GBZ 3.5" Theme

RxBrad

I've made some recent updates to my theme. It now supports video previews (use these with caution on a Pi Zero.. should be okay with a Pi2 or Pi3); along with the recently added Favorites, Last Played, Custom Collections, and All Games lists.

Also, note that there is also a dark variant of the theme. I'm crossing my fingers that it should be available in RetroPie-Setup relatively soon, since @meleu offered to hook me up.

Dark theme is here: https://github.com/rxbrad/es-theme-gbz35-dark

meleu

@rxbrad Pull Request submitted: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/2048

EDIT: the PR was merged.

meleu

@RxBrad your theme is now installable via RetroPie-Setup! Maybe you like to edit the OP with this info. ;-)

RxBrad

@meleu Done. Thanks again!

RxBrad

While we wait for custom-collections, you can arrange ROMs into folders within a given system. With the update I just published, if you prepend the name of the folder with " § " (that's [space][Alt-0167][space]), you can show a folder icon next to the folder name -- and that folder will be sorted to the top of the list.

Note that Windows File Explorer does not let you rename files to start with a space. You need to do it in command prompt, like so...

rename Batman " § Batman"

RxBrad

Here's my to-do list for the gbz themes, in case anyone is curious:

Working on a gbzHD variant which includes metadata and is optimized for 16:9 and 4:3 full-sized displays. This is actually mostly-complete, but I'm holding off on release because I want to complete points #2 & #3 first.
Working on converting the background graphics to SVG on top of solid-colored backgrounds, so there is no squishing/stretching when viewed on 4:3 vs 16:9. I'm still considering how far I should veer from the original simplebigart background source art. At a bare minimum, I plan on making the "orange" color more orange and less brown.
Making sure the default theme is okay in preparation for custom-collections (I'm still investigating what exactly I need to do to pull this off)

strongbadialand

I love this theme but it does not have any support for Reicast (Dreamcast). Any way that can be added in?

strongbadialand

@rxbrad I love this theme but it does not have any support for Reicast (Dreamcast). Any way that can be added in?

RxBrad

@strongbadialand

A Dreamcast theme has been added, after I noticed your Reddit post. Sorry I didn't catch this earlier. ~~(I really wish this forum did email notifications)~~

EDIT: I fail. Apparently I just had email notifications turned off. My bad.

strongbadialand

@rxbrad Not a problem at all. I figured if I posted here and on reddit you or someone would see it. I appreciate all your work. It's a perfect theme for handhelds!

tsoliman

I love this but it is missing the Atari 5200.
Can you please add this as well?

RxBrad

@tsoliman Added that to the issues list. I'll take a look at it.

In the meantime, here's an almost-finished project along the same vein that I'm working on that you may be interesting in previewing. I have all of the same systems themed on it as you'll fin d on the Carbon theme.

It's not on RetroPie-Setup yet, but the wiki give instructions for installing which should still be compatible once it does end up in RetroPie-Setup.

https://github.com/rxbrad/es-theme-freeplay

System Select Screen Detailed Game List

RxBrad

Just pushed a few updates to the old theme... These changes should be available now by updating in RetroPie-Setup / ESThemes.

Improved handling of missing systems.
Fix system logo alignment in detailed/video views.
Added Atari 800, Atari 5200, PC Engine (alternative PCE naming), & ZX Spectrum.

~~More to come before the new year.~~ EDIT (Jan 8, 2020): Or not.. I'll add them eventually. I promise.

Dezmancer

@RxBrad love this theme on my CRT pi image, is there any support for PC Engine CD/Turbografx-CD?

RxBrad

@Dezmancer said in GBZ 3.5" Theme:

@RxBrad love this theme on my CRT pi image, is there any support for PC Engine CD/Turbografx-CD?

There is now. I just added them. :)

RxBrad

At some point, an update of EmulationStation caused clipping from the right-edge of several of the system logos in this theme. I've just updated the logos in both versions of the theme to prevent this clipping.

RxBrad

I'm slowly filling out all of the systems for the arcade cab folks who might have more powerful systems under the hood... Added Gamecube, Saturn, SuperGrafx, and Wonderswan Color.

RxBrad

A few more systems added to the mix, along with a few visual tweaks on some of the system logos.

Added Apple II, PS2, Wii, and Xbox.

mattyj513

@RxBrad Evening sir! Somewhat off topic, but I have been trying to find a way to contact you regarding your themes. First off, love em, thanks for all the work you put in on em. After utilizing your dark theme on my pi build I spent some time converting it to run on the Pegasus frontend for android. My newest endeavor was getting it to run on the rg350 handheld, which I did, by utilizing your files from the dark theme uploaded on github on 7/24/17. Works flawlessly, the system bar is white instead of black, not sure if that's how the theme was then though. I wanted to check to see if it was ok sharing this info and associated screenshots with proper credit and links to your gh with the rg350 guys. Thanks again, Matt

RxBrad

@mattyj513

By all means, share away. :)

Regarding the carousel being white instead of black, I actually themed the carousel to be black on the July 21, 2017 release. So, it should be themed using files from 7/24/17 (3 days later).

Unfortunately, I suspect that means that whatever branch of ES that the RG350 version uses didn't implement the carousel theming that Retropie added around that timeframe.

Here's the relevant part of the code that themed it at that time (in gbz35.xml):

<feature supported="carousel">
		<view name="system">
			<carousel name="systemcarousel">
				<color>000000aa</color>
			</carousel>
			<text name="systemInfo">
				<backgroundColor>11111199</backgroundColor>
				<color>FFFFFF</color>
				<fontPath>./_inc/fonts/RobotoCondensed-Regular.ttf</fontPath>
				<fontSize>0.045</fontSize>
			</text>
		</view>
	</feature>

Which has since been tweaked to:

<feature supported="carousel">
	<view name="system">
		<carousel name="systemcarousel">
			<color>000000cc</color>
			<logoSize>0.22 0.115</logoSize>
			<logoScale>1.7</logoScale>
		</carousel>

		<text name="systemInfo">
			<backgroundColor>11111199</backgroundColor>
			<color>FFFFFF</color>
			<fontPath>./_inc/fonts/RobotoCondensed-Regular.ttf</fontPath>
			<fontSize>0.05</fontSize>
		</text>
	</view>
</feature>

Also, I'm in the RG350 Discord (and rarely the RG350 Dingoonity forum) if you need to contact me in either of those places.