RetroFE development

[hiorik]

This "lag" also happens with Ergo Proxy theme can it be improved in any way?

[dustind900]

This "lag" also happens with Ergo Proxy theme can it be improved in any way?

The lag has to be from animation and scrolling times. I use a really old PC in one of my builds and the only time I have lag is when there are too many animations and images getting loaded all at once.

Things that can help:

• Use lower quality mp4 videos
• Resize images to match the theme so RetroFE doesn't have to do the work - FotoSizer
• Faster animation times
• Optimize your png images - PNGGauntlet I recommend this to all theme makers

[cassette]

Thanks for your work Pieter. I'm looking forward to mp3 support!

[hiorik]

This "lag" also happens with Ergo Proxy theme can it be improved in any way?

The lag has to be from animation and scrolling times. I use a really old PC in one of my builds and the only time I have lag is when there are too many animations and images getting loaded all at once.

Things that can help:

• Use lower quality mp4 videos
• Resize images to match the theme so RetroFE doesn't have to do the work - FotoSizer
• Faster animation times
• Optimize your png images - PNGGauntlet I recommend this to all theme makers

Hi dustind900, thanks for the tips, lets see if I have any improvement.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

My apologies for the delay. It took me a while to get my compile environment up and running again after my HDD crash, and downloading a lot of the material I had lost. Since yesterday i can finally compile under Linux again as well, and it seems the new code compiles there as well. In any case, here is a new executable to play with, though for people using the default theme: it needs a fix in order to prevent getting echoed sound due to the new features.

Let's start with the source code: Due to the drop for Mercurial support in bitbucket I have moved the source code to github: https://github.com/phulshof/RetroFE

The current v0.10.2 release has the following new features:

- I've added support for multiple videos. The reloadableVideo tag now supports a type parameter as well as a volume parameter. The type parameter defines the directory the video is searched in, and defaults to "video". Note that with the default theme this will actually cause two instances of the video to be played rather than the dual display of a single video it used to, which will cause an echo in the sound. The default theme needs to be changed so one of those videos has the volume set to 0.

- I've used this support for multiple videos to allow the menu tag to support a videoType parameter. Just like the imageType parameter was (and is) used to select the image type to be displayed (e.g. logo), the videoType parameter allows for a video type to be displayed. This will allow you to create a scrolling menu consisting of videos in stead of images. You may want to play with the volume settings for the non-selected items though, or it quickly becomes messy.

- I've added support for multiple monitors. A numScreens parameter has been added to settings.conf to define how many monitors you have. screenNum0, screenNum1, etc. parameters can then be used to link them to a specific monitor. The fullscreen, horizontal, and vertical parameters have been given postfix support for monitor numbers to define the monitor you're configuring, and the layout.xml tags have been given support for a monitor parameter to define on which monitor an element is supposed to be displayed. This can be used to e.g. display marquees on a second monitor.
An example for settings.conf:

numScreens             = 2

fullscreen0            = no       # Full screen SDL applications often clash with the focus of other SDL applications
horizontal0            = stretch  # or enter in the screen pixel width (i.e 1920)
vertical0              = stretch  # or enter in the screen pixel width (i.e 1080)
screenNum0             = 0        # Screen numbers start at 0!

fullscreen1            = no       # Full screen SDL applications often clash with the focus of other SDL applications
horizontal1            = stretch  # or enter in the screen pixel width (i.e 1920)
vertical1              = stretch  # or enter in the screen pixel width (i.e 1080)
screenNum1             = 1        # Screen numbers start at 0!


- I've added an attractModeCyclePlaylist parameter to settings.conf to allow attract mode to use the cycle playlist in stead of the full set of playlists.

I hope to update the documentation soon, and then have a look at fixing the code for container based cropping of the reflections like someone requested. Again: my apologies for taking so long, but it's taking me quite some time to get completely up and running again, and work has kept me extremely busy lately.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

Ok, I think I've updated the documentation accordingly. I'll first look into some issues with older themes with the v0.10.2 release, and then move on to fix some issues with regards to reflection.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

This should fix the video issues with older themes.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

This should fix issues with container boundaries and reflections. I've also replaced the full word check on the direction with a find search, so you can now use e.g. "leftright" to display reflection on both the left and the right of an object.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

This release fixes some control issues, especially with zero delay encoders. If your keys get stuck, use this version, and use:
collectionInputClear = yes
playlistInputClear = yes
jumpInputClear = yes
in your settings.conf file.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

This release fixes an issue with volume animation, where animating the volume to 1 would make the video disappear.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

Updated the documentation with the latest changes. If someone finds errors or missing information in the documentation, please let me know so I can fix it.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

This release adds support for mp3/wav files via the reloadableVideo and reloadableAudio tags (these two tags do exactly the same; reloadableAudio is just for aesthetics purposes). In addition, it adds the jukebox="yes" parameter for these tags. Using this parameter will disable the normal attract mode for this layout, and in stead enable a jukebox mode, where the attract mode is enabled after the audio/video file has completed playing. The jukeboxNumLoops parameter can be used to change the default number of plays from 1 to another value, e.g. jukeboxNumLoops="2".

[NateMac00]

Is there a way to add a video background to a second screen?

Code: [Select]

<video src="video/dust.mp4" alpha="1" y="center" x="center" height="1080" width="1920" monitor="1" layer="18"></video>I was able to add a reloadableVideo, but not a static video.

Code: [Select]

<reloadableVideo type="third" mode="Layout" monitor="2" alpha="1" y="center" x="center" xOrigin="center" yOrigin="center" height="stretch" width="stretch" layer="9"></reloadableVideo>

[Jogait]

Your latest version (10.7) does not show screenshoots, are there any change in that part?
Also when pressing tab it seams like there is some invisible menu or a new functionality that does nt work well, can you help me with that?

Thanks and continue the great work.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

I'll probably create a full release again soon. I made a lot of changes lately that appear to be stable, but require a full release to prevent people from jumping through tons of hoops to get it to work.