Nostalgia

[alnyden]

On 11/1/2017 at 6:54 AM, eatkinola said:

Posted update v1.0-b1. Let me know if you spot any problems -- hopefully I didn't break anything. Added a caching mechanism for images: a directory will be created in the plugins folder to stash images, and as you use the theme you should notice it performing better with the cache. I also improved the WMP engine; still a little sluggish compared to VLC, but much better now I think. Please see downloads page for a more complete list of changes.

Can you explain how the custom backgrounds work?  I checked the file you mentioned but couldn't figure out what to do or where the images would go.  Thanks!

[alnyden]

Also, the new version is having issues for me.  I switched a playlist to Nostolgia, found navigating the list extremely choppy, and it ultimately froze after about 20 seconds.

Edited November 2, 2017 by alnyden

[alnyden]

14 minutes ago, alnyden said:

Also, the new version is having issues for me.  I switched a playlist to Nostolgia, found navigating the list extremely choppy, and it ultimately froze after about 20 seconds.

Well, I went back to the old version of Nostolgia and I'm still getting the freezes.  Maybe the issue is I also updated to the new Big Box official release this morning?  Whatever it is, I'm not able to use Nostolgia at all right now.

[eatkinola]

1 minute ago, alnyden said:

Well, I went back to the old version of Nostolgia and I'm still getting the freezes.

Are you using VLC or WMP for the video engine?

Also: What are you doing when the freezes occur?

Edited November 2, 2017 by eatkinola

[alnyden]

6 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

Are you using VLC or WMP for the video engine?

Also: What are you doing when the freezes occur?

I'm using VLC.  All I'm doing is scrolling through the text games list.  Thanks.

[eatkinola]

7 minutes ago, alnyden said:

I'm using VLC.  All I'm doing is scrolling through the text games list.  Thanks.

Thanks for the bug report. VLC seems to do that sometimes; I've not yet found a fix. Please try with WMP and let me know how it works.

36 minutes ago, alnyden said:

Can you explain how the custom backgrounds work?  I checked the file you mentioned but couldn't figure out what to do or where the images would go.  Thanks!

Backgrounds are specified in the Platforms, Playlists, and Categories subfolders of Nostalgia\Views\Images\AVLF. Look at the @INDEX.txt files in these directories. Each line in the file specifies when to use a certain background image, and how to position the video within the background image. Columns 3 and 4 in that file specify for which platform (or playlist or category) to use that background; if the name in either of these columns matches, the image on that row is used for the background. The background images themselves are located in that same subfolder.

[alnyden]

13 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

Thanks for the bug report. VLC seems to do that sometimes; I've not yet found a fix. Please try with WMP and let me know how it works.

Backgrounds are specified in the Platforms, Playlists, and Categories subfolders of Nostalgia\Views\Images\AVLF. Look at the @INDEX.txt files in these directories. Each line in the file specifies when to use a certain background image, and how to position the video within the background image. Columns 3 and 4 in that file specify for which platform (or playlist or category) to use that background; if the name in either of these columns matches, the image on that row is used for the background. The background images themselves are located in that same subfolder.

Switched to WMP and I'm not getting freezes, so apparently that's the issue, thanks.

Re: Backgrounds, I'll experiment with that.  However, the background I want to change on a playlist basis is the one in Nostolgia/Views/Images/background.png that's used in the other view.  You also mentioned turning something on in the Nostolgia.xaml file?

Thanks again @eatkinola.

[eatkinola]

20 minutes ago, alnyden said:

the background I want to change on a playlist basis is the one in Nostolgia/Views/Images/background.png that's used in the other view.  You also mentioned turning something on in the Nostolgia.xaml file?

The background feature you requested is off by default, but yes you can activate it by a quick change to Nostalgia.xaml. I'm not at my computer at the moment, but look in the text-based view section of Nostalgia.xaml and you should see a style with Visibility Collapsed; set the parameter value to Visible. You can also adjust the opacity from 0-1 in that area. After the change, you'll need to reload that view by either restarting BB or entering the Options view.

One of these days I'll get around to adding documentation for those little things.

[alnyden]

49 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

The background feature you requested is off by default, but yes you can activate it by a quick change to Nostalgia.xaml. I'm not at my computer at the moment, but look in the text-based view section of Nostalgia.xaml and you should see a style with Visibility Collapsed; set the parameter value to Visible. You can also adjust the opacity from 0-1 in that area. After the change, you'll need to reload that view by either restarting BB or entering the Options view.

One of these days I'll get around to adding documentation for those little things.

Okay cool, I'll give this a try tonight.  One thing I'm unclear about -- after setting Visibility Collapsed to Visible in Nostolgia.xaml, I add the background I want to use in Nostolgia/views/images/AVLF/Playlists AND adjust the @index.txt file?

[eatkinola]

4 minutes ago, alnyden said:

Okay cool, I'll give this a try tonight.  One thing I'm unclear about -- after setting Visibility Collapsed to Visible in Nostolgia.xaml, I add the background I want to use in Nostolgia/views/images/AVLF/Playlists AND adjust the @index.txt file?

For what you're after, just set Visibility of that style in Nostalgia.xaml. It will use the fanart background images you have in the folder LaunchBox\Images (which you can override if you want in the Nostalgia theme by placing different images in Nostalgia\Images).

Forget all the other stuff about AVLF and @INDEX; that's for if you want to change the background used for a specific platform, playlist, or category in one of the wheel views.

[Omen]

@eatkinola Is there a way to force game videos to keep their aspect ratio? I have a few pinball games that stretch to fill the screen.

