Chicuelo Theme
-
I also worked on that theme for months, community gave me great advices for improve it and adapt for my builds, i have also made a C64 variant.
-
Hi @pootis-spencer, I'm still working on the theme to neaten up the code, make detailed view look better (as I mainly use video view) add more systems and generally make improvements to layout and performance.
As mentioned before though this theme requires a certain setup of the gamelist.xml files and game media:
e.g. player number has to be one number so it works with the player count font (1-2 players would not work because it looks incorrect) also all of the md_image elements are fixed size so they look uniform when scrolling, this may work for flat artwork but 3D artwork could look stretched.I have created "loose" templates too which uses the "maxSize" scaling which would work with most builds but I prefer the fixed size as it looks better and suits the build I've put together.
Below are a few screenshots from the gamelist view to show the responsive design inspired by the Art Book theme. I've also included a screenshot of the Power and Kodi system and gamelist views as they feature a special layout too.
NES Video View
NES Detailed View
As you can see I'm now using a lighter background for the system view but I may change this back to the darker theme. I'm also thinking about changing play count and last played to publisher and developer, still not sure just yet...
I was planning to upload this weekend but I still want to make some changes and get it right before I do so, hopefully won't be too long now.
-
@Wildfire said in Chicuelo Theme:
er (as I mainly use video view) add more systems and generally make improvements to layout and performance.
As mentioned before though this theme requires a certain setup of the gamelist.xml files and game media:
e.g. player number has to be one number so it works with the player count font (1-2 players would not work because it looks incorrect) also all of the md_image elements are fixed size so they look uniform when scrolling, this may work for flat artwork but 3D artwork could look stretched.
I have created "loose" templates too which uses the "maxSize" scaling which would work with most builds but I prefer the fixed size as it looks better and suits the build I've put together.
Below are a few screenshots from the gamelist view to show the responsive design inspired by the Art Book theme. I've also included a screenshot of the Power and Kodi system and gamelist views as they feature a special layout too.It looks like a totally different theme to me, I think you can upload it with a new name or a chicuelo improved one :)
-
@Wildfire Thats looks amazing. Really want this now more than ever. Great improvements. Maybe call it Chicuelo 2.0 or Chicuelo - Wildfire Edition. š
-
Incredible work, really, i'm just concerning on the operation, it has nothing to do anymore to Chicuelo theme, is almost a copy of Art-Book theme, wonder why you do not taken Art-Book as a base at this point? I guess i don't get the picture here, ES is basically two elements, systems and gamelist, the difference is in graphics and xml structure. Maybe Chicuelo xml was more appropriate for your project?
Just my thoughts, still a fantastic stuff, top quality. -
That's a good point @DarishZone, my initial intention was to just change the system layout so the characters come out from the frame but once the Art Book theme was published I loved the gamelist view so much that I decided to combine the two.
Chicuelo is still technically the base of the theme as the modified version I put together was created by editing the original theme.
However, this modified theme is equal parts Chicuelo and Art Book so I can't really claim that this is an original concept. My initial idea was to call the theme "Chicuelo - Wildfire" but at this point, it may be worth just calling the theme "Wildfire" and crediting @alphatoanant & @chicuelo as the main contributors?
These two themes are by far my favorite on this platform and I've had a lot of fun taking inspiration from both creators.
-
Thanks for your answer, very interesting take on theme edit.
Agree Chicuelo and Art-Book are the best aside Supersweet by Hursty, an incredible piece of work where anything is made to keep ES light. Is fast and beautiful and made smart use of carousel function. I'm actually working on that base with great results.
A little glimpse of my personal mod
-
Hey there, great looking theme coming along there. Are you supporting systems like PSP, Dreamcast and GameCube like in the original theme?
Cheers!
-
@DarishZone Looks Awesome. Waiting for this.
-
-
Any update please on releasing @Wildfire ?
-
@pootis-spencer I haven't been working on the theme over Christmas but I'm keen to get back to it again in the new year. I'm currently adding more systems/collections, tidying up the code, compressing images within reason (to improve performance) and I'm thinking about separating the characters from the background to make it easier for others to mod. Apologies for the long wait but I'd rather do the work now to get it as good as possible before I upload it.
@movisman glad you like the theme :) I currently have PSP (crisis core) PSP mini (jetpack joyride) and Dreamcast (crazy taxi) but nothing for GameCube yet. It's on the list though so it will 100% be included.
