The POC - A Nice View of the New Walls 1.4

I dont want to speak for @faeran really here, but i will just chime in with a little bit of my own 2 penny's. This is a proof on concept theme, (hence the name POC), i dont really think that faeran thought about it being a actual everyday theme when he created it, it really seems to me to be exactly what it says it is, a "hey look this is the sort of things you can now do in Bigbox, now take these ideas and build then into actual themes" or at least that is how i saw it. So people acting like it's a fully fledged theme and requesting additions and changes and such may, want to wait for a actual fully developed theme that features elements that are demoed here.

@faeran apologies to you if i misunderstood the theme and you was actually going for a fully fledged theme here.  

10 minutes ago, faeran said:

That is something I didn't add to this theme. It's something that can be added for anyone willing to take a stab at it. The code is freely available.

i have been attempting to do this trying to splice bits from another theme with ratings but theres so much going on its hard to make sense of how it all hooks in, anything new i try put in just results in errors that are beyond my understanding of it all but i managed to bodge something just replacing the existing genre text which i don't really need anyway, but later noticed in some platforms like snes and n64 the genre element doesn't show for some reason so not really sure why thats happening.

23 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

I dont want to speak for @faeran really here, but i will just chime in with a little bit of my own 2 penny's. This is a proof on concept theme, (hence the name POC), i dont really think that faeran thought about it being a actual everyday theme when he created it, it really seems to me to be exactly what it says it is, a "hey look this is the sort of things you can now do in Bigbox, now take these ideas and build then into actual themes" or at least that is how i saw it. So people acting like it's a fully fledged theme and requesting additions and changes and such may, want to wait for a actual fully developed theme that features elements that are demoed here.

@faeran apologies to you if i misunderstood the theme and you was actually going for a fully fledged theme here.  

Yup @neil9000, you got it. It will be a good journey we can all go on exploring all the new tools we just received and how we can all use them to build some cool themes.

11 minutes ago, knapman said:

i have been attempting to do this trying to splice bits from another theme with ratings but theres so much going on its hard to make sense of how it all hooks in, anything new i try put in just results in errors that are beyond my understanding of it all but i managed to bodge something just replacing the existing genre text which i don't really need anyway, but later noticed in some platforms like snes and n64 the genre element doesn't show for some reason so not really sure why thats happening.

Yup, there's always lots of pieces going on with themes. Different sections of the code related to other sections of the code. Lots of interdependencies. But, it's worth the journey if you can keep at it. If you have any specific questions about the code, you can always PM me.

I think there may be a bug. I am getting this strange screen whenever I switch from the settings section to the front-end of BigBox. It is also stuck as soon as I get caught in it and I have to forcibly close BigBox from task manager. Otherwise, it seems to be working well if I avoid traversing from settings to the front-end:

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Hifihedgehog

Dude! This looks insane faeran! Excellent job! Proof of concept undersells this theme. It's a full theme in its own right and better looking than many previous themes on this forum. I'm so glad these new wall views are here! Thanks for your work on this!

 

Also, on a personal note, Thanks for those theme streams you did a while back. I got into this whole theme developer scene because I stumbled upon the ArtBook one. I haven't released any theme yet (lol) but those peaked my interest and taught me a lot. Currently I have been slaving over these new platform logos for months (gasp!) but you inspired me to get into all this.

17 minutes ago, Dan Patrick said:

Dude! This looks insane faeran! Excellent job! Proof of concept undersells this theme. It's a full theme in its own right and better looking than many previous themes on this forum. I'm so glad these new wall views are here! Thanks for your work on this!

 

Also, on a personal note, Thanks for those theme streams you did a while back. I got into this whole theme developer scene because I stumbled upon the ArtBook one. I haven't released any theme yet (lol) but those peaked my interest and taught me a lot. Currently I have been slaving over these new platform logos for months (gasp!) but you inspired me to get into all this.

Awesome @Dan Patrick. I would really love to do more of those theme streams, once I get some time.

And I can't wait to see your themes so we can play around with them. Also, are you going to post your clear logo pack?

Very beautiful theme!!!
But I have an error when choosing this theme.... It says "Input string was not in a correct format"

I am in Windows 7 64 bits, with Microsoft Visual C++ installed.

If you have any idea ^^

Thanks!

7 minutes ago, Tityo78 said:

Very beautiful theme!!!
But I have an error when choosing this theme.... It says "Input string was not in a correct format"

I am in Windows 7 64 bits, with Microsoft Visual C++ installed.

