Arcadeflow theme v 17.5 [Release] Updated 17 December 2024

[zpaolo11x]

Version 4.2 is out with many changes to the scrollbar! Enjoy!

[jedione]

thanks,, this has to be one of the best themes ever made....for shure...

but right now im getting this error:

im on...Attract-Mode v2.4.1 (Windows, SFML 2.5 +SWF +7z)

Code: [Select]

C:\auraAM\layouts/ArcadFlow/layout.nut line = (2940) column = (42) : error invalid constant [Transition.ChangedTag]
Script Error in C:\auraAM\layouts/ArcadFlow/layout.nut - invalid constant [Transition.ChangedTag]
 - Loaded layout: C:\auraAM\layouts/ArcadFlow/ (layout.nut)
 - Layout is empty, initializing with the default layout settings
loads default layout....

[Enkak]

Here the new release loads well (attract-mode 2.5.1) but I'm noticing some bugs related to alphabet scrollbar in timeline and LabelList when you press down and select the alphabet.
- Letter V before letter E.
- Many times, after you scroll to the right you get stuck and can't scroll back to the left side, only to the right.
- The Alphabet letters position don't correspond to where the games from that letter start when you scroll from letter to letter in the bar.

Great first effort using the alphabet scrollbar

[Giacomo1982]

I appreciate your constant updating this great layout, but why not to create another one with a different layout? With your knowledge you can do anything you want.

[zpaolo11x]

thanks,, this has to be one of the best themes ever made....for shure...

but right now im getting this error:

im on...Attract-Mode v2.4.1 (Windows, SFML 2.5 +SWF +7z)

I'm sorry but starting from version 3.6 Arcadeflow is only compatible with Attract Mode 2.5 +

I've tried to make it backward-compatible but it didn't work well :/

[zpaolo11x]

Here the new release loads well (attract-mode 2.5.1) but I'm noticing some bugs related to alphabet scrollbar in timeline and LabelList when you press down and select the alphabet.
- Letter V before letter E.
- Many times, after you scroll to the right you get stuck and can't scroll back to the left side, only to the right.

I was just able to replicate this issue, "label jump" is something I coded at the last minute and I need to debug it better it seems. Thank you for the feedback, hopefully I can sort it quickly.

- The Alphabet letters position don't correspond to where the games from that letter start when you scroll from letter to letter in the bar.

The letter should be in the middle between two tick marks, the marks are the start and end of the letter span area, and the letter is in the middle of the area, not at the beginning. Maybe it's a bit confusing... Also, when the tick marks are too close to each other no letter is shown.

That said, apart from the issues with the "label jump", is the letter order correct or you see them out of alphabetical order?

[Enkak]

Glad to help!

Out of alphabetical order. In these prints you can see the letter V before the E for example in both scrolling options.

You can notice also that in both prints when the letter is selected in the alphabetic bar it doesn't go to the first game of that letter.

[zpaolo11x]

Out of alphabetical order. In these prints you can see the letter V before the E for example in both scrolling options.

You can notice also that in both prints when the letter is selected in the alphabetic bar it doesn't go to the first game of that letter.

Ok, this is very strange I have some questions if you don't mind to take some time to help me debug this:

- I see in the second pic a ' label, can you go to that label and tell me some game names for that label? I could incorporate that in the "#" label but this is a minor issue...
- Is your current filter sorted in some special way? Or is it just sorted by name?
- It's very strange not only that V is before E, but also that M is present twice in the list, gonna check the case of this letters. Also, what are the games in the "V" label? Any strangeness in their names?

I didn't have these issues on my test machine, but I got some issue on another machine with way more ROMs, so now I'm syncing my machines and already found and squashed some bugs, if you can help me wth this it will be greatly appreciated. I think the issue is in the way my theme generate the sort order, for some reason my routine places a "V" before an "E", but it didn't happen in my tests...

[zpaolo11x]

You can notice also that in both prints when the letter is selected in the alphabetic bar it doesn't go to the first game of that letter.

Ok I think I fixed the "V" sorting issue: this was due to the fact that AttractMode ignores "The " and "Vs. " at the beginning of game names, my layout didn't consider "Vs. " so now it should be ok. Please if you can try the layout.nut attached to this message and tell me if it's fixed.

I can't tell if this will fix also the issue of the letter not showing the first game in the letter range, because I can't replicate that.

[Enkak]

Hi.

