Theme guide¶

OPL main GUI is composed of an ordered list of elements drawn starting from the element at index 0 to the last element (max num). The elements are named “main” followed by their order prefix:

main0
main1
...

The element numbering must be consecutive (i.e no missing number in the middle, or OPL will ignore your last elements).

The minimal layout must have at least a Background, and the ItemsList. If you omit them, they will be added automatically for you with default attributes. The Background must be the lowest element of the list ! If you try to add a Background at some other position, it will be ignored (and a new default Background will be create instead at position 0), so be sure sure to define your own background as first element.

Each elements have the same set of basic attributes, and then some have their own specific attributes. Basic attributes have default values, so you can (but it is not necessarily a good idea) omit to define them in your conf_theme.cfg. Any attributes declared in the conf_theme.cfg override the default.

Attributes¶

Let’s start to describe the basic attributes (refers to the official OPL 0.8 guide for more information):

enabled: Boolean, define if your element is enabled or not. Enabled by default.
type: String value taken from the enumeration of available elements (see below). This attribute is mandatory, if it is not present or invalid (beware it is case sensitive) your element will be completely ignored.
x: Integer, define the X position of your element, default is 0. If you want to dispose your element exactly in the middle of the screen, use the String value of “POS_MID”.
y: Same as above, but for the Y position.
width: Integer, define the width of your element, default is to use the size of the element (image/text) itself. You can force/resize it with this attribute.
height: Same as above but for height.
aligned: Alignment mode, refer to original guide. Default is usually the expected value, so omit it.
color: Color used for element that contains “text”. Default is to use the “text_color” of your theme. String of type “#RRGGBB”. Refers to original guide.
font: Integer. Font used for element that contains “text”. Can either use the theme default, or OPL default (set in the “Display settings”). Read more below.

Elements¶

Now the list of elements:

MenuIcon: Top left menu icon. No specific attributes.
MenuText: Top middle menu description. No specific attributes.
ItemsList: Contains the list of items (games/apps).
Attribute items: Integer, describe how many items you want to display at most. Same as the old theme setting “displayed_items”. Default value is calculated depending of the screen height.
Attribute decorator: String. You put here the pattern attribute of a GameImage element you have define in your conf_theme.cfg and you want to use as decorator for each items. This is to replace the old theme setting “items_list_icons” which was adding by default the Item Icon in front of each item. If no present, there will be no decoration.
ItemIcon: Some alias to provide the old item icon functionality. This element is in fact a GameImage element with some hard-coded attribute values (pattern=ICO, default=disc, cache=20). Read below the GameImage description for specific attributes.
ItemCover: Alias for old item cover functionality. This element is a GameImage element with hard-coded attribute values (pattern=COV, cache=10).
ItemText: Display the current item startup elf. No specific attributes.
HintText: Display the hints at bottom. No specific attributes.
LoadingIcon: Display the busy icon. No specific attributes.
Background: Define the background mode to use. Replace the old theme setting “background_mode”. It is a “mutable” element, depending of the attributes you use, it will either be a StaticImage (for mode BG_PICTURE), or a GameImage (for mode BG_ART).
AttributeText: Display a text string, corresponding of the specific value of the attribute for the current game. Can only be used in the information page.
Attribute attribute: String. The attribute bound to this element. Currently you have these predefined internal attributes: #Media, #Format, #Name, #Startup, #Size.
AttributeImage: Display a picture, whom path is based on the value of the attribute for the current game. Can only be used in the information page.
Attribute attribute: String. The attribute bound to this element. Same as above.
GameImage: An element that display an image depending of the current item selected (using the gamecode as prefix).
Attribute pattern: String. This attribute is mandatory. It describe what suffix to append to the gamecode to find the image. Item icon/cover element above are using the default pattern of “ICO”/“COV” for example. You can add whatever you want (“SCR” for screen shot for example).
Attribute count: Integer. Define how many image OPL will cache for this element. Item icon/cover element use by default 30/10. Default is only 1. Beware with this settings, as if you are using big image for this element and a big cache, OPL will undoubtedly crash in out of memory. Moreover if you use a lot of GameImage elements.
Attribute default: String. Define the name of an optional picture to display when there is no corresponding picture for the current game. Without this attribute, there will be nothing drawn in that case. The picture is search inside your theme sub-folder. The name is without the extension (”.png” and “.jpg” will be tried).
StaticImage: An element that display a static image from your theme subfolder. Could be used as background, to include “frames” or to add any other fixed picture.
Attribute default: String. This attribute is mandatory. Name of your picture (inside your theme sub-folder), without the extension (”.png” and “.jpg” will be tried).

