Skinning requests/reports for 3.1

[Bee-liever]

some suggestions for the SkinCreator:

• ability to put button elements (eg: volume, equaliser) in the TrackInfoPanel, and still have them work;
• ability to have a second track info panel (TrackInfoPanel2) to allow TrackText/TrackPosition and TrackRating/Spectrum and other elements to be in separate panels on the background;
• support for vertical volume bar;
• completion of the Image element implementation so that it can be used for backgrounds to any element.

[redwing]

I started working on my idea of slim player bar (http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=17834.0) with Skin Creator. This is first time I am working on a bitmap skin, but I'm a little disappointed with its limited support.

This is what I have in mind. Though I created this image easily using TM, I can't find a way to implement this with Skin Creator.




1. It seems it currently requires a background image with a minimum height of 33px. My guess is it's set by the spectrum visualizer's height. How about allowing any length for width and height of visualizer? Or give an option to disable it. I'd like to draw a 20px-height player bar.

2. It seems progress bar height is limited and that element can't be overlapped with track info panel & track text. Would be great if such limitation could be avoided.

3. This is not for this specific skin, but how about offering an option to insert album cover of playing track to the player bar?

[Bee-liever]

A "fg2" attribute for
<element id="Content[Artwork].ArtworkText" bg="X,X,X" fg="X,X,X" />
to override the auto-generated "show album count" colouring (when selected)

[Steven]

3. This is not for this specific skin, but how about offering an option to insert album cover of playing track to the player bar?

i have added support for showing a small album cover in the main player controls panel for non-bitmap skins. I have also added that to v3
I havent considered the other requests as yet

[redwing]

i have added support for showing a small album cover in the main player controls panel for non-bitmap skins.

That's great. Thanks!

[Alumni]

i have added support for showing a small album cover in the main player controls panel for non-bitmap skins.

That's cool. Would it be possible to implement for bitmap skins also, or would it be too difficult?

[redwing]

Currently artwork doesn't really fit smoothly into the player bar especially with center-aligned track text (default skin & dark fine-tuned skin) 




How about adding album color mix option for track info panel?

Then it would look like this:

[Steven]

How about adding album color mix option for track info panel?

thats a good idea, although i think it would need to be weighted towards colours chosen by the skin developer as auto-picking the contrast colours/ progress bar colour (for the middle panel configuration) would not be respecting the skin developer's choices. But i still think something subtle could look good.
I wont do it for v3 as its not quite as trivial as it might seem but will consider this at a later date

Would it be possible to implement for bitmap skins also, or would it be too difficult?

i will consider it for v3.1 but not promising until i look in detail at what would be involved

[redwing]

thats a good idea, although i think it would need to be weighted towards colours chosen by the skin developer as auto-picking the contrast colours/ progress bar colour (for the middle panel configuration) would not be respecting the skin developer's choices.

Of course, that option should be the case where user setting overrides skin setting. My mockup simply used auto-picked colors in expanded panel both for bg and fg of track info panel.

[Bee-liever]

The border attribute of
<element id="HeaderBar" bg="248,250,245" fg="120,109,69" bdr="244,242,230" />
draws the line at the bottom of the header but,
the border attribute of
<element id="Panel.ChildHeader.Default" bg="42,48,47" fg="155,160,161" bdr="9,184,119" />
puts the line at the top of the header.

Could we please have a bdr2 attribute for element id="Panel.ChildHeader.Default"
to draw a line at the bottom so it matches the Header Bar

[phred]

New elements for 'visualizer volume' peak and VU please. I'd like to change the background and then apply a gradient to the volume bars, so the same options as are currently available for the spectrum visualizer.

[drjee]

For whenever you get to it. 

*full overrides for Music Explorer and the Panels Configuration window (and new downloads panel)

*icon override for the folders in Playlist Manager

+1

[Bee-liever]

an override for deleted items in the tag inspector please

or have them use the fg value from id="Controls.InputControl.Disabled" element

[Alumni]

May have been mentioned already, but an override for the music explorer background would be nice.

[endeavour1934]

Could we get support for SVG icons in the future? They are easier to colorize and they also provide support for Hi-DPI displays.

If they could also be used on "bitmap" skins that would be awesome.