Rob_G

Not so final after all. I got a cold so instead of going outside on my long weekend, I spent time indoors doing some some research on XAML. I learned a few cool animation tricks which I will implement into my game wheels. I also have a few other fixes, improvements and changes implemented on game views. I noticed box wheel movement is backwards compared to my clear logo wheels and I'm not sure why. So I'll make another wheel template for boxes I guess and fix that. Rob

Could we get more control of the recent games listbox if possible? - Number of days to show content - Activation direction The activation direction is backwards in my theme and I know of no way to fix that. I asked for assistance in another thread, but did not get a reply. In a perfect world, it would be nice to also have a 'random game listbox' (1 item) where you can also show details with the existing random meta tags. And also show gameplay video with a random game video tag instead of a repetitive platform video. Rob

Just off the top of my head, but create another platform dedicated to MSU-1. Rob

I added a random game display to my theme, but of course it's just static and doesn't do anything. I wish Big Box had a random game listbox like it does for recent and favorite games. Then whenever a platform or playlist is chosen, a random game can be shown and chosen if desired. I know there's been a lot of previous discussion about a random game picker, but I guess it never gained much traction for BigBox to implement? Unless anyone has some thoughts to share? Rob

The layouts are still basically the same, but a few things things have also been re-arranged. I think I'm pretty much done except I may check out a random game plugin and see if I can integrate that as well. Rob

I came up with a compromise. I will scroll the platform notes on the status bar.

I do need feedback if you like this direction or not. I'm ditching the notes scroller from platforms because nobody is going to read that crap. Maybe once, then it's useless to have. I moved a random game and rating in the frame as well as the device image. In the space below, I added a recent games listview. My focus is on what's useful and what's not (fluff). Some fluff is ok, but too much and nobody cares. I even thought about ditching repetitive platform videos and the random gameplay video would play instead, like a 'featured game' of sorts. I can't do that with CTC and may have to ask the bigbox team @faeran if it's even possible? It's a WIP.... Rob

If you ever wondered about nesting elements....... Back in the late 90's I used to program HTML in notepad and would nest tables for layout purposes... Reminds me of nested loops in programming in a way too. I always enjoyed that stuff. I do a lot of powershell and some REST API stuff these days for work. I don't think I would attempt it today without a WYSIWYG editor like CTC. Thanks @y2guru

One more update coming soon I hope and then I'm hanging it up for a bit. I've had A LOT of stress in my life lately and this theme stuff has been a good distraction for me. But bad stuff is afoot, my situation is not good. Health is ok (I think), finances are not. I worry... New video borders for platform and non arcade games has been implemented. Readability in some cases has been improved even more with additional semi opaque framing. I wanted to implement 'recent games' but got no help on that and I can't get past how the controls activate the element - it's backwards from what I want. Maybe some day... Probably this weekend I'll drop 4.1 and barring any issues that will be it for now. Rob

CTC 2.5 allows you to place the recent games filter list in your theme, but it's only for size and placement purposes. From lots of testing, it looks like the file 'ThumbnailListView.xaml' controls the appearance. The one that gets put in my theme by CTC 2.5 has issues with the bottom of the boxes being cropped. When I replace it with the 'ThumbnailListView.xaml' from default theme, I don't have that cropping issue any more. Also, the filter list title now shows where before it did not. So one thing solved - more or less. How do I change the navigation direction to the list? Right now it's DOWN, but the recent games filter list is above my wheel. So I want navigation to be UP, not DOWN. Rob

I think I've made considerable improvements to the theme and hope to have something for release soon. I'm just not completely happy with the platform views yet. I made a lot of changes last version and they are better, but something is still missing. Unfortunately, the new wheels in CTC 2.5 can't do true curves (yet). I've also abandoned wall views for now because it's been too much work getting wheels where I want in the other views. There has been A LOT of attention to size, spacing, angle etc. I'm going to call this newer one V4 because it's been such a major update with CTC 2.5.

I will probably ditch the glass element in the next version. I'm not happy with the readability and will replace it with a 50% opaque black frame.

Status is there for MAME games and tells you what playable state the game is in. For example, Good, Imperfect or Unplayable. When viewing other types of games, that is collapsed and replaced with the version of the game rom you are playing. You can always directly edit the XAML files, but doing so is going to affect the layout of other items like the notes scroller below it. At this point I would recommend just leaving it alone (for now) Rob

I think this is maybe a Big Box issue and not CTC related? The recent games element is always cropped on the bottom. Even if the default theme is showing, it's still cropped. I'm also not sure if the key activation can be changed since it's expecting the recent games below the wheel, not above it. Therefore it reacts to down, not up control input which is backwards. Does anyone use 'recent games' in their theme and what is your experience? Rob

I found the work around for using platform clear logo metadata images not showing is to make sure the platform clear logo filename matches the name of the platform. Rob

Yes, I like it. I'm not going to get too fancy with it, but definitely the badge support is great! I've now gone into a holding pattern for 2.5 release. Rob

One thing in 2.3 that also happens in 2.5 is where platform clear logos won't show while editing a view and a playlist is selected. It does show once Big Box is loaded Ro

At first I was lost on how to create a template. Then once I copied over the examples and saw what could be done, it looks really promising. It still took a while with making small edits in the template plus size and rotation changes in the theme for me to achieve the results I wanted. Wall views are in my theme and highlighting the selected item is BIG improvement for those! I used to have a grid overlaying the wheel to show favorite, broken and completed badges for the selected wheel item. Now I can actually have the badges as part of the wheel so they are always visible even when not the currently selected wheel item. One last thing I want to incorporate is the idea of having switches in my theme so users can control things like whether fanart backgrounds are used or not. My solution is a bit kludgy, but simple also. But, I have to be careful to not have too much going on or I suppose performance will take a hit. Rob

I was toying around with the idea of allowing fanart backgrounds or not. It would be something the user can easily turn on/off completely. I've included a sample image of the theme using fanart background. Looks ok right? But, not all games have fanart and the ones that do, not all of it is very good. Or it has a really high contrast which ruins the readability of the information card (second sample). Maybe if fanart is shown, the card has 100% opacity... Shrugs... It was just something to try I guess. I'm not sure I will continue down this path. Rob