About overlay¶

The three main elements displaying image (GameImage, StaticImage and later AttributeImage) support the use of overlay. Read the original guide to see what it is exactly.

To add an overlay to your element, you just have to add these specific attributes:

overlay: String. The name of the picture to use as overlay, located into your theme sub-folder. The name is without the extension, and only “.png” are accepted.
overlay_ulx, overlay_uly, overlay_urx, overlay_ury, overlay_llx, overlay_lly, overlay_lrx, overlay_lry: Integer, same as before with a little bit renaming (ul=upper left, ur=upper right, ll=lower left, lr=lower right).

About Information page¶

Before running a game, you can display an information page about the game. To define what is displayed, use the same syntax as for the “main menu”, but use the “info” keyword instead:

info0:
        type=Background
info1:
        type=AttributeText
        attribute=#Name
        x=POS_MID
        y=25
...

About background¶

Here some example to help you defining your type of background.

To have the default (old) background displaying Art (BG_ART), using the filename pattern of “SLUSXXX.YY_BG.png/jpg”, and if case of failure using “background.png/jpg”, just … don’t add any Background element to your config theme, OPL will add it automatically.

To have a background displaying Art but using another ART pattern and another default picture, use this:

main0:
        type=Background
        pattern=FANART
        default=mycoolbackground

To have a background displaying only one static picture, use this:

main0:
        type=Background
        default=mycoolbackground

To have the old plasma background, use this:

main0:
        type=Background

To make your background fit both widescreen and standard ratios or even PAL and NTSC:

main0:
    type=Background
    pattern=BG
main1:
    type=StaticImage
    default=mycoolbackground
    aligned=0
    scaled=0
    width=DIM_INF
    height=DIM_INF

About fonts¶

As this feature of Volca is also only present since the beta, it’s the right place and moment to explain how it works.

By default all text elements of the GUI are using the global font setting of OPL. Now when loading a theme, you can override this global font with the theme attribute default_font. Now, this font will be used by your elements. You can even define other multiple fonts, and assign them to specific elements only, using the font attribute of each element.

Here is a snippet showing how to define the fonts of your theme, using the default_font attribute and an ordered list of filenames (this time it’s a full path with extension) relative to your theme sub-folder:

default_font=mymainfont.ttf
font0=fontformenu.ttf
font1=fontforhint.ttf
[...]
main3:
        type=MenuText
        font=0
main4:
        type=HintText
        font=1

Notes¶

When using “StaticImage”, those later are affected by the screen ratio (wide-screen mode or not), which is usually a good thing. But when putting a “frame” layer on top of the background, in this case you would like to have it enlarged exactly like the background.

To achieve this result, you should use a picture of the same resolution as your background (eventually with empty – alpha – region), and force it’s size to “infinite” using the specific values “-1”.

main0_type=Background
main1:
        type=StaticImage
        default=frames
        width=-1
        height=-1

There is no “background_alt_mode” theme setting anymore … and there may be no solution in the future …

When displaying the “info” page for a game, OPL will read this file, and store the “key=value” pair. Then OPL will add automatically a few internal attributes to this config set, which are prefixed by a “#”.

These are:

#Name : Contains the exact same name that is displayed in the standard list view
#Longname : only for APP, display the “long name”, i.e with full path for the application
#Media : contains either “CD” or “DVD”, depending of the game type.
#Format : contains one of “UL” / “ ISO” / “HDL”
#Size : the size in MB of the game
#Startup : the game ID code, as displayed in the standard view

Theme guide¶

Attributes¶

Elements¶

About overlay¶

About Information page¶

About background¶

About fonts¶

Notes¶

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