Community Theme Creator 3.2.5

1 hour ago, skizzosjt said:

The "hardware overlay" element is definitely one of them that needs adjusting. The element itself, so the one you circled, needs to use the "update during selection" radio bubble. This way the hardware overlay image immediately changes each time you scroll to a new platform in your wheel. This keeps that part of the theme working as the original authors intended.

Then it gets into the understandably confusing part. I know what needs to be done, but may struggle to explain it. So, don't be shy about asking for help, I'll do my best.

If you leave the animation properties tied to that same hardware overlay element it's going to also do the transparency changes, and the position animation change at the same time. Meaning it's going to happen at a wrong time. We need the animation properties to start once selected which means we need to use the "update once selected" radio bubble. Problem here is we are already requiring this element to use update during selection for the image to change when intended. This hopefully explains the reasoning for the disconnect  between animations of various elements.

So, to get around this I made a GRID element that will be a PARENT element to the hardware overlay element. This makes the hardware overlay element now a child element to the grid element. I then copied the animation settings from the hardware overlay element, into the new grid element. You will then need to make sure the grid element is using update once selected radio bubble, as well as then remove the animations from the hardware overlay element since we don't want these animations on both elements, it would cause things to be misaligned still.

Putting this together now means the hardware overlay will update during selections, meaning right away. But since we now put the hardware overlay into a parent element that has the animation properties, we can use update once selected for the parent element. This results is the opacity and position changes will happen at the right time. All together, it means it will work just like the authors originally intended.

 

I'm going off my memory right now, so I could make some screen shots of my CTC settings to make sure I'm not misremembering details.

 

Full screen background can be left as is I believe.

Background color.....might need an update? If anything it should be "update during selection"....I assume. I think if it is on "update once selected" it still works "OK" but the colors are going to change a few moments later. Like if you are in a playlist that has games from many platforms/systems with different colors, you might see the "old" color for a split second before the selected bindings are read.

I changed names of stuff to make more sense to me. So the "Background color" is not the same as what I called "LHS Rectangle Color". I think that specific element is only in the 1st wheel which is what you show in this image. But just to clarify, from your video you posted you were using the 2nd wheel there. The difference there is the 2nd wheel has the color coordinated background taking up the whole screen. The first wheel always has sort of a dark gray section on the left hand side and puts some of the info into a color conditioned rectangle. The wheels are a little different like that, so there are different adjustments needed for both wheels to animate correctly. I did do the fixes for both, but looking back at my previous posts I see I only really addressed this on wheel 1. Take note some issues also occur on the game selection view (whatever the views are called for selecting the actual game). I do not recall if TextListGameView (or whatever the text list view is called) has some problems too. There are at least 4 views that would need adjusting. Two platform views, and two game views, at least. Possible a 5th would be the TextList one.

There is def more I changed, but don't remember all the details. So I'd have to look at my settings and post them, or something to give more specific details. I already feel like I'm rambling lol

 

Give it a shot and let me know if you need some more help! I'm willing to share images of my settings or even the CTC files, whatever would help you out.

Thats mad. Here's how my Hardware Overlay properties look.

I suppose a screenshot of yours might help me out? So do I put hardware overlay into a grid then copy those animation bubbles into the grid instead? Or what bubbles do I change or leave as is? Do I delete the animations from the element itself and just leave them in the grid? It's one of those things where if it was shown in real time, it would make more sense. I don't blame you for finding it difficult to explain, and appreciate your help.

Edited October 2 by Madhead

@skizzosjt Right so I made a grid for the Hardware Overlay. I put the element in there, copied each animation bubble from the element into the grid, then deleted the bubbles in the element itself. The hardware image appeared smaller when I first put it into the grid but then I selected the fullscreen scaling option and it went right back into position. Lo and behold the animations now sync up as good as ever! I quickly republished the theme to see if it held up in BigBox itself and it's all good. Even when I fast scroll up or down the platforms the hardware overlay behaves properly and no longer fades out while you're navigating.

You mentioned other elements that need changing but as far as I can tell it's back to normal now. Thanks a lot for the help.

