Thanks everyone and have a great weekend.
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