BIGFLIX: A new user experience for your HTPC

[SNAK3ATER]

53 minutes ago, kerszr said:

Is there many different views for platforms? I only see game views so far.

So far only one platform view is near completion which was shown in the video above, I might revisit the game views to work on some of the suggestions mentioned by @shadowblind so if you have any feedback regarding game views (or ideas for platform views) let me know 

[SNAK3ATER]

Alright I tried different color schemes for text games view to see if I can improve on the current setup:

Here is the original text game view unmodified:

Here is the same view but with a darker shade of red applied:

Here is an alternate look with a black background:

I don't know about the last picture the black just look..bland..meh

Any ideas guys?

 

[Rincewind]

I'm a fan of the black version , maybe you could change the grey (selected item) to red 

[SNAK3ATER]

1 hour ago, Rincewind said:

I'm a fan of the black version , maybe you could change the grey (selected item) to red 

Alright I modified the text game view a little bit to make it consistent with the rest of the theme views (added border for video preview, changed the logo and highlights to red):

What do you think about the new changes? should I keep it or try a different color scheme?

Also for the rest of you, do you prefer the new black background or the old red version below?

[Rincewind]

Both are great, but still the black for me 

[ALIE]

I love the dark red. 

[Thatman84]

Black with red textbox looks spot on

dark red is better than light but maybe the text needs to be a little brighter or the textbox darker imo 

whatever you choose this is one super nice theme

[shadowblind]

Have you tried putting a thin red border around the video and keeping the background black? I don't have time now but come Monday I'll try to mock something up if that doesn't work.

[SNAK3ATER]

1 hour ago, Thatman84 said:

Black with red textbox looks spot on

dark red is better than light but maybe the text needs to be a little brighter or the textbox darker imo 

whatever you choose this is one super nice theme

I remember some themes like Minimal-AO and SimplyHD had options to choose different theme colors so I might look into this down the line; offer the user the option to choose BIGFLIX Black or Red.

Now there is another issue that I found out today and sadly I still couldn't solve it as it might be something out of my control...

DPI Scaling issues:

When I started designing this theme I had plans to support it up to 4k resolution as i'm mainly using Bigbox on my 4k HTPC setup, but since many people still use 1080P and below monitors I built the base of my theme to be defaulted to 1980x1080 monitors at 100% 

Here is the theme at 1980x1080 100% (Default setup, everything looks perfect)

Here is the theme at 3840x2160 (4k) at 225%

Here is the theme at 3840x2160 at 300% (recommended windows scale for 4k TVs)

I really don't know how to tackle this issue and certainly I prefer not to waste my time building different versions of this theme for different resolutions and scaling options..so dunno i'm out of words to say lol

Wish if Bigbox had DPI Scaling options for theme creators

[Maddoc1007]

@SNAK3ATER You could wrap the notes in a viewbox here is an example

<Viewbox Grid.Column="6" Grid.Row="5" Stretch="Fill">
                <DockPanel Height="270" Width="264" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch">
                    <Canvas x:Name="NotesCanvas" Width="{Binding ElementName=NotesPanel, Path=ActualWidth}" ClipToBounds="True" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Visibility="{Binding ScrollingNotesVisibility}" Margin="0,0,0,10">
                        <Controls:ScrollableTextBlock Name="ScrollingNotes" Text="{Binding Path=ActiveGame.Notes}" FontFamily="Cambria" FontSize="18" Foreground="White" TextWrapping="Wrap" Width="{Binding ElementName=NotesCanvas, Path=ActualWidth}" ScrollBeginDelay="10" ScrollSpeed="3" ScrollAutoReverse="True"
                        ScrollEndDelay="10" ReverseScrollSpeed="0.5" ScrollDirection="Up" MaxWidth="{Binding ElementName=NotesCanvas, Path=ActualWidth}" TextOptions.TextFormattingMode="Display" FontWeight="Bold" />
                    </Canvas>
                </DockPanel>
            </Viewbox>

Remember to give the dockpanel the size and width of the viewbox as example, Hope it helps.  As for the red and black why not just include both in a separate folder and the user can choose which ever want they want to use by overwriting the main one you choose for the theme?

Edited June 24, 2017 by Maddoc1007

[SNAK3ATER]

@Maddoc1007 Haven't thought about the dockpanel property, i'll try it and get back to you if I faced any issue.. The red and black versions uses different colors for the borders, shadow depth effect and selected item highlights. What I can do is including a folder called "Theme skins" with the xaml files that were modified and all the user has to do is simply drag those files and replace them with the default files in the theme 

[ALIE]

12 hours ago, SNAK3ATER said:

@Maddoc1007 Haven't thought about the dockpanel property, i'll try it and get back to you if I faced any issue.. The red and black versions uses different colors for the borders, shadow depth effect and selected item highlights. What I can do is including a folder called "Theme skins" with the xaml files that were modified and all the user has to do is simply drag those files and replace them with the default files in the theme 

I love this solution a few themes has had done something like it. 

