Some Question about "Recent" Games in BigBox

[alec100_94]

@Jason Carr I have recently started messing about with some BigBox theme stuff, and am experiencing some odd/inconsistent behaviour with the "Recent" Games that show up underneath a platform. I was experimenting with some different settings and set "Game Image Type" to clear logo's and that seems to be working fine for my 3DS Games, but for some reason or another my PS2 Games just refuse to show the clear Logo's, and always show cover art. It's definitely not an image caching issue, as I've tried clearing that multiple times. This also seems to be an issue in other views that are supposed to use the "Game Image Type" parameter. Don't know if this is a bug, or whether there are some special rules that determine what is displayed here. I've put some screenshots below.

Also I have another question about the "Recent" Games, which is sort of related. And that is would it be possible to rebind the key layout for it through a plugin or otherwise? I get why it's setup the way it is, but with some themes (such as this one I'm creating), it can feel a little sluggish/unintuitive to have up/down cycle through the "Recent" Games with Right/Left Changing platform. I would much prefer Right/Left to cycle through the games after down has been pressed to select them and pressing up again would go back to the platform select, essentially giving multiple rows (similar to a PS4). It's a really small thing, but I think it has quite big impact on the overall user experience.

Edited October 13, 2018 by alec100_94

[alec100_94]

@Jason Carr I think I figured out what my issue was, and it kind of makes sense but it's still a bug in my opinion.

It seems like the "Game Image Type" setting is ignored in BigBox if said platform has ImageType set in it's own xml file (i.e <ImageType>Boxes</ImageType>"). The images in BigBox can be changed by changing this but this also changes them in LaunchBox. The "Game Image Type" setting in BigBox isn't respected at all for that platform, unless <ImageTypes> is removed from said platforms XML file, which essentially forces flat boxes in LaunchBox's desktop view if you want to use the option in BigBox (Also there is no way of removing this tag from the UI, Setting back to Boxes doesn't work). I worked out what was happening here, when I assigned a button to cycle Image Type's in BigBox and realised it was affecting the Desktop View Too.

In my opinion these settings should not be linked at all and BigBox image type settings should at very least always override the platforms image type setting. In an ideal world you would also have platform and view overrides just for BigBox, allowing you to mix and match between platforms and views, without affecting the LaunchBox Desktop view. 

My other question still stands, I was also wondering if there was a way to centre or adjust the scrolling on the "Recent" Games view so games can be seen on the left and right when scrolling through a large collection (see screenshot to understand what I mean).

Edited October 14, 2018 by alec100_94

[Jason Carr]

The recent games section should be responding to whatever key or button is bound to the "Switch Image Type" shortcut key in Big Box. Each platform remembers its own image type, and yes, currently that image type is the same across LaunchBox and Big Box. I'm not fully following what isn't working correctly there. Are you trying to override this in the XAML?

I'm not aware of a way to make the images centered, but there is probably a way to do it. I'll admit that the Recent and Favorites sections were never fleshed out very much because they weren't commonly used by themes. I can look into fleshing them out more though, but it might be a bit yet.

[alec100_94]

Ok cool, that makes some sense. What isn't working properly here is the "Game Image Type" option from within BigBox (Options > Images). It essentially does nothing at all if the platform has had it's Image Type changed at all (even if it's changed back to the default "Boxes"), though if it's completely unset (i.e. initially or manually remove the parameter) it overrides the platform setting, this was what was confusing me initially. Everything else seems to be essentially working fine though I didn't really expect changing Image Type on a platform level through BigBox (using the hotkey) to affect the main desktop UI. Also would it be possible to override this setting in the XAML? I'm really still learning the basics with this stuff.

It would be great if you could take a look at fleshing this out sometime, I think it could be really cool if done right, though it's not really a huge deal to me. This is essentially a side project to my side project (my main side project being LaunchBox plugin development). I just felt like taking a whack at creating a theme that felt like a modern Games Console, as I much prefer that kind of style as opposed to the "wheel" interface that Hyperspin popularised. I Kind of also just wanted to see what the current theming engine was actually capable of. Truthfully I think what I currently have is pretty nice, and there is still a lot I can do in terms of tuning up the UI, and I've not even touched any of the other views yet.

Edited October 15, 2018 by alec100_94

[Jason Carr]

3 minutes ago, alec100_94 said:

Ok cool, that makes some sense. What isn't working properly here is the "Game Image Type" option from within BigBox (Options > Images). It essentially does nothing at all if the platform has had it's Image Type changed at all (even if it's changed back to the default "Boxes"), though if it's completely unset it overrides the platform setting, this was what was confusing me initially. Everything else seems to be essentially working fine though I didn't really expect changing Image Type on a platform level through BigBox (using the hotkey) to affect the main desktop UI. Also would it be possible to override this setting in the XAML? I'm really still learning the basics with this stuff.

It would be great if you could take a look at fleshing this out sometime, though it's not really a huge deal to me. This is essentially a side project to my side project (my main side project being LaunchBox plugin development). I just felt like taking a whack at creating a theme that felt like a modern Games Console, as I much prefer that kind of style as opposed to the "wheel" interface that Hyperspin popularised. I Kind of also just wanted to see what the current theming engine was actually capable of. Truthfully I think what I currently have is pretty nice, and there is still a lot I can do in terms of tuning up the UI, and I've not even touched any of the other views yet.

Ah, gotcha. Yes, that is how it's designed, though I understand how that could be confusing. I'm actually not sure if you can override the Recent and Favorites image type in the XAML currenlty; I don't think you can, actually.

Hopefully I can get to the recent and favorites relatively soon.