Some thoughts regarding skinning about retrobar HOT 3 OPEN

1. I'm not sure I follow why this change would be an improvement. Setting the visibility of StartLabel to collapsed in the theme removes it completely, and the icon is defined by the theme already. If a theme desires to override the layout in a way that the built-in start template doesn't allow for, the theme can override the template. By moving the content into the theme by default, every theme that wishes to override the button template would need to also define the content, which would be largely redundant.
2. Having a folder per theme is a good idea, as it does not require trusting the theme author to 'do the right thing.' It would also open the door to number 3.
3. Metadata is definitely needed. Another option could be string resources defined within the XAML file.

Regarding number 5, I should probably work on a real installer for RetroBar to simplify the initial installation as well. For theme installation, distributing themes as a ZIP and extracting them in the %localappdata%\RetroBar\Themes directory is the direction I may pursue (whatever is implemented will likely also be shared with Cairo.)

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1: Okay yeah maybe that doesn't make so much sense after all. Woops.

3: Are you sure you want to parse the entire XAML document (and implicitly assume it to be valid)...just to get the metadata? Not to mention, how would you allow for, say, localized display names in...XAML resources? And do you really want to effectively require the addition of another XAML namespace just for that?

Another thing I forgot to mention about 3. in my initial post: some kind of unique identifiers for skins. This would allow the automated skin installation to, for example, seamlessly "upgrade" an older version of a skin to a newer version, rather than resulting in pointless duplication and clutter.

Also the skin options thing. Futureproofing.

5: I couldn't agree more about having a proper installer, especially if that could take care of ensuring that the proper .NET Core runtime gets installed...and on that note, automatic update delivery would be nice as well (but let them opt-out and stay behind if they so desire).

That said...I'm not so sure ZIP is the way to go for skins - if my experience with that game modding thing is any indication, you may end up with people extracting the ZIP files and wondering what they're supposed to do with the stuff inside. I wish I knew of an archive format I could recommend...one which can be extracted by those looking to see what's inside...but not by standard Windows features or software as widespread and prone to misinterpretation as 7-zip, so as to avoid them being mistakenly extracted by those just looking to install them.

If you do go with ZIP (or anything else which supports a hierarchy, for that matter), well...watch out for this:

There were quite a few mistakes we (mostly I, regrettably) made with our "Mod Identity" system for this game, of which this is one. I don't want those mistakes to be repeated here. I'll try to elaborate further once my head is less clouded-over from vaccination side effects.

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As far as ZIP goes, you could always use ZIP but distribute them with a different file extension. That way, the program can still use the archive but users are less likely to attempt to extract it.

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