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ZSPIN- looks very interesting?

SIMPLYAUSTIN

By SIMPLYAUSTIN
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zomboided Experienced

zomboided

Posted
Posted

Hopefully it will become more than I already have.

 

The program we need is a new full featured theme creator. Which not only automatically pulls art in from the webs for quick theme creation (kind of like Steam Wheel creator did) but also with all the extra bells and whistles that the artists can get stuck into.

I suppose we would need a new or updated frontend to go with it though ;). Fingers crossed hey.

 

I've been messing with EmulationStation (and Kodi) on the RPi recently and I really like the pull from the web stuff that goes on there.  It's not as pretty as a full Hyperspin theme, but for default layouts it's much better.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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damageinc86 Enthusiast

damageinc86

Posted
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If someone took Hyperspin over and kept it on a closed path, but pushed development that would be cool.

What wouldn't be cool at all is if he just made it open source and then we have people making all there own slightly different and incompatible versions of it. Ugh.

Think of what the learning curve and difficulty can be for someone new setting it up now. Now imagine that with a nightmare of splintered versions each with their own specific glitches etc... Harder to learn, harder to fix, harder to setup.

**** that. That would kill it. I'd jump ship to something else.

 

yeah that would be hell.  I just mean to hire someone, or get a good close programmer friend to tackle the glaring issues.  Just get it done, bring it up to par, and then feel free to drop off the face of the earth for a few more years.  Because at least then, there will be a real nice proper version with no hinderances.

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
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Is anyone here using Retro-FE? I can't find much info on it. Is it easy to transition from Hyperspin? Does Hyperspin offer anything that Retro-Fe does not? At the moment it seems that it doesn't support individual game themes but I don't use them anyway. Anything else?

 

Can't find a lot of current info on it.

phulshof Enthusiast

phulshof

Posted
Posted

Ok, behind my laptop now; I can only find so much patience when typing on a phone. :)

 

RetroFE is a F/OSS front-end running on multiple operating systems. It's programmed in C++, and uses the SDL2 libraries. It was created by Don Honerbrink, known from e.g. Don's HyperSpin Tools.

 

It only supports global themes (though with smart theming it's possible to make each system look quite different), but works fast. It does not support HS themes, but it can use all the artwork created by this community. On my own system I use many of the sets available from the download/FTP section here and on EmuMovies. It uses fixed names for the artwork types, like artwork_front, artwork_back, medium_front, medium_back, screenshot, screentitle, video, logo, but the path to each can be set. It supports any menu depth you'd like, and supports merged collections (e.g. collections containing every Contra game from different systems). Generally it takes me about 10 minutes to set up a new system.

 

The documentation is in dire need of an update; the most recent features have not yet been described there. I do plan on updating that quite soon. As mentioned above: I do some occasional programming for this front-end, fixing small bugs, and adding small features. Now that I'm learning the code structure better, I should be able to do more in the future. :)

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
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My questions are simple:

 

1. Is there a theme editor to convert themes or create them from scratch? Also, I don't see any video frames in the themes. Do they not support them?

 

2. Is there something similar to HyperHQ? I don't want to spend hours typing stuff into txt files.

 

3. Are the folders organized more or less the same way? I don't want to re-do everything again and move things around.

 

4. Are there transitions?

 

5. Is it possible to have a wheel for game manuals in a submenu? I hate having to go into Rocketluncher to look at a manual which is not even possible if playing a PC game.

 

 

I'm just tired of Hyperspin and the fact that I can't have things organized the way I would want them and have to constantly convert everything to 4:3. 

phulshof Enthusiast

phulshof

Posted
Posted

1. Is there a theme editor to convert themes or create them from scratch? Also, I don't see any video frames in the themes. Do they not support them?

2. Is there something similar to HyperHQ? I don't want to spend hours typing stuff into txt files.

3. Are the folders organized more or less the same way? I don't want to re-do everything again and move things around.

4. Are there transitions?

5. Is it possible to have a wheel for game manuals in a submenu? I hate having to go into Rocketluncher to look at a manual which is not even possible if playing a PC game.

