Sleipnir

[blattacker]

Sleipnir

View File

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About:

This theme is inspired by Pegasus Frontend's default theme. I personally really love the look of Pegasus, but vastly prefer the functionality of Big Box, so this is me doing my best to combine both worlds. Excluding those credited below, all other custom assets were created by me. As a note: This theme was designed in 4K for use on a large television. Scaling issues present in previous versions have been fixed, to my knowledge.  This WIP upload is intended to get fresh eyes on the project and help to identify issues I may not be running into with my limited usage, as well as provide a better version of this theme than was currently available during a period of time where I don't have as much free time as I have previously.

 

Credits:

Genre Icons: Game Icons

Platform Clear Logos: v2 Platform Logos Professionally Redrawn + Official Versions, New BigBox Defaults 2.1.0

Platform Banners (Present only in legacy versions): BannerBox 2.1

Platform Media: System Media - Stencil Platform Images 1.0.

Platform Images: COLORFUL Hardware PNG media (1x1) 1.1

Finally, many thanks to @y2guru for the Community Theme Creator. While this version no longer uses the CTC, I would have never started on this journey, nor gotten nearly as far, without it.

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• Submitter
  blattacker
• Submitted
  04/16/2023
• Category
  Custom Themes

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by blattacker
Added theme tag

[blattacker]

An updated version of this theme should be available within the next week or two. I've remade the thing from the ground up with custom code, which allowed me to make it significantly more responsive, and I've also been able to fix the scaling issues the previous version had. Base views have all been completed, and I'm now just working on making slight adjustments for platform-specific views to get sizing/spacing all good. I've taken all comments on the theme download page into consideration, but if anyone has any eleventh hour suggestions they want to make before I finish up this new version, please let me know!

 

Examples of Fixed Scaling

Edited June 11, 2023 by blattacker

[BiRaitBec]

hey mate, thanks for this theme inspired by bannerbox aswell, it is currently my favourite theme so far so i will also try yours aswell.


I recently published a 4k set of all banners from bannerbox which could help your theme aswell in terms of banners resolution.
 

 

[blattacker]

A new update has been added! Unfortunately due to some wild changes happening in my day job, I've been unable to work on this project properly for some time now. I've gotten it into a functional state, where I feel comfortable uploading it for anyone who enjoyed the theme but didn't like how sluggish it was.

 

Main improvements/updates:

I've switched the theme from using the CTC to using custom-written code. This has made the theme significantly more responsive, and is more what I had in mind when I set out on this project.

The TextFiltersView is a proper view now, rather than being a PlatformWheelView where the image for the platform was just a text element, also increasing responsiveness.

I've utilized custom shapes/SVG files for the layout of the top bar, rather than having it be background colors of containers. This allows the layout to be much more friendly to resolution/aspect ratio changes.

The theme as a whole has been built with resolution/aspect ratio responsiveness in mind. Relative units/scale converters have been used everywhere I could think of, so, in theory, this theme should work on any screen.

 

To-Do List:

The TextFiltersView no longer has the "endless scrolling' functionality of the original theme, I'd like to restore that while keeping everything actually text-based.

The PlatformWheelView is currently missing entirely, I would like to restore that. I'm unsure if I'll be restoring it with the Banner Box banners again, or if I will wait to include it until I've created my own banners.

The SystemView from the original theme is currently missing entirely. I have yet to rebuild it, which is a priority for getting the theme back to what I would call a "semi-finished" state.

The TextGamesView layout is currently essentially copied and pasted from the WallGamesView, with only the required changes to make it work with the TextGamesView. I need to retool it so that it matches the original theme/vision for this theme.

Most game/platform specific icons/images are currently missing fallback values, and will just not load in the case of a missing value. Adding fallback values for these items is low-priority, but still on the list.

Platform-specific WallGamesView files have only been created for the systems present on my test machine. Any other systems will default to DVD spacing, which may cause overlap or obnoxious gaps between items. 

The game videos in the WallGamesView are currently not present and are just screenshots to test placement. Adding the gameplay videos back in is low-priority and may be excluded from the final theme depending on the impact to the theme speed.

The game notes section in both the WallGamesView and the TextGamesView scroll stupidly fast to test functionality. This should be adjusted to a more readable rate.

 

Further updates/a proper version 2.0 will come eventually, but my chipping away at this project is getting slower and slower as my day job is expanding my working hours. That being said, I still have a laundry list of new features I'd like to add as I get the time. These include (but are not limited to):

• Custom startup and shutdown screens
• Custom startup video
• Alternate views (eg different levels of greyscale for the WallGamesView)
• Alternate/Customizable color palette (Possibly platform specific color palettes)
• (Not entirely sure this one is possible, but it's something I'd like to look into) Different/smoother transitions between views

 

As always, please let me know what you think, and if you find any glaring issues! I may not be able to update and iterate as often as I'd like to, but rest assured this project is ongoing!