[SNAK3ATER]

Thanks @Maddoc1007 for the "Dockpanel" tip it has totally fixed the dpi scaling issues that was plaguing this theme, now the text should scale nicely on all the resolutions regardless of the windows scaling option selected.

Here is the end result after applying the dockpanel and text wrapping properties, notice that the new text became smaller than the original text which is weird (and yes, I tried increasing the text size) but it is better than having overblown text size at different resolutions..fair tradeoff I believe 

Original Game View 1 and 2 at 1980x1080 at 100% scale:

Original Game View 2 at 3840x2160 at 300% for comparison sake

Fixed Game Views 1 and 2 at 3840x2160 at 300% (now consistent with original 1080p view at 100%)

The fix was very tedious as I had to revisit each and every game view and rewrite the values again after the addition of the Dockpanel property but the effort was worth it in the end. 

 

Now back to Platform views development

 

[ALIE]

@SNAK3ATER how are things going ☺️

 

[SNAK3ATER]

On 7/9/2017 at 6:40 PM, ALIE said:

@SNAK3ATER how are things going ☺️

 

Yo @ALIE, everything is fine bro

I apologize for the lack of updates I was involved in a huge project at work and everything had been crazy lately, I had some free time yesterday night so I resumed my work on the theme and i'm happy to say its almost complete.. just a lil bit of polishing here and there for the BIGFLIX black version and it'll be ready for upload 

Here is a video showing BIGFLIX 1.0 Black in action: (Official version will include both Black and Red schemes)

The only thing left is to work on is the Red color scheme that will be included as an option in BIGFLIX 1.0 so it's pretty safe to say that hopefully the theme will be live this week

Cheers!

[WarMFusioN]

This will be my new them when complete... it looks amazing.

[ALIE]

Every time you show something i get more impressed. 

And you don't have to apologize I'm just excited for this one.  but of course this is your free time so it take the time it does but it's definitely appreciated. 

[SNAK3ATER]

Opps I just noticed after I uploaded the video that it does not have audio my apologies guys 

I'll upload a new video that will showcase both colors tomorrow if I have a free time 

[SNAK3ATER]

7 minutes ago, ALIE said:

Every time you show something i get more impressed. 

And you don't have to apologize I'm just excited for this one.  but of course this is your free time so it take the time it does but it's definitely appreciated. 

Thanks for your kind words @ALIE I would like to mention that without your feedback and encouragement this theme would not be what it is today so thanks everyone for your contribution in making this theme your ideas and feedback were taken for granted and are well appreciated 

Now guys there is always room for improvement so if you have anything to say regarding the theme that was based on the video above let me know in the comments below

[SNAK3ATER]

As promised here is a final look at the official release of BIGFLIX 1.0 that will go live soon sometime this week. The video showcases some of the features of the themes along with the bundled color schemes Bigflix Black and Red:

Here is a couple of things to note regarding the first release version of BIGFLIX 1.0:

1- The theme is very small in size (compared to my other theme that comes in more than 150+ MB) to make it easier for people with low end systems (i.e. Win-gpd) and to make it as portable as themes can get.

2- The theme will not feature any banners/Custom Fanarts/other artwork as I was more focused towards the development of the theme creation rather than artwork design. However, the theme does come with customized set of theme icons, profile pics, theme panels, etc to make it true to the source material as close as possible. (The banners used in the demo showcase is from the great work of Nosh and platform fanarts are from various community creators) 

3- The theme comes bundled with two color schemes: Black and Red. Theme color switching is a very simple process of copying the respective color folders and pasting/replacing them on the theme root folder (As was shown on the video demo)

4- The theme will be defaulted to the Black color scheme. 

5- Users can make the theme more personalized by setting a profile picture from a set of icons that are included in the theme or adding one from their own collection (an example was shown in the demo video), the profile name will be defaulted to "User" but can be replaced to any name of your liking (The entire process takes less than 2 minutes and a tutorial file will be included on how to set user profile settings).

 

This is a PSA for any artwork creators who liked this theme and would like to develop artwork for this theme (Platform/Playlist Banners, Custom Fanarts, Steam Banners, etc), your contribution will definitely enrich the user experience of this theme and your work will be featured both on this thread and Theme download page. Message me if you would like to contribute towards the development of this theme.

Cheers,