Low Resolution Theme

Rookervik

Is there a way to show the currently selected game in a way other than highlighting the whole line and changing the colors? I have yet to see any of the themes show the selected game in a very readable way. The most high contrast way to show the list would be white bkg with black text. Then, instead of recoloring the selected game, could it just draw a box around it, put an arrow in front of it, bold it, double its font size, etc?

There is very little you can change about how ES highlights a game. These are your options:
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Wing Commander: Is a 100% opaque game highlight bar. Any color you want. And Wing Commander, any color
Winter Olympic Games: Semi-transparent bar (any percentage you want) any color, and any color highlighted font
Wizardry V: Completely transparent highlight bar, and colored text.

These are all the options you have. You can only change the color and opacity of the highlight bar and the text. You cannot change the font for the highlighted game, cannot change the indent, cannot add graphics like an arrow pointing to it. Cannot theme the game highlight bar.

Such are the limitations of ES.

And I don't have any box art, that's why I just use screenshots :P You would have whatever you have scraped.

Rookervik

The only way you'd be able to put both box art and screenshots would be to edit each scraped image, individually, and create an image containing both. Very time consuming, I highly suggest against it.

I did see a post, somewhere, about someone that had tried to automate the task. But it wasn't customizable. He had screenshots, box art, logo text and something else.

Flavor

@Rookervik I guessed as much based on the fact that I hadn't seen anything else done.

I guess that I'd ASSUME that I'd be in favor of options that didn't change the color of the text itself.

After that, I'd wonder if something simple like a white (or very light) background with black text would look good highlighted in yellow or something. Of course I'm thinking of a typical book or printout where someone takes a yellow highlighter marker and sets off some text. This barely affects the contrast, but it still makes the selection pop.

Rookervik

Could try one of these options:
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#1 Leave the entire game list a little light, then highlight the game with black text.

#2 Or Black text and a very, very translucent highlight.

Flavor

@Rookervik said in Low Resolution Theme:

The only way you'd be able to put both box art and screenshots would be to edit each scraped image, individually, and create an image containing both. Very time consuming, I highly suggest against it.

Okay, scrap that idea, then. I'm mostly brainstorming here. Obviously I don't have a grasp on the technical limitations of ES.

Can ES only show one or the other?

On your original mockup (black background SoR screenshot), there was no room for anything else. On the one to the right of it, the SoR screenshot leaves room for boxart below it.

Your 3rd mockup (with the game list full-width below the screenshot) is by far the best, IMO. In theory, there may be room for boxart+screenshot side-by-size above the game list, but I really don't know (or know if it's doable). I would not be in favor of creating new images.

Flavor

@Rookervik said in Low Resolution Theme:

Could try one of these options:

#1 Leave the entire game list a little light, then highlight the game with black text.

#2 Or Black text and a very, very translucent highlight.

I really like #2, but I'd have to see it on the small LCD before I say it's better than #1.

#1 would be good if it didn't make the deselected games unreadable.

Rookervik

ES can only show one image for each game. There is no way to script in an ability for it to show multiple images for each game. ES is very very limited. Pretty much any trick you can think of has been done in Carbon and Luminous and Pixel. You might want to check out the EmulationStation Theming Readme to see what ES has options for. It would take too long for me to make a bullet list on things it can do. :D

Sadly, several points in the README were never implemented. Such as: event sound effects, music, and grid layout.

lilbud

@Rookervik Where is this luminous theme you speak of?

Flavor

@lilbud said in Low Resolution Theme:

@Rookervik Where is this luminous theme you speak of?

See https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2600/carbon-light/

Rookervik

@lilbud Yeah, it's what I decided to call the Carbon Light theme. Since it wasn't very Carbon-y. LOL

Rookervik

This is actually running in EmulationStation at 320x240 screen resolution: (Changed font to be bigger)

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Flavor

@Rookervik I like that! Let me know if/when there's a zip to test. Thanks!

Rookervik

Test it out. See if the retropie menu looks bad. Might take some custom work. Or not. Might be just fine. /SHRUGS/

I might use this as my default theme. Ta heck with meta data :P

Download MiniLumi Beta 1: Yes I have a folder this time, QQ

Flavor

@Rookervik ;) Thanks, I'll try it in the morning.

Flavor

This is REALLY good compared to anything else I've seen so far.

It looks a bit goofy for any game that doesn't have an image, though. Is there a way to pop in a default image or something? I guess I should read the Theming Readme. :)

Rookervik

@Flavor Eh, there are a couple things you could do.

One would be to place an image in the background, always, that says "No Image"... the box art will go over it, and then any game without a box art would show what's behind.

The other is to FRIKKIN GET BOX ART FOR IT! Haha. Do it! Fix it up! :D

Flavor

Here's another thing that looks a bit funny. Keep in mind that this is likely caused by the LCD being 240x320 viewed on its side (as opposed to 320x240 viewed natively). The fades (or other wholesale screen changes) get a diagonal tearing. I don't really notice these ingame as much, but they are very evident when the theme fades in/out. See

Flavor

@Rookervik said in Low Resolution Theme:

@Flavor Eh, there are a couple things you could do.

One would be to place an image in the background, always, that says "No Image"... the box art will go over it, and then any game without a box art would show what's behind.

I like this idea. The other idea could be to just have a horizontal line between the game list and the art areas, so it's visually set apart.

The other is to FRIKKIN GET BOX ART FOR IT! Haha. Do it! Fix it up! :D

Heh, yeah, but I do have some that were unreleased or homebrew that won't have art. I guess I haven't played with the scraper enough to know if there's a way to grab a default image in these cases.

As an aside, the pictureless game shown in my screenshots is Motocross Challenge. It was an unreleased GBA game.
https://www.unseen64.net/2009/05/19/motocross-challenge-gba-cancelled/

Rookervik

I'd get screenshots for those unreleased ones. Or whatever. Haha.

I can do the horozontal bar... I like separators. Last time I suggested it I had a bunch of people comment on hating it. SO MUCH HATE! LOL.

Still, probably not a bad idea to put some text behind the box art with "No Image." Probably good practice... unless someone uses an image with transparency... like we do with the RetroPie menu. But it's sort of a special case, it has it's own theme.xml that changes some things.

Rookervik

@Flavor And yeah, tearing is something we all have to just deal with. It's how the screen refreshes. My awesome little GP2x Wiz has diagonal screen tearing on fast-moving scenes. Otherwise it's gorgeous. For you, looks like just the parts of the theme that scroll fast get torn. Center carousel bar doesn't tear. Makes sense. Not really anything we can do with it. I think it can be fixed with some driver tweaking (not that I know how to do any of that stuff)