[THEME] Magnum .... need help [WIP]

[u-man]

Hello Artists and Arcademics,

So here is my theme so far.

This is just a Preview of the Atari 2600 Section. I hope I can include over 20 beautiful animated Backgrounds. Some of them are my own artwork and some are free-to-use clips. All of them are very nice and fit very well into any retro-based themes. They are in 16:9 aspect, 720p and are from 5-40 MB each in size.

However my theme will be a 4:3 based Theme, mainly because i want to support more Cab or Bartop-friendly themes, as i think there are not many outthere, which have a modern style. It is 1440-1080 in pixelsize to assure the maximum possible Quality, as downgrading afterwards is never a problem. So dont be fooled by the current size Screenshots. Thats basically only for me to preview, how it will look on a real CRT. This theme have a lot more detail than the screenshots can present.

The lights around the List-Field are fully animated to attract the List-field more. The lights are affecting the logo-banners with shading and lighting, so basically the logos are animated too, i.e. the color bar under the logo, changes the color over time to create another interesting affect. The b/w background of the tv is animated and looks like no channel is found. The Foreground have scanlines to create the illusion of an old CRT-tube. So even you cant see it in the pictures, there is a lot animated stuff for attraction and a overall nice look and feel and this is only the Atari section

So far so good, but I am struggling with some problems I have, especially the buttons.

The Exit and Home buttons doesnt exist for me. They are simply gone. It doesnt matter if I use a allready done Theme i.e. the default ones ( and I mean those, which use these buttons) or my own theme. I cant select them in the Theme-editor either. If I select them, it just jumps to the last selected item, as if these buttons are locked or something like this. I manually changed the coordinates for those buttons in the .ini file, cause I cant select them, they still are not showing up. I use the default pictures of them and like I said, even with a theme that should use them, they are not there. I know that you need to setup this properly in the setup-wizard and enable the taskbar and so on, but if you look at the screens, you see that I have done this, otherwise I wouldnt have the other buttons which are showing up.

I want those buttons baaaadly, as they are crucial for my theme intentions, as I dont like the way to long menue bar with the Back and Exit options ALWAYS being the last options to choose from, in the menue bar. It confuses the users on a Cab / Bartop a lot, as they dont know how to change into another section. In my eyes not very intuitive, thats why I want those damn Exit and Home buttons.

If you look closely into the screenshots, you will see, that the Fullsize / Maximize Button, dont align properly, but this is something I solve myself I think. The thing is, that this button sometimes align properly and sometimes not. WTF? you think.... Ok, I try to explain, whenever I make changes and SAVE the stuff in the theme-editor, it will allign properly for ONE time. If I start GameEx again, it will look like in the screenshots now. It seems that this button is always aligned to the straight right edge. So I will create a new button, which has the edge of the bottom menue included, to solve this... this should work I hope.

Next problem is the MediaControls button with a similar behaviour, sometimes it is aligned properly, sometimes a little left offset, like in the pictures right now. Maybe the same solution as for the Maximize button will work, I will see.

All other buttons, are working fine and are always aligned properly. They all have a nice rollover-effect and change the color into green if you hover with your mouse over them, except the Help button (in my case the GameEx Logo) which is just glowing. If you press them, they change into Red color, but the effect is barely seen, as it is happening to fast.

On the first screen, you see what happen, if you press the Help / GameEx Logo button. The text has some bad formatting in the last view lines, so it doesnt fit into my list field properly. I think it is hardcoded, but it would be nice if Tom could change the formatting for the last lines for a perfect match. I dont think that this is to hard, to accomplish this and Tom would be doing a nice favor for me.

So lets start with the last problem I have... the Listnum-field. I cant put it whereever I like. It needs to be in the horizontal range of the List field, this is really odd. I.E. I cant put it below the Atari 2600. It is clipped and becomes invisible. This happens with every other theme too, no matter which one I try. So this is no error or a foreground-layer mistake from my side. I would call it a bug.

The other problem with the Listnum field is, if you look closely the "of" is gone, instead I have a seperator which looks badly like the number one. So i.e. it looks like "31503" instead of "3 of 503". I know that this problem is caused by the font I use. As with the default Font it shows properly the "of" sign. My question here is, could someone alter my Font here, to include either a vertically larger seperator (to differ from the number 1) or even better include the "of" sign, as I have no clue how to alter my choosen Font. I would be so happy and thankful, if someone could do this for me, or at least tell me, how I can achieve this myself.

