theme COLORFUL bigbox theme

[eatkinola]

On 2/25/2020 at 7:18 AM, viking said:

OK, the problem is isolated. But not solved!
In this last test, I deleted all pieces of code allowing to assign a different color by platform.
This system come from @eatkinola "Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a" plugin.

@eatkinola , Do you have a solution for the problem of @johnsanc ?
Because there, nobody has a custom color by platform! ?

About the platform video animation fluidity, the difference is between the "official" code and the Grila's version.
I am editing asap 2 comparison versions for test.

Sorry to hear of the slowdowns my plugin might have caused. I've been quite busy at work and home so have not checked in recently. Thanks @viking for keeping me in the loop.

@johnsanc -- so, the lag issue with Colorful goes away if you remove references to the game videos, and only occurs on the platform screens? Does this also solve the performance issue with the Nostalgia platform and game views?

 

[johnsanc]

@eatkinola - That is correct. Performance issues completely go away if I remove the references to game videos or purposely make them a bad path that does not exist. Colorful is only impacted by this on the Platform view. Nostalgia is impacted in both Platform and the Games view. There is a video earlier in this thread showing the lag with Colorful.

[eatkinola]

1 hour ago, johnsanc said:

@eatkinola - That is correct. Performance issues completely go away if I remove the references to game videos or purposely make them a bad path that does not exist. Colorful is only impacted by this on the Platform view. Nostalgia is impacted in both Platform and the Games view. There is a video earlier in this thread showing the lag with Colorful.

Thanks for the clarification and video; very helpful. I'll work on it this weekend.

[viking]

On 2/24/2020 at 1:48 PM, viking said:

OK, a little test during the lunch break.
@wallmachine  asked me why not use the original code for the video ... No reason!! (now)
At the origin of this theme, I dont think to use the videos in full screen. So I needed Grila's code, for a perfect video crop. But not anymore!

If you could try this test view: PlatformWheel1FiltersView.zip

Just unzip this view in:   LaunchBox \ Themes \ Colorful \ Views
And be sure to test BigBox set on this view. (ClearLogo Wheel, White background)

It works at home, but I have the impression that the animation is a little less fluid. And at your home ?
I especially need the return of people with small configuration.
@johnsanc Do you still have your problem with this view?

@wallmachine I'm not sure I understand your video capture.
Do you show me the fluidity of the animation? Or the fact that you don't have platform videos?
If it is platform videos, it's setup in the BigBox options.
If it's about fluidity, please, can you try the test view I post on my quote message? The only difference with the Vanilla version, is the call video piece of code. I would like to know if that has any impact on the fluidity of the slide video animation. Better? Unchanged? Worst?
Thx !

 

11 hours ago, eatkinola said:

Sorry to hear of the slowdowns my plugin might have caused. I've been quite busy at work and home so have not checked in recently. Thanks @viking for keeping me in the loop.

@johnsanc -- so, the lag issue with Colorful goes away if you remove references to the game videos, and only occurs on the platform screens? Does this also solve the performance issue with the Nostalgia platform and game views?

 

@eatkinola Thank you! ?
For the moment and from my side, I have operated by elimination:
 - Change platform video call piece of code : no changes.
 - Remove all call to "Color by Platform" : It fixes Johnsanc's problem.

8 hours ago, johnsanc said:

@eatkinola - That is correct. Performance issues completely go away if I remove the references to game videos or purposely make them a bad path that does not exist. Colorful is only impacted by this on the Platform view. Nostalgia is impacted in both Platform and the Games view. There is a video earlier in this thread showing the lag with Colorful.

This is the weird part for me...
 - It works for the Colorful platform view: Cool
 - No problem for Colorful games view: Strange! Why? There is the same "color by platform" code as platform view.
 - Nostalgia theme? You mean BigCouch?   What the hell!?  This theme is old and deserves a complete overhaul. OK. But he has no plugin here. Everything is vanilla, according to @Jason Carr's doc.

I'm completely lost !?

PS: I will not be there next week: on vacation with kid's.

[johnsanc]

@wallmachine - Viking brings up a good point. I didn't realize you didnt use platform videos. Try using dedicated platform videos too and see if that makes things better. When you don't have dedicated platform videos it uses a random game video - seeking for a random video could be causing performance issues for you.

