getmusicbee.com
MusicBee & Add-Ons => Customizations => Skins => Topic started by: beistrich on March 26, 2011, 10:48:07 PM
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Hello,
I did my own skin and want to share it with you. At the moment it is optimized to the shown layout. maybe i (or someone) will optimize it.
(http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/113/musicbee1.th.jpg) (http://img835.imageshack.us/i/musicbee1.jpg/)
big preview: http://img835.imageshack.us/i/musicbee1.jpg/
The latest available update here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/4qnmlbnl28wacp0/metrostyle.xml
Updated: More consistency in menus
Its my fist upload, so tell me if something goes wrong. Please also tell me if you like/use it!
Have fun, thanks
beistrich
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:o Beautiful!
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Sorry, i forgot the skin file
I updated this
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Nice one beistrich..... thanks for sharing it
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beistrich thats a beautiful skin. I played around with a bit and the only thing i found that i think should be adjusted is the rating colours are dark in the player panel - just move
Player.StarRating.Default
Player.StarRating.Lowlight
after
Player.Control.Default
unfortunately if i fix this then it will break some of the existing skins
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Yes, I see, it was overwritten by other elements. I fixed it.
Thanks for the hint.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jojptyrtu87iff9/metrostyle.xml
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could i make some more suggestions
- the splashscreen is from smooth grey and doesnt match the skin - if you dont want to make your own then just remove the SplashScreen bitmap element and it will use the MB default
- when you open a tab, the inactive tab is blue. If that is intentional thats fine, but i think it might be better a darker colour or alternatively a lighter grey
- the slider bar for the volume in the player controls panel is a bit hard for me to see
- check out when the player is docked to the top right sidebar (right click on the player panel to change the dock). While it looks fine as-is, the player progress bar is blue and not consistent with how it is in the mini-player or main player
edit:
- consider experimenting with having the player panel background with more contrast to the rest of the screen or alternatively with a flatter gradient. I dont know if it would work or not but might be worth trying
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just move
Player.StarRating.Default
Player.StarRating.Lowlight
after
Player.Control.Default
unfortunately if i fix this then it will break some of the existing skins
Steven, if You think the fix is logical and would simplify the process of skin creation than why not changing this permanently ??? IMHO, if the change is desired, all existing skins that require an adjustment after the fix could be fixed within a week or two.
Beistrich, the skin looks very professional and I'm sure it would be the default skin for many MB users :) Congratulations and thanks for sharing :) As far as I can remember, only OrB had so promising début on the forum :D
I'll give some improvement suggestions and feedback after some time of playing with the new skin.
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Thanks for all the compliments first.
Yes I know that there have to be done some improvements. There are some parts that are not consistent at the moment. As mentioned the TABS - I normally do not ues the tabs at the moment, so I first concentrate on the parts I normally use.
Steven also mentioned the volume slider bar. Can someone tell me the element ID of this? I can't find it.
I try to do the changes in the next time.
I'm new to musicbee, but do you all also have the problem if the "skin windows borders" is checked, when moving to the edges that the windows moves 1 pixel? Is this a bug?
And is it possible to change the size of elements? I think the tabs are a bit too big, so i want to have smaller one. Is this possible?
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check rotems skinning guide here for some help, it isn't all complete yet but has good info
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=2917.0
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its not obvious at all!
it takes the volume slider bar from "Player.Background" fg
"Player.Volume" changes the icon
"Player.VolumeButton" changes the button
you are right there is a 1 pixel difference in size when "skin windows border" is on or off - that is because the skinned borders are 4 pixels and the unskinned are 3 pixels in XP and much wider in Vista/7 so its a compromise
at the moment you cant change the tab sizes. At some future point i could offer relative height adjustments for tabs. It cant be made a fixed size as the tabs (and many other controls) are resized depending on the font used
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SplashScreen and Tabs updated
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... very nice skin. Clear and very good readable.
Thanks for the asthetic splash screen too. I like this one very much.
