Possible to have playlists use custom view configurations?

[skizzosjt]

I've been setting up playlists and customizing the Colorful 4K theme and all has been good until I recently started making use of the individual platform named configurations for the GameWheel view. I've set things up so custom photos are being used based on the game's platform name. As in it will display photos related to the NES, or Sega Genesis, etc, depending which platform I am in. This works as expected when in platform category or platform views, so if I navigate to the NES or Sega Genesis platform they will display all the proper images and the video is sized and positioned properly in both. However, if I go into any of my playlists which have games from multiple platforms in them, all games seem to use the default configuration of GameWheel view and things do not look correct here. The same game can look right when viewed from the actual platform, but will look wrong when viewed from a playlist. This creates a problem where the videos are now all going to be the same size and position (not where I want them). It's the main reason I used the platform specific configurations in the CTC, so I could customize the video size and placement per platform. So my plan here has hit a wall and I'm at a crossroad.

 

Some quick and dirty testing suggests I can get around this by making separate instances of the main video in the default configuration and put a visibility condition on each to only display if game's platform contains XYZ for example. So before I go down that route, I'm wondering if that is the only option I have or am I missing something to make this work? Is it even possible for playlists to use the SNES or Arcade config of GameWheel view for example? because right now to me it seems playlists can only use the default config.

 

Thank you for reading, and I appreciate any advice that can be shared!

[faeran]

On 10/18/2022 at 2:12 PM, skizzosjt said:

I've been setting up playlists and customizing the Colorful 4K theme and all has been good until I recently started making use of the individual platform named configurations for the GameWheel view. I've set things up so custom photos are being used based on the game's platform name. As in it will display photos related to the NES, or Sega Genesis, etc, depending which platform I am in. This works as expected when in platform category or platform views, so if I navigate to the NES or Sega Genesis platform they will display all the proper images and the video is sized and positioned properly in both. However, if I go into any of my playlists which have games from multiple platforms in them, all games seem to use the default configuration of GameWheel view and things do not look correct here. The same game can look right when viewed from the actual platform, but will look wrong when viewed from a playlist. This creates a problem where the videos are now all going to be the same size and position (not where I want them). It's the main reason I used the platform specific configurations in the CTC, so I could customize the video size and placement per platform. So my plan here has hit a wall and I'm at a crossroad.

 

Some quick and dirty testing suggests I can get around this by making separate instances of the main video in the default configuration and put a visibility condition on each to only display if game's platform contains XYZ for example. So before I go down that route, I'm wondering if that is the only option I have or am I missing something to make this work? Is it even possible for playlists to use the SNES or Arcade config of GameWheel view for example? because right now to me it seems playlists can only use the default config.

 

Thank you for reading, and I appreciate any advice that can be shared!

If I'm reading this right, you are creating platform-specific view files for your platforms, and now you want to create view files for specific playlists?

Or are you wanting elements within one view to dynamically change properties depending on the game's platform?

[skizzosjt]

1 hour ago, faeran said:

If I'm reading this right, you are creating platform-specific view files for your platforms, and now you want to create view files for specific playlists?

Or are you wanting elements within one view to dynamically change properties depending on the game's platform?

Hi faeran, thanks for taking a moment to give me a hand here. I think I kinda need both abilities you just mentioned...combined in a way....I think but not sure. I did not do a great job explaining my scenario, so I put some photos together and hope I can tell the story clearer.

 

Here are two examples of my platform view of WheelGamesView for Windows and Sega Genesis. These will look as desired with the correct photo elements being displayed and proper position of the main video

Now here are the two exact same games being selected from within my Streets of Rage playlist.  All of the photos will be proper due to dynamically going off the selected game's platform, but the video position and size is static and does not dynamically change based on what game is selected, based of the selected game's platform. You will notice my issue is the main video is no longer aligned with the display accordingly

I am aware there are custom config views available for playlists, but this is sort of the same situation. It would not give the ability to dynamically adjust the video per game selected, per the game's platform.

Basically it seems from what I've tried so far to produce the theme look I am going for, when going into playlists I would only have a single platform look appropriate as far as the video placement and size goes due to they (playlists) seem to use the Default config of the WheelGamesView even if there is an existing custom config for that platform.

 

I tried some funky ideas like adding additional main videos ("selected item video" per CTC's terms) but it looks like there is only a single one allowed when it is published to use in Big Box. CTC is a bit deceiving here because you can see them in CTC and use visibility conditions on them. So I actually thought I found a workaround by adding a selected item video for each platform and sizing them and positioning them accordingly, as well as making them only visible per platform. Not until I published it did I find out this plan doesn't work since there is a disconnect between what is shown in CTC and Big Box in this particular situation. I then tried adding additional "user defined videos" but the Metadata options available in CTC for user defined video are not conducive to my goal.

This pic on the left shows a 2nd selected item video displayed within CTC. Visibility conditions do work here also but for this example I made sure to not use any visibility conditions. This was edited on the Default configuration. This pic on the right is in Big Box in a Zelda playlist and selecting a N64 game just for consistency. The 2nd selected item video is nowhere to be found. Even if I go into the N64 platform it is not seen, or heard, in Big Box. It's like this additional element doesn't exist to Big Box. To clarify, I did delete the custom platform config for N64 to make sure it uses the Default config. So this is why this plan fell apart.

 

I then went on to try the video mirror and didn't think much of it at first but then I thought I found a solution here too since I can place and size each individually. It gets muddy here, because I found a convoluted workaround, but it makes the system unusable or at the very least, not enjoyable to use. The first hurdle I ran into is there is no keep aspect ratio option for video mirror, it defaults to stretch and that isn't desirable, but I'd live with that if I had to. The second is many visibility conditions don't seem to work on video mirrors. I can make it visible, hidden or collapsed. But most actual visibility conditions seem to be ignored or not working, I tried several and after like half a dozen didn't work I started thinking none did. It didn't work with basic stuff like be visible/hidden if the platform or game name is ABCXYZ. Here's where I got creative. I the put in a text box that lists the platform name through metadata, and then used a visibility condition for the mirror video that makes it visible if the text of the text box is ABCXYZ.....and that type of visibility condition works for video mirrors. So now I'm thinking sweet, I figured this out.....meh....not quite time to celebrate. Even with the funny workaround, there's a pretty annoying problem, it seems to de-sync the video and audio which I assume is because I'm doing this for many platforms. Seems like it's trying to load up several instances of the same video simultaneously and acts like the system is getting bogged down. By the time I added like half a dozen I noticed navigating around in the playlists got super sluggish and it might take several seconds for a button input to be recognized if I hit it while it's trying to load all the videos. And when the video does become visible it's always out of sync with the audio. It got real bad by the time I got to 10 and I figured that was far enough to conclude the problem was from the qty of videos, it goes away when I deleted a bunch and only had one or two mirrors

 

So at this point I'm not 100% sure if I am not setting something up right, or I am trying to do something that isn't offered in Big Box's features. I'd really appreciate if someone like yourself who's working under the hood of Big Box could offer some help on what setting I might have gotten wrong to make my plan work, or just let me know this idea isn't feasible with the features/options currently available. Or heck, maybe it is available, but I would have to do it through manual manipulation of the files, aka editing the code of the view files? As in, maybe it's just not been integrated into the current version of CTC?

Thanks again for whatever help you can offer!