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Display Game Ratings as Percent or Other Formats

LaunchBox for Windows

šŸ“‹ Summary

Add native options in LaunchBox and Big Box to display game ratings as a percentage (and optionally other formats), without changing how ratings are stored or entered.

ā— Problem

LaunchBox currently displays ratings primarily as a 5 star value. This works well, but it limits theme creators and UI customization:

  • Themes often need ratings shown as percent, out of 10, or text

  • Converting star values inside XAML usually requires heavy triggers or visual hacks

  • These conversions can add overhead in wheels and large lists, causing lag

  • Plugins can solve it, but add complexity and reliability concerns for both creators and users

Theme creators need a lightweight, native way to render ratings in different formats.

šŸ’” Proposal

Introduce display format options for ratings, handled by the core logic engine:

  • Keep rating entry and storage unchanged

  • Add new display outputs such as:

    • Percent (0 to 100%)

    • Out of 10

    • Optional text labels (e.g., Mixed, Good, Excellent)

  • Expose these as theme friendly fields so creators can use them without custom conversion logic

šŸ“¦ Benefits

  • Gives theme creators more flexibility without hacks or plugins

  • Reduces UI overhead from XAML conversions and triggers

  • Improves performance in wheels and large views

  • Keeps the existing rating system intact while expanding presentation options

šŸ’” Notes

  • Default behavior should remain 5 star display

  • Mapping rules for text labels could be configurable or fixed

  • Percent and out of 10 can be derived directly from the existing 0.1 to 5.0 rating value

Posted by SIMPLY AUSTIN Ā·
Status: Open To Community2 comments

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Comments2

  • AstroBob changed status to Open To Community
    Teamā€¢

    Mar 5

    Pinned

    Hi there!

    Thanks so much for submitting this request and for taking the time to explain your use case ā€” that context is always super helpful.

    Iā€™ve gone ahead and fleshed out the main idea using the info you provided, and Iā€™m opening it up to the community for further discussion and feedback. Please let me know if this fleshed-out version doesnā€™t match your original intended request.

    Feel free to let me know if you have any extra thoughts, examples, or edge cases you think might be relevant!

    Cheers,
    The LaunchBox team

  • SIMPLY AUSTIN

    ā€¢

    Mar 5

    Ability to display Game Rating as a % rather than Stars Natively

    Launchbox/BigBox lets you choose or display ratings out of 5 stars. This is fine and nothing wrong with that at all. However it limits the choices for Theme Creators etc to implement something different with their designs for LaunchBox/BigBox.

    I know that you can work around this with ā€œfaking itā€ with labels and creative work arounds, using either XAML to translate the 0.1 to 5.0 or visual hacks to imitate the look of something diffence. This then causes crazy amounts of data triggers while in something like a wheel as it tries to calculate the star rating into % as you scroll through a wheel causing lag.

    I know Plugins can be used, but this just adds another layer of complexivity, worry for device security and just a pain in the ass for the maker and the user. As Ive noticeed it caan bee hit and miss if a pluggin is coding correctly or even if the pluggin was imported with a theme.

    Im not asking to change the entire rating system. Just that these can be an option to choose how the ratings could be displayed and done in logic engine, rather than either pluggin or using the visual engine causing overhead. Maybe an option to give aa rating out of 10, % or even verbal text. Im sure there are many other ways others may like. Again, I dont want to change how ratings are made, just more options of how they can be displayed.

    Thanks guys, great work as always, sounds like im being grumpy, but Im not, just trying to push the boundries of the Universe! hehe