Testing with your new layout.nut

' label is because of games like '88 Games

I have these rules/filters:

global_filter       
      rule                 Category not_contains BIOS
      rule                 FileIsAvailable equals 1
   filter               All
      sort_by              Title

There's still some strange things going on with the letters/alphabet scroll selected. In timeline some letters are missing or out of place (letter V is fixed but you have the T before H, or missing the I, U and Z) like you can see in the pic with Salamander 2. You can also notice that position of the S, among others, is way out of place regarding where the letter starts. S games start near the P letter for example. Also gaming scroll still get's stuck there when I tried going back/left.

In LabelList you have all the letters it seems, but letter T is out of place. There's also the same weird jump problems scrolling the game list when the alphabet is selected. Gets stuck, jumps from several letters instead of going to the next (M going straight to P for example)

Hope this helps.

[zpaolo11x]

Testing with your new layout.nut

' label is because of games like '88 Games

Ok, first of all let me thank you so much for your help, it would be almost impossible to debug all this without help. It seems that most issues (the V, the T etc) are related to some parts of the name that AM strips when sorting, and that my function is not stripping correctly. I don't have the same games you have (like '88 Games for example) so I can't see the issues directly.

On the other hand, the missing I and U are done on purpose: when the distance between ticks is too small the ticks are present but the letter is hidden, to avoid overlapping. I'll see if I can get a better solution because as it is the letter is hidden even if the space is enough (like, long space, short space, long space the letter should be visible...) .

I think the jumping too is related to the game names not being parsed correctly, may I ask you a very great favor? I prepared a custom layout you should run it and send me the console output of that, it should list all your game titles together with the letters my routine is using for sorting. Analyzing this list will help me fix all remaining issues hopefully... You can send the attachment to me via private message or to paolo.zago@gmail.com

[dukpoki]

@Enkak

Not sure if this will help your situation with this theme but I found that sometimes letters jump around because the rom list isn't in 100% abc order.  Go to attract/romlists and find your mame.txt.  Open it up and you will find that most likely it is sorted by the first letter of the roms named by Mame's naming scheme.  For example "openice" will be sorted into the "O" of the list, but the game is actually "2 On 2 Open Ice Challenge (rev 1.21)" which in turn should be in the "#" of the list instead.  (Also "Vs. Balloon Fight" is actually "balonfght" so that would explain why you see that "V" game in the "B" category.)  Therefore the whole list should really be resorted using the second name which is the full name of the game.  You can import the whole list into Excel (if you have it), and resort it via columns.  Or if you are using a 32 bits Notepad++ you can download a plugin that will let you sort it by columns as well.  I hope future versions of AM fixes this when you use the "generate romlist" for games (should be sorted by "Title" which is the 2nd column).

[zpaolo11x]

@Enkak

Not sure if this will help your situation with this theme but I found that sometimes letters jump around because the rom list isn't in 100% abc order.  Go to attract/romlists and find your mame.txt.  Open it up and you will find that most likely it is sorted by the first letter of the roms named by Mame's naming scheme.

AFAIK if your filter is sorted by "Name" then the list is sorted by the rom file name, but if the filter is sorted by "Title" then the actual game title is used. But while Mame sorts everything disregarding articles (The Simpson comes under the "T" on Mame64 GUI) Attract Mode strips the articles and some other particles like "Vs.". The problem is I don't know what other particles are filtered.

No need to tweak lists in excel, I just need some time to figure out how to correct all this stripping

[Enkak]

@Enkak

Not sure if this will help your situation with this theme but I found that sometimes letters jump around because the rom list isn't in 100% abc order.  Go to attract/romlists and find your mame.txt.  Open it up and you will find that most likely it is sorted by the first letter of the roms named by Mame's naming scheme.  For example "openice" will be sorted into the "O" of the list, but the game is actually "2 On 2 Open Ice Challenge (rev 1.21)" which in turn should be in the "#" of the list instead.  (Also "Vs. Balloon Fight" is actually "balonfght" so that would explain why you see that "V" game in the "B" category.)  Therefore the whole list should really be resorted using the second name which is the full name of the game.  You can import the whole list into Excel (if you have it), and resort it via columns.  Or if you are using a 32 bits Notepad++ you can download a plugin that will let you sort it by columns as well.  I hope future versions of AM fixes this when you use the "generate romlist" for games (should be sorted by "Title" which is the 2nd column).

Thx for the help and idea. But since I use the filter to sort by "Title" to avoid using mame rom names the jump shouldn't happen I think.

@zpaolo11x

I will try doing it a little later today, using your custom layout and send an e-mail with the console output.

[zpaolo11x]

@zpaolo11x

I will try doing it a little later today, using your custom layout and send an e-mail with the console output.

I saw the list, I found the culprit: it's "Vs. The Goonies", my routine strips the "Vs." but not the "The", therefore the error in sorting. If you can try with the attached layout it should fix it, hopefully it will fix also the game letter issue...