ES-DE/THEMES-DEV.md

EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE) v2.0 (development version) - Themes

Note: This document is only relevant for the current ES-DE development version, if you would like to see the documentation for the latest stable release, refer to THEMES.md instead.

If creating theme sets specifically for ES-DE, please add -DE to the theme name, as in slate-DE. Because ES-DE theme functionality has deviated greatly from the RetroPie EmulationStation fork on which it was originally based, any newer themes will not work on such older forks. It would be confusing and annoying for users that attempt to use ES-DE theme sets in older EmulationStation forks as they would get unthemed systems, crashes, error messages or corrupted graphics. At least the -DE extension is a visual indicator that it's an ES-DE specific theme set.

Table of contents:

[[TOC]]

Introduction

ES-DE allows the grouping of themes for multiple game systems into a theme set. A theme is a collection of elements, each with their own properties that define the way they look and behave. These elements include things like text lists, carousels, images and animations.

Internally ES-DE uses the concept of components to actually implement the necessary building blocks to parse and render the elements, and although this is normally beyond the scope of what a theme author needs to consider, it's still good to be aware of the term as it's sometimes used in the documentation.

Every game system has its own subdirectory within the theme set directory structure, and these are defined in the systems configuration file es_systems.xml either via the optional <theme> tag, or otherwise via the mandatory <name> tag. When ES-DE populates a system on startup it will look for a file named theme.xml in each such directory.

By placing a theme.xml file directly in the root of the theme set directory, that file will be processed as a default if there is no system-specific theme.xml file available.

In the example below, we have a theme set named mythemeset-DE which includes the snes and nes systems. Assuming you have some games installed for these systems, the files mythemeset-DE/nes/theme.xml and mythemeset-DE/snes/theme.xml will be processed on startup. If there are no games available for a system, its theme.xml file will be skipped.

The directory structure of our example theme set could look something like the following:

...
   themes/
      mythemeset-DE/
         core/
            font.ttf
            bold_font.ttf
            frame.png

         nes/
            theme.xml
            background.jpg
            logo.svg
            logo_video.svg

         snes/
            theme.xml
            background.jpg
            logo.svg
            logo_video.svg

         fonts.xml
         theme.xml

The theme set approach makes it easy for users to install different themes and choose between them from the UI Settings menu.

There are two places that ES-DE can load theme sets from:

• [HOME]/.emulationstation/themes/[THEME_SET]/
• [INSTALLATION PATH]/themes/[THEME_SET]/

An example installation path would be:
/usr/share/emulationstation/themes/slate-DE/

If a theme set with the same name exists in both locations, the one in the home directory will be loaded and the other one will be skipped.

Differences to legacy RetroPie themes

If you are not familiar with theming for RetroPie or similar forks of EmulationStation you can skip this section as it only describes the key differences between the updated ES-DE themes and these legacy theme sets. The term legacy is used throughout this document to refer to this older style of themes which ES-DE still fully supports for backward compatibility reasons. The old theme format is described in THEMES-LEGACY.md although this document is basically a historical artifact by now.

With ES-DE v2.0 a new theme engine was introduced that fundamentally changed some aspects of how theming works. The previous design used specific view styles (basic, detailed, video and grid) and this was dropped completely and replaced with variants that can accomplish the same thing while being much more powerful and flexible.

In the past EmulationStation basically had hardcoded view styles with certain elements always being present and only a limited ability to manipulate these via positioning, resizing, coloring etc. As well so-called extras were provided to expand theming support somehow but even this was quite limited.

With the new theme engine the view presets were removed and the only views now available, system and gamelist, were rewritten to be much more flexible. Essentially the element selection and placement is now unlimited; any number of elements of any type can be used, although with a few notable exceptions as explained throughout this document.

In addition to variants, support for color schemes and aspect ratios was introduced. The former makes it possible to provide different color profiles via variable declarations, and the latter makes it possible to define different theme configurations for different display aspect ratios. That could for example be a choice between a 16:9 and a 4:3 layout, and perhaps also a vertical screen orientation layout. All these options are selectable via the UI Settings menu.

New theming abilities like GIF and Lottie animations were also added to the new theme engine.

The NanoSVG rendering library has been replaced with LunaSVG which greatly improves SVG file support as NanoSVG had issues with rendering quite some files. There might be some slight regressions with LunaSVG, but most of these are probably due to issues in NanoSVG that caused some non-conformant files to render seemingly correct. Make sure to compare any SVG files that don't seem to render correctly in ES-DE with what they look like if opened in for example Firefox or Chrome/Chromium.

As for more specific changes, the following are the most important ones compared to legacy themes:

• View styles are now limited to only system and gamelist (there is a special all view style as well but that is only used for navigation sounds as explained later in this document)
• The hardcoded metadata attributes like md_image and md_developer are gone, but a new <metadata> property is available for populating views with metadata information
• The concept of extras is gone as all element can now be used however the theme author wishes
• The concept of features is gone
• The <formatVersion> tag is gone as tracking theme versions doesn't make much sense after all
• The video element properties showSnapshotNoVideo and showSnapshotDelay have been removed
• The ambiguous alignment property has been replaced with the horizontalAlignment and verticalAlignment properties (the same is true for logoAlignment for the carousel element)
• The forceUppercase property has been replaced with the more versatile letterCase property
• Many property names for the carousel have been renamed, with logo being replaced by item as this element can now be used in both the gamelist and system views. As well, setting the alignment will not automatically add any margins as is the case for legacy themes. These can still be set manually using the horizontalOffset and verticalOffset properties if needed. The way that alignment works in general for both carousel items and the overall carousel has also changed
• The rating elements were previously not sized and overlaid consistently, this has now been fixed and rating images should now be centered on the image canvas in order for this element to render correctly rather than being left-adjusted as has previously been done by some theme authors (likely as a workaround for the previous buggy implementation). Images of any aspect ratios are now also supported where previously only square images could be used
• The carousel text element hacks systemInfo and logoText have been removed and replaced with proper carousel properties
• The carousel property maxItemCount (formerly named maxLogoCount) is now in float format for more granular control of logo placement compared to integer format for legacy themes. However some legacy theme authors thought this property supported floats (as the theme documentation incorrectly stated this) and have therefore set it to fractional values such as 3.5. This was actually rounded up when loading the theme configuration, and this logic is retained for legacy themes for backward compatibility. But for current themes the float value is correctly interpreted which means a manual rounding of the value is required in order to retain an identical layout when porting theme sets to the new theme engine. As well carousels of the wheel type now have the amount of entries controlled by the two new properties itemsBeforeCenter and itemsAfterCenter. This provides more exact control, including the ability to setup asymmetric wheels.
• The full names of unthemed systems (or systems where the defined itemType file is missing) will now be displayed in the system carousel instead of the short names shown for legacy themes. So for instance, instead of "cps" the full name "Capcom Play System" (as defined in es_systems.xml) will be displayed.
• The carousel now has a zIndex value of 50 instead of 40. This means it's aligned with the textlist element which already had a zIndex value of 50.
• The helpsystem textColorDimmed and iconColorDimmed properties (which apply when opening a menu) were always defined under the system view configuration which meant these properties could not be separately set for the gamelist views. Now these properties work as expected with the possibility to configure separate values for the system and gamelist views
• When right-aligning the helpsystem using an X origin value of 1, the element is now aligned correctly to the defined position instead of being offset by the entrySpacing width (in RetroPie ES the offset was instead the hardcoded element entry padding)
• Correct theme structure is enforced more strictly than before, and deviations will generate error log messages and make the theme loading fail
• Many additional elements and properties have been added, refer to the Reference section for more information

Attempting to use any of the legacy logic in the new theme structure will make the theme loading fail, for example adding the extra="true" attribute to any element.

Except the points mentioned above, theme configuration looks pretty similar to the legacy theme structure, so anyone having experience with these older themes should hopefully feel quite at home with the new theme engine. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind is that as there are no longer any view presets available, some more effort is needed from the theme developer to define values for some elements. This is especially true for zIndex values as elements could now be hidden by other elements if care is not taken to explicitly set the zIndex for each of them. This additional work is however a small price to pay for the much more powerful and flexible theming functionality provided by the new theme engine.

Note that the legacy theme engine had quite inaccurate text sizing and font rendering and while this has been greatly improved in the new engine, for legacy themes most old bugs are retained for maximum backward compatibility. This means that you may need to revise font sizes and text placements when porting a legacy theme to the new engine. Here are some examples:

• Line spacing for the textlist element was not consistently applied across different screen resolutions
• Carousel text entries did not multiply the font size by the itemScale (logoScale) property value
• The defined line spacing was not always applied for automatically sized text elements
• Font sizes were rounded to integers, leading to imprecise text sizing across different resolutions (the rounding was also done incorrectly)

Simple example

Here is a very simple theme that changes the color of the game name text:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="game_name">
            <color>00FF00</color>
        </text>
        <image name="frame_1">
            <pos>0.5 0.5</pos>
            <origin>0.5 0.5</origin>
            <size>0.8 0.8</size>
            <path>./core/frame.png</path>
            <zIndex>10</zIndex>
        </image>
    </view>
</theme>

How it works

All configuration must be contained within a <theme> tag pair. That is true for each separate .xml file used to build the completely theme set.

The <view> tag pair refers to the available views within ES-DE, which is either system or gamelist. There is a special all view available as well, but that is only used for defining the navigation sounds as these are always applied globally to both view types.

Views are defined like this:

<view name="ViewNameHere">
    ... define elements here ...
</view>

An element is a particular visual component such as an image, an animation or a piece of text. It has a mandatory name attribute which is used by ES-DE to track each element entry. By using this name attribute it's possible to split up the definition of an element to different locations. For example you may want to define the color properties separately from where the size and position are configured (see the example below). The name attribute can be set to any string value.

This is the element structure:

<ElementTypeHere name="ElementNameHere">
    ... define properties here ...
</ElementTypeHere>

Finally properties control how a particular element looks and behaves, for example its position, size, image path, animation controls etc. The property type determines what kinds of values you can use. You can read about each type below in the Reference section. Properties are defined like this:

<propertyNameHere>ValueHere</propertyNameHere>

Let's now put it all together. The following is a simple example of a text element which has its definition split across two separate XML files.

themes.xml:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="system_name">
            <pos>0.27 0.32</pos>
            <origin>0.5 0.5</origin>
            <size>0.12 0.41</size>
            <zIndex>40</zIndex>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

colors.xml:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="system_name">
            <color>707070</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

As long as the name attribute is identical, the element configuration will be combined automatically. But that is only true for elements of the same type, so for instance an image element could be defined that also uses system_name for its name attribute without colliding with the text element:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="system_name">
            <pos>0.27 0.32</pos>
            <origin>0.5 0.5</origin>
            <size>0.12 0.41</size>
            <zIndex>40</zIndex>
        </text>
        <!-- Does not cause a collision, but is probably a bad idea for readability reasons -->
        <image name="system_name">
            <pos>0.49 0.8</pos>
            <maxSize>0.4 0.28</maxSize>
            <zIndex>35</zIndex>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

Whether this is a good idea is another question, it would probably be better to set the name attribute for the image to system_logo or similar for this example.

