Arcadeflow theme v 17.6 [Release] Updated 06 June 2025

[katarak]

Yeah, That's exactly right... they add so many different tags.

I did notice the Genre id as well but I don't know what they are attributed to. Did you try asking in the screenscraper forums or discord? I haven't asked, but it's an idea.

I will probably take, either the first or last tag only from the absurd genre tags and go with that.
Last time you mentioned you created images for all the mame categories. Is there a list somewhere on the web of what those are? I'd base myself on that so make sure I use a tag which is recognised from that list.
(I have such a hard time understanding all the associated files for Mame. I'll be setting up that emulator last )

I also want to build in to my tool to merge 2 EmulationStation Gamelist into 1 AM list. For NGPC as an example. I'll try to add that this weekend

[zpaolo11x]

I did notice the Genre id as well but I don't know what they are attributed to. Did you try asking in the screenscraper forums or discord? I haven't asked, but it's an idea.

I asked, but got no answer, maybe because I asked in english and most people there seems to speak only french (or pretend they can't speak anything but french )

Last time you mentioned you created images for all the mame categories. Is there a list somewhere on the web of what those are? I'd base myself on that so make sure I use a tag which is recognised from that list.

You can open the catver.ini from mame folder and you'll find there all the category combinations. I actually didn't create icons for all of them, just the most used. At the moment I'm adjusting some icons names to adapt to RetroPie category names. I don't really understand why anyone would use a different naming scheme since MAME was there ages before RetroPie and all the other scrapers...

I also want to build in to my tool to merge 2 EmulationStation Gamelist into 1 AM list. For NGPC as an example. I'll try to add that this weekend

Nice idea. Next version of AF will be able to import RetroPie romlists with descriptions, ratings etc, I'm thinking of something similar to create "All Handhelds" collection but it's not so easy since I'll have to create displays too...

[katarak]

I can see why people don't appreciate the MAME categories now that I've looked into it a little bit.

It we take Beat'em Ups they show up in the "Fighter" Category.
Kungfu in Fighter / 2D
Final Fight in Fighter / 2.5D
and Art of Fighting in Fighter / Versus.

I think the console market came out with different terms for the genres than the arcade world and that's probably creating a lot of confusion.
For example I've always seen it this way

Final Fight -> Beat'em Up
Art of Fighting -> Fighter
Super Smash Bros -> Brawler

I'll have to keep thinking about the best way to do this.

Mame also does Role-Playing instead of RPG (your icons also don't respond to RPG I had to rename them )

[zpaolo11x]

I can see why people don't appreciate the MAME categories now that I've looked into it a little bit.

It we take Beat'em Ups they show up in the "Fighter" Category.
Kungfu in Fighter / 2D
Final Fight in Fighter / 2.5D
and Art of Fighting in Fighter / Versus.

I think the console market came out with different terms for the genres than the arcade world and that's probably creating a lot of confusion.
For example I've always seen it this way

Final Fight -> Beat'em Up
Art of Fighting -> Fighter
Super Smash Bros -> Brawler

The mame implementation makes much more sense to me: Kungfu, Final Fight and Art of Fighting are all fighting games, so they end up in the same "main category", and 2D, 2.5D and Versus are perfectly clear indication of the type of games we are talking about. Beat'em up, fighter and brawler are more difficult to tell apart, and most of all they all fall in different categories, instead of one macro category, which is much easier to organize.

That said, I'm not native english speaker but even in italian we used to tell apart subgenres within the main "picchiaduro" genre.

[zpaolo11x]

Arcadeflow 9.7 is out!

Introducing the new tool to import RetroPie XML lists into Attract Mode romlists. Handle with care, make a backup of your lists just in case something bad happens... The tool takes the xml path from your emulator configuration file, if it's in RetroPie format it will process it and substitute your romlist with the new one, otherwise it will leave your romlist alone and safe

Enjoy!

[wivelden]

Hi,
I installed Retropie on my Raspberry Pi 3 and also installed attract mode and fully updated the whole system. I went to install this them but all I get is the games list as text vertically on the screen with a snap image background for each game. I tried another theme and that worked fine. Am I missing something here as I would love to get this theme working as I love the grid layout on my Arcade1Up Street Fighter cab.
Do you install this the same as the other themes for attract mode?

[mahuti]

Welcome to the board Wivelden.  Unfortunately this is one of the few layouts that won't run on a Pi. Even the 4 is a touch underpowered and won't fully run this theme at this time... but almost. On the 4 it loads and runs but upon returning from a game won't display any text or graphics.

[zpaolo11x]

Hi,
I installed Retropie on my Raspberry Pi 3 and also installed attract mode and fully updated the whole system. I went to install this them but all I get is the games list as text vertically on the screen with a snap image background for each game. I tried another theme and that worked fine. Am I missing something here as I would love to get this theme working as I love the grid layout on my Arcade1Up Street Fighter cab.
Do you install this the same as the other themes for attract mode?

