Jason Carr

Can you turn on debug logging under LaunchBox > Tools > Options > Debugging > Enable Debug Logs? Then you can look in the LaunchBox\Logs folder and send me the latest log so I can look to see what might be happening. I might need to add some additional reporting though in a new beta, not sure yet. If you can give it a shot though I'd appreciate it.

This looks amazing @int3; what an awesome idea. The IBigBoxThemeElementPlugin.OnSelectionChanged sounds like the right way to go. Basically, you'd have to implement that interface, and yes, you'd have to add methods for each of those methods on the interface, but you could just make them do nothing. If you implement that interface on a new class, it should be firing. Let me know if you can't get it to work and post the code and I'll help get it figured out.

Ah, thanks. Not sure why that's happening...yet. What language are you using in LaunchBox/Big Box?

Can you screenshot what you mean by this? My understanding was that the list of themes was not scrolling down, which is what I fixed.

Hi @nosh, that makes sense. That was actually on the last community poll, and did get fairly high results, so it is actually planned (at least as far as game boxes and such). Should be coming soon.

Assuming I'm understanding correctly, this should already be possible. Just choose "Apply as Main Theme" and then press No when prompted to replace the theme for platforms and playlists.

Beta 2 is out now with fixes for all of the above issues, at least as far as I can tell. Let me know if anyone runs into any further bugs with the theme manager.

That is a good idea; I had considered it but I think we also need to somehow include what view is being used as well. I might work it into Views screen somehow. I'll have to look into this; I'm not sure if there's currently a way to apply different themes to platform categories vs. platforms lists. You can already randomize startup videos by manually creating a LaunchBox\Videos\Startup folder and just throwing your videos in there. I think a Manage Startup Videos feature would be great, but it probably won't make it into this release. Bitdefender has made it onto my crap list for anti-virus products that I consider to be garbage due to inaccuracy. I still recommend uninstalling all third-party anti-virus and just using the tried and true built-in Windows Defender. It just works. Logo packs would be cool as well, but that also probably won't make it into this release.

The manual should reload when you zoom in and out currently, but it should also zoom as well. I just tested on my end and it's working fine; have you tried repeatedly zooming in or out to see if you notice a difference?

Thank you @alexposad; I added the translation package but apparently forgot to turn it on for the last beta. I'm planning to put out a beta today so I'll get it all going. So sorry for all the delays, and thanks for your patience.

@PurpleTentacle Most likely this is a driver issue of some sort. Have you tried upgrading your drivers?

Thank you guys; planning on fixing the above issues either over the weekend or early next week, so a new beta will be out soon. It looks like there's just a translation/culture error and the non-scrolling issue, which should both be easy to fix.

Hi Wanderer, that is a good idea. We have beta testing posts here on the forums that I should at least link to in the beta testing welcome screen. I'll add that to my list. Here's the latest thread:

@viking Yeah, unfortunately it's currently not possible to bind things up that way. We'll get more flexibility in there eventually.

9.6-beta-1 is out now with a brand new Big Box theme manager and downloader: Discussion can continue there.

Per Version, that's mostly up to the theme developers, but it looks like it was left out of the default theme, which is probably why it's not in most of the themes. I'll add that to my list. I'll check out Launch With and the music, thanks.

Hello all, 9.6-beta-1 has been released with the significant new feature being a brand new themes manager and downloader inside of Big Box. You can get to it by navigating to the System menu and choosing Manage Themes: This has been a very large undertaking, and there's still quite a bit to do yet, but it should be mostly functional. The plan for this system is to allow theme developers to use a separate web form to upload their themes for approval, and then use a manual approval process to allow them in the app. This is to help stability and ensure that only fully-working themes are available in the interface. I've been working hard on the web interface for uploading themes as well, but it's not quite ready yet. In the mean time, I'll be uploading some of the more popular themes so that things can be tested in the betas. Currently there's three themes available, but I'll be adding more later today. Features that have already been implemented: Trailer video and screenshots Installing and uninstalling themes Repairing themes (delete and re-install) Applying themes as the main theme Support links Details on the developer, aspect ratio, current version, and latest version Description, Credits, and Changes List of installed themes with updates available List of recently updated themes List of newly available themes Support for Startup Themes Features that are planned: Like/unlike themes Apply a particular view of a theme to a particular platform View screenshots of every single view available in the theme (Views tab) Probably more, but that's all I think of Let me know how it all works for you guys.

Hi Harry, yes, you can use videos on the startup theme; you just have to customize the startup theme XML and include a VideoControl.

@viking Big Box has an option to skip the game details screen, so I'm guessing that's what you're going for. Unfortunately you can't force it on a theme though currently. But if you enable that option, then games will be played directly from the game lists. Currently I don't know of a way to change the game details items into graphics (though XAML constantly surprises me with things that I didn't know exist). I do know that we need some more flexibility on that game details screen, but it's honestly probably a ways off yet.

Sorry for the delay on getting the translations into a beta guys. I've been working on the new Big Box themes manager and downloader and it's been taking a while. They'll definitely be in for the first 9.6 beta.

For what it's worth, @lunaticx came to me begging for a free license, all the while saying that "even if he could afford it he wouldn't probably pay that money anyway" because he'd just pirate it instead. So, sadly, he's not the kind of person we want translating for us, or even on these forums at all.

Could there be a Sort Title specified on those games? That's the only thing I can think of; I've never heard of that before. It looks like the games might be duplicated too though, so that makes even less sense. Are you able to reproduce the issue, or did it only happen once? Are you referring to the platforms list or the platform categories list in Big Box? If you edit a playlist, there is a checkbox to "Include this Playlist with Platforms". Is that checked?

I have it on my list for the next poll, so we'll get it on there. It'll probably be a few months before the next poll though.

I believe this is a Windows issue, and it's how Microsoft intends this stuff to work. It's not a good idea for application developers to override basic functionality like this. Hitting an extra tab is not really an issue, which is probably why MS hasn't bothered to change that functionality.

We discovered before the 9.4 release that some themes/plugins for Big Box were causing these stability issues. Most of the affected themes and plugins have either been fixed or disabled in the 9.4/9.5 releases. However, it's important to note that plugins (even when installed by themes) can cause major stability issues, so it's important to test things with the default themes if you're running into issues, as most likely it's theme and plugin-related. Going forward, we'll be testing themes for stability before they get uploaded to the new built-in themes manager and downloader in Big Box, and all themes will be approved. Themes that cause crashes, assuming we catch them, will not be allowed in the automatic downloader (though they'll still be available on the forums with warnings). 8 gigs of RAM is generally enough, but some themes are intensive and some plugins weren't properly cleaning themselves up, so the limit can be hit. In most cases 8 gigs will be enough, but you might benefit from 12 or 16 for some of the more intensive themes. If you're still running into any slowdowns or crashes at all in 9.5, please try using either the Default theme or the CriticalZone V2 - Default theme and let me know if that fixes it (and what theme you run regularly).