eatkinola

Thanks for the error message. What were you doing at the time? Looking at a particular platform, or occurs with any platform?

Awesome! Yes, I'll add that. Thanks for the feedback.

Don't know if Jason plans to implement this, but I have a working plugin solution I can share. I used it to implement the Nostalgia theme I just alpha-released. It's not a comprehensive solution, but it automatically swaps out the background and sets video placement based on the selected game's system; or the selected platform, category, playlist. Not sure if you'd need more than that.

alpha release posted -- no screenshots yet but not far off from above...

Nostalgia View File Nostalgia uses the amazing platform videos created by @viking to create a per-system theme; thanks to viking for letting me derive from and name my theme after his work. It's designed for 16:9; tested at HD but not 4k since I don't have a 4k setup. Please let me know if you spot problems or have suggestions. It relies on a set of plugin controls I created, so you'll have to unblock either the entire zip file, or more specifically the DLL files in the theme's Plugins folder (see below). Due to its reliance on certain plugin features, the current version of this theme requires LB version 10+. Bundled with Nostalgia are some clear logos from viking's silver ring set, along with a few extras. Also bundled are platform banners created by @Grila and @Omen. For the best experience (including CRT curvature effects for videos), I recommend setting BigBox to use Windows Media Player. Platform Views: Background as the current platform (from viking's video set) including a video playing within the arcade cabinet, TV screen, etc. If there is no video for the selected platform, category, or playlist, a random list of relevant game videos are played instead. If no vids are available, screenshots are used. Platform, category, or playlist details are displayed to the left of the screen. Game Views: Selected game is displayed within a platform-specific background. If no game video exists, the game's screenshots are played as a slideshow while the game's soundtrack (if found in your LB setup) is played in the background. If neither game nor screenshots exist, a video of TV static plays. Game details are displayed to the left of the screen. Filter Views: E.g., Genres, Series, etc -- in this view, a random list of game videos for the selected Series, etc. will play. KNOWN ISSUES: (1) 3DS and DS videos do not display properly. This is due to how they were captured, i.e., with both screens on these dual screen devices being squished into a single video. A potential workaround is to crop out the auxiliary screen from these videos and use on the part from the main screen. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know. I think handbrake would work for batch cropping. (2) There are missing platform backgrounds. I tried to include the most common platforms. Viking's background set is quite thorough; please send me any requests. NOTE: Unblocking the ZIP file will also unblock the DLLs (e.g., Ao.Bigbox.Themer.dll and others) contained therein, giving your computer permission to run these DLLs. This is an issue with all plugins you might download from this forum. It's a Windows security feature. You basically have to vouch for a file before Windows will use it. I liken it to how a MS office document you download from an email runs in Protected Mode until you unblock it for printing, editing, etc. Below is the error you'll see if you don't unblock the file, as well as a screenshot of the solution. Submitter eatkinola Submitted 09/27/2017 Category Big Box Custom Themes

By the same token, if you want your ssd to last forever, just keep it in a shoebox in the back of your closet.

Yeah, I think at this point the whole idea of tiptoeing around your ssd is overblown. I say use'em if you got'em. Just don't keep critical data on an SSD (or hdd) without a proper backup. Anything will crap out eventually.

I've not yet done anything like this. The plugin api lets you add a menu item to the System or Game text menu, but I do not see where it let's you add to the Options menu. Anyway, in the OnSelected method of ISystemMenuItemPlugin, for example, could you have it unhide a panel in the current view? -- the problem is that ISystemMenuItemPlugin is not associated with a particular view, so it would not have a reference to that panel, so that approach might not work. I wrote a IGameMenuItemPlugin to display the PDF manual within BB. What it does is popup a window. Perhaps you could have your menu item do something similar -- pop up a window that would let the user interact with your control. It'd be nicer if it could integrate in BB more without having to popup a window, but I'm not sure how to do that.

Oh the agony! It's like telling your kids hey let's go for ice cream after school, and all they think about all day is ice cream...

Sure, as long as the theme designer incorporates the plugin into their theme. Once it shapes up a bit more, I'll post the plugin for anyone to download and use however they want. CityHunter is based off CriticalZone, so you would have to talk to @keltoigael and @CriticalCid about incorporating this plugin design element into their theme. It's totally up to them; they may or may not be interested. Every theme has its own design goals.

So I'll third that. Even plain old notepad works fine. There's no need to compile a theme, so no compelling reason to use VS for theming. I only use VS if I'm working on a plugin.

Here are a few shots from the games view. The background changes based on the platform of the selected game. The wheel fades in over the game details when in use. There is a title over the wheel in the various games and platform / category / playlist views to help keep you oriented. The platform / category / playlist view is very similar and displays details such as games completed, average star rating, etc. I'll make corresponding text-based views for the games and platforms; those will have a look similar to the options, mashed up with some views from Minimal-AOX.

It's coming along nicely I think. Always the occasional work to refine the video engine, but @CriticalCid has been helping test so I think we have most of the bugs worked out. Aside from that, the layout is going well. It's actually a pretty simple theme; going for the quality over quantity approach. Hope it pans out! I'll try and post some screen shots later.

Looks like the image carbon_fiber is not found where the OptionsPage xaml is looking. The error message is telling you this. In other words, this looks like a bug in the theme.

Yes, and while I'm decent with photo editing I'm not that great. Thanks for the background edit. I agree it's much nicer without the face elements (though I was a little fond of the graffiti face). I'll use your bg edit when I make an update. That's a great idea. I can simply layer the particle video with some transparency. It'll consume some extra cpu cycles but should work fine. It would likely be more resource friendly if overlaid as an animated gif. PS. I've been planning to come back to this theme and make an update, plus have a few views to add. I've been sidetracked by work on another theme and some plugin controls, including a video engine @CriticalCid has done a phenomenal job helping me debug and refine. Once I finish, I'll pull some of those design elements back into Epoch09.

Did you put font files in a subfolder within your project called Fonts? I don't think that's possible. Tried that first but was unable to get it to work.

No, you don't need that at the top. When you created the library, did you mark the fonts as resources within the project? Aside from that, I can take a look at your project file and theme if you want to pm them to me, but I can't do that until next week cause I'm away.

The actual font name, i.e., the name you see when you double click on the font file and the pop-up gives you an option to install it.

You can name the library using the project properties dialog. You just need the dll file.

Create a new project in VS. Make it a Class Library project.

^^ from earlier in this thread. Be sure to check Epoch09 (or other themes that use this approach) for an example of how the fonts are referenced in XAML.

Can you verify this also happens with the default theme? E.g., choose default theme, quit LaunchBox, then restart and try it out. You'd want to make sure it's not related to a plugin used by a theme, e.g., there is a video bug in my plug-in I'm working on fixing.

Ran into some problems with the video engine I wrote to support this theme; added support for VLC which should remedy those. Finished the platform cutouts and most of the views. Phew!

Totally, what neil said. Nice job with the persistence and figuring that out!