Eclipse 0.0.018

Ohhhh man I’m real dumb. I did not understand that you were saying to just open the index because that’s already a feature in big box.  Unfortunately this theme doesn’t support most functionality that you get from the standard theme engine because the entire UI for this theme is built from the ground up. That’s the only way I knew how to create a theme with this look that has multiple wheels on the screen at one time. So this theme won’t be able to take advantage of the index feature. 

Loaded up 0.0.9 and holy smokes it loads fast now, like instantly with ~3k games.  Big thanks for this update Fry!

Thank you for the update. Kids love it. So thankful.

So let me start by saying this theme is awesome and me and the kids love it.

I did find that on certain platforms where it shows the rating the platform logo is too big and only shows a portion of it. I tried to edit it in photo shop but it just reverts back to the default.  

I have a few quality of life suggestions.

1. Not sure if this feature is there and I cant find it but it would be nice to be able to create playlists.

2.Would be nice to have a search bar for typing keywords like street fighter etc.

3.If there was a way to change the cursor to the center of the wheel instead of the far left so only a button can access the settings.

4. Would be nice to have a random game button for say 2 players etc.

5. Would be nice when you click on a game for the game description to show on the screen with the play button.

6.Is there a way to remove the ratings and percentage (have no idea what this is) would like to have right under the logo only the system its on and the number of players.

Thankyou for making this amazing theme.  I cant wait to see what's next.

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I did find that on certain platforms where it shows the rating the platform logo is too big and only shows a portion of it. 

Which platform are you having that problem with?  I'll see if I can reproduce the issue and get it fixed.

 

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1. Not sure if this feature is there and I cant find it but it would be nice to be able to create playlists.

I agree, this would be good.  I plan to add this feature some day.  

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2.Would be nice to have a search bar for typing keywords like street fighter etc.

I can add this to the backlog of features.  It would be pretty low for me because I use the voice search for that.

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3.If there was a way to change the cursor to the center of the wheel instead of the far left so only a button can access the settings.

I don't think I would center the selected item because my goal with this theme is to mimic the netflix UI.  But I've seen others suggesting the settings are too easy to accidentally open so I would look into making it configurable to activate the settings with the escape button only or with going left from the first item so you can choose how you'd like to activate them.

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4. Would be nice to have a random game button for say 2 players etc.

The biggest problem is the limited number of inputs that are available via the plugin API.  We only have up, down, left, right, page up, page down, enter, and escape to work with.  I could make it configurable to specify whether the random game button searches across all lists or just across the current list.  Then you could set it so the random button only selects a random game across the current list and go to games by play mode and hit the random button.

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5. Would be nice when you click on a game for the game description to show on the screen with the play button.

I had considered it but many of the descriptions are very long and I felt it takes away from the netflix style aesthetic to have either the description cut off or scrolling. Also, the more I looked at them, I didn't care to have them there.  I could look at adding them with a configuration to turn them off as I wouldn't really want to see them but I do understand the desire to put them there.  

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6.Is there a way to remove the ratings and percentage (have no idea what this is) would like to have right under the logo only the system its on and the number of players.

The ratings show the community rating in white and the user rating in red.  For most lists, the percentage is just the user or community rating as a percentage.  Those are mostly there for the voice search functionality.  When you do a voice search, each phrase that is recognized comes with a confidence rating.  I use that and some other logic to generate a percentage that indicates how likely I think it is that this is what you were searching for.  Not sure if that makes sense.  Anyways, I could look at making it configurable for you to hide those fields.  

 

Thanks for the suggestions and I'm glad you're liking the theme so far.  I will add them to my backlog and bring them in as time permits.  Don't expect anything super quickly as I'm super limited on time to work on this at the moment but I'll see what I can do.  

20 hours ago, Fry said:

Which platform are you having that problem with?  I'll see if I can reproduce the issue and get it fixed.

 

I agree, this would be good.  I plan to add this feature some day.  

I can add this to the backlog of features.  It would be pretty low for me because I use the voice search for that.

I don't think I would center the selected item because my goal with this theme is to mimic the netflix UI.  But I've seen others suggesting the settings are too easy to accidentally open so I would look into making it configurable to activate the settings with the escape button only or with going left from the first item so you can choose how you'd like to activate them.

The biggest problem is the limited number of inputs that are available via the plugin API.  We only have up, down, left, right, page up, page down, enter, and escape to work with.  I could make it configurable to specify whether the random game button searches across all lists or just across the current list.  Then you could set it so the random button only selects a random game across the current list and go to games by play mode and hit the random button.