[blattacker]

As a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm attaching a video and some stills of the progress that has been made. The version shown in the video and stills is the version that is currently uploaded.

[elwooha6]

I'm getting an odd error with the 1.5.1 update of the theme.

This happens as soon as bigbox gets past the startup vid and loads the platform menu. I also get similar errors when opening any platform view.

[blattacker]

You are absolutely right, I changed the folder name and forgot to update the references, I'll have that fixed by the end of the day today, my apologies!

[blattacker]

13 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

I'm getting an odd error with the 1.5.1 update of the theme.

This happens as soon as bigbox gets past the startup vid and loads the platform menu. I also get similar errors when opening any platform view.

That issue should be fixed now, please download the theme again and let me know if it seems to be working!

[elwooha6]

Still happening for me:

I completely deleted the old folder to be certain there wasn't anything left over from before. Also I have a request about the files that you upload, please include the actual version number in the filename and not "2.0 WIP" as I keep a backup of all themes I've downloaded and it gets messy when things are the same name over multiple different versions, totally optional of course just thought I'd mention it.

[blattacker]

Hmm...I cannot seem to recreate the issue on my end, even on a separate computer with a fresh install of LaunchBox/Big Box. From that error window, if you navigate to the indicated folder ( S:\Emulation\LaunchBox\Themes\Sleipnir 2.0 WIP\Media\LayoutImages), do you see an image in that folder? And/or is this folder location where LaunchBox and the themes are installed? As far as the naming conventions go, I have been naming them accordingly previously, but this version was named as such because it was never intended to go live. It's been uploaded simply because I don't have time to work on it, but didn't want to leave the slower version up in the meantime. Proper naming conventions will resume once I have free time to work on the theme again.

 

 

Editing to add:
Are you changing the name of the folder after extraction? If so, this will be the cause, as the theme as it's coded right now uses file references at the install level, not the theme/folder level (that will likely be fixed in the future, I was unfamiliar with XAML's syntax and was having trouble referencing the files any other way), so the folder name must match the folder name in the reference (ie the downloaded folder) exactly. If you renamed it to keep a backup of older versions, I can assure you that the current version titled 2.0 WIP is functionally identical to every other version with the same name, other than fixed file references compared to the original versions. Alternatively, if you have changed the folder name and want it to retain that changed name, you can go into every xaml file in the "Views" folder (and subfolders) and do a find and replace, replacing "Sleipnir 2.0 WIP" with whatever your new folder name is.

Edited August 3, 2023 by blattacker

[elwooha6]

Ah I see about the naming, no worries. I think the image reference is most likely as you said with the folder name as I had been extracting the theme to a folder with the version number in it, after extracting without the custom folder name it is working fine now. The only thing I've noticed so far in this build is that the number of games on the platform list is cut off a bit by the "games available" text. I have to mention that I'm using a 1080p monitor upscaled to 1440p so not sure if that would affect it or not. Glad we got the folder name thing figured out, thanks for the help.

EDIT: Just noticed that the cut off text is only with larger collections of 100 games or more.

Edited August 5, 2023 by elwooha6
clarification

[blattacker]

On 8/5/2023 at 2:12 AM, elwooha6 said:

Ah I see about the naming, no worries. I think the image reference is most likely as you said with the folder name as I had been extracting the theme to a folder with the version number in it, after extracting without the custom folder name it is working fine now. The only thing I've noticed so far in this build is that the number of games on the platform list is cut off a bit by the "games available" text. I have to mention that I'm using a 1080p monitor upscaled to 1440p so not sure if that would affect it or not. Glad we got the folder name thing figured out, thanks for the help.

EDIT: Just noticed that the cut off text is only with larger collections of 100 games or more.

Alright, couple quick updates for you: I've figured out the relative file reference, I was apparently making it more difficult than it needed to be, so starting with the next update (sometime this week hopefully), renaming the folder shouldn't cause anything to break. I've also found the issue you noticed with the available games count, I thought I had it set up to scale with the content size, but it looks like I may have forgotten that, so that is fixed in the coming version! I've tested it with a collection of over 1000 games just to be sure that it will continue to scale correctly, as well!

[blattacker]

On 8/5/2023 at 2:12 AM, elwooha6 said:

Ah I see about the naming, no worries. I think the image reference is most likely as you said with the folder name as I had been extracting the theme to a folder with the version number in it, after extracting without the custom folder name it is working fine now. The only thing I've noticed so far in this build is that the number of games on the platform list is cut off a bit by the "games available" text. I have to mention that I'm using a 1080p monitor upscaled to 1440p so not sure if that would affect it or not. Glad we got the folder name thing figured out, thanks for the help.

EDIT: Just noticed that the cut off text is only with larger collections of 100 games or more.

I have uploaded the version fixing the file references issue (allowing you to rename the folder, if so desired), the file versioning issue (so that the default folder name now more accurately reflects the version number), and the text scaling in the "games available" section of the header. Please let me know if they all work for you, and if you notice any other issues!