 

1. There's no theme editor yet, though I've heard some people talking about building one. Since RetroFE uses global themes it's not high on the priority list. Videos are of course supported.

2. Not yet, though Don plans to build one. There's not a huge amount of typing involved though.

3. I'm afraid not. RetroFE uses a customizable folder structure with a ton of graphical folder options like artwork_front, artwork_back, medium_front, medium_back, screenshot, screentitle, video, logo (wheel), etc. Theme designers can define their own type as well, but users would have to follow that theme's design type to use the theme. A transition tool is a bit tricky, since HS themes are not consistent with where they put what type of art.

4. If you mean transitions from one situation to the next, then yes. RetroFE will slide/fade/change size, etc. from one situation from the next, as programmed in the theme.

5. Can you elaborate a bit on this? Having a submenu with just the manuals is not a problem, but I'd have to do a bit of programming if you'd like to launch a PDF viewer for the manual in stead of starting the game from one submenu.

 

My RetroFE install looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNwWQeqG28

That theme was created by myself, and I'm a terrible artist. Imagine what an actual artist could do. :)

  • 3 weeks later...
Anpanman Contributor

Anpanman

Posted
Posted

^^ I tested it just before my hyperspin hdd started showing bad sectors. It uses the same HS folder structure. At the moment the only reasonable way to setup Z-Spin is to setup hyperspin and then just run Z-spin after.

 

it works well with rocketlauncher. So far it's missing hyperspin animations (planned for 0.30) and hyperspin xml text output.

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
Posted

But it has multi menu support and widescreen support, correct? I don't care much for the animations anyway. 

 

Is it easy to revert back to hyperspin after installing z-spin if for some reason I need to?

 

Also I didn't see any info on a theme editor. Does it have one?

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
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Ok, so I tried it and all I get is a black screen. Though maybe I should re-check my paths - nope, can't do that either. Can't find a setting file. Deleted everything, tried re-installing again and this time it just went straight to a black screen.

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
Posted

Damn! That's well hidden. I would have never guessed.

 

Any idea what causes the black screen? I just get a black screen and a mouse cursor. Do I need specific themes for this? I tried going on the site but everything is French.

Anpanman Contributor

Anpanman

Posted
Posted

Damn! That's well hidden. I would have never guessed.

 

Any idea what causes the black screen? I just get a black screen and a mouse cursor. Do I need specific themes for this? I tried going on the site but everything is French.

 

Are you pointing it to your full hyperspin install? did you try moving up and down to another system wheel?

Inquisitom Rookie

Inquisitom

Posted
Posted

Try the configuration pane : Ctrl+s, and check your config there.

 

For info, the themes supported are :

- HyperSpin  themes, but without some animations. So generally, basic HS themes display fine, the others (a little bit more tuned) display a bit weird.

- HTML5 themes (fully imagination here! - I managed to insert a JScript for the weather inside ^^) ... and if you need a theme builder, you can use GoogleWebDesigner among others. There are tricks which lets you display data from XMLs on the themes, but you'll need to follow the tutorials posted on the site. Some of them have English subtitles already.

Styphelus Community Regular

Styphelus

Posted
Posted

Ok, got it working. The themes get all messed up. Not just out of place (which was expected) but the graphics get chopped. There's no real configuration tool so the wheel always fades out and it's in wheel mode. I like mine vertical. It looks promising but I'l have to pass. It needs a lot more work at this point and it needs a proper config tool.

Anpanman Contributor

Anpanman

Posted
Posted

Who thought it was a good idea to put configuration in the user's appdata folder ? 

 

Nobody does that for portable apps like Hyperspin...

 

I thought the same. Its a little annoying although the options are simple enough to ignore this for now.

 

Its an extremely good start but still a long way to go :) I Some amazing ideas and well put out. I think instructions and more hype need to be English at least to try and get people on board?

 

 

IMO i think they should have launched with HS animation support done.

  • 5 months later...
relic Rising Star

relic

Posted
Posted

Any news on this did anyone get it to work properly when i install it and set it up the  themes are showing out of place on it plus theres many features i cant get to work.

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