If you have any idea ^^

Thanks!

Hi @Tityo78. you able to take a screenshot of your screen when you see the error?

Hi faeran, Here is the picture, sorry somme text is in French

That's ok. Which view were you trying to access when you got that message? Was it just the platform view, or were you trying to enter one of the game views?

All views do the same error message, when I select my previous theme (Griddle Theme) it's working well! With this POC theme, it has always the same error when selecting a platform

Also I have another error message when I am in the Platform selection page (see picture). I think that the problem comes from my computer, it seems to be a Visual C++ error or something like that....

Once I select the platform, I have the first error message that I sent you....

I'm leaning towards that you may need to unblock the plugin DLLs. You can actually right click the theme zip file, go into the properties and click on the unblock button:

Then extract the zip's contents into the theme folder.

Let me know if that makes any difference.

I did what you mentionned, I unblocked the zip file and unzipped it again, then copied to my Theme folder, but it is the same..... I verified that all my DLLs are unblocked and that's the case.....

Maybe I miss something in my installed programs... I have DirectX, C++, Net Framework installed. Does it need a specific programs to run well?

4 hours ago, faeran said:

Awesome @Dan Patrick. I would really love to do more of those theme streams, once I get some time.

And I can't wait to see your themes so we can play around with them. Also, are you going to post your clear logo pack?

I absolutely am man! The logos have just taken 10 times longer than I expected. I'm a bit of a perfectionist at times. I have thought about releasing it in parts as I finish them all but I thought it'd be simpler just to wait and release it as one pack.

How possible would it be to adapt this theme to work with Steam Banners in any of the wall views? I primarily use LB/BB for steam/pc games, so steam banners are what I use for almost all games. Thanks

1 hour ago, Tityo78 said:

Maybe I miss something in my installed programs... I have DirectX, C++, Net Framework installed. Does it need a specific programs to run well?

yeah, I'm leaning towards an issue with the theme and Windows 7. I think you need NET Core installed. Maybe we can take this into PMs and do some troubleshooting.

 

1 hour ago, fawkesyeah said:

How possible would it be to adapt this theme to work with Steam Banners in any of the wall views? I primarily use LB/BB for steam/pc games, so steam banners are what I use for almost all games. Thanks

Shouldn't be too hard. Set the width/height to your banners, and adjust the spacing until it works for you. Here's the piece of the code, I've highlighted the parts you should play around with.

Spoiler

                <coverFlow:FlowControl x:Name="FlowControl" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VisibleCount="22" SelectedScale="1.1,1.1" SelectedOffset="0,0,1" Columns="5" Rows="6" NavigationRows="1" ItemSpacing="-0.52,0.01" RenderTransformOrigin=".5,.5" Width="{Binding ElementName=Canvas,Path=ActualWidth,Converter={StaticResource ScalePropertyValueD},ConverterParameter=W;1270;1920}" Height="{Binding ElementName=Canvas,Path=ActualHeight,Converter={StaticResource ScalePropertyValueD},ConverterParameter=H;1080;1080}">
                    <coverFlow:FlowControl.RenderTransform>
                        <TransformGroup>
                            <RotateTransform Angle="0" />
                            <ScaleTransform ScaleX="1" ScaleY="1" />
                            <SkewTransform  AngleX="0" AngleY="0" />
                        </TransformGroup>
                    </coverFlow:FlowControl.RenderTransform>
                    <coverFlow:FlowControl.Camera>
                        <OrthographicCamera Position="-0.25,0,5" LookDirection="0,0,-1" NearPlaneDistance=".01" FarPlaneDistance="1000" Width="8"/>
                    </coverFlow:FlowControl.Camera>
                    <coverFlow:FlowControl.FlowTemplate>
                        <DataTemplate>
                            <coverFlow:FlowContext>
                                <Grid>
                                    <Grid.Style>
                                        <Style TargetType="Grid">
                                            <Setter Property="Height" Value="1000"/>
                                            <Setter Property="Width" Value="731" />
                                        </Style>

 

On 4/7/2021 at 5:45 PM, Hifihedgehog said:

I think there may be a bug. I am getting this strange screen whenever I switch from the settings section to the front-end of BigBox. It is also stuck as soon as I get caught in it and I have to forcibly close BigBox from task manager. Otherwise, it seems to be working well if I avoid traversing from settings to the front-end:

 

I figured out when and where this bug occurs. The specific situation is when you have just one and only one system installed. Also, to add, the bug occurs after you have traversed one level within settings->then you go back to the main area->then you go back once more back to the main menu. Very peculiar bug, I must say. For 99% of folks, the bug will never show but if you have just one system of games and notice this behavior, that is why.