In addition to this, if the name is used for the same element type but for different views, then there will also not be any collision:

<theme>
    <view name="system">
        <text name="system_name">
        <pos>0.04 0.73</pos>
        <origin>0.5 0.5</origin>
        <size>0.12 0.22</size>
        <zIndex>40</zIndex>
    </view>
    <!-- This will not cause a collision as these two text elements are defined for different views -->
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="system_name">
        <pos>0.27 0.32</pos>
        <origin>0.5 0.5</origin>
        <size>0.12 0.41</size>
        <zIndex>40</zIndex>
    </view>
</theme>

Debugging during theme development

If you are writing a theme it's recommended to launch ES-DE with the --debug flag from a terminal window. You can also pass the --resolution flag to avoid having the application window fill the entire screen. By doing so, you can read error messages directly in the terminal window without having to open the es_log.txt file. You can also reload the current gamelist or system view with Ctrl+r if the --debug flag has been set. There is also support for highlighting the size and position of each image and animation element by using the Ctrl+i key combination and likewise to highlight each text element by using the Ctrl+t keys. Again, both of these require that ES-DE has been launched with the --debug command line option, for example:

emulationstation --debug --resolution 1280 720

Enforcement of a correct theme configuration is quite strict, and most errors will abort the theme loading, leading to an unthemed system. In each such situation the log output will be very clear of what happened, for instance:

Jan 28 17:17:30 Error:  ThemeData::parseElement(): "/home/myusername/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/theme.xml": Property "origin" for element "image" has no value defined

Sanitization for valid data format and structure is done in this manner, but verification that property values are actually correct (or reasonable) is handled by the individual component that takes care of creating and rendering the specific theme element. What happens in many instances is that a warning log entry is created and the invalid property is reset to its default value. So for these situations, the system will not become unthemed. Here's an example where a badges element accidentally had its horizontalAlignment property set to leftr instead of left:

Jan 28 17:25:27 Warn:   BadgeComponent: Invalid theme configuration, property "horizontalAlignment" for element "gamelist_badges" defined as "leftr"

Note however that warnings are not printed for all invalid properties as that would lead to an excessive amount of logging code. This is especially true for numeric values which are commonly just clamped to the allowable range without notifying the theme author. So make sure to check the Reference section of this document for valid values for each property.

For more serious issues where it does not make sense to assign a default value or auto-adjust the configuration, an error log entry is generated and the element will in most instances not get rendered at all. Here's such an example where the imageType property for a video element was accidentally set to covr instead of cover:

Jan 28 17:29:11 Error:  VideoComponent: Invalid theme configuration, property "imageType" for element "gamelist_video" defined as "covr"

Error handling for missing files is handled a bit differently depending on whether the paths have been defined explicitly or via a variable. For explicitly defined paths a warning will be logged for element properties and an error will be triggered for include files. Here's an example of the latter case:

Jan 28 17:32:29 Error:  ThemeData::parseIncludes(): "/home/myusername/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/theme.xml" -> "./colors_dark.xml" not found (resolved to "/home/myusername/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/colors_dark.xml")

However, if a variable has been used to define the include file, only a debug message will be generated if the file is not found:

Jan 28 17:34:03 Debug:  ThemeData::parseIncludes(): "/home/myusername/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/theme.xml": Couldn't find file "./${system.theme}/colors.xml" which resolves to "/home/myusername/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/amiga/colors.xml"

It works essentially the same way for element path properties as for include files. This distinction between explicit values and variables makes it possible to create a theme configuration where both include files and files for fonts, images, videos etc. will be used if found, and if not found a fallback configuration can still be applied so the system will be themed.

By default all debug messages regarding missing files will be logged for regular systems and automatic collections and suppressed for custom collections. This behavior can be changed by modifying the DebugSkipMissingThemeFiles and DebugSkipMissingThemeFilesCustomCollections settings in es_settings.xml. You can read more about those settings here.

Variants

A core concept of ES-DE is the use of theme set variants to provide different theme profiles. These are not fixed presets and a theme author can instead name and define whatever variants he wants for his theme (or possibly use no variants at all as they are optional).

The variants could be purely cosmetic, such as providing different designs for a theme set, or they could provide distinctive functionality by for instance using different primary elements like a carousel or a text list.

Before a variant can be used it needs to be declared, which is done in the capabilities.xml file that must be stored in the root of the theme set directory tree. How to setup this file is described in detail later in this document.

The use of variants is straightforward, a section of the configuration that should be included for a certain variant is enclosed inside the <variant> tag pair. This has to be placed inside the <theme> tag pair, and it can only be used at this level of the hierarchy and not inside a <view> tag pair for example.

The mandatory name attribute is used to specificy which variants to use, and multiple variants can be specified at the same time by separating them by commas or by whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks). It's also possible to use the special all variant that will apply the configuration to all defined variants (although this is only a convenient shortcut and you can explicitly define every variant individually if you prefer that). Note that all is a reserved name and attempting to use it in the capabilities.xml file will trigger a warning on application startup.

It could sometimes be a good idea to separate the variant configuration into separate files that are then included from the main theme file as this could improve the structure and readability of the theme set configuration.

It's also possible to apply only portions of the theme configuration to the variants and keep a common set of elements that are shared between all variants. This is accomplished by simply adding the shared configuration without specifying a variant, as is shown in the first example below for the info_text_01 text element. Just be aware that the variant-specific configuration will always be loaded after the general configuration even if it's located above the general configuration in the XML file. Alternatively you could use the special all variant to define common configuration used by all variants in the theme set.

Here are some example uses of the <variant> functionality:

<theme>
    <!-- Implementing the variants via separate include files could be a good idea -->
    <variant name="gamelistTextlist">
        <include>./gamelist_textlist.xml</include>
    </variant>
    <variant name="gamelistCarousel">
        <include>./gamelist_carousel.xml</include>
    </variant>

    <!-- The special "all" variant is a convenient shortcut for some situations -->
    <variant name="all">
        <include>./${system.theme}/systeminfo.xml</include>
    </variant>

    <!-- This will be parsed before the variant-specific configuration -->
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <fontPath>./core/font.ttf</fontPath>
            <fontSize>0.035</fontSize>
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- In other instances it may make more sense to apply the variant configuration inline -->
<theme>
    <variant name="withVideos">
        <view name="gamelist">
            <video name="game_video">
                <imageType>cover</imageType>
                <delay>1.7</delay>
                <scrollFadeIn>true</scrollFadeIn>
                <zIndex>42</zIndex>
            </video>
        </view>
    </variant>
    <variant name="withoutVideos">
        <view name="gamelist">
            <image name="game_image">
                <imageType>titlescreen</imageType>
                <scrollFadeIn>true</scrollFadeIn>
                <zIndex>42</zIndex>
            </image>
        </view>
    </variant>
</theme>

<!-- The following is NOT supported as <variant> tags can't be located inside <view> tag pairs -->
<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <variant name="lightModeNoVideo">
            <image name="game_image">
                <imageType>titlescreen</imageType>
                <scrollFadeIn>true</scrollFadeIn>
                <zIndex>42</zIndex>
            </image>
        </variant>
    </view>
</theme>

Color schemes

Color schemes are essentially a collection of variables that can be selected between from the UI Settings menu. This makes it possible to define different values that will be applied to the overall theme configuration based on this menu selection. Only variables can be used for the color schemes, but since variables can be used for almost everything this makes the functionality very flexible. In most cases you'll probably want to apply different color values to <color> properties and similar, but it's also possible to apply different images, animations, fonts etc. per color scheme.

To understand the basics on how to use variables, make sure to read the Theme variables section elsewhere in this document.

Before a color scheme can be used it needs to be declared, which is done in the capabilities.xml file that must be stored in the root of the theme set directory tree. How to setup this file is described in detail later in this document.

The <colorScheme> tag pair can be placed directly inside the <theme> tags, inside the <variants> tags or inside the <aspectRatio> tags.

The mandatory name attribute is used to specificy which color scheme to use, and multiple values can be specified at the same time by separating them by commas or by whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks).

Note that the use of color schemes for a theme set is entirely optional.

Here's an example configuration:

<theme>
    <colorScheme name="dark">
        <variables>
            <backgroundColor>404040</backgroundColor>
            <defaultTextColor>F0F0F0</defaultTextColor>
        </variables>
    </colorScheme>

    <colorScheme name="light">
        <variables>
            <backgroundColor>707070</backgroundColor>
            <defaultTextColor>262626</defaultTextColor>
        </variables>
    </colorScheme>

    <variant name="withVideos, withoutVideos">
        <colorScheme name="dark, light">
            <panelColor>74747488</panelColor>
        </colorScheme>
        <view name="system">
            <image name="background">
                <pos>0 0</pos>
                <size>1 1</size>
                <path>./core/images/background.png</path>
                <tile>true</tile>
                <color>${backgroundColor}</color>
            </image>
            <text name="game_counter">
                <pos>0.5 0.6437</pos>
                <size>1 0.056</size>
                <color>${defaultTextColor}</color>
            </text>
        </view>
    </variant>
</theme>

Aspect ratios

The aspect ratio support works almost identically to the variants and color schemes with the main difference that the available aspect ratios are hardcoded into ES-DE. The theme set can still decide which of the aspect ratios to support (or none at all in which case the theme aspect ratio is left undefined) but it can't create entirely new aspect ratio entries.

In the same manner as for the variants and color schemes, the aspect ratios that the theme set provides need to be declared in the capabilities.xml file that must be stored in the root of the theme set directory tree. How to setup this file is described in detailed later in this document.

The <aspectRatio> tag pair can be placed directly inside the <theme> tags or inside the <variants> tags.

Once the aspect ratios have been defined, they are applied to the theme configuration like the following examples:

<!-- Implementing the aspect ratios by separate include files could be a good idea -->
<theme>
    <aspectRatio name="4:3, 5:4">
        <include>./../layout_narrow.xml</include>
    </aspectRatio>
    <aspectRatio name="16:9, 16:10">
        <include>./../layout_wide.xml</include>
    </aspectRatio>
    <aspectRatio name="21:9">
        <include>./../layout_ultrawide.xml</include>
    </aspectRatio>

    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <fontPath>./core/font.ttf</fontPath>
            <fontSize>0.035</fontSize>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- In other instances it may make more sense to apply the aspect ratio configuration inline -->
<theme>
    <aspectRatio name="4:3, 5:4">
        <view name="gamelist">
            <image name="image_logo">
                <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
            </image>
        </view>
    </aspectRatio>

    <aspectRatio name="16:9, 16:10, 21:9">
        <view name="gamelist">
            <image name="image_logo">
                <pos>0.42 0.31</pos>
            </image>
        </view>
    </aspectRatio>
</theme>

<!-- Placing aspectRatio tags inside the variants tags is also supported -->
<theme>
    <variant name="withVideos, withoutVideos">
        <aspectRatio name="4:3, 5:4">
            <view name="gamelist">
                <image name="image_logo">
                    <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
                </image>
            </view>
        </aspectRatio>
    </variant>
</theme>

<!-- The following is NOT supported as <aspectRatio> tags can't be located inside <view> tag pairs -->
<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <aspectRatio name="4:3, 5:4">
            <image name="image_logo">
                <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
            </image>
        </aspectRatio>
    </view>
</theme>

capabilities.xml

Variants, color schemes and aspect ratios need to be declared before they can be used inside the actual theme set configuration files and that is done in the capabilities.xml file. This file needs to exist in the root of the theme directory, for example:

~/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/capabilities.xml

This file type was introduced with the new ES-DE theme engine in v2.0 and is an indicator that the theme set is of the new generation instead of being of the legacy type (i.e. a theme set backward compatible with RetroPie EmulationStation). In other words, if the capabilities.xml file is absent, the theme will get loaded as a legacy set.

