[Game Room]

Hi @BMovieBen, I'm about to use "playlists" for the first time in LaunchBox. And in BigBox, I use "Game Room" as my arcade's daily-driver theme.

In my "Game Room" console selection screen, I'd like to have each playlist represented with custom and unique icons.

But I'm not sure what the image criteria would be (dimensions, format, file size, etc.)...and what folder I would place the custom artwork.

Attached are the images of the view settings and home screen I'm currently using in "Game Room" (it's the old Wood Panels background with consoles cycling):

 

[Game Room]

7 hours ago, BMovieBen said:

This is a great idea! I may play around with this idea. See if I can cook something up. I think the challenge for me would be making/finding videos for *all* the platforms, like the older obscure ones. But maybe I could just create a small clip that loops through the top games on the platform on that case.

I just looked at the emulation wiki and realized I was pretty ignorant about the number of consoles there are. So you'd be absolutely right to pass on this, and I wouldn't want to put such a burden on anyone.

....

BTW, I had a little get-together with some friends today - and wanted to share some of the great feedback/observations from their "common man" perspective...

- All were in a jaw-dropped state at the presentation. You could see them nudging the guy with the first player controller so they could get a turn scrolling through the 'Wood Panels' presentation...while whoever had that controller was mesmerized by the presentation of games.

- What's amazing is, more time was spent scrolling through the game selection screen than actually playing the games lol! The television previews of the games were the main attraction. They sparked people's childhood memories, discussions began, and comments about "they don't make em' like this anymore!" etc.

- When it came to deciding on games - one absolutely priceless feature was your addition of the "single player/multi player" icons at the bottom of the game information screen. I don't recall it being in the old 'Wood Panels' theme. But anyways, it was an absolute lifesaver that helped us avoid wasting time on single player titles. 

....

I could go on and on...but this actually sparked another idea. 

I previously mentioned the alternate homepage view (where you cycle through images of the consoles themselves). The benefit of that view is that it lets you scroll quickly because it doesn't have video previews.

But it still looks a slight bit "empty". I wonder if we can take the other view's "console-information panel" (that text box which contains a paragraph explaining the console)...and add it to this view, somewhere in the background or to the side (whatever looks best).

That might be easier than overhauling the console television view.

[Game Room]

2 hours ago, BMovieBen said:

I should probably add instructions around the cart images now that you mention it... I'll think on that.

For the Wood Panels look all you need to do is as follows:

Replace \Themes\GameRoom\Media\Background\background.jpg with the included background_WoodPanels.jpg

Just delete background.jpg and rename background_WoodPanels.jpg to background.jpg

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any further issues!

I just noticed your theme page contains instructions for swapping the background, sorry for bothering you about that. I just did that and the 'Wood Panels' look is great! A little more refined than the old one, in terms of how the text displays. I think this version also included a nice logo of the game on the top-right. Thanks for all these improvements!

If I could suggest one thing for the console display page (the "front page" that lets you cycle through the different consoles). Right now it shows a television-preview on the left, then a summary of the console on the right.

The console summary is great. But the television preview is a little confusing, because it fixates on a single game. That makes you feel like it's a game-selection item, rather than a general console item.

I'm thinking of some alternate things that television preview could show...
- A television commercial of that particular console (they're all on youtube and I could download them for you)
- A still image (the console's logo, a console advertisement, etc.)
- A changing cycle of game previews instead of just one game.

All that aside, it's still great as-is!
I switched the console page to the view where the console's themselves cycle like a wheel.
That looks cool as well!

[Game Room]

Hi @BMovieBen, installing your theme for the first time. I previously had your beautiful 'Wood Panels' installed. But in that previous theme, there were a number of LaunchBox settings we had to apply to get it looking right.

In this new theme, I don't see any extra instructions. Will it run "out the box" without modifications?

====

EDIT: I also see in the preview images, the old 'Wood Panels' look is available. But I can't figure out how to enable it. Can you please instruct me on this?

[WoodPanels]

9 minutes ago, BMovieBen said:

Thank you for that review by the way, it made my day when I read it.  I feel like my little theme gets drowned out by all the new fandangled modern ones out there!  Any interest in testing an early version of the new theme?  Let me know and if you're interested I'll PM you when it's ready for testing.

Wow, great to hear! I'd love to test it for you. My current setup of LaunchBox and RetroArch is "trial and error", as I experiment and learn optimal settings. So testing out a new theme wouldn't be a big deal.

I'm visiting the forum almost daily, so I'll definitely see your personal message. Look forward to it!  

[WoodPanels]

4 minutes ago, BMovieBen said:

Hey there...so evidently some updates to BigBox caused my theme to break on the 'playlist' views.  I can look into it, but to be honest, I only included really basic support for Playlists because I had to in order to submit it for inclusion in BigBox.  The WoodPanels theme, the way it was built...is not dynamic.  That was done due to the limitations of the theme creator application at the time and in the interest of speed and performance in BigBox.

Here's what it used to look like before it broke.  I couldn't get the video to dynamically resize per platform, so it's just the 80s TV with no platform image.  If you're still interested I can try and get this working again.  That said, I have been working a while on a new theme that is basically a WoodPanels 2.0, and is dynamic and will do exactly what you're looking to achieve, but I'm again running into performance issues.  It's funny timing actually, I'm working with y2guru this week to try and get some help for that.  So you could wait for that if you want instead.  It looks a little different and doesn't use the wood panel background by default but I'll include it as an alternate just in case folks want it back.

I can totally wait for your new project. I've just started using LaunchBox and RetroArch, and I have lots of other "growing pains" to deal with. So your current theme (without playlists etc.) can easily tide me over for a long time.

And I greatly appreciate you preserving the "wood" as an alternate look in your new project. I love the fun and child-like aesthetic your current theme has - and I think the wood and carpeting greatly contributes to that!

[WoodPanels]

I'm a noob and am using your theme to setup LaunchBox/BigBox for the first time. One thing I just realized was that each console has hundreds or thousands of games...which can be visually overwhelming.

By default, the WoodPanels installation displays the platform (with console graphics) - and then the full games listing (with television sets/cartridge graphics).

But I'd also like some way to display "short-listed" games (for example...sports, wrestling, racing, and general favorites).

I'm currently researching playlists and platform categories in LaunchBox.
But I'm not sure...is the WoodPanels theme actually compatible with these kinds of customizations?

I can imagine potential problems such as:
- If a "short-list" has games from different platforms...will they be displayed properly in a single listing?
- If a playlist is added to the startup platform view...how can I set the icon/graphic?

I'm hoping @BMovieBen can point me in the right direction - or offer his best method of displaying such "short lists" in the WoodPanels theme.

Again, I'm a noob and forgive me if I'm missing something obvious!

=======

EDIT 1 - UPDATE AFTER TESTING PLAYLIST IN WOODTHEMES:

I just tested creating a playlist with an N64 game.
I checked the option to "include this playlist with platforms".

The playlist appeared when the WoodPanels theme loaded, alongside the console wheel.
The problem is that when I enter the playlist, the television displayed is the one associated with NES - and the video preview does not work.

So I guess this means playlists are not easily compatible with WoodPanels?