ItchyRobot

Ahhh! I knew it was going to be something stupid. Thanks for all your help man. I now have the theme looking exactly like a want.

The easiest way for a moves list would probably be to replace all the crappy manuals that come with the MAME import with pdf Move Lists. That way you can use a Pause Theme that has a quick link to your manuals. I eentually plan on adding that to my solution below. I am building my own personal controller layout that I can bring up when pressing pause (using the "Game Controls" Pause theme). Here is an example of my Mortal Kombat II controls... https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WozzcdtKwZtVAJih6_PZDULQ33u3LMuY I am using this Pause Theme ... he has a full screen version too.

Be aware that the more modern MAME sets sometimes don't run some of the roms well as the 0.78, like Killer Instinct 1. I gave up on that rom with my 198 set. KI2 seems to run well though. So, in some cases older rom sets is better, especially when running on lower powered hardware. Thats why RetroPi is on such an old set. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Jason, maybe the favorites on the wheel should be highlighted somehow? I tend to only use the text view for my games list, instead of the wheel, because it's easier for me to see my favorites games, since they have the * symbol to really make it stands out. It would be nice if the logos somehow could be highlighted in a manner that makes them stand out compared to the non-favorited ones.

@viking That worked great for my Visual Pinball X platform. I was able to create a new platform under the files you mentioned above and set it to the blue color I wanted. Though, I was unable to make my Mattel Intellivision platform red (fd254e) to match the video. Instead, I have to go into your theme's Views folder and change a few of the views to default as the red color I wanted. I checked for typos and can't find any reason it does not work. Any ideas? <add key="Platform.MATTEL_INTELLIVISION" value="Mattel_Intellivision" /> PICTURE: https://drive.google.com/open?id=16KR4XQ4FKHc2-LKI2rEM0hMm_OSYFMM- <add key="Platform.MATTEL_INTELLIVISION" value="fd254e" /> PICTURE: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ydQofv0-vrLzg4C4aLGsMHo1jj059sxA Here is a picture of my Launchbox/BigBox platform name... https://drive.google.com/open?id=1O3eF_2zwl5jpE3j8WhA7d4ucTYU6Cd48

Thanks. I will give that a try tonight when i get back home. Sounds like a safer route.

So, I have created a Platform named Visual Pinball X and MANUALLY collected all the artwork and such (taken a long time); everything is running great. Though, now I want to changed the name from Visual Pinball X to just 'Pinball'. How much of a risk is this to screwing up everything i worked so hard in curating? If I edit/change the name of the platform, will it automatically change all the folder path names needed to keep all my videos, images, manuals, etc. connected? Or does it just copy the old platform folder and re-name it 'Pinball' (leaving the old folder along side the new 'Pinball')? The reason i want to do this is so that @viking Colorful theme will automatically match the text/highlight colors to his Pinaball Platform video background.

Now that I finally have my collection about where I want it, I may start trying out this program. A few questions before i dive in though ... - Is this a complete GUI based designer, or will I need to know code to supplement the design process? (I am not a coder) - Where do I start ... meaning, is there a de-facto tutorial or depot showing 'how to' videos. I am a visual learner and usually do best when i can reverse engineer a template to tweak/make it what I want. - is there any extra software I need to have installed to get it to work correctly. My goal would be to mimic what Viking has done with the Colorful theme, but add my own additions to the text views... like extra info (date released) in the game window. Thanks!

Hey no need to apologize. It sounds like you are very busy with life - it can do that sometimes ? I think it says a lot that we have people from the community wanting to help make this theme 'better'. They like it so much they want to help... that's cool! Your suggestion on how to change the default text highlight color worked perfectly. Thanks!

@JoeViking245 It froze for me too. Actually froze when on the pause screen... It acted like it was a focus issue, though alt tab'ing didnt work. I ended up trying to alt tab, then eventually a window popped up asking to wait for VPX or close it. This happened on two occasions until I tried to change up some settings. I ended up unchecking the box next to "Suspend Emulator Process When Paused" This seems to have fixed the freezing/crashing. FYI - I am in desktop mode for VPX and Retr808's Game Controles pause theme. This is nice to have working. I can now pause a game then select to view my Manual where I store the Instruction Cards. Though, to close the Instruction Card PDF, I have to remember to select the button I have for 'back' in BigBox and not Escape key. Escape key makes the entire table reboot.

I too am trying to figure out if the stand alone Dolphin emulator supports bezels; specifically for my GameCube collection. After looking all through the Dolphin settings last night, I have come to the conclusion that it does not support bezels natively. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yeah, it's never ending. I am constantly tweaking and refining my setup. I ended up cheating and getting a couple Xbox One controllers for my RetroArch/consoles. I still may go back and set up NES to use the arcade stick since it does not have shoulder buttons. I have yet to see if RetroArch allows for multiple inputs like MAME. I have MAME set up to either use my Arcade stick/buttons or my Xbox 360 controllers. That's nice sometimes...hopefully I can mimic that with my RetroArch/consoles setup.

