Game List and Gif ideas (ES)

paffley

Hi, I was wondering if in a future release these options would be considered for development in emulationstation:

Image 'Game List' Carousel - vertical & horizontal.
Animated gif addition.

I've used attract mode in the past and solely concentrate on es right now for my build and my themes and was just curious about the above development.

Emulationstation has come so far and its a force to be reckoned with now regarding front-ends, so a HUGE thank you to all that have been and are still working hard with all the cool functions and updates. Amazing job guys! it just keeps getting better and better!

Regards,

RichardBr

Vote for the first one, image carousel. why? I'm just not into gif...sorry :D :D

paffley

@RichardBr I agree, the image carousel would be an awesome addition. I believe @Zigurana is the man with more knowledge on this ;)

Zigurana

Heh, I've already added the carousel as a reusable component as an item to the Github tracker. Not sure when it will be done though.

Zigurana

Btw:
I am in no way claiming this as a project for myself. Anyone is welcome to pick it up, it should not be too difficult, although some idea of how to implement classes in C++ would be required.

If programming is not your thing, there are other ways you can contribute.

For instance, you can describe in some detail how you would expect the system to work. This new component, it would act as a replacement of the gamelist, and themes should define how they would want to employ it.
So, things that needs clarification: how would a themer define the carousel in a gamelistview? Not just how it looks (that part is more or less covered in the way the current systemview theming handles it), but how do you set the correct list-content?
Do you allow multiple containers, (carousels or regular lists) in the same view? How do we handle input events then? Only a horizontal carousel with a vertical list?

Then consider that one day we even might have grids, and you will certainly get a headache.

Technically, many things are possible, but not everything is going to be usable, or particularly useful.
So, if you want, please explain to me what you envision as the use cases or workflow, and try to describe what the effect on themes would be.

As a first approach, I am thinking of a situation where we;

Allow only a single container element,
use it to show games (so no genres, system types years, etc.)
derive the Gamelistview layout by checking for a container type (list or carousel).

That way, we have only the single component able to consume input-events, and it's clear what we are supposed to populate the component with (games).

paffley

Hey @Zigurana thanks for all the info, I will come up with some stuff over the weekend on a rendition on how it should look and feel etc and maybe some alternative to what the actual carousel could provide. I mean, would it be worth looking at a 'next' and 'prev' element image based? I'm not sure, I theme myself so I will look at options here also. I would have-a-go myself but programming is not my best skill, I'm a designer by trade.

Again, like i said thanks for the info and the start on this topic, I'm sure lots more people will jump on the train, the more the merrier! :)

Zigurana

Great!
For look and feel, have a look at what is currently done/possible with caroussels in SystemView, as I am expecting that will be the baseline for this.

paffley

While its fresh in my mind also..... I'm looking at the element of the gamelist structure and that es obviously reads the metadata of the gamelist.xml on output - what would the option be of it reading '<image>./path-to-box-art/Game_Title.png</image>' rather than the actual <name>Game_Title</name> from the gamelist.xml.

Just a thought...

Just seen your post while i was typing this......I will, ill have a look at the system carousel and its options and the possibilities.

Thanks @Zigurana

lilbud

@zigurana @paffley Okay, just skimmed over this thread and had some ideas.

Only focus on box art
Single row

Having the theme maker decide which would work for their theme would be best in my mind. But if a theme doesn't support a boxart carousel, then ES will fall back to a simple text list. Maybe using that thing you were talking about a few months ago @Zigurana where if a theme doesn't have a certain element, ES will just not display it.

Also, if a gamelist carousel is made, then we would need support for "MD_Title"

Here is what I was thinking

paffley

Nice input @lilbud my thoughts exactly.

paffley

<carousel name="gamelistcarousel">
<type>horizontal</type>
<pos>0.5 0.5</pos>
<size>1 0.90</size>
<color>FFFFFF00</color>
<ImageScale>1.06</ImageScale>
<ImageSize>0.19 0.35</ImageSize>
<maxImageCount>5</maxImageCount>
</carousel>

Pretty much the same as the system carousel, can you think of anything else that could be added for the above?

I'm guessing we would need a maxSize for the box art rather than the ImageSize.

paffley

@lilbud why the reason to have: Also, if a gamelist carousel is made, then we would need support for "MD_Title"

Could this not stay the same as people may still want to have a title list also when theming? Just a thought.

If one line for the game title was required as the image above, theme the '<textlist name="gamelist">' as <size>0.76 0.08</size> or to suit.

paffley

@Zigurana Am I correct in thinking a gamelist carousel would be a completely separate class/element all together rather than replacing an existing element? More of like an option to themers?

lilbud

@paffley well, if we have a carousel that shows only the box art. I think it would be good to also have the 'md_title' so that you could be able to tell which game is what. Or if you have a special name for it, it will show.

Also, I just think that 'md_title' would be a good addition to ES as a whole.

paffley

@lilbud I totally agree that a md_title would be a good option but I'm believing the gamelist carousel is going to be a separate class than to the <textlist name="gamelist"> therefore it is still optional to display the game title name within the theme if set to 0.08 in height, think of it as the same method as the md_players etc.

But.....like I say and totally agree with you, any new addition to the md_ family is always a great option! :)

Keep em flowing :D

paffley

This post is deleted!

paffley

It wouldn't let me upload a pic :|

lilbud

@paffley said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Keep em flowing :D

Oh, you want ideas for new ES additions? I'll get back to you once I eat breakfast, got a long list. :)

paffley

@lilbud said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

@paffley said in Game List and Gif ideas (ES):

Keep em flowing :D

Oh, you want ideas for new ES additions? I'll get back to you once I eat breakfast, got a long list. :)

haha I like it! :D...lets see if your list is as big as mine *high5

lilbud

@paffley okay, got some ideas.

Bilinear scaling for boxart - the scaling of box art looks awful with nearest neighbor. Maybe bilinear would make the boxart look better scaled.
ES element scaling - there are a few themes that have very specific positions for certain elements. They have to be designed at certain resolutions and will not work at others. I was wondering if ES could be modified to scale elements to any resolution.
This is more for when a image carousel is made, but maybe we can have the option to use the marquee as the image on the carousel.

And now some ideas going forward towards 3.0.0

Videos on the system view
the obvious plug for gridview.