The structure of the file is simple, it just contains declarations for the variants, color schemes and aspect ratios, such as in this example:

<!-- Theme capabilities for mythemeset-DE -->
<themeCapabilities>
    <aspectRatio>16:9</aspectRatio>
    <aspectRatio>4:3</aspectRatio>
    <aspectRatio>4:3_vertical</aspectRatio>

    <colorScheme name="dark">
        <label>Dark mode</label>
    </colorScheme>

    <colorScheme name="light">
        <label>Light mode</label>
    </colorScheme>

    <variant name="withVideos">
        <label>Textlist with videos</label>
        <selectable>true</selectable>
    </variant>

    <variant name="withoutVideos">
        <label>Textlist without videos</label>
        <selectable>true</selectable>
    </variant>
</themeCapabilities>

The file format is hopefully mostly self-explanatory; this example provides three aspect ratios, two color schemes and two variants. The <label> tag for the variant is the text that will show up in the UI Settings menu where the variants can be selected, assuming <selectable> has been set to true. The same is true for color schemes, although these will always show up in the GUI and can't be disabled.

Both the variant and color scheme names as well as their labels can be set to arbitrary values, but the name has to be unique. If two entries are declared with the same name, a warning will be generated on startup and the duplicate entry will not get loaded. Variants and color schemes will be listed in the UI Settings menu in the order that they are defined in capabilities.xml.

Unlike variants and color schemes, aspectRatio entries can not be set to arbitrary values, instead they have to use a value from the horizontal name or vertical name columns in the following table:

Horizontal name	Vertical name	Common resolutions
16:9	16:9_vertical	1280x720, 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160
16:10	16:10_vertical	1280x800, 1440x900, 1920x1200
3:2	3:2_vertical	2160x1440
4:3	4:3_vertical	320x240, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200
5:4	5:4_vertical	1280x1024
21:9	21:9_vertical	2560x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x1600, 5120x1440
32:9	32:9_vertical	3840x1080, 5120x1440

The 21:9 and 32:9 aspect ratios are approximate as monitors of slightly different ratios are collectively marketed using these numbers.

It's normally not necessary to define all or even most of these for a theme set, instead only a few are likely to be needed. The element placement will always adapt to the screen resolution as relative positions are utilized, so in most cases similar aspect ratios like 4:3 and 5:4 could be used interchangeably. The same is true for instance for 16:9 and 16:10. But if precise element placement is required, a separate configuration can still be made for each aspect ratio.

The declared aspect ratios will always get displayed in the UI settings menu in the order listed in the table above, so they can be declared in any order in the capabilities.xml file. If an unsupported aspect ratio value is entered, a warning will be generated on startup and the entry will not get loaded.

The use of variants, color schemes and aspect ratios is optional, i.e. a theme set does not need to provide any of them. There must however be a capabilities.xml file present in the root of the theme set directory. So if you don't wish to provide this functionality, simply create an empty file or perhaps add a short XML comment to clarify that the theme set does not provide this functionality. In this case the theme will still load and work correctly but the menu options for selecting variants, color schemes and aspect ratios will be grayed out.

Note that changes to the capabilities.xml file are not reloaded when using the Ctrl+r key combination, instead ES-DE needs to be restarted to reload any changes to this file.

The <include> tag

You can include theme files within theme files, for example:

~/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/fonts.xml:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <fontPath>./core/font.ttf</fontPath>
            <fontSize>0.035</fontSize>
            <color>00FF00</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

~/.emulationstation/themes/mythemeset-DE/snes/theme.xml:

<theme>
    <include>./../fonts.xml</include>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
            <color>FF0000</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

The above is equivalent to the following:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <fontPath>./core/font.ttf</fontPath>
            <fontSize>0.035</fontSize>
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
            <!-- This may or may not be what is intended, i.e. overriding the <color> tag in fonts.xml -->
            <color>FF0000</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

As covered earlier in this document, as long as the name attributes are identical for the same element type, the properties are combined automatically. The potential issue with the current example is that the color tag is defined in both the fonts.xml and snes/theme.xml files. As parsing is done sequentially, the property value that is defined last will overwrite the earlier value. This may be used intentionally to override a general property value, so the configuration in the example above example is not necessarily a mistake.

The paths defined for the <include> entry and <fontPath> and similar properties are set as relative to the theme file by adding "./" as a prefix. That is usually how paths would be defined as you commonly want to access files only within the theme set directory structure. This prefix works for all path properties. Windows-style backslashes are also supported as directory separators but their use is not recommended.

Explicitly defining a path will lead to an error (and the system getting unthemed) if the file is missing, but if instead using a variable to populate the <include> tag then a missing file will only generate a debug log entry. This makes it possible to use system variables to build flexible theme configurations where it's not guaranteed that every file exists. Such an example would be to implement default/fallback configuration for custom systems that may get added by a user.

Note that include loops are not checked for, it's the responsibility of the theme developer to make sure no such loops exist. If you accidentally introduce a loop the application will hang indefinitely on startup.

You can add <include> tags directly inside the <theme> tags or inside the <variant> and <aspectRatio> tags, but not inside the <view> tags:

<!-- Adding <include> directly inside <theme> is supported -->
<theme>
    <include>./../colors.xml</include>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- Adding <include> inside <variant> is supported -->
<theme>
    <variant name="lightMode">
        <include>./../colors.xml</include>
    </variant>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- Adding <include> inside <aspectRatio> is supported -->
<theme>
    <aspectRatio name="4:3">
        <include>./../colors.xml</include>
    </aspectRatio>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- Adding <include> inside <view> is NOT supported -->
<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <include>./../colors.xml</include>
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

<!-- Adding <include> outside <theme> is NOT supported -->
<include>./../colors.xml</include>
<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

Theming the system and gamelist views simultaneously

Sometimes you may want to apply the same elements and properties to both the system and gamelist views, for instance defining a common background image. For these situations both views can simply be defined in the name attribute. The values can be separated by a comma, or by a whitespace character (tab, space or line break).

<view name="system, gamelist">
    <image name="background">
        <tile>true</tile>
        <size>1 1</size>
        <pos>0 0</pos>
        <origin>0 0</origin>
        <path>./core/images/background.png</path>
        <zIndex>0</zIndex>
    </image>

The above is equivalent to:

<view name="system">
    <image name="background">
        <tile>true</tile>
        <size>1 1</size>
        <pos>0 0</pos>
        <origin>0 0</origin>
        <path>./core/images/background.png</path>
        <zIndex>0</zIndex>
    </image>
</view>
<view name="gamelist">
    <image name="background">
        <tile>true</tile>
        <size>1 1</size>
        <pos>0 0</pos>
        <origin>0 0</origin>
        <path>./core/images/background.png</path>
        <zIndex>0</zIndex>
    </image>
</view>

Theming multiple elements simultaneously

You can theme multiple elements of the same type simultaneously, which can lead to a more compact and easier to understand theme configuration. To accomplish this you simply define multiple entries inside a single name attribute, separated by commas or whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks).

Here's an example of defining a common color to multiple text elements:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <!-- Weird spaces/newline on purpose -->
        <text name="md_lbl_rating, md_lbl_releasedate, md_lbl_developer, md_lbl_publisher,
        md_lbl_genre,    md_lbl_players,        md_lbl_lastplayed, md_lbl_playcount">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

The above is equivalent to:

<theme>
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="md_lbl_rating">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_releasedate">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_developer">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_publisher">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_genre">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_players">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_lastplayed">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
        <text name="md_lbl_playcount">
            <color>48474D</color>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

Just remember, this only works if the elements have the same type.

Navigation sounds

Navigation sounds are configured globally per theme set, so it needs to be defined using the special all view. It's recommended to put these elements in a separate file and include it from the main theme file (e.g. <include>./navigationsounds.xml</include>). Starting ES-DE with the --debug flag will provide feedback on whether any navigation sound elements were read from the theme set. If no navigation sounds are provided by the theme, ES-DE will use the bundled navigation sounds as a fallback. This is done per sound file, so the theme could provide for example one or two custom sounds while using the bundled ES-DE sounds for the rest.

Example debug output:

Jul 12 11:28:58 Debug:  NavigationSounds::loadThemeNavigationSounds(): Theme set includes navigation sound support, loading custom sounds
Jul 12 11:28:58 Debug:  Sound::getFromTheme(): Looking for tag <sound name="systembrowse">
Jul 12 11:28:58 Debug:  Sound::getFromTheme(): Tag found, ready to load theme sound file
Jul 12 11:28:58 Debug:  Sound::getFromTheme(): Looking for tag <sound name="quicksysselect">
Jul 12 11:28:58 Debug:  Sound::getFromTheme(): Tag not found, using fallback sound file

Example navigationsounds.xml file:

<theme>
    <view name="all">
        <sound name="systembrowse">
            <path>./core/sounds/systembrowse.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="quicksysselect">
            <path>./core/sounds/quicksysselect.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="select">
            <path>./core/sounds/select.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="back">
            <path>./core/sounds/back.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="scroll">
            <path>./core/sounds/scroll.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="favorite">
            <path>./core/sounds/favorite.wav</path>
        </sound>
        <sound name="launch">
            <path>./core/sounds/launch.wav</path>
        </sound>
    </view>
</theme>

Element rendering order using zIndex

You can change the order in which elements are rendered by setting their zIndex values. All elements have a default value so you only need to define it for the ones you wish to explicitly change. Elements will be rendered in order from smallest to largest values. A complete description of each element including all supported properties can be found in the Reference section.

These are the default zIndex values per element type:

Element	zIndex value
image	30
video	30
animation	35
badges	35
text	40
datetime	40
gamelistinfo	45
rating	45
carousel	50
grid	50
textlist	50

The helpsystem element does not really have a zIndex value and is always rendered on top of all other elements.

Theme variables

Theme variables can be used to simplify theme construction and there are two types available:

• System variables
• Theme defined variables

System variables

System variables are system specific and are derived from the values defined in es_systems.xml (except for collections which are derived from hardcoded application-internal values).

• system.name
• system.name.collections
• system.name.noCollections
• system.fullName
• system.fullName.collections
• system.fullName.noCollections
• system.theme
• system.theme.collections
• system.theme.noCollections

system.name expands to the short name of the system as defined by the name tag in es_systems.xml
system.fullName expands to the full system name as defined by the fullname tag in es_systems.xml
system.theme expands to the theme directory as defined by the theme tag in es_systems.xml

The .collections and .noCollections versions of these variables make it possible to differentiate between regular systems and collections. This can for example be used to apply different formatting to the names of the collections as opposed to regular systems. The below example capitalizes the names of the collections while leaving the regular systems at their default formatting (as they are defined in es_systems.xml). The reason this works is that the .collections and .noCollections variables are mutually exclusive, i.e. they can never both hold a value at the same time as a system is either a real system or a collection and never both.

