RetroFE 0.8.0

[Mark Norville]

A work around but a long work around, is by putting your favourites into a folder, and creating a collection OR another way is deleting the crap from the xml files. On some systems it might not take long, but obviously the massive one is MAME or arcade classics whatever you want to call it.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

Could we ever anticipate seeing a dedicated menu for favourites / filtering collections by genres. I want to know so I can anticipate it in the future and build around it for my skin.

Certainly. I'm still gathering ideas on how best to implement this, so I'm open to detailed ideas. 😀

[Pieter Hulshoff]

A work around but a long work around, is by putting your favourites into a folder, and creating a collection OR another way is deleting the crap from the xml files. On some systems it might not take long, but obviously the massive one is MAME or arcade classics whatever you want to call it.

Hold! Please remember that RetroFE only uses the meta XML files to fill the database. It has no impact on which games are shown. As such, there's never a need to remove information from the xml files.

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[theherooftime796]

How about, upon pressing a dedicate genre key, it loads a separate menu, with entries either defined by those in the genre tags of the system xmls, or alternatively from individual genre xml files (e.g. RetroFE\meta\hyperlist\genre\%SYSTEM_NAME%\Strategy.xml).

By doing this we could use the genres already compiled by the expansive hyperlist project.

 If a game is listed in a dedicated genre file, that should take priority over the system xml's. If a game is listed in multiple genre xml's, it should be displayed in both genres in the menu

A universal layout for the genre menu could be defined using genreMenu tags in the main layout.xml, and could feature dedicated reloadableVideos,images, logos,etcas the themer desires (could be found in _common\genre_artwork or "collection name"\genre_artwork depending on mode attribute)

Alternatively, each system could have a unique genre menu set up, loaded from layouts\"layout name"\collections\"collection name"\layout\layout.xml or a dedicated genreMenu.xml (i'm not sure which would be better).

Upon loading a genre (e.g. Strategy), it would use the same assets and layout as the current collection (just as if we had loaded a collection from the main menu with all games displayed), the only difference being that all games which do not possess the correct genre are filtered out and not displayed.

Favourites could be displayed in the genre menu as well (perhaps at the top), but, as before, can also be accessed easily through the nextPlaylist control (which seems to only load the favourites playlist and not any genres, maybe it could do with being renamed for clarity, but keeping the old name for legacy purposes) and games can be added with the addPlaylist (addFavourites) control.

Perhaps we could also get a general "favourites" control, which overlays a (customisable) menu over the current view with the option to view favourites or add the selected item to favourites, it would help to make the options more visible and understandable to general users, without having to clutter a theme with many control prompts.
This functionality could also be used to add an optional "exit menu" upon pressing the quit key on the main menu, although I would definitely prioritise the genre features.

Sorry for the long post. I'm not sure if this would fit the needs of all users, and i don't expect anything similar to be coming any time soon. I just wanted to share some ideas and let everyone else discuss what they think should be done. If you need me to clarify anything, just ask and I'll try to reply explaining myself.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

You're aware that using playlists or subcollections, you can already create this by yourself, correct? You're just asking if this could be automated by RetroFE?

[theherooftime796]

I'm aware as to what is possible with playlists, etc. The main feature that I'm discussing is that of a dedicated genre menu which loads upon pressing a genre key, as well as scraping from hyperlist system and genre xml's to do the mentioned filtering. Stuff like the visible add to favourites option is really just flair, adding more avenues for ui customisation. As I said, I don't expect much to come of this, but you asked for some detailed ideas and I tried to provide them. 

[Pieter Hulshoff]

I'm aware as to what is possible with playlists, etc. The main feature that I'm discussing is that of a dedicated genre menu which loads upon pressing a genre key, as well as scraping from hyperlist system and genre xml's to do the mentioned filtering. Stuff like the visible add to favourites option is really just flair, adding more avenues for ui customisation. As I said, I don't expect much to come of this, but you asked for some detailed ideas and I tried to provide them. 

I was already looking into something like this. Basically I could create sub collections on the fly based on the information in the meta.db (as defined in the meta XML), and use common artwork to display them. I'll need to check on what to do about genre based videos though; I'm not aware of any existing (except for specific systems).

[theherooftime796]

I'd say just include them for those who want to use them. I wouldn't mind creating universal and system specific genre videos for use in my own theme and others if such an option was made available in RetroFE.

[JonahUK]

I (personally) am of the opinion that any additional files (story, info etc) should only be included if they are needed and called by/used by the default theme included with RetroFE. Any other files should not be included.

I wouldn't even include Aeon Nox as part of the base distribution, just the default theme only.
That will reduce the size of the distribution.

There is already a download section for themes so why include Aeon Nox with the distribution?

Maybe add a supplemental files section in the download area where all additional xml, info, story, extra artwork etc can be stored?

If a theme REQUIRES certain files (players art, ratings art etc), then it is the theme creators responsibility to supply them and include them either in the themes distribution or, alternatively, upload them to a possible supplemental area mentioned above.

By all means make the changes to RetroFE to support said files but don't include them in any distribution.

[Agent47]

Nox is the default theme as far as I'm concerned, and I imagine most others would agree. It's the one that's been showcased the most and is the default layout in the settings.conf of the download packages. So I don't think it would make much sense to not include it. I think the actual "Default" layout is there for machines that can't handle Nox and as a simpler option, but I may be wrong.

I'm not sure which distribution you're referring to when you mention that removing Nox will reduce the size. If it's the base/normal package here excluding Nox won't save much at all, the layout is about 15MB.

There aren't really any Nox specific items that I can think of. All of the images I can think of offhand that it uses (genre, players, mfc, etc) are included in the normal distribution, only total 20MB and are utilized by pretty much all layouts. So as far as I'm aware there aren't any layout specific items included in the basic distribution and any custom ones are included with the individual layouts themselves.

I know Pieter has said before he wants to set up a section here to host the story files and maybe other related items. I may have missed something but I don't see any changes mentioned here which require media for specific layouts. If you're referring to the genre videos they would be utilized by every layout I would imagine and likely wouldn't be included with the base distribution because they would definitely eat up a sizeable chunk of space.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

The two system videos are the major part of the download; I could save more by dropping the (empty) Arcade collection than by dropping most the layout and the common files, so that's not going to happen. 😀
I do need to spend some time on putting those stories up on the download page though, and perhaps additional files as well.

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[Agent47]

The two system videos are the major part of the download; I could save more by dropping the (empty) Arcade collection than by dropping most the layout and the common files, so that's not going to happen. 😀

If you were really hurting for space you could just not include the meta.db since it's generated on launch. That would save 21MB, about the same as the common files lol.

[JonahUK]

I didn't refer to any specific changes?
What I said was make the changes to utilise and support the files but don't include them.

For example, when I created the original RetroSpin, I included everything that was required for each theme to function on its own so the User would not have to hunt stuff down for any collection that was included but that made each collection roughly around 100mb (inc. RetroFE, around 70mb without) and for 86 collections, it became huge.

I made the previous post as I remember seing posts asking for this file or that file etc to be included with the download etc etc but whatever, it was an opinion.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

I understand; that question was with regards to the modular system setup I created for EmuMovies. 😀

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[dustind900]

Release 0.8.3 available:
- Added reloadableMedia and reloadableText type firstLetter to allow images/text displayed based on the first letter of a selected item.

This feature along with custom fonts similar to these is awesome. Just wanna put that out there for you theme makers.  I have been toying with the idea for a couple days, but layouts aren't my thing.