@viking - I agree! I have NO idea why the Colorful Games view is butter smooth. Maybe theres something else going on with Nostalgia theme in the Games view that is causing the slowness. I have not tried BigCouch. I noticed with Nostalgia the games switching is significantly slower than other themes even with no games videos. Perhaps it's also checking rompaths (which for me are also on a network share)? or perhaps the icon display on the side is causing slowness? not sure.

Edited February 27, 2020 by johnsanc

[viking]

OK. Here, I think it's time to make a point.

johnsanc, what do you call "Nostalgia"? My old theme "BigCouch"? Or mt old video set "Nostalgia"?
Now, I'm trying to develop a complete HQ media set, which I called COLORFUL.
For now, you have the "Colorful theme" and "Colorful Platform Video Set".

For me, your problem comes from network assembly and/or virtualization.
In any case, if it comes from the theme, let's try to fix it!

For me, the slowdowns encountered by @wallmachine are known. I have the same at home!  (They pass after a first pass on platforms)
I dont think that it comes from a videos adress issu.
The problem comes from the fact that I ask too much of the XAML .NET display under windows, with fullscreen right slide platform video animation.
(According to the Microsoft doc, which does not recommend large fullscreen animation. Worse with a video...)
This is why there is no problem with GamesView: The gameplay video is not animated!

But the video you posted, @johnsanc, shows loading times well beyond normal!
And I dont know WHY ! ?
- You tried removing the platform video slide animation:  no change.
- I trie to change platform video call piece of code : no changes.
- I trie remove all call to "Color by Platform" : It fixe the problem!

I'm lost and don't know what to do!

Johnsanc, have you tested my last platform view, in last update online?
PlatformWheel3FiltersView.xaml
This one :

Same problem ???

[johnsanc]

@viking - This theme. And I'll try your new platform view here shortly and post an update. EDIT: Yes the platform switching is laggy with the new platform view.

Another interesting thing is that Attract Mode is also completely smooth when it does its platform switching. 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by johnsanc

[eatkinola]

@viking @johnsanc @wallmachine

I might have identified the lag when first switching to a platform. Selection snoop tries to gather info about the platform, and part of that means it looks for a random selection of platform videos and images (e.g., to display if there is no platform video -- it can loop through random game videos or images when using the video engine bundled within the plugin). Anyways, that's not really applicable to Colorful, but it's probably where the bottleneck is. @johnsanc -- this is probably much more notable on your setup since you store videos on a network drive. I'll pm you with a revised version of the plugin; please test it when you have time. If we can confirm that's the problem, we can then post our results back here.

[johnsanc]

@eatkinola - THANK YOU!!! That modified dll did the trick. The switching lag is completely gone. It works just as smooth as @viking's vanilla view or when I break the paths to game videos.

I understand why the original dll would cause some slowness due to the looping through videos... but BigBox supports that natively without any issue using the "Use random game video for missing platform videos" setting. I guess maybe this dll was doing something a bit different or more intensive or checking if the video paths were valid or something. Either way, thank you so much for the quick dll update to test with. Do you plan on making an official version with a change? Or maybe a different method that is less intensive for non-image / non-video snooping?

[viking]

Cool !! Good news ! ??

Thx @eatkinola !!!!!

[ItchyRobot]

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).

 

[eatkinola]

2 hours ago, ItchyRobot said:

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).

Think I have a fix for this. @viking Here's an updated dll you can try (you have to right-click > properties > unblock it)

Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll

[ItchyRobot]

2 hours ago, eatkinola said:

Think I have a fix for this. @viking Here's an updated dll you can try (you have to right-click > properties > unblock it)

Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll 8.96 MB · 1 download

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.

Edited March 1, 2020 by ItchyRobot

[johnsanc]

I'm glad eatkinola's enhancements helped more than just me! With the DLL update this theme is better than ever.

[Moukrea]

It may sound like a request, but it's actually more of a suggestion...
I find this theme awesome, however... while it has quite a big "wow" factor upon first browsing and everybody find it awesome, having to wait so much between each games: switch to clear logo view, scroll clear logos, switch to game info, and wait for it to display) can become quite cumbersome while trying to find a game to play (it's not much of an issue when you know which game you wanna play though), so I came with an idea, and made a quick mockup of it:

Game details :

Scroll animation (50% state) :
Final state :Doing so, user wouldn't have to switch to a temporary clear logo view while browsing, and as all animations appens on the same screen, it may feel faster (the transition would have to be quite fast, say half second)

To describe in details the transition, here's another image (it's the "Next game" animation, "Previous game" would be reverted:Current game logo goes to previous game logo, same for next game logo going to current game position
Current game cover fades out, next game cover slides over.
Next game video slide over current game
Current game details fades out and next game details slide over it
Next game extra information (year, rating, age, nb of player) slides over current
Next game background slides over current.
Previous game logo+title goes slides out, while next-next game slides up...