[elwooha6]

After a quick test both previous issues are fixed. I did notice a couple of oddities though, some platforms have overlapping artwork rather than the tidy grid look of the others, the odd thing is I couldn't really figure out what reason it was doing. As an example my Dreamcast had overlapping boxart but Playstation which has basically the same size and aspect ratio was just fine. I also noticed that platforms which have no uniform aspect ratio have a lot of overlap on the boxart, for example DOS games and the various home pc platforms. I don't know if that is even possible but just an idea. I noticed too that on the platform list "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" gets cut off on the right, maybe if the text is larger than the window width make it scroll left/right so it's all readable.

Other than those few things it's working quite well, I even noticed a significant performance improvement with this version so that's awesome! Thank you for your hard work.  

Edited August 8, 2023 by elwooha6

[blattacker]

12 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

some platforms have overlapping artwork rather than the tidy grid look of the others, the odd thing is I couldn't really figure out what reason it was doing. As an example my Dreamcast had overlapping boxart but Playstation which has basically the same size and aspect ratio was just fine. I also noticed that platforms which have no uniform aspect ratio have a lot of overlap on the boxart, for example DOS games and the various home pc platforms.

Unfortunately, that is a byproduct of the method I'm using to generate the wall view. I currently only have custom views for the systems I have on my own personal machine, though I do plan on eventually getting them all covered. Systems with variable aspect ratio covers, however, will likely continue to cause issues. I have an idea for a fix for this in the future, but I'm entirely unsure if it will work or how long it will take. Since Dreamcast and PlayStation use similar (or identical) aspect ratios, so you should be able to go into the "Views" folder, into the "WallGamesView" subfolder, and create a copy of the "Sony Playstation" file and rename it "Sega Dreamcast" and that should fix the issue with that particular system. The same process should work for any systems that have the same aspect ratio as another system that is present.

13 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

I noticed too that on the platform list "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" gets cut off on the right, maybe if the text is larger than the window width make it scroll left/right so it's all readable.

The longer platform titles overflowing off the right side of the screen was actually an intentional stylistic choice I made. The default behavior is to shrink the text to fit on the line, but I really like the look of it overflowing to the side. I figured with the image and the clear logo in the top left, the full title wasn't necessary. I can look into making an alternate version with your requested behavior though.

13 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

Other than those few things it's working quite well, I even noticed a significant performance improvement with this version so that's awesome! Thank you for your hard work.  

Thank you for trying it out! Feedback like this is really important because it gets me seeing issues that I would never have run into on my own (especially considering I was only making this theme for myself, and a friend convinced me to put it online). The performance boost going to a hand-coded (versus the CTC) is wild, isn't it?

[elwooha6]

The views being swappable was something I hadn't thought of. I'll do some more testing and see which platforms can be done that way and let you know which ones work, who knows you may be able to save a lot of time not recreating essentially the same views. Also no worries about the SNES name, I can always just change the display name of the platform to Super NES or something.

EDIT: One thing you can do to work on views that you don't have games for is make a bunch of text files that are named for games in the system you want to add and import them as if they were games. I've done that to fill out my collection while I look for games before.

EDIT2: Also the only major thing that is missing in terms of views is a DVD case version for things like Gamecube, PS2, PS3 etc. Would probably work for the double-cd jewel case in a pinch too.

EDIT3: Sorry for so many of these. I noticed that Nintendo Wii has a view but it isn't in the folder of views, how do I copy that one?

Edited August 10, 2023 by elwooha6

[blattacker]

On 8/9/2023 at 8:37 PM, elwooha6 said:

EDIT: One thing you can do to work on views that you don't have games for is make a bunch of text files that are named for games in the system you want to add and import them as if they were games. I've done that to fill out my collection while I look for games before.

EDIT2: Also the only major thing that is missing in terms of views is a DVD case version for things like Gamecube, PS2, PS3 etc. Would probably work for the double-cd jewel case in a pinch too.

EDIT3: Sorry for so many of these. I noticed that Nintendo Wii has a view but it isn't in the folder of views, how do I copy that one?

The text file is how I've been working so far, I'm developing the theme on a different computer than my collection is on, so I'm no stranger to that method. It wasn't really a question of not having any reference, it's just a bug related to this initially being a personal project. That being said, the default view is created with DVD aspect ratio in mind (likely why you're seeing the Wii have a correct view). Any system that used DVD cases (or a similar aspect ratio) should just natively work. In any case, hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll be working a little bit less overtime at my day job and can put some more focus on this project. I have some really neat ideas that I'm looking forward to trying to implement.

[elwooha6]

Ah that makes sense why the tall cases were working without dedicated views. Thanks for the additional info.

[blattacker]

Progress update:

Additional platform-specific views have been added. Now any platform that had a platform specific view in the Default theme has one in Sleipnir. Over time, this may get extended to even more views, it just depends on what kind of progress I make on the full version 2 of the theme.

 

Please keep an eye out for, and keep informing me of, any issues you may notice during use!