Jason Carr

Beta 11 is out now with some translation updates and fixes, as well as the HorizontalScrollableTextBlock control described here: The current plan is to release 9.4 on Monday or Tuesday.

Hello all, @Maddoc1007 pointed out to me that the ScrollableTextBlock control wasn't working as expected when converting it over from the HelperControl version. This is because I hadn't realized that there were significant differences between the existing ScrollableTextBlock control in Big Box and @NJDave71's HelperControl version. As of 9.4-beta-11, which I just put out, there are now two available versions of this control: ScrollableTextBlock - The same control as what used to be included in Big Box, used for vertical scrolling text HorizontalScrollableTextBlock - The control from @NJDave71's HelperControl, used for horizontal scrolling text Sorry for the confusion on this. I've updated the examples in the first post of this topic to match the correct new usage. When converting your themes over to use the built-in scrollable text block control instead of the HelperControl version, you'll need to use HorizontalScrollableTextBlock instead of ScrollableTextBlock for the tag element.

Thank you all; beta 11 is out now with all of the above translations updated. @Opak Generally, compressing JPG and PNG files in zips (or even 7z files) doesn't compress them much at all, since they're already highly compressed and optimized. Compression works very well on some types of data, but not very well on others. You can do a simple test just by trying to compress some images and you'll notice that it doesn't save much space at all.

@RULLUR I finally just took a look at the data you sent me; unfortunately I'm not seeing any delays with your SNES platform. My best guess is that maybe it's media-related, but it's hard to say without having all your media. If you want to dive in deeper, you could try temporarily removing all your SNES media to see if it makes a difference.

Okay, I'm guessing maybe memory usage could be improved for systems with low amounts of RAM if the user ends up staying on a single screen for a long time. Admittedly our testing has always involved switching between views regularly, as that's a more common use case. I will add that to my list to review; unfortunately I can't make it a high priority for the moment because it's less than the recommended memory requirements (8 gigs) and isn't a common use case, but hopefully I can look at it relatively soon. Per VLC, it is often more taxing on hardware than Windows Media Player. The primary reason we recommend it is that it plays all types of videos out of the gate, but Windows Media Player needs third-party codecs to be installed to play many of the videos. It sounds like your system is just beneath the recommended specifications (though I don't know what they are exactly). To be honest I would not consider a GTX 770 to be beefy these days, as the card is almost 6 years old. I'm guessing that CPU and RAM limitations are more coming into play though than the video card, though I can't say for sure.

@eatkinola That error appears to be an issue with the DirectX install. I have no idea why that would just suddenly appear as an issue, but maybe try re-running the LaunchBox installer, and make sure that the DirectX portion of the installer completes successfully (the part that requires UAC admin access). Otherwise, you could try using Microsoft's DirectX installer. @RULLUR Delays can occur when loading up details (or really anything in LaunchBox) if the system is having trouble keeping up, or another operation is taking priority. Nothing has changed for the latest betas, so it must just be caused by another operation.

It's possible that it's somehow related to the latest beta, but I really doubt it as I didn't change anything related to that. I would first try downgrading to beta 8 to see if it fixes it (you'll find a beta 8 installer in the LaunchBox\Updates folder). Most likely a driver or something like that changed on your system, though I can't say for sure.

Use the settings interface in LaunchBox, not the XML file, and just change the aspect ratio to make it wider and less taller. You will have to play with it.

Yeah, CoverFlow refers to the views that use the big images that flip.

You would adjust the aspect ratio so that it isn't so tall. It's best not to manually update the settings XML file.

Nothing has changed in this regard, so I suspect that it must be a driver issue of some sort. Is this a new issue for you? What version were you using previously (before upgrading to the beta) that you confirmed it was working on?

@Bedwyr A better place to adjust it is in the emulator settings, the Startup Load Delay slider.

You had previously said you were using CoverFlow, which is different than the clear logo wheels. There's a huge difference in memory usage between the CoverFlow views and the clear logo wheels. In all blunt honesty, I don't understand how that proves anything at all (it really doesn't). Regardless, there were some VLC-related things that were fixed that could possibly be improved and use less memory now; I'm not sure if you're using VLC or Windows Media Player for your video playback engine, but it would be worth trying the latest beta (9.4-beta-10) to see if it makes any difference.