I had considered it but many of the descriptions are very long and I felt it takes away from the netflix style aesthetic to have either the description cut off or scrolling. Also, the more I looked at them, I didn't care to have them there.  I could look at adding them with a configuration to turn them off as I wouldn't really want to see them but I do understand the desire to put them there.  

The ratings show the community rating in white and the user rating in red.  For most lists, the percentage is just the user or community rating as a percentage.  Those are mostly there for the voice search functionality.  When you do a voice search, each phrase that is recognized comes with a confidence rating.  I use that and some other logic to generate a percentage that indicates how likely I think it is that this is what you were searching for.  Not sure if that makes sense.  Anyways, I could look at making it configurable for you to hide those fields.  

 

Thanks for the suggestions and I'm glad you're liking the theme so far.  I will add them to my backlog and bring them in as time permits.  Don't expect anything super quickly as I'm super limited on time to work on this at the moment but I'll see what I can do.  

Thankyou for the fast reply!

The systems I am having graphic problems with are PS3,Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS. they are cut off on the right side where the video preview is. I wonder if the option to remove those ratings would make enough room for the logo. Its on a 1920x1080 resolution also. 

Also cant  seem to find a logo for the Nintendo Switch that works.  I would love to be able to make my own in photoshop but it just wont show no matter what I try. Is there a specific size? 

That option for random in a group would be perfect especially if we can create custom playlist then we can just make playlists with the select players. 

Found a glitch.   It seems after playing a good  amount of videos the  videos will  then just stop working until restart.

It will fade from art like it is going to start the video but the video wont play for any game regardless if it was just played already.

Sorry if this is a stupid question as I'm new to bigbox and am still trying to get the hang of everything, I see in your demo videos a gameplay video will play after hovering a game for a little bit, I know Launchbox's DB links youtube videos but I'm not sure how to get them to play through this theme (or any theme really) or if that's even the correct way to play them here. Any help appreciated

19 hours ago, BouncyTheBoy said:

I know Launchbox's DB links youtube videos but I'm not sure how to get them to play through this theme (or any theme really) or if that's even the correct way to play them here

I'm not aware of any theme using those youtube links to play videos in themes.  I might be wrong and maybe there's an easy way to do that but if not, that could be a good idea for a plugin.  Normally when you see preview videos in themes, those are video files that are in your LaunchBox\Videos folder: 

The easiest way to get videos downloaded automatically and saved properly is via the EmuMovies integration.  It has a one-time cost.  If you have an EmuMovies account, you can set your credentials in LaunchBox under Tools > Options > Integrations > EmuMovies.  With an EmuMovies account linked, LaunchBox can download videos if they are available:

 

Also when you edit a game and update metadata, LaunchBox can download the videos: 
  

 

If you don't want to pay for EmuMovies, you can also download any video file and when you edit a game, you can add videos manually.  You can associate any number of videos with a game.  With this particular theme, it will play the first video.  I believe there are some options and other themes may be able to play a random video for each game and change which video is played or cycle through them.  

Hope that helps!

On 4/5/2022 at 7:06 AM, joey4187 said:

Found a glitch.   It seems after playing a good  amount of videos the  videos will  then just stop working until restart.

It will fade from art like it is going to start the video but the video wont play for any game regardless if it was just played already.

Sorry for the late reply.  Yes this bug seems to have been introduced whenever I reworked the startup process to improve performance.  I've been super swamped with family and work and no time to work on this project but one of these days I plan to address this and several other items. 

 

Also in case anyone is interested, I have a little proof of concept that I've put together that reimplements my game wheel which improves the performance of loading and scrolling through games a ton.  It's going to require a full reimplementation as the original source code is a bit of a mess and it's all tangled to the wheel implementation.  If anyone has any interest in taking over the code, it's posted, feel free to fork it and do whatever you want with it.  Just throwing that out there as I'm too swamped to work on it at the moment but definitely plan to get back to it one of these days.

5 hours ago, Fry said:

I'm not aware of any theme using those youtube links to play videos in themes.  I might be wrong and maybe there's an easy way to do that but if not, that could be a good idea for a plugin.  Normally when you see preview videos in themes, those are video files that are in your LaunchBox\Videos folder: 

The easiest way to get videos downloaded automatically and saved properly is via the EmuMovies integration.  It has a one-time cost.  If you have an EmuMovies account, you can set your credentials in LaunchBox under Tools > Options > Integrations > EmuMovies.  With an EmuMovies account linked, LaunchBox can download videos if they are available:

 

Also when you edit a game and update metadata, LaunchBox can download the videos: 
  

 

If you don't want to pay for EmuMovies, you can also download any video file and when you edit a game, you can add videos manually.  You can associate any number of videos with a game.  With this particular theme, it will play the first video.  I believe there are some options and other themes may be able to play a random video for each game and change which video is played or cycle through them.  

