12.7 Beta Testing

[Retrofrogg]

Great to see that the game details view is being progressed @faeran! I see that you haven't gone as far as the fully tabbed approach that you used in your own theme, though instead have a kind of hybrid model where you separate the MAME high scores into a separate tab, but have the images as a carousel. I quite like the underlined game details and the left/right justification - much clearer. You know me however - some feedback on the new game details pane:

• I would echo what @Kevin_Flynn mentioned (and what I had spoken to you about regarding your own theme) - having an image appear behind the game title/platform/release date and video/screenshot area makes it look too busy and cluttered. The text no longer pops like it should; I actually missed the "overview" and "high scores" tabs for a while because of this. I would either add a lot more fade to the image, or remove it altogether
• As @Mr. RetroLust mentioned, the black bars on the sides of the videos that are not the expected aspect ratio need to be removed. Also, this problem exists for screenshots too (both vertical and horizontal screenshots).
• I would add a bit more space between the image carousel and the main video/image display area - they currently visually blend into each other due to a lack of separation, reducing the impact of both. I would also go further than this and separate the two altogether, as mentioned below.
• This is maybe more related to Launchbox than your theme (and is perhaps something I have mentioned before), but it would be nice if all game images appeared in the image carousel, not just screenshots and the front box

Given that you've implemented a tabbed approach for the High Scores, I can't help but think that it would be slicker to add the images into their own tab rather than have the carousel where it is.

I hope you find this feedback useful!

 

PS.

I managed to remove the background image (and also the rectangle behind it) by editing the xaml, though can't seem to find any reference to the items within the carousel other than its overall margins and scroll bars (lines 347 to 443) - is it not possible to increase the margin above the carousel thumbnails by editing this view?

PPS. Here's what it looks like with the background image removed, as an example. I have also made a few other modifications:

• Background image and background image border removed
• Font size of game title increased a little
• Platform and release year greyed slightly to make the title pop
• Custom metadata appears in a different colour to standard metadata; everything in the same colour looks a bit like one long list. I went for orange to match the rating star colour.

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Retrofrogg

[faeran]

Beta 5 is out with the following fixes:

• Fixed: Game Details background no longer stops you from deleting the file being shown
• Fixed: Videos now only take the space required to play them (Which caused the black box on either side even when PreviewBackground was Transparent) - For Theme Devs
• Fixed: Items were showing twice in the carousel previews if the item was used both in Background and Screenshot Image Priorities
• Fixed: Wikipedia and YouTube link mouse-over wasn't working on the transparent sections of the icons
• Fixed: Some menu items weren't updating their strings correctly
• Fixed: Document badge wasn't showing up correctly for all items with a manual
• Fixed: Completed check box was missing it's tooltip
• Fixed: Carousel play button flickering when GameDetails is first opening up
• Fixed: Carousel video now responds to volume change correctly
• Fixed: Carousel video can now be double clicked to open a full screen player like you used to be able to in previous versions

[Retrofrogg]

Thanks @faeran, but the black bar issue seems to still be there with Beta 5.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Retrofrogg

[faeran]

57 minutes ago, Retrofrogg said:

Great to see that the game details view is being progressed @faeran! I see that you haven't gone as far as the fully tabbed approach that you used in your own theme, though instead have a kind of hybrid model where you separate the MAME high scores into a separate tab, but have the images as a carousel. I quite like the underlined game details and the left/right justification - much clearer. You know me however - some feedback on the new game details pane:

• I would echo what @Kevin_Flynn mentioned (and what I had spoken to you about regarding your own theme) - having an image appear behind the game title/platform/release date and video/screenshot area makes it look too busy and cluttered. The text no longer pops like it should; I actually missed the "overview" and "high scores" tabs for a while because of this. I would either add a lot more fade to the image, or remove it altogether
• As @Mr. RetroLust mentioned, the black bars on the sides of the videos that are not the expected aspect ratio need to be removed. Also, this problem exists for screenshots too (both vertical and horizontal screenshots).
• I would add a bit more space between the image carousel and the main video/image display area - they currently visually blend into each other due to a lack of separation, reducing the impact of both. I would also go further than this and separate the two altogether, as mentioned below.
• This is maybe more related to Launchbox than your theme (and is perhaps something I have mentioned before), but it would be nice if all game images appeared in the image carousel, not just screenshots and the front box

Given that you've implemented a tabbed approach for the High Scores, I can't help but think that it would be slicker to add the images into their own tab rather than have the carousel where it is.

I hope you find this feedback useful!

 

PS.

I managed to remove the background image (and also the rectangle behind it) by editing the xaml, though can't seem to find any reference to the items within the carousel other than its overall margins and scroll bars (lines 347 to 443) - is it not possible to increase the margin above the carousel thumbnails by editing this view?