<theme>
    <view name="system">
        <text name="system_name, collection_name">
            <pos>0.05 0.83</pos>
            <size>0.9 0.06</size>
            <fontSize>0.06</fontSize>
            <fontPath>./core/font.ttf</fontPath>
        </text>
        <text name="collection_name">
            <letterCase>capitalize</letterCase>
        </text>
        <text name="system_name">
            <text>${system.fullName.noCollections}</text>
        </text>
        <text name="collection_name">
            <text>${system.fullName.collections}</text>
        </text>
    </view>
</theme>

Theme defined variables

Variables can also be defined in the theme.

<theme>
    <variables>
        <themeColor>8B0000</themeColor>
    </variables>
</theme>

Usage in themes

Variables can be used to specify the value of a theme property:

<color>${themeColor}</color>

It can also be used to specify only a portion of the value of a theme property:

<color>${themeColor}C0</color>
<path>./core/images/${system.theme}.svg</path>

Nesting of variables is supported, so the following could be done:

<theme>
    <variables>
        <colorRed>8b0000</colorRed>
        <themeColor>${colorRed}</themeColor>
    </variables>
</theme>

Variables can also be declared inside the <variant> and <aspectRatio> tags, but make sure to read the comments below for the implications and possibly unforeseen behavior when doing this:

<theme>
    <variant name="lightMode, lightModeNoVideo">
        <variables>
            <colorRed>8b0000</colorRed>
            <themeColor>${colorRed}</themeColor>
        </variables>
    </variant>
</theme>

Variables live in the global namespace, i.e. they are reachable by all configuration entries regardless of whether variants are used or not. This means that if a variable is defined directly under the <theme> tag and then redefined inside a <variant> or <aspectRatio> tag then the global variable will be modified rather than a copy specific to the variant. As well, since all general (non-variant) configuration is parsed prior to the variant configuration, any overriding of the variable will be done "too late" to apply to the general configuaration. Take this example:

<theme>
    <!-- Set the value of variable themeColor to 8b0000 -->
    <variables>
        <colorRed>8b0000</colorRed>
        <themeColor>${colorRed}</themeColor>
    </variables>

    <!-- Override the value of variable themeColor by defining it as 6533ff -->
    <variant name="lightMode, lightModeNoVideo">
        <variables>
            <themeColor>6533ff</themeColor>
        </variables>
    </variant>

    <!-- color will be set to 8b0000 as it's parsed before the variants configuration -->
    <view name="gamelist">
        <text name="info_text_01">
            <pos>0.3 0.56</pos>
            <color>${themeColor}</color>
        </text>
    </view>

    <!-- color will be set to 6533ff -->
    <variant name="lightMode, lightModeNoVideo">
        <view name="gamelist">
            <text name="game_name">
                <pos>0.8 0.12</pos>
                <color>${themeColor}</color>
            </text>
        </view>
    </variant>
</theme>

Due to the potential confusion caused by the above configuration it's recommended to never use the same variable names under the <variant> or <aspectRatio> tags as have previously been declared directly under the <theme> tag.

Configuration parsing order

It's important to understand how the theme configuration files are parsed in order to avoid potentially confusing issues that may appear to be bugs. The following order is always used:

1. Variables
2. Color schemes
3. Included files
4. "General" (non-variant) configuration
5. Variants
6. Aspect ratios

When including a file using the <include> tag (i.e. step 3 above) then all steps listed above are executed for that included file prior to continuing to the next line after the <include> tag.

For any given step, the configuration is parsed in the exact order that it's defined in the XML file. Be mindful of the logic described above as for instance defining variant-specific configuration above general configuration in the same XML file will still have that parsed afterwards.

Property data types

• NORMALIZED_PAIR - two decimal values delimited by a space, for example 0.25 0.5
• NORMALIZED_RECT - four decimal values delimited by a space, for example 0.25 0.5 0.10 0.30
• PATH - path to a resource. If the first character is a tilde (~) then it will be expanded to the user's home directory ($HOME for Unix and macOS and %HOMEPATH% for Windows) unless overridden using the --home command line option. If the first character is a dot (.) then the resource will be searched for relative to the location of the theme file, for example ./myfont.ttf or ./../core/fonts/myfont.ttf
• BOOLEAN - true/1 or false/0
• COLOR - a hexadecimal RGB or RGBA color value consisting of 6 or 8 digits. If a 6 digit value is used then the alpha channel will be set to FF (completely opaque)
• UNSIGNED_INTEGER - an unsigned integer value
• FLOAT - a decimal value
• STRING - a string of text

Element types and their properties

There are three groups of elements available for use which are named primary, secondary and special. They are all covered in detail below.

Common to almost all elements are pos and size properties of the NORMALIZED_PAIR type. They are normalized in terms of their parent's size. Most of the time this is just the size of the screen. In this case, <pos>0 0</pos> would correspond to the top left corner, and <pos>1 1</pos> the bottom right corner (a positive Y value points further down). You can also use numbers outside the 0 to 1 range if you want to place an element partially off-screen.

The order in which you define properties for a given element does not matter and you only need to define a property if you want to override its default value. If a property is defined multiple times then the latest entry will override any previous occurances.

Primary elements

Elements from this group can only occur once per view (for a certain variant) and they handle basic functionality like controller input and navigation.

carousel

A carousel for navigating and selecting games or systems.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• single

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Default is 0 0.38378
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.05 and maximum value per axis is 2
  • Default is 1 0.2324
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the carousel exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• type - type: STRING
  • Sets the carousel type and scroll direction.
  • Valid values are horizontal, vertical, horizontal_wheel or vertical_wheel.
  • Default is horizontal
• staticItem - type: PATH
  • Path to a static image file. Most common extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif). This property can only be used in the system view.
• itemType - type: STRING
  • This displays a game image of a certain media type, and can only be used in the gamelist view.
  • Valid values:
  • marquee - This will look for a marquee (wheel) image.
  • cover - This will look for a box front cover image.
  • backcover - This will look for a box back cover image.
  • 3dbox - This will look for a 3D box image.
  • physicalmedia - This will look for a physical media image.
  • screenshot - This will look for a screenshot image.
  • titlescreen - This will look for a title screen image.
  • miximage - This will look for a miximage.
  • fanart - This will look for a fan art image.
  • none - No image will be used, instead the game name will be displayed as text.
  • Default is marquee
• defaultItem - type: PATH
  • Path to the default image file which will be displayed if the image defined via the staticItem or itemType property is not found. Most common extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif).
• maxItemCount - type: FLOAT
  • Sets the number of items to display in the carousel when the type property has been set to "horizontal" or "vertical". Has no effect if the type has been set to "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 30
  • Default is 3
• itemsBeforeCenter - type: UNSIGNED_INTEGER
  • Sets the number of items above the center position (the currently selected item) when the type property has been set to "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel". By setting this property and itemsAfterCenter to different values an asymmetric wheel can be configured. Combine with itemRotation to control how many entries to display in the carousel.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 20
  • Default is 8
• itemsAfterCenter - type: UNSIGNED_INTEGER
  • Sets the number of items below the center position (the currently selected item) when the type property has been set to "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel". By setting this property and itemsBeforeCenter to different values an asymmetric wheel can be configured. Combine with itemRotation to control how many entries to display in the carousel.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 20
  • Default is 8
• itemSize - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Size of the item prior to multiplication by the itemScale value, i.e. the size of all unselected items. Both axes need to be defined.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.05 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.25 0.155
• itemScale - type: FLOAT.
  • Selected item is increased in size by this scale.
  • Minimum value is 0.2 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1.2
• itemTransitions - type: STRING
  • How to render item transitions when navigating the carousel. By default a slide and opacity fade animation will be played when moving between items but if this property is set to instant then the transitions will be immediate.
  • Valid values are animate or instant
  • Default is animate
• itemInterpolation - type: STRING
  • Interpolation method to use when scaling items. Nearest neighbor (nearest) preserves sharp pixels and linear filtering (linear) makes the image smoother. The effect of this property is primarily visible for raster graphic images, but it has a limited effect also when using scalable vector graphics (SVG) images as these are rasterized at a set resolution and then scaled using the GPU.
  • Valid values are nearest or linear
  • Default is linear
• itemRotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the item should be rotated. This value should be positive if the itemRotationOrigin X axis has a negative value, and it should be negative if the itemRotationOrigin X axis has a positive value, otherwise the wheel will rotate in the wrong direction.
  • This property only applies when type is "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Default is 7.5
• itemRotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the item will be rotated. The X axis of this property is the distance from the left side of the item to the center of the wheel in multiples of the size defined by the itemSize X axis. So if for instance the itemSize X axis is set to 0.2 and itemRotationOrigin is set to -2, then the center of the wheel will be at a -0.4 distance from the left side of the item. In other words, if specifying a negative number the item will be located on the right side of the carousel, i.e. the wheel will be to the left and if specifying a positive number the wheel will be to the right. Note again that this is calculated from the left side of the item, so to get an identically sized wheel as the -2 wheel just mentioned you need to define 3 as the value rather than 2 if you want the wheel to the right side of the item. This is not an error but due to the way that the coordinates are calculated. The Y axis should normally be left at 0.5 or you may get some weird results. It is however possible to use this axis value creatively if you know what you are doing.
  • This property only applies when type is "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Default is -3 0.5
• itemAxisHorizontal - type: BOOLEAN
  • If type has been set to "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel" then the items are normally rotated towards the center of the wheel as defined by itemRotation and itemRotationOrigin. But if enabling this property the items will not get rotated along their own axis, meaning they will retain their original horizontal orientation regardless of their position along the wheel. Make sure that itemVerticalAlignment is set to center when using this attribute or you'll get some strange alignment issues.
  • Default is false
• itemHorizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Sets staticItem / itemType and text alignment relative to the carousel on the X axis, which applies when type is "vertical", "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is center
• itemVerticalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Sets staticItem / itemType and text alignment relative to the carousel on the Y axis, which applies when type is "horizontal", "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Valid values are top, center or bottom
  • Default is center
• wheelHorizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Sets the alignment of the actual carousel inside the overall element area. This property only applies when type is "horizontal_wheel" or "vertical_wheel".
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is center
• horizontalOffset - type: FLOAT
  • Offsets the carousel horizontally inside its designated area, as defined by the size property. The value of this property is relative to the width of the carousel (with 1 being equivalent to its entire width). This property can for example be used to add a margin if using itemHorizontalAlignment or to offset the selected item of horizontal carousels to a non-centered position.
  • Minimum value is -1.0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 0
• verticalOffset - type: FLOAT
  • Offsets the carousel vertically inside its designated area, as defined by the size property. The value of this property is relative to the height of the carousel (with 1 being equivalent to its entire height). This can be used to add a margin if using itemVerticalAlignment but is even more useful if reflections has been set as it allows the control of how much of the reflections to display by relocating the carousel inside its clipping area. It can also be used to offset the selected item of vertical carousels to a non-centered position.
  • Minimum value is -1.0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 0
• reflections - type: BOOLEAN
  • Enables reflections beneath the carousel items. This is only available for the horizontal carousel type. It's probably a good idea to combine this with the verticalOffset property to define how much of the reflections should be visible.
  • Default is false
• reflectionsOpacity - type: FLOAT
  • Defines the base opacity for the reflections.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 0.5
• reflectionsFalloff - type: FLOAT
  • Defines the reflections opacity falloff, starting from the item's base opacity and ending at complete transparency. The value is set relative to the item height, so 1 will fade the bottom of the item to full transparency, 2 will fade to full transparency at half the item height and 0.5 will place the full transparency point at twice the item height.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 10
  • Default is 1
• unfocusedItemOpacity - type: FLOAT
  • Sets the opacity for the items that are not currently focused.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 0.5
• color - type: COLOR
  • Color of the carousel background panel. Setting a value of 00000000 makes the background panel transparent.
  • Default is FFFFFFD8
• colorEnd - type: COLOR
  • Setting this to something other than what is defined for color creates a color gradient on the background panel.
  • Default is FFFFFFD8
• gradientType - type: STRING
  • The direction to apply the color gradient if both color and colorEnd have been defined.
  • Valid values are horizontal or vertical
  • Default is horizontal
• text - type: STRING
  • A string literal to display if there is no staticItem or defaultItem property defined and if no image is found. This property can only be used in the system view as for the gamelist view the text fallback will always be set to the game name.
• textColor - type: COLOR
  • Default is 000000FF
• textBackgroundColor - type: COLOR
  • Default is FFFFFF00
• fontPath - type: PATH
  • Path to a TrueType font (.ttf) used as fallback if there is no staticItem / itemType image defined or found, and if defaultItem has not been defined.
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • Size of the font as a percentage of screen height (e.g. for a value of 0.1, the text's height would be 10% of the screen height). This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area. This property value is effectively multiplied by the itemScale value for the currently selected item (but if this property is omitted then the default value will not get multiplied by itemScale).
  • Minimum value is 0.001 and maximum value is 1.5. Note that when running at a really low resolution, the minimum value may get clamped to a larger relative size.
  • Default is 0.085
• letterCase - type: STRING
  • Sets the letter case for all entries.
  • Valid values are none, uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
  • Default is none (original letter case is retained)
• letterCaseCollections - type: STRING
  • For technical reasons both automatic collections and custom collections have their names spelled in lowercase characters. This property which can only be used in the system view will make it possible to change the letter case for all such collections. This is only needed when letterCase is omitted or has been set to none as that property will otherwise apply also to all collections.
  • Valid values are uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
• letterCaseGroupedCollections - type: STRING
  • For technical reasons custom collections have their names spelled in lowercase characters. This property which can only be used in the gamelist view will make it possible to change the letter case for all such grouped collections. This is only needed when letterCase is omitted or has been set to none as that property will otherwise apply also to all grouped collections.
  • Valid values are uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
• lineSpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the space between lines (as a multiple of the font height). Due to the imprecise nature of typefaces where certain glyphs (characters) may exceed the requested font size, it's recommended to keep this value at around 1.1 or higher. This way overlapping glyphs or characters being cut off at the top or bottom will be prevented.
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1.5
• fadeAbovePrimary - type: BOOLEAN
  • When using fade transitions, all elements in the system view with a zIndex value higher than the carousel are by default still rendered during transitions. If this property is enabled then all such elements will instead be faded out. Note that elements below the carousel will be dimmed to black and elements above the carousel will be faded to transparent.
  • Default is false
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 50

