hansolo77 Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 So I have this awesome idea for a new theme style, but it's gonna take a lot of additional coding on Tom's part for the backend support. So I'm gonna pitch this idea first, and hopefully if there's enough bite on it, Tom will eventually implement it!I'm a user and huge fan of Media Browser. It's a front-end for Windows Media Center (Vista and 7) that allows you to quickly and easily see what multimedia you have on your computer/server. I've been using it for years and highly recommend it. Recently, they came out with a whole new theme package called NEO, which looks absolutely gorgeous. I can't help but be moving around in the various menus and imagine myself doing this for GameEx. So my idea is to make a NEO-like theme for GameEx!Here's what their home screen looks like...What I thought I'd do is go through each section of the image, and explain what they do, and how I think they would work with GameEx.. The first section in the top right is already a feature currently available in the latest available theme version.. a Time and Weather. Below that is an icon of a wrench. The wrench goes into onscreen settings for the theme, such as colors, layouts, chosing how many previews to have, etc. So in GameEx's case, this could open the advance config editor, or something similar. The next spot down is the list of various media types you would have, in my case Tv Shows, Movies, and Podcasts. So for GameEx, this would be like MAME, Pinball, Consoles, Handhelds, etc. Below that is the grapical set. The top left (collection) is a static image that basically displays for you what section of the above list you're in. Below that is an active picture that changes every 2 seconds or so, scrolling up, that shows your last 5 'shows' you watched. For GameEx, this would be your last 5 games in this particular category. The big picture in the middle is used to draw your attention to 5 randomly chosen 'tv shows' from your list. Thus, for GameEx this would be 5 randomly chosen games from your current category. The image here scrolls to the right every 2 seconds or so, changing the little box icon underneath to show which image is currently on. The image in the top right is obvious, being the Last Played. Also obvious is the one right below that, which would randomly start up a game from that selected category. The last image on this screen "channels" I can't really think of anything to directly correlate with, so perhaps this could be a universal EXIT GAMEEX button. So hopefully to better illustrate this, I cut together a rough photoshop image to show what I mean...If you don't choose anything from down below, like the last game, recent games, or 'advertised' game, clicking select will bring up the next screen in the series...This would be your "system select" screen. If you chose MAME, it would list all your different MAME filters, like Trackball, Light Gun, Spinner, 2-Player, 4-Player, Adult, etc. If you chose something like Console, then it would display the different types of consoles, like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, etc. Upon hovering over a selected item, the information on the left would change. This would idealy display information about the game system, such as who made it, when, it's market value, etc. All this information is on WikiPedia. As for the little blurb at the bottom of the screen, I was thinking it would be useful for a quick rundown of the year it was made, number of games currently available, last time you played in this system, etc. Here's my photoshop for this one:Finally, after you choose your game type and system, you get to the game select menu. This should be relatively easy, and is already basis for many other menu sytems/themes on GameEx. Here's what the one in Media Browser looks like...So basically my workup for this screen would be simple. The main list on the right would work just as it always had, displaying the list of games in alphabetical order. The image on the left would be the EmuMovies video of the game, or a static image in the case of a nonexistant movie. The details below that would be the same game info from current GameEx themes. The bar along the bottome would have quick details about the game, like the year it came out, the ESRB rating, number of players, etc. If we had the ability, we could also incorporate a star rating system that updates the GameEx server so we could get live up-to-date ratings based on user inputs. So here's my last quick photoshop example for this screen:So what do you guys think? Wouldn't this just be a total kickass theme for GameEx? I'm dead serious when I say I'd pay for a theme that does all this. Perhaps Tom could consider it and make it a 'Premium' theme like the guys over at Media Browser did. That way the cost of time and development would be returned. I'd gladly do that, and even help out in production where I can. I can do the photoshopping for the static system images, etc. I'm just curious what the GameEx community thinks? Lets get some good discussion going on this to get Tom's interest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Hoffman Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 I like it , pretty clean. Reminds my of XMBC stuff. Gameex proabbly can get prety close, lists are primarly text than graphic driven, but it does pull screen grabson menus and with somecreative graphix and backrounds you can get most of what you want working. Personally I know much work has gone into the theme creator. While I have not looked into for a while it may be possable to do more.Currently there is a theme contest going and I believe have generated a few new themes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hansolo77 Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 Yeah I think this one would need a lot more work though. The menus are very active and not static. For instance, the home screen will change the recent image automatically every 2 seconds or so. The same is true with the 5 images in the middle. It slides the images from one to the next without any user input at all. It's a very slick interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draco1962 Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 What you are showing would require a rewrite of part of the interface itself. With Photoshop/GIMP and Theme Editor you can create the general appearance, but that is where it ends at present. I would have concerns about paying for a premium theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nullPointer Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 So I have this awesome idea for a new theme style, but it's gonna take a lot of additional coding on Tom's part for the backend support. So I'm gonna pitch this idea first, and hopefully if there's enough bite on it, Tom will eventually implement it!It certainly never hurts to dream big! It's definitely asking for a lot, but even if all that functionality doesn't get implemented, maybe this will be your 'gateway drug' into full time theme building. You may or may not remember, but vsilvalopes was working on a theme similar to this called MetroEx (I'm not saying it was identical or anything, but it incorporates some similar themes and ideas). I don't know if he's been around here a whole lot lately, but it would be cool if you guys were able to work on something jointly together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hansolo77 Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 Yeah I know it's asking a lot... thats why I put it up here to see what we can do to maybe work something out. I know a basic layout idea of the home screen would be doable currently, but to have different menu systems under different tiers would be a lot of extra coding. Because each menu system is a different style, it's not all one general theme throughout. The slider effect for viewing random games and recent games would also need to be programmed out, otherwise the static image wouldn't be very impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koop Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Nice. Looks like the new Xbox 360 interface. It might have been inspired by that or vice versa. In any case you might check out 360 screenshots for more ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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