Hey all, we're ready to get everything translated for 9.4. I think the changes should be fairly minimal for this go-around (but I could be forgetting something). Thank you all so very much. I'm looking to put out the official release on this coming Monday or Tuesday. @Opak @dukeemu @cyanjiang @Bardock @MajKSA @gamehacker @Cauptain @Kondorito @Nyny77

Beta 10 is out now with some various minor fixes and some of the missing HelperControl controls, which I had previously integrated but somehow they got excluded from the project (probably a previous source control issue). I'm sending this version off to the translators; I may get more in yet, but we're looking to put out the release this coming Monday or Tuesday.

Go ahead and zip up and PM me your LaunchBox\Data folder and I'll review your SNES stuff to see if there's something I'm missing.

Apparently RemoveNewLineConverter was excluded as well. Thanks for pointing that out @faeran.

I see. Somehow I managed to exclude the file from the project; sorry for that. I've fixed it for the next beta, which should be out tomorrow.

@xevious1974 Good to know. How would you properly translate "Prioritize Game Theme Video"?

It does indeed. Let me know if you see any issues with it.

You should be safe just continuing to create the theme. The first time you load it up with a Big Box 9.4 beta (or later on the official release), it should automatically update itself just fine. Assuming everything is working properly, then you shouldn't have any issues. It might be a good idea to test the theme with 9.4-beta-9, however, to make sure everything is working.

Thank you Claudio; I have this updated for beta 10 (should be out later today or tomorrow).

Sorry to hear. I currently don't have any other solution (other than more RAM, or using a different view). The game clear logo wheels should be much less RAM-intensive.

@RULLUR Sadly I still haven't been able to replicate any of those issues, but the Big Box performance improvements in beta 9 may help.

Hello all, first off, I have to apologize, but I'm changing the strategy slightly for the "removing the styles" changes I had posted before. I spent the better part of a week banging my head against the wall trying to get all the themes to upgrade properly automatically, only to discover that I was "doing it wrong". As it turns out, the issue with the Styles portion of the themes affecting other themes was not the styles XAML files themselves, but rather the fact that they were referenced globally instead of directly from the views that use them. So the good news is that we can continue to use styles, and all we have to do is explicitly reference them instead of removing them completely and copying their code directly into the views. For example: <UserControl.Resources> <ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> <ResourceDictionary Source="pack://siteoforigin:,,,/Themes/Unified Redux/Styles/HorizontalListBoxStyle.xaml" /> </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> </ResourceDictionary> </UserControl.Resources> This way, we can keep all our styles files, so long as the views that use them directly reference them like the above. And thankfully, it was relatively easy to automatically update all existing themes to use the new method. I've literally tested every single theme available in the forums download section, and sans for a couple of themes that seemed to be slightly broken from the get go, every single one is working. Unfortunately since the upgrade strategy has changed though, you will need to delete and re-download any themes that you want to automatically update using the new method. Most themes (but not all) were still working properly with the old method, but this new method is recommended before making changes and submitting a new version of your theme. Any themes in your collection (that were not previously upgraded using the old method) will be upgraded upon startup of Big Box 9.4-beta-9. I do apologize for how messy I've made this, but I'm finally confident that we have a good solution here, and it should make everyone happy because all the issues are fixed without forcing any major restructuring. I previously hadn't realized the impact that removing the styles would have on some of the themes. Thank you all once again; I plan to put out the 9.4 release early next week, so that is when these theme changes will be available for everyone. @faeran @Mr. RetroLust @RetroHumanoid @wallmachine @eatkinola @bbweiners @keltoigael @Jack. @y2guru @whoozwah @SNAK3ATER @Rincewind @CriticalCid @shro2016 @broskiplays @Grila @NJDave71 @Hexxxer @PhillsDoodles @Zombeaver @Omen @Cookz718 @viking @OrochiMishima @nosh @ea4492 @Maddoc1007 @vsilvalopes @damageinc86 @walter10h @skainlurmis @Scottad @Nyny77 @Sithel @Akezhar @Thanos Reigns