A. :)
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I agree with Adson that the skin is clear and very good readable, furthermore looks really beautiful and professional. It's hard to assign to the existing skin folders, because those who like dark skins would prefer it to see in the Dark folder, but the colour choices are Neutral for many.
The skin combines the best values of dark and light skins, with a little admixture of pink, which is very popular in the Music Bee forum (the Pop Pink skin topic created by Rotem was commented nearly 80 times and read more than 1900 times !!!).
That's why it could be the default skin for MB (after some tweaking of course). :)
Things to improve:
1. Change ALL light blue elements to light pink for better consistency (not the progress bar only as Steven have mentioned, but also all blue elements in the Preferences menu and blue button frames when the mouse indicator hovers over a button (http://i.imgur.com/12eaX.png) (http://imgur.com/12eaX));
2. The filter expressions in Tagging Tools are hardly readable until hovered over:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZAJoN.png) (http://imgur.com/ZAJoN)
3. Consider light pink frames for selectable buttons and tabs in Preferences:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZLxNo.png) (http://imgur.com/ZLxNo)
http://imgur.com/GSVG9
4. Change the Frames colour for the selected albums to darker pink as grey is hardly visible on the lighter grey background in Main Panel/Artwork View.
5. I agree with Steven that the slider bar for the volume in the player controls panel is a bit hard for see.
6. Consider adding the second (grey) colour to the progress bar (before or after the indicator) - IMHO it looks better this way.
I hope the above suggestions will help to make the skin better. Thanks for considering :)
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I agree with Adson that the skin is clear and very good readable, furthermore looks really beautiful and professional. It's hard to assign to the existing skin folders, because those who like dark skins would prefer it to see in the Dark folder, but the colour choices are Neutral for many.
The skin combines the best values of dark and light skins, with a little admixture of pink, which is very popular in the Music Bee forum (the Pop Pink skin topic created by Rotem was commented nearly 80 times and read more than 1900 times !!!).
That's why it could be the default skin for MB (after some tweaking of course). :)
Things to improve:
1. Change ALL light blue elements to light pink for better consistency (not the progress bar only as Steven have mentioned, but also all blue elements in the Preferences menu and blue button frames when the mouse indicator hovers over a button (http://i.imgur.com/12eaX.png) (http://imgur.com/12eaX));
2. The filter expressions in Tagging Tools are hardly readable until hovered over:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZAJoN.png) (http://imgur.com/ZAJoN)
3. Consider light pink frames for selectable buttons and tabs in Preferences:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZLxNo.png) (http://imgur.com/ZLxNo)
http://imgur.com/GSVG9
4. Change the Frames colour for the selected albums to darker pink as grey is hardly visible on the lighter grey background in Main Panel/Artwork View.
5. I agree with Steven that the slider bar for the volume in the player controls panel is a bit hard for see.
6. Consider adding the second (grey) colour to the progress bar (before or after the indicator) - IMHO it looks better this way.
I hope the above suggestions will help to make the skin better. Thanks for considering :)
Thanks for the suggestions.
It was aften unhappy that most skins are always dark or always bright. My wanting was a dark interface where the playlists are white. So thats the purpose for my skin, and for all who also like this... :-)
As mentioned before, i agree that the skin is not consistent at all. But thanks for the lot of hints to do, that would help me a lot to find improvements.
I will update as soons as possible.
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Beistrich, I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. I haven't created any skin by myself, co I can't tell what line in the skin file You should change to achieve the desired effect.
There are a few very talented skin Creators on the forum, that are helpful and eager to share their impressive knowledge and experience with others. Have a look at Rotem's Skinning guides. In fact there wouldn't be so many good looking skins for MB without it (Thanks Rotem btw).
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Make the volume slider line( not the bar) to pink colour too :) it would be better, as for now it can't be seen ! Also only the finished portion of the progress bar should be in pink, the rest should be in another colour probably white.
And great skin beistrich !just beautiful
Diana
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Updated!
