Handful of questions from a new user (Proper way to exit a game? Random error after changing settings? Remove clock from CriticalZone Theme?)

[pgathriller]

New user that just got CriticalZone successfully running how I'd (mostly) like it to!

 

Couple things I haven't yet figured out:

1) What is the proper way to exit a game?

I've been pressing Esc twice to exit a game, which seems to not be the correct way to do it because if it's a game running MAME, once the game closes, I'm actually brought into the GUI of MAME itself, then I'll exit MAME and be brought back to BigBox

(For context, all of my games are running through Retroarch and its various cores)

 

2) I have Big Box start up right into my All Games Wheel, but if I Esc out to change a setting, then head back into my Games Wheel, I've been getting this error popping up:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

App:     Big Box
Version: 11.12
Type:    System.NullReferenceException
Site:    Void QueryMap(System.Object, System.EventArgs)
Source:  BigBox

   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.BigBox.Controls.VideoControl.<>c__DisplayClass8_0.QueryMap(Object sender, EventArgs args)
   at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.<.ctor>b__18_0(Object s, RoutedEventArgs a)
   at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised)
   at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEventImpl(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args)
   at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.ThreadSeparatedControlHost.<OnInitialized>b__22_0(Object sender, RoutedEventArgs args)
   at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised)
   at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEventImpl(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args)
   at System.Windows.BroadcastEventHelper.BroadcastEvent(DependencyObject root, RoutedEvent routedEvent)
   at System.Windows.BroadcastEventHelper.BroadcastLoadedEvent(Object root)
   at MS.Internal.LoadedOrUnloadedOperation.DoWork()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.FireLoadedPendingCallbacks()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.FireInvokeOnRenderCallbacks()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.RenderMessageHandlerCore(Object resizedCompositionTarget)
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.RenderMessageHandler(Object resizedCompositionTarget)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

Recent Log:

   12:54:24 PM Exception

 

But once I click "Close", everything seems to run fine, so not sure what's causing it or what it means

 

3) I love the look of the CriticalZone theme with Hyperspin videos running -- but I don't need any of the extra stuff (Platform name, clock, game title, poster/cartridge, etc)

Is there an easy way to disable some of these things?

Edited July 7, 2021 by pgathriller
grammar

[pgathriller]

5 hours ago, pgathriller said:

1) What is the proper way to exit a game?

I've been pressing Esc twice to exit a game, which seems to not be the correct way to do it because if it's a game running MAME, once the game closes, I'm actually brought into the GUI of MAME itself, then I'll exit MAME and be brought back to BigBox

(For context, all of my games are running through Retroarch and its various cores)

 

Figured this one out! Inside Retroarch > Inputs > Hotkeys, I made Esc "close content" and disabled "confirm quit", that way a single push of Esc both closes the game and Retroarch, which in turn fully closes MAME as well and brings me fully back into BigBox

 

1 down! 2 to go!

Edited July 8, 2021 by pgathriller

[pgathriller]

On 7/7/2021 at 1:10 PM, pgathriller said:

3) I love the look of the CriticalZone theme with Hyperspin videos running -- but I don't need any of the extra stuff (Platform name, clock, game title, poster/cartridge, etc)

Is there an easy way to disable some of these things?

Figured out #3!

 

I had to make a full copy of the CriticalZone Theme's file folder, then set that copy-version to my actual theme. Then I went into my View settings to figure out which Wheel view I was using and was able to delete everything in that view's XML file about the clock, date, platform logo, etc to clean out anything I didn't want.

 

The trick is to edit the XML files of a copy of a theme, apparently BigBox doesn't like when you try to edit the original theme's files

[neil9000]

9 minutes ago, pgathriller said:

Figured out #3!

 

I had to make a full copy of the CriticalZone Theme's file folder, then set that copy-version to my actual theme. Then I went into my View settings to figure out which Wheel view I was using and was able to delete everything in that view's XML file about the clock, date, platform logo, etc to clean out anything I didn't want.

 

The trick is to edit the XML files of a copy of a theme, apparently BigBox doesn't like when you try to edit the original theme's files

Yeah, you cant directly edit the default themes, that is by design as a safeguard so there is always a working theme to fall back to, other themes can be directly edited though.

[pgathriller]

6 hours ago, neil9000 said:

Yeah, you cant directly edit the default themes, that is by design as a safeguard so there is always a working theme to fall back to, other themes can be directly edited though.

Yeah, took me a bit of digging before I realized that but now everything looks exactly how i'd like!

 

Any idea on that system null error i'm getting?

When I click "Close" on it, it seems everything is running perfectly fine, so I'm not sure what it's affecting or why it pops up