PPS. Here's what it looks like with the background image removed, as an example. I have also made a few other modifications:

• Background image and background image border removed
• Font size of game title increased a little
• Platform and release year greyed slightly to make the title pop
• Custom metadata appears in a different colour to standard metadata; everything in the same colour looks a bit like one long list. I went for orange to match the rating star colour.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify a few things. The new GameDetails was a team effort. The goal was to update the look, but to have it streamlined for as many users as possible. We tried to make things as flexible and customizable as possible, so that custom themes can be made with as many alterations as possible. That's what's great about LaunchBox, we provide a default canvas, and you guys can go crazy.

Just to answer a few of your inquiries:

• "Black Bars" can be easily removed via the PreviewBackground property
• You can get the effect of adding all images to your carousel by turning on all items in either the Background priorities or screenshot priorities.
• Font sizes and colors can be adjusted from within LaunchBox options (this is a premium feature of LaunchBox). You can also hard code other values if you create a custom theme (like you noticed).

[faeran]

Just now, Retrofrogg said:

Thanks @faeran, but the black bar issue seems to still be there with Beta 5.

Just to clarify: having black bars is not actually an issue. The issue was that Videos were not adhering to the PreviewBackground property, if a theme dev decided to change its color. 

[Retrofrogg]

@faeran understood - it was just an issue raised by @Mr. RetroLust and myself. My view would be that the PreviewBackground property should be transparent by default in order to not have those black bars appearing, but I'm not a coder and maybe I'm missing something! Regarding the fonts, you can change the colours in the Launchbox menu but I was referring to having custom metadata a different colour to the rest, which requires the xaml to be edited.

Edit: obviously I'm missing something, as changing the

PreviewBackground="Black"

to a different colour doesn't make any difference to the black bars. Also, it's not possible to edit the xaml to increase the margin above the carousel thumbnails?

17 minutes ago, faeran said:

You can get the effect of adding all images to your carousel by turning on all items in either the Background priorities or screenshot priorities.

Yes, this works, thanks! It would be nice if double-clicking in image in the carousel caused it to go full-screen (rather than having to move the mouse to the image window and double-clicking there).

Edited January 24, 2022 by Retrofrogg

[faeran]

1 minute ago, Retrofrogg said:

@faeran understood - it was just an issue raised by @Mr. RetroLust and myself. My view would be that the PreviewBackground property should be transparent by default in order to not have those black bars appearing, but I'm not a coder and maybe I'm missing something! Regarding the fonts, you can change the colours in the Launchbox menu but I was referring to having custom metadata a different colour to the rest, which requires the xaml to be edited.

Yes, with the changes today, a theme dev should now be able to alter the PreviewBackground property and have videos adhere to those changes. This was the main issue Mr. Retrolust brought up. It will not be changed for default due to needing seamless margins no matter the content's aspect ratio.

This is what's great about custom theme support. We just have to make sure it's as flexible as we can make it

 

[C-Beats]

18 minutes ago, Retrofrogg said:

Yes, this works, thanks! It would be nice if double-clicking in image in the carousel caused it to go full-screen (rather than having to move the mouse to the image window and double-clicking there).

Right click the small item and hit "View Fullscreen"

[Retrofrogg]

Thanks @C-Beats - just double-clicking is a bit easier and quicker. But I can live with the above!

[Rlad]

3 hours ago, Retrofrogg said:

Edit: obviously I'm missing something, as changing the

PreviewBackground="Black"

to a different colour doesn't make any difference to the black bars.

 

Have you made a copy of the theme? It will just keep reverting back if you try to change the Default, as i just found out.

[bundangdon]

5 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify a few things. The new GameDetails was a team effort. The goal was to update the look, but to have it streamlined for as many users as possible. We tried to make things as flexible and customizable as possible, so that custom themes can be made with as many alterations as possible. That's what's great about LaunchBox, we provide a default canvas, and you guys can go crazy.

Just to answer a few of your inquiries:

• "Black Bars" can be easily removed via the PreviewBackground property
• You can get the effect of adding all images to your carousel by turning on all items in either the Background priorities or screenshot priorities.
• Font sizes and colors can be adjusted from within LaunchBox options (this is a premium feature of LaunchBox). You can also hard code other values if you create a custom theme (like you noticed).

@faeran This might sound like a difficult request, but is there any way that we can find out the code to add the new GameDetails feature (from the LBTheme) to a theme like LBPlex? It seems to be one of the most popular LB themes, so I'm sure that a lot of users out there could benefit from it

[Aevans0001]

23 hours ago, Retro808 said:

If you are trying to type it into the field labeled "Sample Command:" it will not work. You have to type any command line parameters into either the "Default Command-Line Paramaters" field or in the same labeled field in the "Associated Platforms" tab.

