Fun Facts Splashscreens

[cyperghost]

@hiulit If it works then I think it can be converted as a repo to be available for all. Not only funfacts are possible. A generic launching screen can be created. Therefore you need three pictures... and merge them to one.

For Ex. Super Mario Brothers (NES)

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 1                            |
|                                                             |
|           NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (LOGO)              |
|                                                             |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 2                            |
|                                                             |
|                      CUSTOM ROM LOGO                        |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 3                            |
|                      NOW LOADING....                        |
|                   ROM-NAME-WITHOUT[]()                      |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

imagemagick can add pictures to left, right, upside, downside to create portrait photos. But in this case we can create custom launching images. But this needs lot of work and support from theme creators ;) I know that it works - as I use the same system to create stamps from Letterformat to 70mm Dymoprinter labels for parcels ;)

Maybe picture 2 can be made optional as background image. I'm not soooo common with imagemagick and mogrify but I think there are tons of possibilities ;)

---

EDIT:
Of course @meleu's script works the same way with imagemagick so @hiulit a fun facts screen should be easily possible ;)

[meleu]

@cyperghost it's doable. I also would like to see it working generating images on-demand, right before launching a game. But I'm not sure if the overhead for creating the image right before launching the game, then showing the image would be bearable...

Need more tests. I'm a little busy currently, but if you guys wanna try some coding, I can offer some help. ;-)

[cyperghost]

@meleu runcommand-onstart.shshould be the answer but I really don't know if the runcommand waits for it's proper exit. If it's coded in a good way (and I think it is) then it's not a matter of execution time :)

We will see... I also lack in time so I hope someone can do this ;)

BTW: MAME ROW #57 - I posted a small teaser. Just for encouragement ;)

[hiulit]

@cyperghost I though @Parviglumis was talking about the initial splashscreen, before EmulationStation starts. But I like your idea too!

[meleu]

@hiulit if generating the image at boot the overhead would be perfectly bearable!

The fun facts could be in a txt file and the script gets the text there...

[Wombat]

Great work! These would be cool for a screen saver as well.

[Parviglumis]

@hiulit

Yes, I did use them as an initial splashscreen. But that is an awesome idea! All of you are wizards.

Please feel free to take this in any direction you want (not like you needed my permission lol). But I am really happy with all the new ideas! Sorry that I am totally useless when it comes to coding.

[detron]

I also think this is really cool.

the images would be amazing, but even if it is only used on the command line through forture | cowsay it would still be cool

[hiulit]

I just wanted to let you know that I've started working on this project.

I'll keep you updated ;)

P.S. Looking good!

P.P.S. @meleu When using convert, it takes a lot of time. I'm working on a Virtual Machine. Maybe it's that. I don't know. Here's a snippet of what I'm doing:

convert splash4-3.png \
    -size 1000x100 \
    -interline-spacing 5 \
    -background transparent \
    -fill white \
    -caption:"${fun_facts[$random_number]}" \
    -gravity south \
    -geometry +0+25 \
    -composite \
    result.png

And here's what time outputs:

real 0m7.172s
user 0m6.300s
sys  0m0.656s

[hiulit]

BTW, if anyone wants to tinker, here's the GitHub's repo https://github.com/hiulit/es-fun-facts-splashscreens

[meleu]

@hiulit hey man! Well done!! ;-)

[hiulit]

@meleu Thanks! :D It's super basic now, but it seems to be working. Now it's time to take a look at your generate-launching-imagesscript and improve mine ;)

[meleu]

@hiulit I'm glad to know it can inspire you. I usually spend sometime making my code readable just to help others to understand it (including @meleu in the future). Knowing that you're reading it and getting some inspiration makes me feel like the work was worth it. :D

Let me know if you have any doubt!

[meleu]

@hiulit a small tip: if you want to store fun facts in a text file, one fun fact per line, you can get a random line from the file using the shuf command. This way:

shuf -n 1 fun_facts.txt

EDIT: This aproach would be useful if the users want to customize their fun facts. They wouldn't need to edit the script's code.

;-)

[hiulit]

@meleu Thanks for the tip! I'll try it! :)

[hiulit]

@meleu Done! It works beautifully :D

[Zigurana]

If it takes too long, maybe run the image-generation-script on system shutdown, to be used at next boot-time?

[meleu]

@zigurana good idea! ;-)

@hiulit I have more comments, maybe it's better to move the nerdy conversation to the nerdy topic... :)

[hiulit]

@zigurana Yeah, good idea! Although I really don't have any idea of where I should put my script to do that... (⊙_☉) hehe! Noob at scripting here :P

[hiulit]

More progress! :D
Now the splashscreen is created using the font of the active theme in EmulationStation, and if it has none it takes the Carbon theme font as default.

A little video demo of the script working https://streamable.com/s/bbzzd/fecqc

And here's the the splashscreen of the Pixel theme with a Fun Fact!™ using Pixel's own font.