[Solved] How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

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martingerdes
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[Solved] How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

#1 Post by martingerdes »

Once again, if there is any documentation I have overlooked, please kindly provide me with a link,
I did search on google, but my google-fu is only so-so...

I discovered a feature of the Ren'Py Launcher by accident, and am baffled on how to properly invoke it:

When you make a new Project, you only get to pick accent and Background Colors, and under Actions you can "Change/Update GUI" to update those.
Now my accidental discovery was that I had moved the script files (gui.rpy, options.rpy, script.rpy, ...) into a subfolder.
Suddenly that option changed into "Change Theme" !!
And the options to choose from looked very interesting and varied, so obviously I wanted to try them out. :-)
I quickly figured out that I had to move the files back out of the subfolder to the places Ren'Py expects them at, and that removing "gui.rpy" was responsible for changing the option from "Change/Update GUI" to "Change Theme".
Unfortunately that just gave me the error message "Could not change the theme. Perhaps options.rpy was changed too much."

Ok, so obviously one of the changes I had already made while creating code for my game and moving stuff around broke it, fine.
So I next tried creating a new Testgame from the launcher, and just deleting the file gui.rpy. Result: Same error message! :-(

So, have I just discovered a feature that is broken and just has not been properly removed?
Or am I just trying to use it wrong? If so, is there any documentation out there about how to use it properly?
If it can be used, it would be a very cool way of experimenting with different looks for a game before diving into customizing the look on the script level.
(If it is not broken and I am just invoking it wrong, I am really baffled why you don't get to choose a theme when creating a new project.)

Deeply curious...
Last edited by martingerdes on Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

#2 Post by xavimat »

Renpy added the "gui.rpy" file some versions ago. Before that, it had the theme selector you have seen. The new gui is highly customizable and that's the reason it's not possible to choose the old themes when a new project is created. There was a time when you had to choose between new GUI or legacy GUI. That hidden menu still shows when renpy can't found the "gui.rpy" file on the "game" folder: renpy understands that you are opening a project made with older versions. In that versions, the file options.rpy had information about the theme, so "change theme" actually modifies some lines in older "options.rpy" files.
But in your case, your "options.rpy" file is the new one, it lacks all that theme information (not needed anymore, all of that, more powerful, is now on gui.rpy and the gui folder). So renpy thinks that "you have modified your options.rpy file" so much that can't change theme anymore.
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Re: How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

#3 Post by Donmai »

The old themed GUI option was disabled in Ren'Py 7: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/changelog.html#changes
But if you still want to work with the old theme GUI, create projects with the old themes, etc., that's still possible.
You only need to download an older version of Ren'Py (pre-Ren'Py 7), open the SDK folder, find and copy the 'templates' folder and paste it into your current Ren'Py SDK folder.
Create a new project after doing that, and you should be asked which GUI you want to use.
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Re: How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

#4 Post by martingerdes »

@Donmai: Thanks for the tip. Maybe its useful for others?
But I do want to use the most recent version, with the current best practices.

@xavimat: Thanks a lot for explaining! Another mystery solved. :-)

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Re: [Solved] How do you choose a theme (in the launcher)?

#5 Post by Donmai »

Fine. I'm also using the latest stable Ren'Py version.
For the record, the current Ren'Py Launcher, with all it's "best practices", still uses the old GUI. :)
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