Nice man. You are going to love that thing. Strictly Arcade setup, or you planning on doing some consoles too? I saw that they offer add-on side buttons for pinball.

good luck

No thanks! ? That is a great controller and a good company from what I have heard. If I was you, I would give them a call and ask for their MAME default.cfg (and maybe each games cfg file) file that would have all the buttons setup already-or at least to what they deam a good button per game setup. I have a feeling since that is such an expensive controller that they would have this available to its costumers. Though, not to confuse things more, but I am pretty sure each games cfg file is tied to the bezel layout too. So that could get hairy if you already have bezels setup.

I have to say, the button mapping has been the biggest pain in the ass with this hobby - especially when you have multiple Xbox controllers and a double Arcade stick/Spinner/Track ball setup (using a keyboard module). Not that it is overwhelming, but a bit time consuming trying to figure out what will work best and not conflict. Each emulator has its own way to deal with pausing/quitting, etc.; so you need to figure out what keys best work for the most consistent button configurations when dealing with multiple emulators. I'd say just take your time and think critically to determine what is best for you. The BigBox pause menu has become my biggest hurdle. I tried setting up the Xbox Guide button as the BigBox pause menu, but have found that it conflicts with RetroArch, causing multiple pause menus that need to be closed. So I am now changing that to something else. I am not to far off from having it all setup like I want, but it has been a bit of a learning curve. I have a feeling it will never be done, but at least I know how it all works now. And it will continually get refined over time as I continue to tweak each game. My next project is creating a per game controller layout popup image for my favorite MAME games - using a Pause theme. It will all need to be custom to reflect my controller layout. It will take a while, but it is something I enjoy creating. Here is an example of my Mortal Kombat II (though I now need to change my Xbox button combos since RetroArch is throwing up its Pause menu when I used Guide button). https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WozzcdtKwZtVAJih6_PZDULQ33u3LMuY

I have yet to try this since I am already happy with what I have set up. But I thought it would aid some people trying it for the first time. This guy seemed to do a good job of showing a step by step instructions on how to install the bezels. It just came through one of my YouTube subscriptions the other week.

Wow! that did it, and fixed both issues. Both the fast scroll and the Games window colors are correct now. This really rounds out this theme, seriously solid now. The only thing left in my opinion is figuring out a way to make the last few windows dark, instead of white. Still, I say, take it out of beta! @viking Is there a way for me to change the default green color in the theme to something of my choosing? I tried looking at some of your themes files using Notepad++ but I could not find any files that looked like they controlled those parameters (I'm not a coder but not afraid to edit a few files if needed). I have a generic "Pinball" platform that I created for my Visual Pinball X tables, and it is coming in as the default green color. I would like to change it to match the light blue color of the pinball video that you created.

Anyone out there have a bulk download for pinball instruction cards and/or guides? I have started downloading them myself, but it is a huge pain in the ass because of how the website I am getting them from organizes the tables. I searched Emumovies but no luck. I am using Visual Pinball X, but I guess that does not really matter since they are all based off of the original tables code.

Hey @viking I have brought this up before, asking about the green highlights in places that it should not be. And you replied stating that they are due to scroll speed limitations. Though, I am not sure if you ever replied about the highlight color being wrong in the Game window. For example, when I choose the platform Gamecube, the highlight color is purple when scrolling through the list of games (text list view). But when I choose a game, the highlight color switches back to the default green color. I would imagine you would want this to stay purple in this instance, to match the Gamecube color. This color discrepancy happens for all my platforms/game lists. Here is a video showing what I am talking about. The first half shows the fast scroll limitation (which you already know about). But the second part shows how the color changes from purple to green when I choose a game (in this example, Gamecube).

@neil9000 Actually, I confused the issue a bit. Now that I am home I can test it. When I go to the Pause screen, then quit the game... this works as intended. My issue is when I try to resume from the BigBox pause menu. It kicks me back to the RetroArch pause menu, where I then have to scroll down and click resume. Is this a command that BigBox should be sending to RetroArch, like a "p" on the keyboard signal? Maybe I need to make BigBox somehow pause for a second more before sending the signal. Is there a way to do that?

As I thought, I have this mapped to L3+R3 stick buttons. But it still brings up the RetroArch menu when pressing the Guide button. It must be a deeper setting that is part of RetroArch. Because I seem to have everything set up correctly =(

Hmmm ... I am 99.9% sure I have that set to Left stick button + Right Stick button (press down on the sticks at the same time). I'll give it another look when I get home.

There does not seem to be a way to change it in RetroArch. I have it set to "P" in RetroArch, though it still brings up the RetroArch pause menu when I click the guide button. Maybe it is hidden in a config file somewhere? If not, it sounds like I just need to stay away from using the Xbox guide button for anything, and stick with other button combinations instead.