Skinning Requests for 3.2

[Steven]

I fixed the dotted line. It was about the shape of progress bar. I changed it from a rounded to a squared rectangle.
Is it possible to show different colors for progress bar and fill like the default player bar? (also for volume slider and player buttons in different states)

its no problem for the progress and volume slider (will be set to 50%)
for the player buttons, thats more problematic because of the way other skins handle that. I guess i can add a setting to instruct MB to use the same highlighting approach as default skins

[redwing]

That sounds good. And what I meant for the progress bar and volume slider is all different colors for the button / bar / fill like the default one.

[Steven]

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_2/MusicBee32_Patched.zip

without doing anything, the contrast should be better for a number of the controls.

when the following is set, it will behave much closer to the contrasts used by standard skins

Code

<element id="PlayerAutoColorUsingStandardSkinRules">true</element>

[redwing]

Thanks! It's working great.

The only remaining issue with Pastels skins is its circled progress button is not rendered properly. Do you think you can improve it, or I need to change its shape?

[Steven]

the reason will be because you are using different colours, even small differences. Different alpha is OK.
MB detects the first edge colour and then applies different levels of transparency to account for the differences.
If its a problem i guess the new setting could override that so MB just blindly recolours the button preserving the alpha

[redwing]

the reason will be because you are using different colours, even small differences. Different alpha is OK.

I tried that. But it only makes the inner color of button more homogeneous with no improvement in rendering the circle shape.

If its a problem i guess the new setting could override that so MB just blindly recolours the button preserving the alpha

I'd like to try that to see if it works.

[Steven]

the button colouring now uses the PlayerAutoColorUsingStandardSkinRules setting

[redwing]

the button colouring now uses the PlayerAutoColorUsingStandardSkinRules setting

That fixed the issue. Thanks!

[Alumni]

While i do agree the colours are not so diverse, the darkness is intentional to ensure the controls are always strongly visible. I think darkness works best with both dark and neutral skins, whereas light colours can look too bright on dark skins or "mushy" on neutral skins.
I will spend some time on the weekend experimenting some more though. Having a quick look at the colours used by Groove, it appears to go down the same route (I may be proved wrong but thats what i am seeing for some bright album covers)

I'm not sure if it still works this way, but the last time I used it Groove Music would apply your personalized color accent to the playing controls background. At the time Windows 10 only let you choose between the built-in 48 preset colors, all of which seemed to pair nicely with Groove's interface.

On an unrelated subject, I have a request for the volume slider in bitmap skins - would it be possible to make the volume indicator icon automatically toggle to the "muted" status when the volume slider is lowered to zero?

[Steven]

I just tried with a pastel skin and i see a couple more tweaks are needed

It looks better except the progress bar with a dotted line. Can you improve that? If it's not easy, never mind. I'll change to default player bar.

I realise now what the issue is with the progress bar in the pastel skin and will be fixed for the next update, so you can revert it back to using rounded corners if you wish

[redwing]

I realise now what the issue is with the progress bar in the pastel skin and will be fixed for the next update, so you can revert it back to using rounded corners if you wish

That'd be great. Thanks!

One issue with this feature is that enabling/disabling the option requires a restart, which is not obvious. What happens if it's in the middle of file saving for lots of files, volume analysis, or file conversion? Maybe it should pop up a confirmation window in such a case asking if the user really wants a restart.

[Steven]

I have been experimenting with using a blurred album cover to give the panel colours some texture. It can look really good, but to get it working well across many album covers in terms of the panel controls showing clearly means i need to flatten the blur to the point that its hardly worth doing for the normal narrow type player panel.
Additionally if MB detects the contrast for the player controls is not strong enough, it will just use a solid background colour.
I have widened the panel colour range - it still orients toward dark colours but better than before

Based on feedback, i might remove the blur effect

[Steven]

Tweaked some more. I feel its ok now
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_2/MusicBee32_Patched.zip

[redwing]

Looks good and the colors are more diverse.

One issue is it colors 50% player controls (volume slider, progress bar, disabled buttons) in dark grey for some covers and it doesn't look good. Those covers are picked up as 32,32,32 color with a previous version but the controls looked fine.

[Steven]

i just uploaded a new version that improves the contrast. If its still bad, would you mind sending me a couple of the covers