Author Topic: GUI changes for v3.0  (Read 1233829 times)

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
The next thing i am doing is the current "Playing Track Panel" docked in the bottom panel - it will be called the "Now Playing Bar" in the layout configuration dialog.
I would be interested in any comments on the layout for that. I dont particularily like the existing layout that much but given the constraints of having a wide and narrow I am not sure what i will do so any suggestions will be helpful.
I like endeavour1934's proposal (2nd screenshot in http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=14941.0) but thats more a full panel layout.
Another factor is that microsoft are going forward with a new browser. I dont think the API interface will be the same (I havent seen any clear answer on that). I wont be  willing to implement 2 browser API interfaces so its quite possible MB will no longer support in-place browsing of wikipedia and yourtube, etc based on the current playing artist/ track
I am tempted to implement it just as some of the library statistic aspects from endeavour1934's proposal and enhance the "Artist Biography" panel so that when its docked on the bottom of the main panel it includes artist pictures like the existing "last.fm" tab
Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 10:43:50 PM by Steven

Spiron

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 48
Endevour1934's proposal looks pretty good and I am more tempted to like it as a separate panel or view than as a docked bar, the space gives it an uncluttered look while providing a lot of information. And don't throw the internet parts out just yet because Microsoft are keeping IE in Windows 10, it'll just be hidden.  The engine and API's look to be still accessible because of the vast amount of usage they do have but they won't be receiving new features or be updated for newer version of the web specs.  This should be fine because I doubt Wikipedia or Youtube are going to update their code to a point where the IE engine can't work with them for a good while yet.

Last Edit: June 22, 2015, 04:48:23 AM by Spiron

psychoadept

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10691
I am more tempted to like it as a separate panel or view than as a docked bar, the space gives it an uncluttered look while providing a lot of information.

I agree with this.  It reminds me that there have been requests to have the compact player as a second window; maybe there is  way to combine all of it with the option of having playing track info in the main panel, compact player, or separate window, and have the docked panel operate differently.  I dunno, I'm not entirely clear in my head on how that would work.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

Alumni

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1007
Also note that the handling for pictures that are too small to fit in the panel has been changed and would be interested in feedback on that aspect.

It certainly seems better, I'm able to fit more rows of artwork in the main panel than before. Thanks for that!

i have updated the demo version to include much of the updated Now Playing panel.

I really like the new layout for Now Playing, its much easier to customize.

Here's my feedback;
Not sure why the option to disable "track details" is grayed out in "large album" mode.
Is there a way to hide the album cover overlay when in "artist picture" mode?
Can't yet test the "album color mix" mode since artwork isn't working in this build.

A couple screenshots from my setup:

Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 05:56:12 AM by Alumni

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
album artwork should be working. How do you store your album artwork?
Also i am wondering how you managed to get the "Playing Tracks" selector out of alignment with the panel
Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 07:52:06 AM by Steven

Alumni

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1007
album artwork should be working. How do you store your album artwork?

Oh, that's strange. All of my artwork is embedded in the files.
I just checked the local "AppData" folder and "InternalCache"\"AlbumCovers" only contains empty images.

This is what my main panel looks like in album cover view:



Also i am wondering how you managed to get the "Playing Tracks" selector out of alignment with the panel

Edit: I was able to re-create this bug by playing around with the "main panel left side/right side" controls in the "Now Playing" tab.
Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 10:52:53 AM by Alumni

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
would you be able to send me a zip of the following 4 files?
- MusicBeeSetttings and StartupSettings.ini from the AppData folder
- the MusicBeeLibrary.mbl that is references in StartupSettings.ini
- and lastly one of the music files that has artwork but not showing

Zak

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2450
Notes for the Now Playing tab and further observations. Some might be a bit nit-picky, but now is the time to ask, right?  :P

1. What is Album Colour Mix supposed to do? I just get a big blurry square that changes colour as I resize the window:



It does seem to be getting its colours from the artwork though.

2. In the context menu, there is an option to display Neither, which sounds a little odd (not to mention binary).



If there has to be such an item, None or Hidden probably reads better, but I wonder who would choose it if the alternative is a big blank square. Better, these items should be toggles and it should be possible to have both lyrics and artist biography displayed at the same time, one above the other.

3. These two menus are the same:

         

Here be dragons, both for maintaining two versions of the same menu for later revisions and also for confusing users with too many options (and to be honest this duplication happens a lot in MusicBee 2.5 and earlier). There's no reason to have two identical menus, so get rid of one. Probably the sub-menu under Now Playing - it does sit nicely below the Main Panel menu, but it sits even more nicely above the thing it's actually affecting.

Also, the menu above the right sidebar uses checkmarks which implies these are independently toggleable items.

4. I just noticed that when Large Album isn't selected, the menu options are different.



These menus should be redesigned to avoid this, for the two dragony reasons given above. It's harder to maintain and confusing for users.

