Arcadeflow theme v 17.4 [Release] Updated 05 September 2024

[Yaron2019]

Arcadeflow 8.4 is out!

Bug fixes, some tweaks to the tiles appearance, and new option to stretch backgrounds and to remove the game title over the artwork completely. Also, new options to reduce the delay before loading videos, set it to 0.25x and it's almost immediate without slowing down the scrolling.

Enjoy!

The real question my talented friend is - what next?
- Quantum shaders?
- Neural network based real time sorting?
- COVID-19 Vaccine! 

Laughs aside - what do you think is the next step for AF?

[Enkak]

Arcadeflow 8.4 is out!

Bug fixes, some tweaks to the tiles appearance, and new option to stretch backgrounds and to remove the game title over the artwork completely. Also, new options to reduce the delay before loading videos, set it to 0.25x and it's almost immediate without slowing down the scrolling.

Enjoy!

Many thanks again for your work! New version seems to be working smooth over here.

A small request for a few more extra system logos if possible, in this case 3 arcade systems: Sammy Atomiswave, Sega Model 2 and Sega Model 3.

Cheers!

[zpaolo11x]

Laughs aside - what do you think is the next step for AF?

You know, this is a really good question and something I've been thinking a lot lately... well one easy answer would be: a complete rewrite of the layout, with completely "free" aspect ratio for videos and especially box art (which is forced to 4:3, 3:4 or square right now), but there are some technical limitation that would make this extremely complex at the moment (namely, there's no way to alter the z-order of elements inside a surface, so it would be difficult to do the zooming with proper drop shadows).

More realistically there are some things I still want to add or fix:

- Add an option to save a "preference set" so you can load them quickly and change all customizable aspects all at once
- Fix the "black box of death" that sometimes happens when starting AF, I put together a brand new rig to test this and I found the cause, so maybe It will be fixed in 8.5
- Increase the number of system and brands logos to infinity and beyond
- Find some magic way to improve glsl shaders performance so it runs at 60 fps on old hardware (don't count on it )

These are, though, just incremental improvements... I need some time to just play games with the layout so I'll be inspired to add new features, but still the greatest source of inspiration for features is the forum so hopefuly people will keep using AF and asking for things I never thought of (like the command.dat integration!)

[dark1973]

Ho provato la nuova versione ed è fenomenale.
Ho un dubbio; per aggiungere o rimuovere i preferiti nella nuova versione (io ero fermo alla 7.otto) non compare più la finestra di conferma. E' normale o è un bug?

[zpaolo11x]

Ho un dubbio; per aggiungere o rimuovere i preferiti nella nuova versione (io ero fermo alla 7.otto) non compare più la finestra di conferma. E' normale o è un bug?

E' "normale" nel senso che non ho implementato più il menu di conferma. Se è un problema posso guardarci ma ho cambiato il sistema di gestione dei preferiti e l'ho dovuto eliminare

[dark1973]

No, grazie. Volevo solo una conferma. Hai gia' inserito moltissime funzioni.

[Jate]

Hi

I have seen that you have added the option to hide the game title about the snapshot, but not when you are in boxart mode





By the way, it would be nice to be able to see the title of the game about the snapshot only for a few seconds and then it disappears. So when the video starts it wouldn't bother.

Something like that (photoshop):



And another thing, does the option to update the layout from the layout itself work?

[zpaolo11x]

I have seen that you have added the option to hide the game title about the snapshot, but not when you are in boxart mode

Somthing's wrong here: there's an option in the "General" section: "Game panel over box art" that should be set to "No" by default, and that's the intended default behavior. Check if maybe you set it to "Yes" instead...

By the way, it would be nice to be able to see the title of the game about the snapshot only for a few seconds and then it disappears. So when the video starts it wouldn't bother.

Interesting suggestion, the title could fade out when the movie fades in... I'll see if this can be done...

And another thing, does the option to update the layout from the layout itself work?

It should It's a bit hard to test on my rigs because I don't have a "clean" install of Arcadeflow but a lot of work in progress versions.

[zpaolo11x]

I have seen that you have added the option to hide the game title about the snapshot, but not when you are in boxart mode

Now that I look carefully... you have square thumbs _and_ box art... that should not be the case: box art should always be at the right aspect ratio even if you set your layout thumbs to "square" :O

[zpaolo11x]

By the way, it would be nice to be able to see the title of the game about the snapshot only for a few seconds and then it disappears. So when the video starts it wouldn't bother.

Something like that (photoshop):

I'm working on this as an option... what about the favourite, new game, tag and completed indicators? Should they fade out too or not? The code seems pretty easy to implement (strange )

[Enkak]

Really like that option too, of elements to fade out/disappear when video starts. I would go for all indicators to fade out when video starts unless they are small and discreet. Maybe only the favourite indicator is more distracting since it gets in the way of the video because it's a little bigger than the others.

[tvsht]

It's the sole bothersome thing that's left for me now.

I really really love how it's done in "Ambience HD' in that  thumbs transform into proper video ratio, wouldn't it be possible to borrow that code?

Ambiance HD turns a cropped square thumbnail in the proper aspect ratio, but this is done with snaps, not flyers. I can see how that might look good, it's a bit more difficult for me to imagine a vertical flyer or box art that transforms in a 4:3 gameplay video without looking weird.

Yeah, I meant snaps, other stuff is in it's proper ratio already, at least in the box mode which I'm using most of the time

[zpaolo11x]

Arcadeflow 8.5 is out!

This version adds some new options and fixes some bugs, plus some new system logos... I don't think there will be other frequent updates for a while since I'm going on vacation at the end of the week. Hopefully there are no huge bugs to fix or I'll have to work on the beach LOL!

Enjoy the new revision!

[zpaolo11x]

Arcadeflow 8.6 is out!

A day after 8.5? Well yes, there was a big and stupid bug in the automatic update routine, so if you download 8.6 (which is identical to 8.5 for everything else) you should be able to update with no issues when new versions come out.

Have a nice retrogaming summer!

[Enkak]

Many thanks again for the update and efforts! Enjoy your vacation