So we are coming to the end.... as I have seen many times, that I am the only one, having the described problems here, as everyone else can use the stuff like intended. I am asking myself why? The only difference to other users, is my different OS language. I have three different setups and in all of them, I have the same errors. It reminds me on the "interrupt" error, where I couldnt choose a animated Background / Video anymore. At this time I spend a waaaay to much time to solve this, including a complete reinstall of the OS even in english language. Happily after some time, Tom could solve this problem for me ( a big thanx again on this side), as he changed some code and the option did work again.... what a relief .

So my thoughts here are that all my problems seem to have a code related problem again. Maybe I am wrong with this, but the last time I wasnt wrong too. And before I start some ridiculous stuff like installing new OS and stuff like this again (gives me headaches only thinking about it), I would rather please Tom, to maybe overlook this stuff. Maybe there are some dependencies he is only aware of. Like I said, three different systems, all with the same described problems.

If you all think my theme is something worth off, I would be pleased greatly for any help on this. As my lust to advance and go further with my theme is nearly zero at the moment, because of the described problems. I will rather wait then for Evolution and pray / hope that these problems will vanish then.

Thanks to all people, who read this rather long text and to anyone who is contributing and helping me.

your ( uuh-man

[Draco1962]

Not a bad start. I know you were asking for some help with the Tool Bar issue and I think I have a solution. My guess is you may have used another theme as your source which probably had the MCE, Back, and Help Buttons not funtional or in the right place. It takes some tweaking but I think you are smart enough to figure it out with a little help and studying my theme.ini file:

GameEx Support File Data

[General]
Version=4
Width=1920
Height=1080
StartupVideo=False
XRESOLUTION=1920
YRESOLUTION=1080
ArcadeMode=False
DisplayBackgroundImage=True
AniBak=False
AlphaBlendVideos=True
DialogTextWhite=True
OutlineFonts=False
AnimatedSelector=True
ShowButtons=True
DisplayTitleText=True
CustomEmulatorLayouts=False
CustomControlPanel=False
DisplayEmulatorMenus=True
RotatePlus90=False
Font=Droid Sans
TextColor=-1
OutlineColor=-16777216
TitleFontStyle=1
TitleTextColor=ffffff
TitleFont=Droid Sans
TitleFontSize=22
EnableMediaControls=True
HideToolBar=0
MakeToolbarTextWhite=True
FontSize=-2
CustomModuleLayouts=False
AntiAliasFonts=True
ShowDateTime=True
ShowListNumbers=True
MainFontSize=20
FontStyle=1
LowerCaseTitleFont=False
ShowSelectionText=True
RightJustifyTitleText=False
AlphaChannel=True
EnablePopUpDescriptions=True
ForeGroundTopMost=True
StaticStartPageList=False
DontZoomStartPageLogos=True

[TaskBar]
MCEButtonOver=0,0,83,64
MCEButtonDown=0,0,83,64
BackButtonOver=84,0,60,64
BackButtonDown=84,0,60,64
HelpButtonOver=153,0,54,64
HelpButtonDown=153,0,54,64
MediaControl=1704,0,176,85
MediaControlStop=1704,0,176,85
TopBarLeft=0,0,230,64
TopBarMiddle=24,0,1920,64
Window=1880,0,40,85

[buttons]
ArrowDown=1457,100,35,48
ArrowDownPressed=1457,100,35,48
ArrowUp=1455,580,35,48
ArrowUpPressed=1455,580,35,48
HomeNoFocus=1739,59,77,52
HomeFocus=1739,59,77,52
ExitNoFocus=1826,59,77,52
ExitFocus=1826,59,77,52
ExitSelect=1826,59,77,52

[Layout]
Title=156,780,75,38
Date=1470,286,71,34
Time=1470,253,74,34
List=766,274,515,441
SelectLine1=156,814,174,34
SelectLine2=156,836,174,34
Image=155,239,598,447
ListNum=966,690,128,34
Image2=1920,1080,698,237
Menu=0,1022,1920,34
Scroller=166,882,1140,37
Weather=1597,305,236,137
Description=1466,618,367,262
[Weather]
Enabled=True
WeatherConditionIcon=True
[]
=0,0,32,32

[u-man]

Many THX Draco, i will take a brief look into this, so even if I have no hope that this will work, cause I allready have tried to use a source of a theme, which should have those buttons working, I dont see them. Even if I just simply want to use a default theme with those buttons working, they are not there. But no matter what, I will try it .

