Switch Theme 3.0 (UPDATED 08/12/18)

fraggle200

@lilbud I'm trying to update the theme.xml to put it into 4:3 mode but I can't get permissions to allow me to do it on the pi as its in the ETC folder. any ideas of another way to do it?

initial views of the 16:9 on my 240p CRT is that the text is hard to read, but not totally unreadable, it just doesn't look great. placement of art/snaps are OK but I don't want to judge this till I can get it into 4:3 to see how it changes things. Once I can do that I'll post some pics etc.

lilbud

@fraggle200 try running this

Sudo nano + the path to the 4_3 xml

Weatherby

Jumped over to this theme but have been spending a bit of today playing with the alignment of the various elements in the gamelist view. Basically I'm trying to go for this: https://i.imgur.com/DowoIBc.png

I have pretty much everything in place except the proper alignment of the developer/players/genre information and the rating. When I try to edit the positioning, it breaks the theme in one of three ways. Either it will cause all of the text to pile on top of itself, it will force ES to switch to the default plain text theme, or ES will straight up crash. I've not had any issue like this when arranging everything else, and so I'm at a loss. Everything I can think of just results in one of those three issues. Wondering if anyone more familiar with the code for this theme could lend me a hand, possibly point out where exactly I should be placing the positioning?

Also, unrelated, but I've noticed with this theme that when launching a game, the zoom in will kind of freeze on the game image and hang there. Not sure if the delay in opening a ROM is just something with the theme or if there's something I'm able to do to make it snappier?

lilbud

@Weatherby Make sure you edit both the label and the metadata positions (why the label and the text are separate items is beyond me. Also, the y positions are off between the two.)

You can set the label (the "Developer" text) and the text (Nintendo lets just say) to the same exact y value and they will be off.

What does your "es_log.txt" file say when ES crashes, that will usually point out the problem.

Weatherby

@lilbud I don't recall, but what seemed to cause it was changing the size value of ratings, reverting it back allowed me to launch back into the theme with no error.

This is what I see in the theme.xml file.

<text name="md_lbl_releasedate, md_lbl_developer, md_lbl_genre, md_lbl_players, md_lbl_lastplayed, md_lbl_playcount, md_developer, md_genre, md_players, md_playcount, md_releasedate, md_description" extra="true">
			<forceUppercase>0</forceUppercase>
			<fontSize>0.028</fontSize>
			<fontPath>./_inc/fonts/Roboto-Light.ttf</fontPath>
		</text>
		
		<datetime name="md_releasedate">
			<forceUppercase>0</forceUppercase>
			<fontPath>${mainFont}</fontPath>
			<fontSize>0.028</fontSize>
		</datetime>
		
		<text name="md_lbl_lastplayed, md_lbl_publisher, md_publsher, md_lbl_rating, md_lbl_playcount, md_playcount">
			<pos>1 1</pos>
		</text>

I assume this is what I'm looking for when it comes to changing the positioning of the meta data? So am I correct in assuming I would then need to have the pos value reflect under both sets of text data?

lilbud

Under both the "md_releasedate" & the "md_lbl_releasedate blocks of text

Weatherby

@lilbud When I add that, it takes each line of text that should appear in the metadata and overlaps it. So developer, genre, players, etc, all end up on the same line. Perhaps I'm still putting it in the wrong place and am misunderstanding (apologies if I am, I am not too familiar with coding. Regrettably, this is the one thing that's actually giving me issues though.)

I've tried putting the pos code under where it says text name="md_lbl_releasedate(...)" and the same pos code with the same values under datatime name="md_releasedate". Also tried placing it under the fontSize code for both, but it does the same thing. If it's not asking too much, would it be possible to just write in where it should go in the code I posted? I could just paste that in and try it out.

lilbud

@Weatherby That's right!

The code for the positioning is actually in the aspect ratio files.

Under "Settings/16_9.xml" that is the file you have to edit. You should be able to leave the main one alone.

Weatherby

@lilbud Ah, that was it! I wasn't in the 16_9, I thought the metadata needed to be edited from theme.xml.

https://i.imgur.com/zoOHZPR.jpg got it laid out how I liked it now, thank you so much for the help, and for putting such hard work into a great theme. : )

Weatherby

Sorry to double post here, but I actually ran into one last little hurdle. It's a bit of a strange one too. I have custom collections which I have broken out using the in-built option. The goal was to make some custom icons for each of these. I made one for my "Completed Games" collection and the icon adds to the carousel just fine, but oddly, any other I try to add does not appear. For example, I'm attempting to add ones for Castlevania and Final Fantasy, but these icons appear blank on the carousel, occasionally changing to a flashing blank icon. This is throwing me off because Completed Games was as simple as adding the icon to the art directory with the corresponding name. Is there something in particular I should be doing instead?

Those that I replaced for the included emulators didn't give me any trouble, though.

Not to just lob on with more questions, I want to contribute a bit. I've had a lot of fun making my own icons for this theme and wanted to share some of them in case anyone was interested: https://imgur.com/a/jkht395

lilbud

@Weatherby I don't have much of a clue on how custom collections work entirely. Sorry

Weatherby

@lilbud Ah. I'll have to play around with it then. It's weird that Completed Games recognized no problem, but the others don't seem to work. Worst case I just group them back together, I guess.

Thanks again for being so responsive, I feel I must be asking a ton of questions.

InfinityBeing

@lilbud your instructions on how to modify your Switch theme from light to dark just says its toggleable in the xml file and nothing else. What am I supposed to do in the file? You were not clear at all in your post for 3.0 OR its readme file inside the theme.

lilbud

@InfinityBeing It's actually the "config.xml" change where it says "light.xml" to say dark.

I mentioned this in the original post up at the top.

hooperre

@lilbud If you don't mind me shooting another question your way...

It seems the ratings aren't working for me anymore in the theme. The 'stars' don't fill in any way. I have updated, removed, and re-installed the theme to no avail. Not sure if this is global or just a me issue.

Excellent work, btw, as always.

lilbud

@hooperre Check the es log txt file, that should be a good starting point.

hooperre

@lilbud
lvl1: requested mismatched theme type for [detailed.md_rating] - expected "rating", got "text"

Sorry. This means nothing to me, but probably means something to you.

lilbud

@hooperre That makes no sense, looked back at the theme xml file, rating is only listed once and it is as 'rating' not 'text'.

Maybe someone else knows.

hooperre

@lilbud Fwiw, I'm seeing that as well.

Thanks for checking. Should be noted in on a Pi 4, though I'd be surprised if that changed things.

lilbud

@hooperre Yeah, I don't have a Pi 4 at the moment (honestly don't have a need for one right now.) Probably something to do with the new unofficial Pi 4 builds of emulationstation and retropie