Skin- and visual errors related to, and skinning requests for MusicBee v3

[Steven]

@Alumni, redownload the same link as i found one thing that might cause the progress bar display issue
,
@hiccup, does it only happen after certain actions?

[Alumni]

fixed for most of the issues reported by Alumni
http://www.mediafire.com/download/hwh28nm8k6ahp2s/MusicBeeDemo.zip

for the progess bar, i dont have any more ideas and cant reproduce. It would be useful to know if it happened recently with any non-bitmap skins
also see my comment about the panel layout button size in case you missed it

Thanks for the fixes. Everything's sorted now except for that progress bar issue.
I'm almost certain it is related to bitmaps, I used the default skin up until recently without problems.

[Alumni]

@Alumni, redownload the same link as i found one thing that might cause the progress bar display issue

I was just about to say that patch fixed it, but after many tries it did pop up again.

Edit: I found a way to reproduce it with a better success rate.
When playing a song fast forward the progress to nearly the end of that track and then toggle the maximize/windowed modes.

[hiccup]

@hiccup, does it only happen after certain actions?

Win 10 indeed.
A Sophisticated Bee (at Night) skin.
It happens when switching from mini to full.
The 'shadow' sometimes changes color/brightness after having another windows panel full-screen covering MB, and then putting MB on top again.
Also a 'ghost' border after having selected 'search' before:

[Bee-liever]

version 3.0.5798.36030

I found that the progress bar fill image in the bitmap skins, is being truncated on the right.
Maybe this has something to do with the progress bar issue?

IMAGES REMOVED

EDIT:
Just read this

Edit: I found a way to reproduce it with a better success rate.
When playing a song fast forward the progress to nearly the end of that track and then toggle the maximize/windowed modes.

Maybe the progress bar fill is not being truncated, maybe it's a couple of pixels to the left?

Disregard this. Made some adjustments with the skin creator that allows the progress bar to work as expected in 2.5 and 3.0.

[Steven]

Edit: I found a way to reproduce it with a better success rate.
When playing a song fast forward the progress to nearly the end of that track and then toggle the maximize/windowed modes.

yes i can reproduce this now. I sought of know whats going wrong but dont know how to fix it

edit:
its fixed now - same download link

[Alumni]

its fixed now - same download link

Great, thanks for your efforts!

A quick question about the MusicBee 3 default skin, I was wondering why some lines of code repeats itself, for example:

Code

\\ --- PREFERENCES ---> SCROLLBARS
<!-- 124-->  <element id="Controls.ScrollBar.Default" bg="245,245,245" bg2="200,200,200" /> 
<!-- 125-->  <element id="Controls.ScrollBarThumb.Default" bg="245,245,245" bg2="200,200,200" fg="100,100,100" bdr="255,255,255" /> 
<!-- 126-->  <element id="Controls.ScrollBarBackground.Default" bg="215,215,215" bg2="255,255,255" />
  <element id="Controls.ScrollBar.Default" bg="200,200,200" bg2="180,180,180" /> 
  <element id="Controls.ScrollBarThumb.Default" bg="230,230,230" bg2="250,250,250" fg="180,180,180" bdr="0,0,0,0" /> 
  <element id="Controls.ScrollBarBackground.Default" bg="245,245,245" bg2="250,250,250" />

Code

\\MENUS
\\ --- PREFERENCES
<!-- 105-->  <element id="Controls.VerticalMenu.Highlight" bg="253,215,99" fg="60,60,60" /> 
<!-- 106-->  <element id="Controls.VerticalMenu.Lowlight" bg="253,215,99" fg="60,60,60" /> 
  <element id="Controls.VerticalMenu.Highlight" bg="160,160,160" fg="255,255,255" /> 
  <element id="Controls.VerticalMenu.Lowlight" bg="160,160,160" fg="240,240,240" /> 

[Steven]

no good reason - just me experimenting with different things and leaving the older attempt in

[psychoadept]

Well there be a complete list of functioning skin elements for 3.0 released?  Is the list in the MusicBee 3 skin complete?

[Steven]

i still havent started creating the final list of new skin elements.
First i will do the 1px border (I am determined to get something working with that!), then there are still outstanding bugs reported above for the visual effects and then finally i will so the skin elements
I would say as long as no further problems with the 1px border (I have a hacky solution), i should start the skin elements on sunday
For the list of elements already done, somehow i have managed to misplace the list for the new and the removed elements
I think i was adding them to the top of the MusicBee3 skin so the new ones should be easy to figure out. For the removed ones, its most around the tab handling

[psychoadept]

Awesome!  I can be patient.

[Alumni]

I think i was adding them to the top of the MusicBee3 skin so the new ones should be easy to figure out.

Sounds good, that'll certainly make it easier for me.

[Steven]

just an update on what i will probably do for the windows 10 look for a 1px border
for non-skinned borders:
- i finally found a good solution for doing the non-skinned borders that should completely conform to whatever accent border color/ or glass borders windows has been set to. That includes enabling resizing outside the window frame

- for skinned borders, its not really an option to do the reizing cursor inside the window frame as i was initially going to do. Thats because the auto-open left and right sidebar panels also use that area.
So the options are:
  - use the same solution as for unskinned border so there will be a 1px accent color around the edge (no good for most skins in my opinion) and even worse, when glass is enabled it would effectively not be skinned at all
  - use a hacky solution i have come up which allows full control by MB for how the window frame is rendered and allows resizing outside the window frame. So visually this would be the ideal solution but one downside is it slows the rendering down quite a bit when resizing and also involves me putting in special code in various places, so i am not so keen on this
  - just have a 1px resizing border (no good as it makes resizing difficult)
  - dont have a windows 10 look ie. just leave the 4px border as now

does anyone have any comment on this? At the moment i am leaning towards the last option for skinned borders

[hiccup]

While I really detested the 1 pixel area that MB used to have in the past where you were allowed to grasp a panel to resize it, I think I wouldn't mind it so much if that was the case for the surrounding outside pane. Personally I don't use re-sizing the whole MB window by mouse dragging that often. So a 1px border would be o.k. by me.

Your 'hacky solution' sounds very interesting and maybe ideal for us mortal end-users, but considering how many growing pains Windows 10 seems to be experiencing, and having no certainty whatsoever about what MS might change next, it's probably not wise to invest much time and effort in such a solution at this moment. (unless you are willing to take that risk of course)

Conforming to 'a Windows 10 look' as a purpose would not be an important entry in my agenda.
I find the trend were many website and software developers are trying to use the same fonts, color schemes, icons, interfaces etc. quite unimaginative and boring to be honest.
Somebody once said: "dare to be different", and the next thing you know, everybody is trying to be different in the same way.

[Bee-liever]

 - use the same solution as for unskinned border so there will be a 1px accent color around the edge

1st choice
After using Windows 10 for a while, you tend not to notice the 1px highlight colour - only when it's missing: ie, when the window loses its focus and the border turns to grey.

 - dont have a windows 10 look ie. just leave the 4px border as now

2nd choice
but the 1px top border in compact player, that currently takes its colour from the windows header, would need to be fixed.