grid

The grid component is currently in active development which means that properties and values may change without prior warning up until the final 2.0.0 release.

An X*Y grid for navigating and selecting games or systems using the left/right and up/down buttons. The layout including the amount of columns and rows is automatically calculated based on the relevant property values.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• single

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Default is 0 0.1
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.05 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 1 0.8
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the textlist exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• staticItem - type: PATH
  • Path to a static image file. Most common extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif). This property can only be used in the system view.
• itemType - type: STRING
  • This displays a game image of a certain media type, and can only be used in the gamelist view.
  • Valid values:
  • marquee - This will look for a marquee (wheel) image.
  • cover - This will look for a box front cover image.
  • backcover - This will look for a box back cover image.
  • 3dbox - This will look for a 3D box image.
  • physicalmedia - This will look for a physical media image.
  • screenshot - This will look for a screenshot image.
  • titlescreen - This will look for a title screen image.
  • miximage - This will look for a miximage.
  • fanart - This will look for a fan art image.
  • none - No image will be used, instead the game name will be displayed as text.
  • Default is marquee
• defaultItem - type: PATH
  • Path to the default image file which will be displayed if the image defined via the staticItem or itemType property is not found. Most common extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif).
• fractionalRows - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether to allow rendering of fractional rows of items. If set to false then the effective area of the overall element size will be snapped to the item height multiplied by itemScale. Note that if setting itemScale too high relative to the itemSpacing Y axis value then fractional rows may still be rendered even if the fractionalRows property is set to false.
  • Default is false
• itemSize - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Size of the item prior to multiplication by the itemScale value, i.e. the size of all unselected items. Both axes need to be defined.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.05 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.15 0.25
• itemScale - type: FLOAT.
  • Selected item is increased in size by this scale.
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 2
  • Default is 1.05
• itemTransitions - type: STRING
  • How to render item transitions when navigating the grid. By default a scaling and opacity fade animation will be played when moving between items (assuming itemScale and unfocusedItemOpacity have not been set to 1) but if this property is set to instant then the transitions will be immediate.
  • Valid values are animate or instant
  • Default is animate
• rowTransitions - type: STRING
  • How to render row transitions when navigating the grid. By default a sliding animation will be rendered when moving between rows but if this property is set to instant then the transitions will be immediate.
  • Valid values are animate or instant
  • Default is animate
• itemSpacing - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The horizontal and vertical space between items. This value is added to the unscaled item size, i.e. itemSize before it's been multiplied by itemScale. This means that if an axis is set to 0 then unscaled items will be perfectly adjacent to each other on that axis but if itemScale has been set to higher than 1 then the currently selected item may overlap adjacent items. If this property is omitted then spacing will be automatically calculated so that no overlaps occur during scaling. However you'd normally want to define and adjust this property for an optimal layout. If one of the axis is defined as -1 then it will be set to the same pixel value as the other axis. Note that all spacing calculations are based on the value defined by itemSize which may or may not be the same as the actual image sizes, depending on their aspect ratios.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 0.1
• unfocusedItemOpacity - type: FLOAT
  • Sets the opacity for the items that are not currently focused.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 50

textlist

A text list for navigating and selecting games or systems.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• single

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Default is 0 0.1
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Default is 1 0.8
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the textlist exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• selectorHeight - type: FLOAT
  • Height of the selector bar. This is expanded downwards so you'll probably want to adjust its position using selectorOffsetY if making use of this property.
  • Default is 1.5 times the value defined by fontSize
• selectorOffsetY - type: FLOAT
  • Allows moving of the selector bar up or down from its calculated position. Useful for fine tuning the position of the selector bar relative to the text.
  • Default is 0
• selectorColor - type: COLOR
  • Color of the selector bar.
  • Default is 333333FF
• selectorColorEnd - type: COLOR
  • Setting this to something other than what is defined for selectorColor creates a color gradient.
  • Default is 333333FF
• selectorGradientType - type: STRING
  • The direction to apply the color gradient if both selectorColor and selectorColorEnd have been defined.
  • Valid values are horizontal or vertical
  • Default is horizontal
• selectorImagePath - type: PATH
  • Path to image to render in place of the selector bar.
• selectorImageTile - type: BOOLEAN
  • If true, the selector image will be tiled instead of stretched to fit its size.
  • Default is false
• primaryColor - type: COLOR
  • Color of the primary entry type. For the gamelist view this means file entries and for the system view it means system entries.
  • Default is 0000FFFF
• secondaryColor - type: COLOR
  • Color of the secondary entry type. For the gamelist view this means folder entries and for the system view this property is not used.
  • Default is 00FF00FF
• selectedColor - type: COLOR
  • Color of the highlighted entry of the primary entry type.
  • Default is the same value as primaryColor
• selectedSecondaryColor - type: COLOR
  • Color of the highlighted entry of the secondary entry type.
  • Default is the same value as selectedColor
• fontPath - type: PATH
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • Size of the font as a percentage of screen height (e.g. for a value of 0.1, the text's height would be 10% of the screen height). This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area.
  • Default is 0.045
• horizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the X axis.
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is left
• horizontalMargin - type: FLOAT
  • Horizontal offset for text from the alignment point. If horizontalAlignment is "left", offsets the text to the right. If horizontalAlignment is "right", offsets text to the left. No effect if horizontalAlignment is "center". Given as a percentage of the element's parent's width (same unit as size's X value).
  • Default is 0
• letterCase - type: STRING
  • Sets the letter case for all entries.
  • Valid values are none, uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
  • Default is none (original letter case is retained)
• letterCaseCollections - type: STRING
  • For technical reasons both automatic collections and custom collections have their names spelled in lowercase characters. This property which can only be used in the system view will make it possible to change the letter case for all such collections. This is only needed when letterCase is omitted or has been set to none as that property will otherwise apply also to all collections.
  • Valid values are uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
• letterCaseGroupedCollections - type: STRING
  • For technical reasons custom collections have their names spelled in lowercase characters. This property which can only be used in the gamelist view will make it possible to change the letter case for all such grouped collections. This is only needed when letterCase is omitted or has been set to none as that property will otherwise apply also to all grouped collections.
  • Valid values are uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
• lineSpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the space between lines. This works a bit different for the textlist element compared to all other elements. In all other instances the line spacing is calculated in relation to the rasterized reference 'S' character. This will however not work for the textlist as there are no guarantees which sizes the rasterized characters may end up as. The nature of font rendering is simply not that static with glyphs being able to have any shape and size and linting/grid alignment being applied during font rasterization. Using the rasterized glyph size would be too imprecise and the spacing would be inconsistent across different display resolutions, possibly leading to a different number of textlist rows. Therefore this specific lineSpacing property is based on the defined font size regardless of what's actually being rasterized. This may seem confusing as some fonts greatly exceed the requested size, but if you simply adjust the spacing until the textlist looks correct it will look almost identical regardless of what display resolution is used.
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1.5
• indicators - type: STRING
  • Controls the style of the indicators which get displayed when an entry is a favorite, a folder or a folderlink. If set to none it's strongly recommended to enable the corresponding badges as it would otherwise be very confusing for the user as there would be no way to discern this important information about each entry. The symbols value uses Font Awesome graphics to prefix the game name and ascii uses plain ASCII characters instead, as provided by the selected font. The latter sometimes looks better on "lo-fi" themes using pixelated fonts and similar. When using ASCII characters, favorites are marked as * folders as # and folderlinks as >
  • Valid values are none, ascii and symbols
  • Default is symbols
• collectionIndicators - type: STRING
  • Controls the style of the indicators which get displayed when editing a custom collection. This property can't be disabled as it's crucial for getting a visual overview when editing collections. When set to ascii, the indicator is displayed as a !
  • Valid values are ascii and symbols
  • Default is symbols
• fadeAbovePrimary - type: BOOLEAN
  • When using fade transitions, all elements in the system view with a zIndex value higher than the textlist are by default still rendered during transitions. If this property is enabled then all such elements will instead be faded out. Note that elements below the textlist will be dimmed to black and elements above the textlist will be faded to transparent.
  • Default is false
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 50

Secondary elements

Elements from this group can occur an unlimited number of times and they take care of displaying the bulk of the theme configuration such as text, images, videos, animations etc.