5. Even in this limited demo, there's already lots of idiot-proofing going on to prevent illogical layouts. e.g. If I have Main Panel [Left Side] set to display Lyrics, setting Main Panel [Right Side] or Right Sidebar to display Lyrics hides the one on the left. Sure, there's no good reason to have two sets of lyrics but if that's what the user wants it could be argued that's what the user should get. Another argument is that selecting something on a menu labeled Right Side shouldn't affect something on the left side. A third is that you won't get bogged down with chunks of code checking for "If show this then hide that" scenarios.

6. The Main Panel [Left Side] selections are overlaid onto the background image, whereas Main Panel [Right Side] gets its own little section with its own header menu. The inconsistency isn't apparent from the menus and some users might prefer to have a separate left-hand panel with overlaid elements on the right.

7. For consistency with other panels, double-clicking the small artwork overlay above the Artist Picture could show the full-size artwork.

8. When the Now Playing tab is shown, it isn't possible to adjust the width of the Right Sidebar. This seems like the sort of thing a lot of people will ask for.

9. When maximised, the MusicBee window is stealing a few extra pixels from the top of the (Windows 8.1) task bar. This happens if the window has focus or not.



10. I know you're not requesting bug reports, but you said artwork should be working and I've seen a few albums where it doesn't. There's a cover.jpg in the folder with the music but MusicBee doesn't display anything. I can't see any pattern to the details of albums that don't work. [Edit: Fixed. See follow-up post below]

Finally...

11. Rather than tweaking all of these widgets and options and layouts, have you given any thought to developing a generic layout parser? I guess this would be a more robust version of the current Theatre Mode plugin (which admittedly I haven't look at too much), and would allow users to create and share their own configurations. A dedicated Now Playing tab seems a good candidate for something like that and might be easier than trying to manage a million different combinations of screen elements via menu options. I'd love to see a community creating layouts with the quality of XMBC/Kodi skins.
Last Edit: June 23, 2015, 10:39:01 PM by Zak
Bee excellent to each other...

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
9. When maximised, the MusicBee window is stealing a few extra pixels from the top of the (Windows 8.1) task bar. This happens if the window has focus or not.
10. I know you're not requesting bug reports, but you said artwork should be working and I've seen a few albums where it doesn't. There's a cover.jpg in the folder with the music but MusicBee doesn't display anything. I can't see any pattern to the details of albums that don't work.
i will definitely do 8
for 9, i am not doing anything at all for the taskbar so thats quite a mystery. Could you include another application beside MB so i can compare the two. I take it the MB 2.5 doesnt do that
for 10, for the albums that dont work, how is the artwork stored? If you open the tag editor and click the Artwork/ Save To button does it show the correct artwork and linkages?

Zak

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2450
for 9, i am not doing anything at all for the taskbar so thats quite a mystery. Could you include another application beside MB so i can compare the two. I take it the MB 2.5 doesnt do that

I'm not sure what you mean by "include another application". It overlaps the whole width of the task bar from the Start/Windows button to the system tray:



Also strange, I tried it with the task bar on the top of the monitor and on the side, and each time MusicBee overlaps the inside edge by those few pixels. And it only happens if I maximise from the title bar - it goes away after a minimise and restore.  ??? I guess don't worry about it for now and I'll see if it goes away by itself in later versions.

for 10, for the albums that dont work, how is the artwork stored? If you open the tag editor and click the Artwork/ Save To button does it show the correct artwork and linkages?
I think the artwork problem was just something with my cache. I checked the same album in 2.5 and got this happening:



It shows the artwork in the Now Playing panel but not the editor. Doing a file rescan in 2.5 also fixed it in 3. The difference is that 2.5 showed the large artwork but 3 didn't show anything.


Bee excellent to each other...

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
@Alumni, i have no problems with the file you sent.
I suggest you delete the AlbumCovers sub-folder from AppData\InternalCache and try again. However could you confirm the file is actually located:
E:\Music\Library\Above & Beyond\We Are All We Need\01 We're All We Need.flac
and what directory are you running MB3 from?
Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 07:52:28 AM by Steven

Alumni

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1007
@Alumni, i have no problems with the file you sent.
I suggest you delete the AlbumCovers sub-folder from AppData\InternalCache and try again.

Ok, I reset the cache but the result is the same.

However could you confirm the file is actually located:
E:\Music\Library\Above & Beyond\We Are All We Need\01 We're All We Need.flac

Yep, that's the correct file path.

and what directory are you running MB3 from?

On my HDD I've installed this version to E:\MusicBee3
I didn't put it on C: because of write permissions.
Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 08:54:38 AM by Alumni

Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
@Alumni, its probably related to settings that will hopefully correct when MB3 fully load the user settings.
However if i get time on the weekend i will create a debug version just to confirm my suspicion what is going on

hiccup

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 7799
I believe I am still struggling to understand the exact workings of the new configuration panel.
From my screenshot you can see that the right side panel is displaying only artwork and lyrics.
With these settings, shouldn't it also display album cover and track information?


Steven

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 34313
the sizing algorithm needs improvement for when there is not enough space for the configured panel sizes. I think you will also find manually dragging the panel headers to resize doesnt work too well in this circumstance. If you increase the musicbee window height all the panels will eventually appear