Yeah, I figured out my issue and tested it just now.  It was the location of the framefile i missed.  So my command should be

 

"C:\Games\Emulators\Hypseus-Singe\hypseus.exe" lair vldp -framefile c:\Games\Launchbox\Games\Hypseus-Singe\lair\lair.txt -fullscreen -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000 -fastboot -volume_nonvldp 5 -volume_vldp 20 -fastboot

But Launchbox was doing this

hypsues.exe lair vldp -framefile c:\Games\Launchbox\Games\Hypseus-Singe\lair\lair.txt -fullscreen -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000 -fastboot -volume_nonvldp 5 -volume_vldp 20 -fastboot "Full\Path\To\Rom\File"

Well i didn't have a path because the path is the framefile.  So today I did the obvious fix and move the -framefile to the end to look like this

lair vldp -fullscreen -bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000 -fastboot -volume_nonvldp 5 -volume_vldp 20 -fastboot -framefile "Full\Path\To\Rom\File"

 

This worked, so sorry for posting a bug, the bug was my brain.

[Suhrvivor]

The new default details panel looks awesome and LaunchBox loads much faster now, best update in a while!

[Retrofrogg]

7 hours ago, Rlad said:

Have you made a copy of the theme? It will just keep reverting back if you try to change the Default, as i just found out.

Yes, you cannot edit the default theme, and so you need to make a copy of it and switch the theme to that in the Launchbox settings. The only problem with this is that you won't see any updates to the theme (i.e. with new Launchbox releases) unless you're using the default theme.

[The Papaw]

11 hours ago, C-Beats said:

Right click the small item and hit "View Fullscreen"

Is it possible to add the Right Click & delete context menu to the video as well?

Edited January 25, 2022 by The Papaw

[Mr. RetroLust]

Thank you guys for making the transparency possible! Looks great!   I have a new issue though, check the gameplay video of golden axe in the previous beta and what it looks like now, there are black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. It's weird because the theme videos do maintain a 4:3 ratio but the gameplay videos don't and i'm pretty sure they are recorded in 4:3 as well. 

Previous beta

Present Beta

[The Papaw]

On 1/7/2022 at 6:39 AM, The Papaw said:

v12.7.1 - When I use the "Games Missing Media", allow it to check the metadata, then trying to update what it finds, say box fronts or 3d boxes for the 400+ games, it just hangs on "Initializing process" for me. Cancel isn't working right either. I can close LB and try again, does same thing. Anyone else? 

  

I believe this issue is being caused by the Epic Games Integration login when it is being triggered. Trying to Log in and out of the account within LB does nothing to help. The best I can tell, it happened when I updated to v12.7.1. When I tried using the "Games Missing Media" and "Update metadata and media" features. (I may have said NO when prompted me if I wanted to log into the Epic account)

The "EpicToken" was missing in the non-working versions and LB was not showing me the prompt asking if I wish to log in to Epic after that. That is where it was hanging on the "Initializing" When I updated to v12.17.1, I'm not sure when LB deleted the token or why it would no longer prompt for login, but after I fixed the Settings.xml file, it worked as expected. Of course when I would install v12.5 or v12.6 over top of broken v12.7.1, the Settings.xml isn't changed so I still had the problem.

I know that there are some major migrations going on and @Jason Carr and others really have their hands full (BTW I am already seeing improvements as a end-user, thank you). Rant: Anyone notice how many times the log files I uploaded in a later post were downloaded. ZERO! Not one single time. Kinda sad to see. 😥

[C-Beats]

3 hours ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

Thank you guys for making the transparency possible! Looks great!   I have a new issue though, check the gameplay video of golden axe in the previous beta and what it looks like now, there are black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. It's weird because the theme videos do maintain a 4:3 ratio but the gameplay videos don't and i'm pretty sure they are recorded in 4:3 as well. 

Previous beta

Present Beta

This is because of how that particular video file is made. It has a second video track / cover art embedded in it (which is also what causes the thumbnail to look like that). That embedded art makes the OS report that the video frame height/width of that file is the amount that matches that cover art and so sizes it to fit. When playing the video though you don't see it because that other track is only there one frame then switches to the other. There are third party tools out there that can remove those in bulk to help with this issue. At the time I don't really have a great way to work around it via code.

[C-Beats]

Looks like this once you remove the thumbnail

[faeran]

Beta 6 has been released with the following fixes:

• Fixed: Videos in the LaunchBox carousel with embedded thumbnails of different aspect ratio from its source (like some EmuMovies videos) will now play correctly in the default theme
• Fixed: Videos in the LaunchBox carousel now have the right-click context menu to Fullscreen and Delete
• Fixed: Viewing a video fullscreen in the LaunchBox carousel now opens a window inside of LaunchBox instead of a VLC instance