image

Displays a raster image or a scalable vector graphics (SVG) image.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • If only one axis is specified (and the other is zero), then the other axis will be automatically calculated in accordance with the image's aspect ratio. Setting both axes to 0 is an error and the size will be clamped to 0.001 0.001 in this case.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.001 and maximum value per axis is 3. If specifying a value outside the allowed range then no attempt will be made to preserve the aspect ratio.
• maxSize - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The image will be resized as large as possible so that it fits within this size while maintaining its aspect ratio. Use this instead of size when you don't know what kind of image you're using so it doesn't get grossly oversized on one axis (e.g. with a game's image metadata). Although this property is possible to combine with the tile property that does not make a whole lot of sense, instead use the size property for tiled images.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.001 and maximum value per axis is 3
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the image should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the image will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5
• path - type: PATH
  • Explicit path to an image file. Most common extensions are supported (including .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif). If imageType is also defined then this will take precedence as these two properties are not intended to be used together. If you need a fallback image in case of missing game media, use the default property instead.
• default - type: PATH
  • Path to a default image file. The default image will be displayed when the selected game does not have an image of the type defined by the imageType property (i.e. this default property does nothing unless a valid imageType property has been set). It's also applied to any custom collection that does not contain any games when browsing the grouped custom collections system.
• imageType - type: STRING
  • This displays a game image of a certain media type. Multiple types can be defined, in which case the entries should be delimited by commas or by whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks). The media will be searched for in the order that the entries have been defined. If no image is found, then the space will be left blank unless the default property has been set. To use this property from the system view, you will first need to add a gameselector element. Defining duplicate values is considered an error and will result in the property getting ignored.
  • Valid values:
  • image - This will look for a miximage, and if that is not found screenshot is tried next, then titlescreen and finally cover. This is just a convenient shortcut and it's equivalent to explicitly defining miximage, screenshot, titlescreen, cover
  • miximage - This will look for a miximage.
  • marquee - This will look for a marquee (wheel) image.
  • screenshot - This will look for a screenshot image.
  • titlescreen - This will look for a title screen image.
  • cover - This will look for a box front cover image.
  • backcover - This will look for a box back cover image.
  • 3dbox - This will look for a 3D box image.
  • physicalmedia - This will look for a physical media image.
  • fanart - This will look for a fan art image.
• metadataElement - type: BOOLEAN
  • By default game metadata and media are faded out during gamelist fast-scrolling and text metadata fields, ratings and badges are hidden when enabling the Hide metadata fields setting for a game entry. Using this property it's possible to explicitly define additional image elements that should be treated as if they were game media files. This is for example useful for hiding and fading out image elements that are used as indicator icons for the various metadata types like genre, publisher, players etc. It's however not possible to do the opposite, i.e. to disable this functionality for the default game media types as that would break basic application behavior.
  • Default is false
• gameselector - type: STRING
  • If more than one gameselector element has been defined, this property makes it possible to state which one to use. If multiple gameselector elements have been defined and this property is missing then the first entry will be chosen and a warning message will be logged. If only a single gameselector has been defined, this property is ignored. The value of this property must match the name attribute value of the gameselector element. This property is only needed for the system view and only if the imageType property is utilized.
• tile - type: BOOLEAN
  • If true, the image will be tiled instead of stretched to fit its size. Useful for backgrounds.
  • Default is false
• tileSize - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Size of the individual images making up the tile as opposed to the overall size for the element which is defined by the size property. If only one axis is specified (and the other is zero), then the other axis will be automatically calculated in accordance with the image's aspect ratio. Setting both axes to 0 is an error and tiling will be disabled in this case. If this property is omitted, then the size will be set to the actual image dimensions. For SVG images this means whatever canvas size has been defined inside the file.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1.
• tileHorizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • If the images making up the tiled texture do not match precisely with the edges of the overall element, then this property can be used to define the alignment on the horizontal axis.
  • Valid values are left or right
  • Default is left
• tileVerticalAlignment - type: STRING
  • If the images making up the tiled texture do not match precisely with the edges of the overall element, then this property can be used to define the alignment on the vertical axis.
  • Valid values are top or bottom
  • Default is bottom
• interpolation - type: STRING
  • Interpolation method to use when scaling. Nearest neighbor (nearest) preserves sharp pixels and linear filtering (linear) makes the image smoother. This property has limited effect on scalable vector graphics (SVG) images unless rotation is applied.
  • Valid values are nearest or linear
  • Default is nearest
• color - type: COLOR
  • Multiply each pixel's color by this color. For example, an all-white image with <color>FF0000</color> would become completely red. You can also control the transparency of an image with <color>FFFFFFAA</color> - keeping all the pixels their normal color and only affecting the alpha channel.
• colorEnd - type: COLOR
  • Works exactly in the same way as color but can be set as the end color to apply a color shift gradient to the image.
• gradientType - type: STRING
  • The direction to apply the color shift gradient if both color and colorEnd have been defined.
  • Valid values are horizontal or vertical
  • Default is horizontal
• scrollFadeIn - type: BOOLEAN
  • If enabled, a short fade-in animation will be applied when scrolling through games in the gamelist view. This usually looks best if used for the main game image.
  • Default is false
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• saturation - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of color saturation.
  • Minimum value is 0 (grayscale) and maximum value is 1 (original file saturation).
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 30

video

Plays a video and provides support for displaying a static image for a defined time period before starting the video player. Although an unlimited number of videos could in theory be defined per view it's recommended to keep it at a single instance as playing videos takes a lot of CPU resources. But if still going for multiple videos, make sure to use the audio property to disable audio on all but one video as ES-DE currently has no audio mixing capabilities so the sound would not play correctly. To use videos in the system view, you either need to set a static video using the path property, or you need to create a gameselector element so game videos can be used.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited (but recommended to keep at a single instance)

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • If only one axis is specified (and the other is zero), then the other will be automatically calculated in accordance with the static image's aspect ratio and the video's aspect ratio. Setting both axes to 0 is an error and the size will be clamped to 0.01 0.01 in this case.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.01 and maximum value per axis is 2. If specifying a value outside the allowed range then no attempt will be made to preserve the aspect ratio.
• maxSize - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The static image and video will be resized as large as possible so that they fit within this size while maintaining their aspect ratios. Use this instead of size when you don't know what kind of video you're using so it doesn't get grossly oversized on one axis (e.g. with a game's video metadata).
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.01 and maximum value per axis is 2
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• path - type: PATH
  • Path to a video file. Setting a value for this property will make the video static, i.e. any imageType, gameselector and default properties will be ignored.
• default - type: PATH
  • Path to a default video file. The default video will be played when the selected game does not have a video. This property is also applied to any custom collection that does not contain any games when browsing the grouped custom collections system.
• defaultImage - type: PATH
  • Path to a default image file. The default image will be displayed when the selected game does not have an image of the type defined by the imageType property (i.e. this default property does nothing unless a imageType property has been set). It's also applied to any custom collection that does not contain any games when browsing the grouped custom collections system.
• imageType - type: STRING
  • This displays a game image of a certain media type. Multiple types can be defined, in which case the entries should be delimited by commas or by whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks). The media will be searched for in the order that the entries have been defined. If no image is found, then the space will be left blank unless the default property has been set. To use this property from the system view, you will first need to add a gameselector element. If delay is set to zero, then this property is ignored. Defining duplicate values is considered an error and will also result in the property getting ignored.
  • Valid values:
  • image - This will look for a miximage, and if that is not found screenshot is tried next, then titlescreen and finally cover. This is just a convenient shortcut and it's equivalent to explicitly defining miximage, screenshot, titlescreen, cover
  • miximage - This will look for a miximage.
  • marquee - This will look for a marquee (wheel) image.
  • screenshot - This will look for a screenshot image.
  • titlescreen - This will look for a title screen image.
  • cover - This will look for a box front cover image.
  • backcover - This will look for a box back cover image.
  • 3dbox - This will look for a 3D box image.
  • physicalmedia - This will look for a physical media image.
  • fanart - This will look for a fan art image.
• metadataElement - type: BOOLEAN
  • By default game metadata and media are faded out during gamelist fast-scrolling and text metadata fields, ratings and badges are hidden when enabling the Hide metadata fields setting for a game entry. Using this property it's possible to explicitly define static video elements that should be treated as if they were game media files. This property is ignored if path is not set.
  • Default is false
• gameselector - type: STRING
  • If more than one gameselector element has been defined, this property makes it possible to state which one to use. If multiple gameselector elements have been defined and this property is missing then the first entry will be chosen and a warning message will be logged. If only a single gameselector has been defined, this property is ignored. The value of this property must match the name attribute value of the gameselector element.
• audio - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether to enable or disable audio playback for the video. For static videos in the gamelist view it's strongly recommended to set this to false if there is also a separate video element playing game videos.
  • Default is true
• interpolation - type: STRING
  • Interpolation method to use when scaling raster images. Nearest neighbor (nearest) preserves sharp pixels and linear filtering (linear) makes the image smoother. Note that this property only affects the static image, not the video scaling. This property also has no effect on scalable vector graphics (SVG) images.
  • Valid values are nearest or linear
  • Default is nearest
• pillarboxes - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether to render black pillarboxes (and to a lesses extent letterboxes) for videos with aspect ratios where this is applicable. This is for instance useful for arcade game videos in vertical orientation.
  • Default is true
• pillarboxThreshold - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Normally it doesn't look very good to add really narrow pillarboxes or letterboxes, so by default they are skipped if the actual video size is not reaching a threshold value as compared to the overall defined video area size. By modifying this property it's possible to control that threshold, as for some theme designs it will look better with the consistency of always rendering the pillarboxes/letterboxes even if they are narrow. To clarify, the default X axis value of 0.85 means that if the video width is 85% or less as compared to the X axis defined by the size property, then pillarboxes will be rendered. So setting the pillarboxThreshold value to 1 1 will always apply pillarboxes/letterboxes regardless of the video file dimension.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.2 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.85 0.90
• scanlines - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether to use a shader to render scanlines.
  • Default is false
• delay - type: FLOAT
  • Delay in seconds before video will start playing. During the delay period the game image defined via the imageType property will be displayed. If that property is not set, then the delay property will be ignored.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 15
  • Default is 1.5
• fadeInTime - type: FLOAT
  • Time in seconds to fade in the video from pure black. This is completely unrelated to the scrollFadeIn property. Note that if this is set to zero it may seem as if the property doesn't work correctly as many ScreenScraper videos have a fade-in baked into the actual video stream. Setting this property to lower than 0.3 seconds or so is generally a bad idea for videos that don't have a fade-in baked in as transitions from the static image will then look like a bad jump cut.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 8
  • Default is 1
• scrollFadeIn - type: BOOLEAN
  • If enabled, a short fade-in animation will be applied when scrolling through games in the gamelist view. This animation is only applied to images and not to actual videos, so if no image metadata has been defined then this property has no effect. For this to work correctly the delay property also needs to be set.
  • Default is false
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• saturation - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of color saturation. This affects both the static image and the video stream.
  • Minimum value is 0 (grayscale) and maximum value is 1 (original file saturation).
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 30