That's a lot, but that's pretty much it !

I also have some ideas for platform section, I can show you if you're interested

[viking]

On 3/1/2020 at 1:22 AM, eatkinola said:

Think I have a fix for this. @viking Here's an updated dll you can try (you have to right-click > properties > unblock it)

Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll 8.96 MB · 13 downloads

HUUUUUUUUGE thank you @eatkinola for your work!  I integrate this update asap in the next theme release !! ?

On 3/1/2020 at 3:23 AM, ItchyRobot said:

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.

It depends on which view you want to modify.
In LaunchBox> Themes> Colorful> View: choose the view to modify.
And look for this piece of code, and just change the HEX color code :

<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- PLATFORM NAME TO COLOR CONVERTER ================================ -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->

<aox:FilterSelectionColorConverter x:Key="FilterSelectionColorConverter" />
<SolidColorBrush x:Key="DefaultPlatformColor" Color="#5abc3c"/>

On 3/8/2020 at 2:33 PM, Moukrea said:

It may sound like a request, but it's actually more of a suggestion...
I find this theme awesome, however... while it has quite a big "wow" factor upon first browsing and everybody find it awesome, having to wait so much between each games: switch to clear logo view, scroll clear logos, switch to game info, and wait for it to display) can become quite cumbersome while trying to find a game to play (it's not much of an issue when you know which game you wanna play though), so I came with an idea, and made a quick mockup of it:
(...)

Your proposal is very nice.
But this is not quite the style I want to give to this theme.
I want less information, breaths aera, and big media.
But why not ! I would like to finish all views I have in mind and if there is a lot of demand for more data loaded version, why not!

 

I take this opportunity to apologize again for my lack of post at this time. Lots of "real life" work these days.
I do my best!
I come back with the updated theme (Generalized optimization + new Eatkinola plugin) and some new video !!!

[zetec-s-joe]

CAnnot wait for your next release (when your ready!) Love this theme ❤️

[ItchyRobot]

23 hours ago, viking said:

HUUUUUUUUGE thank you @eatkinola for your work!  I integrate this update asap in the next theme release !! ?

It depends on which view you want to modify.
In LaunchBox> Themes> Colorful> View: choose the view to modify.
And look for this piece of code, and just change the HEX color code :

<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- PLATFORM NAME TO COLOR CONVERTER ================================ -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->
<!-- ================================================================= -->

<aox:FilterSelectionColorConverter x:Key="FilterSelectionColorConverter" />
<SolidColorBrush x:Key="DefaultPlatformColor" Color="#5abc3c"/>

Your proposal is very nice.
But this is not quite the style I want to give to this theme.
I want less information, breaths aera, and big media.
But why not ! I would like to finish all views I have in mind and if there is a lot of demand for more data loaded version, why not!

 

I take this opportunity to apologize again for my lack of post at this time. Lots of "real life" work these days.
I do my best!
I come back with the updated theme (Generalized optimization + new Eatkinola plugin) and some new video !!!

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!

[OhBoy]

@viking would it be possible to have an alternate OLED compatible version that is exactly the same with every view except the list view (TextGamesView.xaml) be an opposite layout from the other views? So the game video is on the left, and options like "Play" "Launch with" etc are on the right? This would help keep OLED TVs from burning in since the game videos would alternate sides of the screen depending on if you're in the game details or not. Here's an example of what I mean:

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, OhBoy said:

@viking would it be possible to have an alternate OLED compatible version that is exactly the same with every view except the list view (TextGamesView.xaml) be an opposite layout from the other views? So the game video is on the left, and options like "Play" "Launch with" etc are on the right? This would help keep OLED TVs from burning in since the game videos would alternate sides of the screen depending on if you're in the game details or not. Here's an example of what I mean:

Its impossible to have more than one text list view im afraid. Also i would relax a little with your OLED burn in worry's, just dont leave it on exactly the same static image for hours on end and you will be fine.