ES-DE/THEMES.md

Themes

EmulationStation allows each system to have its own "theme." A theme is a collection of resources defined in an XML document.

Themes are loaded like this:

1. Initialize to default values.

2. If $HOME/.emulationstation/es_theme_default.xml exists, load it.

3. If there is a theme.xml present in the root of a system's path directory, load it.

   IF NOT, If $HOME/.emulationstation/%SYSTEMNAME%/theme.xml exists, load it.

Example

<theme>
	<listPrimaryColor>0000FF</listPrimaryColor>
	<listSecondaryColor>00FF00</listSecondaryColor>

	<listFont>
		<path>./../all_themes/font.ttf</path>
		<size>0.045</size>
	</listFont>

	<descriptionFont>
		<path>./../all_themes/font.ttf</path>
		<size>0.035</size>
	</descriptionFont>

	<backgroundImage>
		<path>./theme/background.png</path>
		<tile>true</tile>
	</backgroundImage>

	<headerImage>
		<path>./theme/logo.png</path>
		<tile>false</tile>
	</headerImage>

	<scrollSound>./../all_themes/scrollSound.wav</scrollSound>
</theme>

Themes must be enclosed in a <theme> tag.

All paths automatically expand ./ to the folder containing the theme.xml.

All paths automatically expand ~/ to the home directory ($HOME on Linux, %HOMEPATH% on Windows).

Stuff you can define

Fonts

Fonts are defined like so:

<resourceName>
	<!-- Path is optional. -->
	<path>./some/path/here.ttf</path>
	<!-- Size is a percentage of screen height. Optional. -->
	<size>0.035</size>
</resourceName>

<listFont> - Default size: 0.045.

<descriptionFont> - Default size: 0.035.

<fastSelectLetterFont> - Default size: 0.15.

Colors

Colors are defined in hex, like this:

<resourceName>00FF00FF</resourceName>

or

<resourceName>00FF00</resourceName>

(without the alpha channel specified - will assume FF)

<listPrimaryColor> - Default: 0000FFFF.

<listSecondaryColor> - Default: 00FF00FF.

<listSelectorColor> - Default: 000000FF.

<listSelectedColor> - Default: 00000000.

<descriptionColor> - Default: 48474DFF.

<fastSelectLetterColor> - Default: FFFFFFFF.

<fastSelectTextColor> - Default: DDDDDDFF.

Images

Images are defined like this:

<resourceName>
	<path>./some/path/here.png</path>
	<!-- Can be true or false. -->
	<tile>true</tile>
</resourceName>

Pretty much any image format is supported.

<backgroundImage> - No default.

<headerImage> - No default.

<infoBackgroundImage> - No default.

<verticalDividerImage> - No default.

<fastSelectBackgroundImage> - Nine patch. Default is the "button.png" resource.

Sounds

Sounds are defined like this:

<resourceName>./some/path/here.wav</resourceName>

Only .wav files are supported.

<scrollSound> - No default. Played when a list scrolls.

<gameSelectSound> - No default. Played when a game is launched.

<backSound> - No default. Played when leaving a folder in the game list.

<menuOpenSound> - No default. Played when the menu is opened.

<menuCloseSound> - No default. Played when the menu is closed.

Nine Patches

EmulationStation borrows the concept of "nine patches" from Android (or "9-Slices"). Currently the implementation is very simple and hard-coded to only use 48x48px images (16x16px for each "patch"). Check the data/resources directory for some examples (button.png, frame.png).

-Aloshi http://www.aloshi.com