Hi faeran, thanks a lot for the time you take to troubleshoot the problem ! I also have the same issue that Hifihedgehog mentionned when you have only one system configured. When I configure a lot of systems, there is no more problem.

I think I know where the problem comes from.... I've tested on a Windows 10 PC with Microsoft Visual C++ ; Microsoft .NET Core SDK 3.1 ; Microsoft .NET SDK 5.0 ; and Microsoft .NET Framework installed. I wanted to install the exact version on both PC (Windows 7 and Windows 10). In Windows 7 I installed the 4.8 version of .NET Framework, but in Windows 10, when I executed the setup.exe, it says that I have a more recent version of .NET Framework installed, but I don't know which version exactly. Maybe the .NET Framework 4.8 is not enough to make the POC Theme work properly.....

Do you think you can make it work on Windows 7? Or I have to upgrade to Windows 10?

Thanks!

6 hours ago, Tityo78 said:

Hi faeran, thanks a lot for the time you take to troubleshoot the problem ! I also have the same issue that Hifihedgehog mentionned when you have only one system configured. When I configure a lot of systems, there is no more problem.

I think I know where the problem comes from.... I've tested on a Windows 10 PC with Microsoft Visual C++ ; Microsoft .NET Core SDK 3.1 ; Microsoft .NET SDK 5.0 ; and Microsoft .NET Framework installed. I wanted to install the exact version on both PC (Windows 7 and Windows 10). In Windows 7 I installed the 4.8 version of .NET Framework, but in Windows 10, when I executed the setup.exe, it says that I have a more recent version of .NET Framework installed, but I don't know which version exactly. Maybe the .NET Framework 4.8 is not enough to make the POC Theme work properly.....

Do you think you can make it work on Windows 7? Or I have to upgrade to Windows 10?

Thanks!

Windows 7 isn't a supported operating system by either Windows or us. The last version we have that we can confirm will work with Windows 7 is 11.2. This theme utilizes logic implemented in 11.10 and so I have my doubts you will be able to run it on Windows 7. That being said I'm fairly confident the issue you and @Hifihedgehog are reporting is not caused by .NET dependencies.

1 hour ago, C-Beats said:

Windows 7 isn't a supported operating system by either Windows or us. The last version we have that we can confirm will work with Windows 7 is 11.2. This theme utilizes logic implemented in 11.10 and so I have my doubts you will be able to run it on Windows 7. That being said I'm fairly confident the issue you and @Hifihedgehog are reporting is not caused by .NET dependencies.

Thanks. I am running Windows 10 so it would appear that at least my issue, while similar to @Tityo78's, is OS agnostic.

For the record, this theme runs great for me! Really smooth! Incredibly smoother than any of the older wall views for sure. I see that moving up and down on wall views always moves your selection vertically centered. It would be cool if a wall could stay still until you get nearer to the top or bottom of the visible area. I imagine if a theme has 5 rows showing at one time and you're in the center 3 rows it won't scroll until you push past those up or down. That's probably a deeper limitation I would imagine. It works super great as is though. I'm just just curious if that's even possible.

5 minutes ago, Dan Patrick said:

For the record, this theme runs great for me! Really smooth! Incredibly smoother than any of the older wall views for sure. I see that moving up and down on wall views always moves your selection vertically centered. It would be cool if a wall could stay still until you get nearer to the top or bottom of the visible area. I imagine if a theme has 5 rows showing at one time and you're in the center 3 rows it won't scroll until you push past those up or down. That's probably a deeper limitation I would imagine. It works super great as is though. I'm just just curious if that's even possible.

You just described what the NavigationRows (or NavigationColumns) property does. In the example you gave you set the property to 2 (so it doesn't move if in the first or last 2 rows) and then the rest of the rows will center from there on out.

5 hours ago, C-Beats said:

You just described what the NavigationRows (or NavigationColumns) property does. In the example you gave you set the property to 2 (so it doesn't move if in the first or last 2 rows) and then the rest of the rows will center from there on out.

Wow that's amazing! I'll have to play around with these settings. Very Cool. Thanks for that info.