3 hours ago, Madhead said:

@skizzosjt Right so I made a grid for the Hardware Overlay. I put the element in there, copied each animation bubble from the element into the grid, then deleted the bubbles in the element itself. The hardware image appeared smaller when I first put it into the grid but then I selected the fullscreen scaling option and it went right back into position. Lo and behold the animations now sync up as good as ever! I quickly republished the theme to see if it held up in BigBox itself and it's all good. Even when I fast scroll up or down the platforms the hardware overlay behaves properly and no longer fades out while you're navigating.

You mentioned other elements that need changing but as far as I can tell it's back to normal now. Thanks a lot for the help.

glad you sorted it out. I was just making some pics to post before I saw your response so I'm posting it anyways for reference for others

I think these are the important parts for the parent element. Apparently I used a dock rather than a grid for this one specifically.

Fullscreen enabled

Alignment properties are centered

Update when is ONCE SELECTED

I

The parent element needs the animation properties that were once applied to the hardware overlay element (not going into specific values since nothing should be changed there)

The hardware overlay element needs those animation properties removed once they were copied over to the new parent element. And the one other critical setting is update DURING SELECTION

 

There is more that needs to be adjusted if you wanted it just like it was intended to be. For ex, the animations for the color conditioned rectangle that has some metadata around it. This one might only look messed up in certain conditions, like from switching from some other theme to Colorful, or switching from one view to another within Colorful. I think this discrepancy wouldn't be noticed in "normal" conditions, ie booting into Big Box with Colorful as the theme and you are booting into your intended view and not using the assignable hotkeys to change views etc. What you would find here is colors changing later than intended, ie, you see the color change rather than have the screenmask wipe away and the colors are already changed appropriately. And/or the animations for the color conditioned rectangle shapes happen at a different time (would be harder to notice since it's just a single object moving, unlike the hardware overlay which was meant to be aligned exactly with the main video and makes it super obvious when it's off). To fix this it's more of the same idea as above. Had to leave color conditions as update DURING SELECTION for colors to change at same quick pace, but needed to create a parent element to make the animations happen at the intended later time using update ONCE SELECTED

 

This only fixed PlatformWheel1FiltersView. You would need to do same ideas to fix up PlatformWheel2FiltersView as well if you wanted that wheel looking as intended too

 

I noticed you mentioned previously the CTC source files for Colorful are gone. Just the links on the main discussion thread are broke. They otherwise are still existing from the file download thread.

1 hour ago, skizzosjt said:

glad you sorted it out. I was just making some pics to post before I saw your response so I'm posting it anyways for reference for others

I think these are the important parts for the parent element. Apparently I used a dock rather than a grid for this one specifically.

Fullscreen enabled

Alignment properties are centered

Update when is ONCE SELECTED

I

The parent element needs the animation properties that were once applied to the hardware overlay element (not going into specific values since nothing should be changed there)

The hardware overlay element needs those animation properties removed once they were copied over to the new parent element. And the one other critical setting is update DURING SELECTION

 

There is more that needs to be adjusted if you wanted it just like it was intended to be. For ex, the animations for the color conditioned rectangle that has some metadata around it. This one might only look messed up in certain conditions, like from switching from some other theme to Colorful, or switching from one view to another within Colorful. I think this discrepancy wouldn't be noticed in "normal" conditions, ie booting into Big Box with Colorful as the theme and you are booting into your intended view and not using the assignable hotkeys to change views etc. What you would find here is colors changing later than intended, ie, you see the color change rather than have the screenmask wipe away and the colors are already changed appropriately. And/or the animations for the color conditioned rectangle shapes happen at a different time (would be harder to notice since it's just a single object moving, unlike the hardware overlay which was meant to be aligned exactly with the main video and makes it super obvious when it's off). To fix this it's more of the same idea as above. Had to leave color conditions as update DURING SELECTION for colors to change at same quick pace, but needed to create a parent element to make the animations happen at the intended later time using update ONCE SELECTED

 

This only fixed PlatformWheel1FiltersView. You would need to do same ideas to fix up PlatformWheel2FiltersView as well if you wanted that wheel looking as intended too

 

I noticed you mentioned previously the CTC source files for Colorful are gone. Just the links on the main discussion thread are broke. They otherwise are still existing from the file download thread.

Yeah I'll have a look into the background blocks. I'll do the same for them as I did the Hardware Overlays right off the bat to see if it puts those right. I might as well be sure it's correct as you say.