animation

GIF and Lottie (vector graphics) animations. The type of animation is automatically selected based on the file extension with .gif for GIF animations and .json for Lottie animations. Note that Lottie animations take a lot of memory and CPU resources if scaled up to large sizes so it's adviced to not add too many of them to the same view and to not make them too large. GIF animations on the other hand are not as demanding except if they're really long and/or high-resolution.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • If only one axis is specified (and the other is zero), the other will be automatically calculated in accordance with the animation's aspect ratio. Note that this is sometimes not entirely accurate as some animations contain invalid size information.
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the animation should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the animation will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5
• metadataElement - type: BOOLEAN
  • By default game metadata and media are faded out during gamelist fast-scrolling and text metadata fields, ratings and badges are hidden when enabling the Hide metadata fields setting for a game entry. Using this property it's possible to explicitly define animation elements that should be treated as if they were game media files. This is for example useful for hiding and fading out animations that are used as indicators for the various metadata types like genre, publisher, players etc.
  • Default is false
• path - type: PATH
  • Path to the animation file. Only the .json extension is supported.
• speed - type: FLOAT.
  • The relative speed at which to play the animation.
  • Minimum value is 0.2 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1
• direction - type: STRING
  • The direction that the animation should be played. Valid values are normal (forwards), reverse (backwards), alternate (bouncing forwards/backwards) and alternateReverse (bouncing backwards/forwards, i.e. starting with playing backwards).
  • Default is normal
• keepAspectRatio - type: BOOLEAN.
  • If true, aspect ratio will be preserved. If false, animation will stretch to the defined size. Note that setting to false is incompatible with only defining one of the axes for the size element.
  • Default is true
• interpolation - type: STRING
  • Interpolation method to use when scaling GIF animations. Nearest neighbor (nearest) preserves sharp pixels and linear filtering (linear) makes the image smoother. This property has no effect on Lottie animations.
  • Valid values are nearest or linear
  • Default is nearest
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• saturation - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of color saturation.
  • Minimum value is 0 (grayscale) and maximum value is 1 (original file saturation).
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 35

badges

Displays graphical symbols representing a number of metadata fields for the currently selected game. It's strongly recommended to use the same image dimensions for all badges as varying aspect ratios will lead to alignment issues. For the controller images it's recommended to keep to the square canvas size used by the default bundled graphics as otherwise sizing and placement will be inconsistent (unless all controller graphic files are customized of course).

Supported views:

• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Possible combinations:
  • w h - Dimensions of the badges container. The badges will be scaled to fit within these dimensions.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.03 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.15 0.20
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the badges should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the image will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5.
• horizontalAlignment - type: STRING.
  • Valid values are left or right
• direction - type: STRING
  • Valid values are "row" or "column". Controls the primary layout direction (line axis) for the badges. Lines will fill up in the specified direction.
  • Default is row
• lines - type: UNSIGNED_INTEGER
  • The number of lines available.
  • Default is 3
• itemsPerLine - type: UNSIGNED_INTEGER
  • Number of badges that fit on a line. When more badges are available a new line will be started.
  • Default is 4
• itemMargin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The horizontal and vertical margins between badges - x y
  • If one of the axis is set to -1 the margin of the other axis (in pixels) will be used, which makes it possible to get identical spacing between all items regardless of screen aspect ratio.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 0.2
  • Default is 0.01 0.01.
• slots - type: STRING
  • The badge types that should be displayed. Specified as a list of strings delimited by commas or by whitespace characters (tabs, spaces or line breaks). The order in which they are defined will be followed when placing badges on screen. Available badges are:
  • collection - Will be shown when editing a custom collection and the current entry is part of that collection.
  • folder - Will be shown when the current entry is a folder. If a folder link has been setup, then a configurable link icon will overlay this badge.
  • favorite - Will be shown when the game is marked as favorite.
  • completed - Will be shown when the game is marked as completed.
  • kidgame - Will be shown when the game is marked as a kids game.
  • broken - Will be shown when the game is marked as broken.
  • controller - Will be shown and overlaid by the corresponding controller icon if a controller type has been selected for the game (using the metadata editor or via scraping).
  • altemulator - Will be shown when an alternative emulator is setup for the game.
  • all - Including this value will enable all badges. If some badges have been added already they will be shown in the order they were defined and the remaining ones will be added at the end, in the order listed above. Using the all value can be used as a way to future-proof the theme, because if additional badges are added in future ES-DE releases, no theme updates would be needed to accomodate them. Just make sure to include space for a few extra badges in the layout, and increase the lines and itemsPerLine accordingly.
• controllerPos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The position of the controller icon relative to the parent controller badge.
  • Minimum value per axis is -1 and maximum value per axis is 2
  • Default is 0.5 0.5 which centers the controller icon on the badge.
• controllerSize - type: FLOAT
  • The size of the controller icon relative to the parent controller badge.
  • Setting the value to 1 sizes the icon to the same width as the parent badge. The image aspect ratio is always maintained.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 2
  • Default is 0.5
• customBadgeIcon - type: PATH
  • A badge icon override. Specify the badge type in the attribute badge. The available badges are the ones listed above.
• customControllerIcon - type: PATH
  • A controller icon override. Specify the controller type in the attribute controller.
  • These are the available types:
  • gamepad_generic, gamepad_nintendo_nes, gamepad_nintendo_snes, gamepad_nintendo_64, gamepad_playstation, gamepad_sega_md_3_buttons, gamepad_sega_md_6_buttons, gamepad_xbox, joystick_generic, joystick_arcade_no_buttons, joystick_arcade_1_button, joystick_arcade_2_buttons, joystick_arcade_3_buttons, joystick_arcade_4_buttons, joystick_arcade_5_buttons, joystick_arcade_6_buttons, keyboard_generic, keyboard_and_mouse_generic, mouse_generic, mouse_amiga, lightgun_generic, lightgun_nintendo, steering_wheel_generic, flight_stick_generic, spinner_generic, trackball_generic, wii_remote_nintendo, wii_remote_and_nunchuk_nintendo, joycon_left_or_right_nintendo, joycon_pair_nintendo, xbox_kinect, unknown
• folderLinkPos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • The position of the folder link icon relative to the parent folder badge.
  • Minimum value per axis is -1 and maximum value per axis is 2
  • Default is 0.5 0.5 which centers the folder link icon on the badge.
• folderLinkSize - type: FLOAT
  • The size of the folder link icon relative to the parent folder badge.
  • Setting the value to 1 sizes the icon to the same width as the parent badge. The image aspect ratio is always maintained.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 0.5
• customFolderLinkIcon - type: PATH
  • Folder link icon override.
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 35

text

Displays text. This can be literal strings or values based on game metadata or system variables, as described below. For the gamelist view it's also possible to place the text inside a scrollable container which is for example useful for longer texts like the game descriptions.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Possible combinations:
  • 0 0 - automatically size so text fits on one line (expanding horizontally).
  • w 0 - automatically wrap text so it doesn't go beyond w (expanding vertically).
  • w h - works like a "text box". If h is non-zero and h <= fontSize (implying it should be a single line of text), text that goes beyond w will be truncated with an elipses (...).
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the text should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise. Rotation is not possible if the container property has been set to true.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the text will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5
• text - type: STRING
  • A string literal to display.
• systemdata - type: STRING
  • This translates to some system data including values defined in es_systems.xml as well as some statistics. This property can only be used in the system view and you can only define a single value per element.
  • Valid values:
  • name - Short system name as defined in es_systems.xml.
  • fullname - Full system name as defined in es_systems.xml.
  • gamecount - Number of games available for the system. Number of favorites are printed inside brackets if applicable.
  • gamecount_games - Number of games available for the system. Does not print the favorites count.
  • gamecount_favorites - Number of favorite games for the system, may be blank if favorites are not applicable.
• metadata - type: STRING
  • This translates to the metadata values that are available for the game. To use this property from the system view, you will first need to add a gameselector element. You can only define a single metadata value per text element.
  • Valid values:
  • name - Game name.
  • description - Game description. Should be combined with the container property in most cases.
  • rating - The numerical representation of the game rating, for example 3 or 4.5.
  • developer - Developer.
  • publisher - Publisher.
  • genre - Genre.
  • players - The number of players.
  • favorite - Whether the game is a favorite. Will be printed as either yes or no.
  • completed - Whether the game has been completed. Will be printed as either yes or no.
  • kidgame - Whether the game is suitable for children. Will be printed as either yes or no.
  • broken - Whether the game is broken/not working. Will be printed as either yes or no.
  • playcount - How many times the game has been played.
  • controller - The controller for the game. Will be blank if none has been selected.
  • altemulator - The alternative emulator for the game. Will be blank if none has been selected.
• metadataElement - type: BOOLEAN
  • By default game metadata and media are faded out during gamelist fast-scrolling and text metadata fields, ratings and badges are hidden when enabling the Hide metadata fields setting for a game entry. Using this property it's possible to explicitly define additional text elements that should be treated as if they were game metadata entries. This is for example useful for hiding and fading out text labels for the various metadata types like genre, publisher, players etc. Note that it's not possible to disable the metadata hiding functionality for the default metadata fields as that would break basic application behavior. Also note that there is a slight exception to the hiding logic for text containers with the metadata value set to description. In this case the element is by default not hidden when enabling the Hide metadata fields setting. To also hide such containers, set this property to true.
  • Default is false
• gameselector - type: STRING
  • If more than one gameselector element has been defined, this property makes it possible to state which one to use. If multiple gameselector elements have been defined and this property is missing then the first entry will be chosen and a warning message will be logged. If only a single gameselector has been defined, this property is ignored. The value of this property must match the name attribute value of the gameselector element. This property is only needed for the system view and only if the metadata property is utilized.
• container - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether the text should be placed inside a scrollable container. Only available for the gamelist view.
  • Default is false
• containerVerticalSnap - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether the text should be vertically snapped to the font height. With this property enabled the container will have its height reduced as needed so that only complete rows of text are displayed at the start and end positions. This will not affect the "real" size of the container as set by the size property which means that the overall element placement will still be predictable if a vertical origin other than zero is used.
  • Default is true
• containerScrollSpeed - type: FLOAT
  • A base speed is automatically calculated based on the container and font sizes, so this property applies relative to the auto-calculated value.
  • Minimum value is 0.1 and maximum value is 10
  • Default is 1
• containerStartDelay - type: FLOAT
  • Delay in seconds before scrolling starts. Note that the text fade-in animation that plays when resetting from the end position will cause a slight delay even if this property is set to zero.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 10
  • Default is 4.5
• containerResetDelay - type: FLOAT
  • Delay in seconds before resetting to the start position after reaching the scrolling end position.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 20
  • Default is 7
• fontPath - type: PATH
  • Path to a TrueType font (.ttf).
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • Size of the font as a percentage of screen height (e.g. for a value of 0.1, the text's height would be 10% of the screen height). This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area.
  • Minimum value is 0.001 and maximum value is 1.5. Note that when running at a really low resolution, the minimum value may get clamped to a larger relative size. The font is allowed to overflow the height of the element by 100%, i.e. fontSize can be set to twice that of the y axis of the size property. Any value above that will be clamped.
  • Default is 0.045
• horizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the X axis.
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is left
• verticalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the Y axis.
  • Valid values are top, center or bottom
  • Default is center
• color - type: COLOR
• backgroundColor - type: COLOR
• letterCase - type: STRING
  • Valid values are none, uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
  • Default is none (original letter case is retained)
• lineSpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the space between lines (as a multiple of the font height). Due to the imprecise nature of typefaces where certain glyphs (characters) may exceed the requested font size, it's recommended to keep this value at around 1.1 or higher for multi-line text fields. This way overlapping glyphs or characters being cut off at the top or bottom will be prevented.
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1.5
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 40