@DarishZone can't say I've installed Supersweet on my build but your modified theme looks awesome! I love simple themes like that which run smooth as butter :D I'm trying desperately to keep my modded theme as light as possible (which is a challenge given the transparent png's....) once compressed the theme works much better but it may still be a challenge to run for people who have tons of systems installed.
-
@Wildfire Any progress update on your amazing theme? I been aching to put it on my TV device.
-
@Wildfire said in Chicuelo Theme:
@pootis-spencer I haven't been working on the theme over Christmas but I'm keen to get back to it again in the new year. I'm currently adding more systems/collections, tidying up the code, compressing images within reason (to improve performance) and I'm thinking about separating the characters from the background to make it easier for others to mod. Apologies for the long wait but I'd rather do the work now to get it as good as possible before I upload it.
@movisman glad you like the theme :) I currently have PSP (crisis core) PSP mini (jetpack joyride) and Dreamcast (crazy taxi) but nothing for GameCube yet. It's on the list though so it will 100% be included.
@DarishZone can't say I've installed Supersweet on my build but your modified theme looks awesome! I love simple themes like that which run smooth as butter :D I'm trying desperately to keep my modded theme as light as possible (which is a challenge given the transparent png's....) once compressed the theme works much better but it may still be a challenge to run for people who have tons of systems installed.
Thank you very much! Your themes mods great too, so i'm very flattered!
Supersweet original creator used very smart ideas performance wise, using small vertical PNG images with color scale instead of RGB, little loss detail but they are way more light for ES to handle. As results the theme is light speed even with custom collections enabled, i've stick to that same formula for the mod and i'm very satisfied! Waiting for your work shared. -
Hi @duiz, I'm currently working on custom collections. I've completed all the artwork and logos for the game collections (such as final fantasy, sonic, marvel, metal slug etc) just need to create a .xml file with descriptions for them.
Last night I was working on genre collections (such as RPG, strategy, racing, lightgun etc.) I have all of the SVG logos complete and the XML files are ready to go so I just need artwork and that will be finished.
I was going to do developer collections too but I think I'll leave that for another day as its already taking a long time to get the theme ready. Sorry for the delay but I should be finished soon :D
@DarishZone I'm not so sure my theme will ever be light speed but it runs well enough for me. I've been processing all of my compression through a website called tinypng which works really well.
On some images, you can barely tell the difference however there are some images (usually the ones with gradients) that look a bit blocky... They still look good though and it's a sacrifice that has to be made for faster loading.
-
Hi, I am porting this excellent theme to Attract-Mode, If you allow I would like to use your "custom collection" and "mario collection" snaps in the port. Ofcourse I'll give proper credits and link to your original work. Thanks.
-
@rand0m Yes. No Prob. Thanks for the Info.
-
I just wanted to chime in on the features of the original theme that I think differentiate it from many others and made it perfect for my personal bartop arcade setup. I have around 200 games each with image and video. I set up my bartop, which is ninja turtles themed, to boot into the TMNT game. Then when you exit out I wanted to drop right into the āall gamesā menu, so it would be as close to as easy to use as a ācommercialā product as possible. I wanted the titles of the games to be big and easy to read with clean text, wanted the game image to pop up first then transition to video and also wanted the videos to be very large. This is exactly what the Chicuelo theme gave me and for that I really want to thank you. (Hursty Spin for instance looks great but in the all games menu the graphics wound up covering some of the game names). It was somewhat surprising to me that in the huge āmarketā of themes getting the combination of very easy to read large game names and a large video was not easy to find. My thought was that since I would have video snaps for every game and not a huge selection of games, the videos would in essence BE the description of the game. That is - I donāt need a worded description taking up space on the screen to say this is a side scrolling fighter if all you have to do is look on the screen and watch the video to see exactly that. I also didnāt need ratings, etc, because I had hand selected the games. So if this is what you are looking for, I havenāt found a better theme than the original Chicuelo!!
-
@BJRetro Thank you!
I have only one issue on this theme (actually it is a limitation). It was intended for use with raspberry so the images / video aren't big enough as I would liked. wIth a more powerful hardware I would be able to design the theme with bigger image display, removing all the bottom stuff. Maybe in some time if the Pi gets powerful enough I could redesign that menu and enlarge the snaps. -
@chicuelo I am certainly happy with it as is! It would be cool if ES would let the games list be graphics instead of regular text - like the images for the game titles! But I think the size of the video and text are great in your theme and definitely larger than anything else out there!
Contributions to the project are always appreciated, so if you would like to support us with a donation you can do so here.
Hosting provided by Mythic-Beasts. See the Hosting Information page for more information.