Hope that helps!

Ah I see, seeing as I just bought LaunchBox Premium I think I'll cool it with the purchases for now, thanks for the help though and keep up the good work on the theme!

Another good option is to create your own video snaps:

 

I've uploaded a new version with some minor updates/fixes: 

• Added setting for default game preview video volume so you can mute game videos if you like
• Added setting to disable game preview videos
• Fixed a bug where saving or deleting a custom list would reload the settings and overwrite any changes that had been made
• Fixed default list type setting so you can only pick from valid options

Ok so I did an Edit to my review adding a little more context and replying to one of the questions...

 

the main question that I have and keep having issues with is trying to find a way to exit the game back to the "menu" screen of this theme...I feel like Im blind and dumb on this one...lol...any help would be great...

 

Nevermind...I figured it out...ugh im a dumbass

Edited February 11, 2023 by The Dad King

hehe no worries, should be whatever you have setup as the esc button,  Glad you got it figured out.  Don't hesitate to make any suggestions to improve the project.  I'm not working on it actively at the moment but I pick it back up from time to time and whatever suggestions people make here is what I tend to work on.  

Hey Fry...

 

Could we do a keyboard or controller keyboard search option? us moonlight users can not use voice when streaming. 

 

 

Thank you. 

13 hours ago, Kinglifer said:

Could we do a keyboard or controller keyboard search option? us moonlight users can not use voice when streaming. 

I like it.  Search functionality is on my list.  I'll see when I can get it added.  

https://trello.com/c/8wwyiifk/43-keyboard-search

Edited March 5, 2023 by Fry

I’ve also noticed a bug lately where occasionally, preview videos seem to keep playing when I start a game and when I exit the game the system has gone into the screen saver. It’s supposed to stop preview videos and the screensaver timer while in game so that’s a pretty big issue for me that I’ll make my main focus as soon as I can get back into working on this. I’m curious if other people have experienced that problem. 

On 3/5/2023 at 12:48 PM, Fry said:

I’ve also noticed a bug lately where occasionally, preview videos seem to keep playing when I start a game and when I exit the game the system has gone into the screen saver. It’s supposed to stop preview videos and the screensaver timer while in game so that’s a pretty big issue for me that I’ll make my main focus as soon as I can get back into working on this. I’m curious if other people have experienced that problem. 

Saw this happen today. Using Sunshine/Moonlight set up.

 

16 minutes ago, Kinglifer said:

Saw this happen today. Using Sunshine/Moonlight set up.

Thanks for the heads up.  I have not been able to reproduce this in my development machine, but I am getting it a lot on my arcade cabinet where this is running.  I'll try to get it fixed asap.

Is it possible to configure Keyboard/Controller shortcuts in Eclipse theme? In example if I select a game cover and press "P" the game could be started directly (instead of showing the game page with game details and "Play" button and so on ...). 

Sometimes I wont to skip the "details screen" and just launch the game directly ...

Hot keys aren’t so easy. I haven’t figured out how to bind to more inputs. The plugin API only tells me if up, down, left, right, page up, page down, enter, or esc are pressed. 
 

So a few things I can think of would be easily doable, to add a global option to the settings which lets you choose whether you always or never want to view game details. Another option could be to add an additional behavior selection on page up and/or page down so you can launch a game directly with one input and open the details with the other. Been super busy and haven’t touched the code base in some time but I don’t think these settings would be difficult to add. 

Uploaded Eclipse v0.0.012 

• Added setting that lets you bypass the game details screen
• Added page up and page down options that let you play a game, bypassing the game details screen
• Added page up and page down options that let you view game details

So if you want to mostly bypass the game details you can toggle the bypass details settings on and pressing enter on a game will launch the game instead of opening the game details.

If you want to mostly see the game details before launching a game then you can toggle the bypass details settings off and pressing enter on a game will open the game details like normal.

Then if you want, you can use the DisplayDetails or PlayGame option on page up and page down to kind of override the behavior.  

Great! Many Thanks Fry! 😃👏

Awesome work!!!! Love this theme!!! You theme creators really add alot to make big box what it is!

Hate to ask but I would like to speed up the delay between the videos and the images when scrolling, Opened up the files available in the themes folder and did not find a place to change the value. If I could get pointed to the correct location it would be much appreciated!!