datetime

Displays a date and time as a text string. The format is ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) by default, but this can be changed using the format property. The text unknown will be shown by default if there is no time stamp available. If the property displayRelative has been set, the text will be shown as never in case of no time stamp.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Possible combinations:
  • 0 0 - automatically size so text fits on one line (expanding horizontally).
  • w 0 - automatically wrap text so it doesn't go beyond w (expanding vertically).
  • w h - works like a "text box". If h is non-zero and h <= fontSize (implying it should be a single line of text), text that goes beyond w will be truncated with an elipses (...).
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the text should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the text will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5.
• metadata - type: STRING
  • This displays the metadata values that are available for the game. If an invalid metadata field is defined, the text "unknown" will be printed. To use this property from the system view, you will first need to add a gameselector element. You can only define a single metadata value per datetime element.
  • Valid values:
  • releasedate - The release date of the game.
  • lastplayed - The time the game was last played. This will be displayed as a value relative to the current date and time by default, but can be overridden using the displayRelative property.
• gameselector - type: STRING
  • If more than one gameselector element has been defined, this property makes it possible to state which one to use. If multiple gameselector elements have been defined and this property is missing then the first entry will be chosen and a warning message will be logged. If only a single gameselector has been defined, this property is ignored. The value of this property must match the name attribute value of the gameselector element. This property is only needed for the system view and only if the metadata property is utilized.
• fontPath - type: PATH
  • Path to a TrueType font (.ttf).
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • Size of the font as a percentage of screen height (e.g. for a value of 0.1, the text's height would be 10% of the screen height). This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area.
  • Minimum value is 0.001 and maximum value is 1.5. Note that when running at a really low resolution, the minimum value may get clamped to a larger relative size. The font is allowed to overflow the height of the element by 100%, i.e. fontSize can be set to twice that of the y axis of the size property. Any value above that will be clamped.
  • Default is 0.045
• horizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the X axis.
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is left
• verticalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the Y axis.
  • Valid values are top, center or bottom
  • Default is center
• color - type: COLOR
• backgroundColor - type: COLOR
• letterCase - type: STRING
  • Valid values are none, uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
  • Default is none (original letter case is retained)
• lineSpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the space between lines (as a multiple of font height).
  • Minimum value is 0.5 and maximum value is 3
  • Default is 1.5
• format - type: STRING
  • Specifies the date and time format. Has no effect if displayRelative has been set to true.
  • %Y: The year, including the century (1900)
  • %m: The month number [01,12]
  • %d: The day of the month [01,31]
  • %H: The hour (24-hour clock) [00,23]
  • %M: The minute [00,59]
  • %S: The second [00,59]
• displayRelative - type: BOOLEAN.
  • Renders the datetime as a relative string (e.g. 'x days ago').
  • Default is false
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 40

gamelistinfo

Displays the game count (all games as well as favorites), any applied filters, and a folder icon if a folder has been entered. If this text is left aligned or center aligned, the folder icon will be placed to the right of the other information, and if it's right aligned, the folder icon will be placed to the left.

Supported views:

• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Possible combinations:
  • 0 0 - automatically size so text fits on one line (expanding horizontally).
  • w 0 - automatically wrap text so it doesn't go beyond w (expanding vertically).
  • w h - works like a "text box". If h is non-zero and h <= fontSize (implying it should be a single line of text), text that goes beyond w will be truncated with an elipses (...).
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the text should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the element will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5
• fontPath - type: PATH
  • Path to a TrueType font (.ttf).
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • Size of the font as a percentage of screen height (e.g. for a value of 0.1, the text's height would be 10% of the screen height). This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area.
  • Minimum value is 0.001 and maximum value is 1.5. Note that when running at a really low resolution, the minimum value may get clamped to a larger relative size. The font is allowed to overflow the height of the element by 100%, i.e. fontSize can be set to twice that of the y axis of the size property. Any value above that will be clamped.
  • Default is 0.045
• horizontalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the X axis.
  • Valid values are left, center or right
  • Default is left
• verticalAlignment - type: STRING
  • Controls alignment on the Y axis.
  • Valid values are top, center or bottom
  • Default is center
• color - type: COLOR
• backgroundColor - type: COLOR
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 45

rating

Displays a graphical representation of the game rating, from 0 to 5.

To display game ratings in the system view, you first need to create a gameselector element.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
• size - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • These values are mutually exclusive, if an X axis value is defined then the element will be sized based on this, and if an Y axis value is defined then the element will be sized based on that. If both the X and Y axis values are defined then the Y axis value will take precedence and the X axis value will be ignored. This makes sure that the image aspect ratio is always maintained.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0.01 and maximum value for the X axis is 1 and maximum value for the Y axis is 0.5
  • Default is 0 0.06
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen. If the position and size attributes are themeable, origin is implied.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• rotation - type: FLOAT
  • Angle in degrees that the rating should be rotated. Positive values will rotate clockwise, negative values will rotate counterclockwise.
  • Default is 0
• rotationOrigin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Point around which the rating will be rotated.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0.5 0.5
• gameselector - type: STRING
  • If more than one gameselector element has been defined, this property makes it possible to state which one to use. If multiple gameselector elements have been defined and this property is missing then the first entry will be chosen and a warning message will be logged. If only a single gameselector has been defined, this property is ignored. The value of this property must match the name attribute value of the gameselector element. This property is only needed for the system view.
• interpolation - type: STRING
  • Interpolation method to use when scaling the images. Nearest neighbor (nearest) preserves sharp pixels and linear filtering (linear) makes the image smoother. The effect of this property is primarily visible for raster graphic images, but it has a limited effect also when using scalable vector graphics (SVG) images, and even more so if rotation is applied.
  • Valid values are nearest or linear
  • Default is nearest
• color - type: COLOR
  • Multiply each pixel's color by this color. For example, an all-white image with <color>FF0000</color> would become completely red. You can also control the transparency of an image with <color>FFFFFFAA</color> - keeping all the pixels their normal color and only affecting the alpha channel.
  • Default is FFFFFFFF
• filledPath - type: PATH
  • Path to the "filled" rating image. Any aspect ratio is supported. Note that there is no explicit padding property, so to add spaces between each icon simply make the image content smaller on the canvas. The images should always be centered on the canvas or otherwise the filledPath and unfilledPath textures will not align properly for all rating values. Most common file extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif).
• unfilledPath - type: PATH
  • Path to the "unfilled" rating image. Any aspect ratio is supported. Note that there is no explicit padding property, so to add spaces between each icon simply make the image content smaller on the canvas. The images should always be centered on the canvas or otherwise the filledPath and unfilledPath textures will not align properly for all rating values. Most common file extensions are supported (including .svg, .jpg, .png, and unanimated .gif).
• overlay - type: BOOLEAN
  • Whether to overlay the filledPath image on top of the unfilledPath image. If this property is set to false, then the unfilledPath image will only be rendered to the right of the rating value cut position. This property is useful for avoiding image aliasing artifacts that could otherwise occur when combining some rating images. It can also help with avoiding some inconsistent fade-out animations.
  • Default is true
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency. If set to 0 the element will be disabled.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• visible - type: BOOLEAN
  • If set to false, the element will be disabled. This is equivalent to setting opacity to 0
  • Default is true
• zIndex - type: FLOAT
  • z-index value for element. Elements will be rendered in order of zIndex value from low to high.
  • Default is 45

Special elements

Elements from this group provide special functionality not covered by the primary and secondary elements.

gameselector

Selects games from the gamelists when navigating the system view. This makes it possible to display game media and game metadata directly from this view. It's possible to make separate gameselector configurations per game system, so that for instance a random game could be displayed for one system and the most recently played game could be displayed for another system. It's also possible to define multiple gameselector elements with different selection criterias per game system which makes it possible to for example set a random fan art background image and at the same time display a box cover image of the most recently played game. The gameselector logic can be used for the image, video, text, datetime and rating elements.

Supported views:

• system

Instances per view:

• unlimited

Properties:

• selection - type: STRING
  • This defines the game selection criteria. If set to random, the games are refreshed every time the view is navigated. For the other two values the refresh takes place on gamelist reload, i.e. when launching a game, adding a game as favorite, making changes via the metadata editor and so on.
  • Valid values are random, lastplayed or mostplayed
  • Default is random
• gameCount - type: UNSIGNED_INTEGER
  • How many games to select. This property is only intended for future use.
  • Minimum value is 1 and maximum value is 30
  • Default is 1

helpsystem

The helpsystem is a special element that displays a context-sensitive list of actions the user can take at any time. You should try and keep the position constant throughout every screen. Note that this element does not have a zIndex value, instead it's always rendered on top of all other elements.

It's possible to set this element as right-aligned or center-aligned using a combination of the pos and origin properties. For example <pos>1 1</pos> and <origin>1 1</origin> will place it in the lower right corner of the screen.

Supported views:

• system
• gamelist

Instances per view:

• single

Properties:

• pos - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Default is 0.012 0.9515
• origin - type: NORMALIZED_PAIR
  • Where on the element pos refers to. For example, an origin of 0.5 0.5 and a pos of 0.5 0.5 would place the element exactly in the middle of the screen.
  • Minimum value per axis is 0 and maximum value per axis is 1
  • Default is 0 0
• textColor - type: COLOR
  • Default is 777777FF
• textColorDimmed - type: COLOR
  • Text color to use when the background is dimmed (when a menu is open).
  • Default is the same value as textColor.
• iconColor - type: COLOR
  • Default is 777777FF
• iconColorDimmed - type: COLOR
  • Icon color to use when the background is dimmed (when a menu is open).
  • Default is the same value as iconColor.
• fontPath - type: PATH
• fontSize - type: FLOAT
  • This property implicitly sets the icon size and is therefore the means to change the overall size of the helpsystem element. This calculation is based on the reference 'S' character so other glyphs may not fill this area, or they may exceed this area.
  • Minimum value is 0.001 and maximum value is 1.5. Note that when running at a really low resolution, the minimum value may get clamped to a larger relative size.
  • Default is 0.035
• entrySpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Spacing between the help element pairs.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 0.04
  • Default is 0.00833
• iconTextSpacing - type: FLOAT
  • Spacing between the icon and text within a help element pair.
  • Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 0.04
  • Default is 0.00416
• letterCase - type: STRING
  • Valid values are uppercase, lowercase or capitalize
  • Default is uppercase
• opacity - type: FLOAT
  • Controls the level of transparency.
  • Minimum value is 0.2 and maximum value is 1
  • Default is 1
• customButtonIcon - type: PATH
  • A button icon override. Specify the button type in the attribute button.
  • The available buttons are:
    dpad_updown, dpad_leftright, dpad_all, thumbstick_click, button_l, button_r, button_lr, button_lt, button_rt, button_a_SNES, button_b_SNES, button_x_SNES, button_y_SNES, button_back_SNES, button_start_SNES, button_a_PS, button_b_PS, button_x_PS, button_y_PS, button_back_PS4, button_start_PS4, button_back_PS5, button_start_PS5, button_a_XBOX, button_b_XBOX, button_x_XBOX, button_y_XBOX, button_back_XBOX, button_start_XBOX, button_back_XBOX360, button_start_XBOX360