PS: I have extended my text very much now, describing my problems hopefully accurate enough, to be understandable.

[stigzler]

Ooooh - that sounds snazzy, U-man!!

Any vids of it in action?

[Draco1962]

You may want to zip together and upload your theme including your theme.ini file to me. You can do this via PM if you prefer. I can better look at what's going on and possibly lend a hand in getting them working properly.

[u-man]

definitely coming soon.... if somebody can tell me a freeware for capturing desktop

[Draco1962]

For capturing still images of something, you can use SNipping Tool i (if your OS is Win 7 or higher) or Greenshot (similar to Snag-it, but free). FRAPS is commonly used for capturing video of your desktop.

[u-man]

So here is a video preview: sry to have it in zip format, so you need to download it first, as it seems i dont have permissions to upload a video directly .

PS: While capturing the video, I noticed that GameEx in a window, doesnt represent the intended resolution The resolution you choose is represented with the addition of the OS Windows pixels. In my case I wanted 800x600 but the actual video is only 784x562... that is not good. Especially for accurate items placing like fonts etc., because it will differ slightly if you see your theme in fullscreen afterwards (without the windows borders) .

Is it possible to have a resolution setting for GameEx in a window, without the additional pixels from the window itself?

@: Draco ... I will try to make you a package of my theme this evening, so you can give it a try. Just need to do a little cleanse, as some stuff would be confusing and big sized right now.

GameEx 2014-06-11 12-30-15-99.zip

[u-man]

So here it is, the theme uploaded... for Draco... Sry I am late, but it was too hot here in Germany, to sit in front of a PC.

Hope he can find the issues I have and solve this puzzles. Thank you, Dude.

_MAGNUM.zip

[Draco1962]

I believe I have determined that with the Version 4 themes that the home and exit buttons are disabled. Version 1 and 3 themes are no longer supported which probably supported functionality for these options. You may want to submit a Feature request to have them reenabled (likely would have to be reimplemented in Evo) if I am correct in this assessment. Wish I had better news for you.

[u-man]

Ok sounds legit Draco, but how have you make them working then in your latest theme? Or how has user naborneo make them working in his Ambient Occlusion theme? These are all new and recent themes.

[Draco1962]

I don't have home and exit working - never had. it is just the Media Center, Info, and Back buttons.

[u-man]

OMG... yes you are right ( blush ) .

naborneos Ambient Occlusion theme is 1 year old, that is 10 updates since then, maybe you are right. Ok, thats something i should forget ( meaning the buttons) entirely maybe. If i think more about it, they are not so important as the Back button, which is working allready. The Home and Exit would be a nice addon, but Back is crucial.

Draco as you are allready tried some stuff, could you try the Listnum-field too? Can you place it somewhere else, without being hidden? Thats the only thing thats left and i would like to know, how other users are experiencing this. Please do me this favor and many thanks for your contribution allready.

[Draco1962]

I will take a look at the ListNum item tonight. If I recall correctly, you have under the Options>Features Display foreground images topmost. Unless the foreground image (in this case startbak_foreground.png) is transparent where that item is located, it will be hidden.

If you disable this and resave the theme, it should display. The caveat is that if you are using the foreground image to mask or frame items below (such as snaps or video images), then the items previously masked will appear on top of the foreground image.

You may need to edit your foreground image(s) to allow for the ListNum item to display through the image by creating a transparency where it is residing.

[u-man]

Yes Draco... i know, i know.

here is the foreground layer:

there is plenty transparent room. I suggest the place under the VCS Atari 2600. The bottom menue place so to say. Anywhere aside of the List-field (the right side of the listfield) on tranparent place. Thank you so much for this.

PS: Off course, try it on the Atari Section please. As I dont know how the other sections look right at the moment.