[alnyden]

11 hours ago, eatkinola said:

For what you're after, just set Visibility of that style in Nostalgia.xaml. It will use the fanart background images you have in the folder LaunchBox\Images (which you can override if you want in the Nostalgia theme by placing different images in Nostalgia\Images).

Forget all the other stuff about AVLF and @INDEX; that's for if you want to change the background used for a specific platform, playlist, or category in one of the wheel views.

Okay, I set the visibility, and it seems to be loading a random fanart picture from that platform.  Cool feature, thanks for adding this.  Let's say however I want to specify what the background picture is.  You mentioned being able to override in Nostalgia/Images, but I can't get that to work.  For example, if I wanted to choose a specific background picture for Atari 5200, where would I put it and what would I name the file?  Thanks!

[eatkinola]

9 hours ago, alnyden said:

Let's say however I want to specify what the background picture is.  You mentioned being able to override in Nostalgia/Images, but I can't get that to work.  For example, if I wanted to choose a specific background picture for Atari 5200, where would I put it and what would I name the file?  Thanks!

Name the image "Atari 5200" (png/jpeg/...) and place it in folder "Nostalgia\Images\Platform\Fanart\". You can do the same for playlists. I don't think you can specify more than one image per platform or playlist using this approach, but it'll probably suit your needs. You can have Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Metroid (playlist), etc. backgrounds.

By the way, you can add the following line to Nostalgia in that style's section to stretch the image:

<Setter Property="Stretch" Value="Fill" />

 

[eatkinola]

15 hours ago, Omen said:

@eatkinola Is there a way to force game videos to keep their aspect ratio? I have a few pinball games that stretch to fill the screen.

Not currently, but that's a great idea. I'll add it to my todo list. Btw, are you still having problems with the videos? You mentioned a problem when you upgraded to 0.99; is that still there with 1.0-b1?

[alnyden]

8 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

Name the image "Atari 5200" (png/jpeg/...) and place it in folder "Nostalgia\Images\Platform\Fanart\". You can do the same for playlists. I don't think you can specify more than one image per platform or playlist using this approach, but it'll probably suit your needs. You can have Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Metroid (playlist), etc. backgrounds.

By the way, you can add the following line to Nostalgia in that style's section to stretch the image:

<Setter Property="Stretch" Value="Fill" />

 

Hmmm, that's exactly what I'm doing.  I tried it for both a platform and a playlist, but the image is not appearing.  Does it support jpg?  When I replaced the "background.png", it only worked as a .png.

[eatkinola]

4 minutes ago, alnyden said:

Hmmm, that's exactly what I'm doing.  I tried it for both a platform and a playlist, but the image is not appearing.  Does it support jpg?

Yes, it should support jpg, png, gif, tif, and bmp. I tested it just now with jpg and it worked for me. Are you naming the image exactly the same as your platform or playlist? Did you try restarting BB (though that shouldn't matter)? Are you sure it's set to Visible with a non-zero Opacity? (I'm sure you already checked that).

When I replaced the "background.png", it only worked as a .png.

That's because "background.png" is hardcoded in Nostalgia.xaml.

Edited November 3, 2017 by eatkinola

[eatkinola]

On 11/1/2017 at 9:32 AM, Retro808 said:

If videos are playing in the platform category/platform screen the videos will not play in the game screen. So if I change the games view from a text list view to the view that has the clear logo wheel the videos play. However once I back out to a platform I get the "media players are exhausted" error. If I change the platform view to the one that has the platform names listed in text they play again, but if I then go back into games the videos there stop working. Switch the games view and they play, back out to platform and it is broke again. See the pattern? It is as if regardless of the view style, either I can make the platform videos work or the games videos, not both. 

I am on BB 7.12 I have not downloaded 7.13 yet.

@Retro808: Are you still seeing this "media players exhausted" problem? I am not able to reproduce it on my end. I did make a change (for next theme update) to the pool logic that will impact this. I'm trying to use the media players even more efficiently than in beta-1, because it looks like it improves performance. Anyways, just wanted to check in since I'm working on that bit now.

[alnyden]

29 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

Yes, it should support jpg, png, gif, tif, and bmp. I tested it just now with jpg and it worked for me. Are you naming the image exactly the same as your platform or playlist? Did you try restarting BB (though that shouldn't matter)? Are you sure it's set to Visible with a non-zero Opacity? (I'm sure you already checked that).

That's because "background.png" is hardcoded in Nostalgia.xaml.

Yes, I've checked everything, I can't seem to get it to work.  It's still loading a random image from the Launchbox Fanart folder.  Maybe I'll check later with fresh eyes and see if I'm doing something wrong.  Thanks for your feedback.

[Retro808]

45 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

@Retro808: Are you still seeing this "media players exhausted" problem? I am not able to reproduce it on my end. I did make a change (for next theme update) to the pool logic that will impact this. I'm trying to use the media players even more efficiently than in beta-1, because it looks like it improves performance. Anyways, just wanted to check in since I'm working on that bit now.

It is still plaguing me. I am on LB 7.13 as of today and I still get the exhausted media player. It only occurs with the newest version of Nostalgia (using VLC or WMP). If I remove it and put an older version of the theme in the videos work fine.

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

It is still plaguing me. I am on LB 7.13 as of today and I still get the exhausted media player. It only occurs with the newest version of Nostalgia (using VLC or WMP). If I remove it and put an older version of the theme in the videos work fine.

I have actually seen this myself on WMP, I was using VLC and all was well but thought I should check WMP also. The second I swapped it and quit back out of the options no videos would play at all, I had the "media players exhausted" message on every single background. I switched back to VLC and no issues.