Changes: More consistency in menus and some other small refinements. More beautiful mini player,side player and progress bar
New file is in the first post
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Thank you very much for the update, Beistrich :) Now the skin is much more consistent. I like all the changes (especially those in mini player), except one:
IMHO, the Artwork View in Main Panel looked a little softly, the light grey background seems better when you have a few Covers with white background and the black signatures below the covers are easier to read (the pink ones might be a little garish). My suggestion is to restore the previous look (from Smooth Grey), but use pink instead of grey as a colour for frames that surround the SELECTED covers (as pink differs better on the grey background).
The expressions in Tagging Tools are hardly visible (as it was shown on the screenshot) and the buttons are still surrounded with light blue frames when hovered over, but these are rather minor issues.
When you select a element in Library Explorer on the left is grey, whereas pink is widely used for selection in different places (that's a bit inconsistent).
Otherwise, the skin is great :) Thank you very much once again :)
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i should mention in the last update i posted there are 2 new elements to override the default colours around selected albums:
Content[Artwork].Body.Highlight bg=
Content[Artwork].Body.Lowlight bg=
here is the link
http://www.mediafire.com/?4lplcboc9ndrzp1
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Thank you very much for the update, Beistrich :) Now the skin is much more consistent. I like all the changes (especially those in mini player), except one:
IMHO, the Artwork View in Main Panel looked a little softly, the light grey background seems better when you have a few Covers with white background and the black signatures below the covers are easier to read (the pink ones might be a little garish). My suggestion is to restore the previous look (from Smooth Grey), but use pink instead of grey as a colour for frames that surround the SELECTED covers (as pink differs better on the grey background).
The expressions in Tagging Tools are hardly visible (as it was shown on the screenshot) and the buttons are still surrounded with light blue frames when hovered over, but these are rather minor issues.
When you select a element in Library Explorer on the left is grey, whereas pink is widely used for selection in different places (that's a bit inconsistent).
Otherwise, the skin is great :) Thank you very much once again :)
ok i agree :-), but can anyone tell me how i get this "Tagging Tools" you mention? I think I'm not that familiar with the UI right now...
To the light blue frames i have to admit that i haven't found the right element to change, I'm still searching. ::)
I will also try the mentioned changes in the Artwork View.
I'll also try Stevens new elements
thanks
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tagging tools is Tools from the main menu/ Tagging Tools and choose one of the Show Files ... items
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When you go to Menu >Tools >Tagging Tools > Show files missing..blah blah blah
And you get that drop down similar to the A-Z bar. you can now change the text colors (overwrite) with Stevens new elements.
The only way to change before was it gets it's text color from the "Drop Down Menu"
his new element works well
beistrich....you can also do what I did and take your skin and use some odd colors that don't fit the skin and add to elements you're not sure of, that way you get familiar with them' It's how I created the WTF skin. (a pure masterpiece of Art) ..............( I mean a big boat load of mistakes)
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Yeah! Updated, as best i could...
http://www.mediafire.com/?lsawowebyd1un1m
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i think the way you have done the player panel works much better now and its a great overall look
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Yeah! Updated, as best i could...
http://www.mediafire.com/?lsawowebyd1un1m
Nice job beistrich....I answered you in the other thread about the volumne slider color, here was my answer.
If you mean the actual SLOT that the volumne button slides in, that is controlled by
<element id="Player.Background" bg="255,255,255" bg2="252,184,11" fg="THIS ONE" bdr="40,68,7"
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I really like this skin beistrich... but in the track detail view, when you de-select a track it shows that it has a 5 star rating, when ratings are viewed..i see the problem here. at element 64..65.66..you have them written twice. delete 64-65 66 and paste this in there.
<!-- 64--> <element id="Panel.StarRating.Default" fg="237,53,82" fg2="0,0,0" />
<!-- 65--> <element id="Panel.StarRating.Highlight" fg="0,0,0" fg2="237,53,82" />
<!-- 66--> <element id="Panel.StarRating.Lowlight" fg="237,53,82" fg2="210,210,210" />
it will then show the true rating of a de selected track