As mahuti explaind in his answer, Arcadeflow has issues with PI systems, and AFAIK it doesn't work on a PI3. The fact that you see only a list of names with background is a bit strange though, there was an error in the packaging of the latest version, so you can try re-downloading it from the website. That said, don't expect it to work much better, but at least it should launch and not bring you to that kind of screen.
Not working with the PI is a big issue for AF, but it's a very GPU intensive layout so it's very difficult to make it work on the Raspberry which has some limitation in its GPU design

[mahuti]

A temporary hack "fixes" the problems on a Raspberry Pi 4 as shown below. Obviously this disables some functionality I'm sure, but if you really wanna use this on a Pi4... it's something I'm trying anyway just for fun.

Find this:

Code: [Select]

function on_transition( ttype, var0, ttime ) {

if (ttype == Transition.FromGame) {
change to this:

Code: [Select]

function on_transition( ttype, var0, ttime ) {

    if ( ttype == Transition.FromGame )
    {
       fe.set_display(fe.list.display_index) /*  Zpaolo11x offered this workaround, similar to Oomek's suggestion */
        return false
    }

if (ttype == Transition.FromGame) {
On the AM discord channel a similar problem came up which led to this from Oomek:

Seems like shaders and textures are being destroyed with the context
The only way I can think of is to reload the layout after exiting the game

if ( ttype == Transition.FromGame )
{
    fe.signal("reload")
    return false
}

Carrier does not need [a] workaround when I add the above to the main layout.nut transition
So it's a problem with AM, not with carrier or my layout....

[The Raspberry Pi 4] DRM version destroys the OpenGL context while launching a game
That brings a lot of collateral damage to drawables and shaders
The only way of fixing it atm is as I said to reload on FromGame trasition

So... try it, but beware. It may cause unforseen problems. YMMV.

You'll want to disable the splash logo, otherwise you'll see it every time you exit a game.

[adu]

Hello zpaolo11x

Again, thanks a lot for this theme and all your updates so far !

I got a question, maybe it's a dumb one ...
I'm currently making a Tate Cabinet ... Is your theme working on a Tate display ? (Is there an option to rotate the display when it is started, but let the Win Desktop in a yoko mode) ?

[zpaolo11x]

I'm currently making a Tate Cabinet ... Is your theme working on a Tate display ? (Is there an option to rotate the display when it is started, but let the Win Desktop in a yoko mode) ?

Yes the theme can work in tate mode, you can use the Attract Mode hotkeys to check what happens when you rotate the screen, but this is temporary. You can go in Arcadeflow options/general and set the rotation to "left", "right" or "flip" without affecting Windows screen orientation.

AF has some tweaks to fit better on vertical screens, but that's a configuration I don't use so much, so if you find any strange behavior or inconsistency, or if you need some feature, let me know I'll be glad to help

[EDIT] Added a screenshot to show how AF looks when "rotated" on a screen where the OS is still in landscape orientation.

[adu]

Thanks a lot for your answer, I'll let you know if I run into strange behavior !

[hedergim]

I'm sorry to interrupt,
I'm just an admirer of your beautiful work,

I want to know if it is possible to create a theme in AttractMode with 2 incredible features that I saw in that theme:
Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srqus9JPhZs&feature=youtu.be

1- Video opening and closing effect;

2- The Wheels have very beautiful movements, recoil, when selected it goes down to the bottom, this incredible movement of Wheels.

I would really like to see a theme like this in AttractMode, and you are very smart in theme programming,
sorry to bother.

be well.





Desculpe interromper,
sou apenas um admirador do seu bonito trabalho,

quero saber se é possível criar um tema no AttractMode com 2 características incríveis que vi nesse tema:
Link Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srqus9JPhZs&feature=youtu.be

1- Efeito de abrir e fechar  Video;

2- As Wheels tem movimentos muito bonito, recolhimento, quando selecionada ela desce até em baixo, incrível esse movimento de Wheels.

Eu gostaria muito de ver um tema desse no AttractMode, e você é muito inteligente na programação de tema,
desculpe incomodar.

passar bem.

[zpaolo11x]

Arcadeflow 9.8 is out!

This version has some huge new features: you can import XML data for romlists AND for collections, and Arcadeflow will now propagate simple romlists data to collections (like favorites, tags etc), and viceversa, if you change favorites in a collection you'll see that change in the original romlist too.

One of the new feature is... the possibility to DELETE your roms from the UI It will just move them to a "Deleted" subfolder, but anyway HANDLE WITH CARE! Also, not sure what happens if you have multiple paths in your rompath, I still have to check it :O

Enjoy the new revision and try not to delete your whole disk while using the "red button"

[ulihox]

Could it be possible to add an option to show a list with 3d boxes? This option would need to remove the black background that you can see in the attached picture.