Hey @y2guru I was trying to do some color conditioning on a rectangle used in a Pause view. I set a couple up for testing like this:

And when I save it, it only remembers the first one, when I edit the view again, I see this:

 

I've done this before in other themes, but never in a Pause view.

Edited November 6 by The Papaw

10 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

Hey @y2guru I was trying to do some color conditioning on a rectangle used in a Pause view. I set a couple up for testing like this:

And when I save it, it only remembers the first one, when I edit the view again, I see this:

 

I've done this before in other themes, but never in a Pause view.

It doesn’t care what view / wheel item template / custom image this is called from, just make sure you type the values into the last 2 rows

1 hour ago, y2guru said:

It doesn’t care what view / wheel item template / custom image this is called from, just make sure you type the values into the last 2 rows

Well my friend, that actually worked, so I can't copy-n-paste the platform names as I have done in the past in previous CTC versions?

Edited November 6 by The Papaw

3 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

Well my friend, that actually worked, so I can't copy-n-paste the platform names as I have done in the past in previous CTC versions?

Copy/paste works, code has not been modified

2 hours ago, y2guru said:

Copy/paste works, code has not been modified

Thank ya Sir, got it straightened out. 

Another question, do animations not work on Startup / Shutdown / Pause screens? I have them working in CTC, but in published theme, the gif's appear, but do not animate, I.E. move across the screen

18 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

Thank ya Sir, got it straightened out. 

Another question, do animations not work on Startup / Shutdown / Pause screens? I have them working in CTC, but in published theme, the gif's appear, but do not animate, I.E. move across the screen

what version of CTC are you running?

9 minutes ago, y2guru said:

what version of CTC are you running?

3.2.4

Here is what I have in CTC

 

Here is the published theme

 

 

16 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

Here is what I have in CTC

 

Here is the published theme

 

 

you havent shared a screenshot of how the animation is being triggered 

Sorry, internet dropped on me for a few. Uploaded videos and here is a SS

@y2guru I got it Dave, change it from "Once Selected" to "Immediate" and now working. Sorry Buddy

@y2guru Hey Dave, I've ran into another issue with the Startup/Shutdown portions. When I try adding an audio clip to each of them, different audio clips, the published theme plays both of them during the Startup portion and doesn't play anything on the Shutdown portion. If I only add a clip to the Shutdown portion and nothing for the Startup portion, it will play that clip I've added to the Shutdown portion during the Startup, rather than the shutdown. Both work as expected in CTC. I hope that is making some sense 

I've added the xaml files if they might be of any help.

Default Shutdown.xaml Default.xaml

Edited November 7 by The Papaw

@y2guru Just a Request, can Release Date be added to Condition filters for Platform Views???

6 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

@y2guru Just a Request, can Release Date be added to Condition filters for Platform Views???

no, add a hidden text field that uses release date (with a date format of Year Month Date) and then you condition against that hidden text field

Edited November 8 by y2guru

2 hours ago, y2guru said:

no, add a hidden text field that uses release date (with a date format of Year Month Date) and then you condition against that hidden text field

I have year added, as this I want to display but not able to condition by the actual years. I really don't want to display (a date format of Year Month Date).   Here is what I get:

I am needing to use more like this:

 

Edited November 8 by The Papaw

42 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

I have year added, as this I want to display but not able to condition by the actual years. I really don't want to display (a date format of Year Month Date).   Here is what I get:

I am needing to use more like this:

 

Release year is not advisable. 
 

as I said create a text field mapped to metadata release date with date format of yyyy then set that text element to hidden

 

now you condition against that text element

So basically the only conditioning that can be use for the platform year is like my 2nd screenshot above, you can't actually condition with things like <>, >= ,<= in the Platform views using the actual year being pulled? Only the options available in the 1st screenshot. 

 

 

Can anyone assist in doing a vertical Wheel Index in CTC, point me to a video, post or anything that explains how to do one in a vertical view? Any help will be appreciated

45 minutes ago, The Papaw said:

Can anyone assist in doing a vertical Wheel Index in CTC, point me to a video, post or anything that explains how to do one in a vertical view? Any help will be appreciated

You might find something useful in here:

 

3 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

You might find something useful in here:

Thx Teach!