[PLUGIN] Game Tagger

[Draco1962]

I tested my Wreck-It Ralph theme and the font is appearing differently with the ARGB color settings than it it did with the HTML. The font sizing appears more accurate instead of oversized. I wonder if the HTML color issue was also causing the fonts to "bloat" and affect the normal kearning that takes place?

[tthurman]

I've been playing around with this, admittedly graphics isn't my strong suit. I took the gimp template and edited it to look like I wanted to, then figured out (I think) that is not how it works, soooooooo I went with the default theme. When I paste the BB code I get a image exceeds size limit message.

[Adultery]

It shouldn't...

Let me check the forum settings in a while, but I would think that problem would only occur if it was happening to everyone, and a handful of us are using them already. Could be there was something changed when Tom reworked the member classes.

[Adultery]

There you go tthurman. I fixed it. It seems member sigs got rolled back to 630x230 when they started being assigned by group, and I had previously made them 635x235. I have fixed this for all groups, and it should be fine now.

What sort of troubles are you having with the themeing? I am working on a theme editor addition for the plugin currently, but if you want you can zip and PM me your artwork and I'll build the XML for you manually.

[tthurman]

A complete lack of xml knowledge. I'm a hardware guy

I want to learn though, so I would prefer to try before throwing in the towel. I took the GIMP template you had, and after much trial and error, edited it for a "start", then realized that isn't how it works. Basically, I got my avatar in the avatar box, and selected a different background, the layer under "text goes here"....pretty much left everything else alone, then saw the xml extension when going to put it in the tagger folder, and had an OS moment.

I've got way too many irons in the fire right now, and I won't even be in a position to look at this again until mid next week, but I would appreciate any pointers anyone can offer. I fully understand that you guys are swamped, and have your own RL things to deal with too.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this for me, I've edited my sig to show your tag with the default theme, for now.

[DazzleHP]

Reading through this topic could be quite confusing for someone just joining in - the plugin evolved rapidly as you can probably tell by reading the first couple of pages. That's the trouble with Adultery - if you set him alight everything goes effin crazy! In this instance there was an inferno so you're probably better off reading backwards through the thread

As you know i'm a bit "man down, man down!" at the moment but when i get some energy i'll fish out the good bits for you, and it goes without saying that we'll all lend a hand when you need it. It's a fantastic plugin and one of my faves ever. I'm sure you'll agree once you get to grips with it and what is possible!

[tthurman]

Ah, I appreciate that Dazzle.

I just gave this whole post a thorough re-reading, and I'm ready to take another swing at things. NP post indicated he found the most help from post 119 by Adultery, and I think I'm beginning to get a bit of a grasp on things. Basically use the template to create your layers, save them named individually, and in the same directory structure as the sample themes that come with the plugin, then edit the xml code to point which image at whatever desired layer? Test, and repeat as necessary. That's what I'm taking from it anyway.

Cool stuff for sure Adultery, plugin updater is sweet too BTW!

Thanks!

[Adultery]

Thanks! I do what I can.

I'm here to help when I can. When I put this out officially the thread won't be so confusing.

[DazzleHP]

Basically use the template to create your layers, save them named individually, and in the same directory structure as the sample themes that come with the plugin, then edit the xml code to point which image at whatever desired layer? Test, and repeat as necessary.

That is basically it yes. But you don't have to use the template that comes with the plugin. As long as your design ends up with 625x150 dimensions you are sorted Using GIMP and the concept of layering is a whole other topic however

[tthurman]

I tell ya, I suck at graphics applications , but I've managed to muddle my way through, somewhat.

Looking back at how I attempted to do this last week is comical! I'm grasping the basic concept quite a bit better now.

[stigzler]

Nice tag, tthurman, dude.

[Tempest]

Yes. Very Nice. :-)

[tthurman]

Thanks guys!

It's really cool how such subtle changes effect the overall look. I used the Contra theme Adultery included as a base, and just changing the text had huge impacts on the appearance. I noticed Draco had a pretty wild font for the Pac-Man theme, Is there a go to source for the fonts?

[Adultery]

DaFont.com is a pretty good spot to check.

Yeah, the idea was to create something everyone can call their own, and I'm glad you're having fun with it.

[DazzleHP]

DaFont.com is a pretty good spot to check.

Yeah, the idea was to create something everyone can call their own, and I'm glad you're having fun with it.

Yeah DaFont and FontSpace you can get pretty much any font you can imagine between the two. Looking good there t-man

[DazzleHP]

Here comes that thorn in your side that is me!

I'm experiencing an issue - i've been playing PBFX2 as my tag shows, but the screenie stays as Metal Slug (the last game i played before PBFX2) I've hard-refreshed my browser but the snap and title are both staying as Metal Slug, even on my GT page. Any ideas?

Learning from previous mistakes and false alarms i've made sure i'm using the latest which according to the first post is 1.08 and i'm def using that version.

[Adultery]

Ahh I bet it only is a problem with Steam games since there is some trickery involved there, but I can look into it.

[DazzleHP]

OK thanks bud! If it helps any, my steam client is in default location but EVERY single game is on a separate dedication partition

[Adultery]

Same for me but my games aren't even in the local machine, they're on the server so I can use my laptop too without reinstalling games.

[DazzleHP]

Unfortunately i don't, and will not in the near future have a server setup although i wish i had - would certainly help with music/movies. But i moved my Steam games to a dedicated partition for the same reason - got fed up with having to download ridiculous amounts of GB every time Windows got angry with me (although admittedly i do poke her often ). It works well but i thought maybe that was why the tagger wasn't updating properly

[Adultery]

Nah I think what I need to do in that case is manually search for the Steam game id inside the folder Tom keeps the snaps in instead of just using the info GameEx provides me. It's not always right, as you can see, sometimes it sends me the path of the last emulated game on accident.

[tthurman]

Is there some setting to have it display Steam games I'm playing? When I play FX2 I get a default GameEx logo, and upon exiting Steam, then GameEx it goes back to the last MAME game I played.

<edit> it occurred to me that I don't have any artwork for Steam locally.

Edited September 9, 2014 by tthurman

[DazzleHP]

Is there some setting to have it display Steam games I'm playing? When I play FX2 I get a default GameEx logo, and upon exiting Steam, then GameEx it goes back to the last MAME game I played.

<edit> it occurred to me that I don't have any artwork for Steam locally.

Since my system wipe, and installing 13.31 from scratch - i'm only getting one out of 58 installed games showing, and no media for that one game either. I'm wondering if something is a bit wonkey. Imma try some things and see what happens as this is the first time i've recovered from a backup where my Steam library is on a diff partition.

What about your setup? Is the Steam client and all games in the default locations?

[Draco1962]

It should still pickup wherever you have your Steam games installed. At one time, I had my Steam games spread across two partitions on a second HDD and GameEx had no problem finding them all.

[DazzleHP]

OK, in that case i'm strongly pointing towards GX 13 + as having some bugs - since my post i've launched 3 other games, and they don't show in my GX list Maybe it should be brought to Tom's attention. Should i make a new post?