If anybody likes to experiment as well, here is what I used. Just some quick testing here, but we need to create more of these styles in the future, various disks and colors and things.. o)
thumbnail image:
Oh yes extending the styles! o)
I was thinking of dynamically rendered labels e.g., where the text to be printed on the disk / cover would come from some folder.htm or something, need some more thoughts I guess.
It would also be nice, if the file containing the image to be blended in, could carry the name as well.
So instead of DO looking for static file names like:
floppy35.png
floppy35.jpg
It would also detect files matching a wildcard:
Giana Sisters - floppy35.jpg
Giana Sisters - floppy35.png
These "always the same filename" files do not sort very well with other files like:
Giana Sisters - Cover.jpg
Giana Sisters.adf
Giana Sisters - Manual.pdf
etc., Having a loose file "folder.jpg" or "floppy35.png" always feels a bit clunky/messy, but yeah, we are talking "serious problems" here. o))
Where/how would you store the thumbnail image for single files? In the ADS?
Good question. Probably a jpg with the same name as the file (either hidden or in another folder somewhere). At least for formats that don't have a proper way to embed cover art.
It'd be neat to have the proper box, disk/disc or cartridge frames around retro games.
Yeah, for sure. But is it a sensible approach, having single cartridge / adf / rom files floating around together with hundred other in a single folder?
I like the idea of having a folder for every "single file", since nowadays, it won't be a single file. There is coverart, ingame-movie sequence, save games etc.. so why not put everything game related into a folder?
For some reason the "single file" concept is being used by nearly all the emulation toolkits. I don't like it, they then start scraping the internet for covers and files I already have and then they put them in their own stupid database, where the next emulation portal / software cannot read from, which then starts to scrape again. It's middle age.. I would put all the things in a folder, create a standard format and then any emulator can find what it needs. A bit offtopic here, but if I see the chance to convince people from the "folder approach", I will try! o)
Oh really?
I can hardly remember, but I will try for sure! This would be a big enhancement already.
Thank you! o)
Agreed 100%. And the scraping process takes several days and is incredibly slow, even when you pay, making it an even bigger pain if you want to switch launchers/platforms, as you have to do it all again.
Maybe we should make Opus into a launcher and do things better? A lot of the parts already exist. But there's a lot of other things we need to do first. Maybe one day.
Yes, DO is not far from being a launcher on it's own. I was thinking about using DO as a launcher as well, since I tried Retropie / EmulationStation / PlayNite and some Forks and they all don't cut it for me. It cannot be that hard, can it? o) In EmulationStation you can't even navigate with a keyboard by default, it's insane what other people put out. I mean, it's a lot of effort and work and the community is surely motivated and all, but some basic things are just not right. I sit here with a ton of joypads, roms and machines and nothing works as I expect it, kinda weird! o)
Most ridiculous is that you need a PS3 / XBox controller with a "Home" button. That really makes sense if you want to play old Amiga games e.g., where rarely 2 buttons are ever used, yes? o) But without the Home-Button you cannot exit the game or enter emulation settings etc.. I really got frustrated with all this. o)
Did you downloaded the disk png file, saving it to /home/tb_gfx/floppy35blue-trans.png?
"/home" is an DO alias.. it resolves to DOs installation folder, you can enter "/home" on it's own and see.
Did you put a file "folder35blue-trans.jpg" into a folder and then stepped up and view mode thumbnails?
The "folder35blue-trans.jpg" is the actual file containing the label for the disk.
When editing the thumbnail styles, be patient. There is some kind of delay going on, I am not sure why and what it is, but wait some seconds after editing the style. When playing with a lot of folders and weird settings, I even had to wait a minute or two until changes would apply.
It's obvious what happened, you used the same files. The disk folder thumbnail template is in the right place, but you also put it inside the folder to be thumbnailed. The name of the file in the folder is correct, just use another image, something representing a floppy disk label. I suggest the duckduckgo image search.. it's nice to use, not so complicated like the google image search.
If you find a nice image, just drag it directly from the browser into the folder to be thumbnailed and make sure to rename it afterwards "floppy35blue-trans.png" or "floppy35blue-trans.jpg" (overwriting what you have now).
Much nicer look in the folder (imagine a ton more files in here, sticking to this naming scheme)! o)
But, this gives a performance penalty of some degree, right?
I mean for a regex search, you need to get all the filenames beforehand, whereas with a fixed thumbnail image filename, you would not need to. Not sure whether you always have all the filenames of a subfolder anyway, I kind of doubt that. If I'm right then using the regular expression variant should slow things down?
I'd be surprised if it was a significant penalty given they're presumably fairly small folders. And the thumbnails should be cached once they're generated the first time.
Ok, even if it's slower, I think it's worth it in the long run and since I also use a quite old computer (4th gen i5 with reduced boost), somewhen in the future I will eventually have enough juice to drive the regex thumbnails with modern hardware! o)
Something changed in v13 with "folder.jpg" (I read somehwere here on the forum), it special in a way, maybe there is an interal override or something? Only Leo and Jon can tell. To me your settings look alright, but as mentioned already, sometime it takes DO some "thinking" before the changed thumbnail style kicks in or some cache get's invalidated - I can't tell for sure yet, during the last days I had no real issues with the tumbnail styles.