Rounded Artwork

[hiccup]

You should get in touch with Steven to implement small changes to MB so you can incorporate those ideas.

It could be implemented natively as an option.
It would be vastly superior to a plugin.

Why do you guys keep whining and going on and on about about this?
It's only some eye-candy stuff that may may be 'fun' for some users.
But it is in no way a factual improvement.
On the contrary, it is deforming artwork as it was intended by the artist.
So in that sense it's a regression.

Steven should not be nagged or bothered with implementing and maintaining something like that.

Just be grateful that Mayibongwe has created, and is serving you with a great plugin for this?

It would be vastly superior to a plugin.

I'm sure it's not intended as such, but it doesn't come across as a nice comment towards what Mayibongwe has created for you.

[Haste]

Why do you guys keep whining and going on and on about about this?

Could you please point me to where I've been whining?

I'm sure it's not intended as such, but it doesn't come across as a nice comment towards what Mayibongwe has created for you

I trust that Mayibongwe will interpret my comment reasonably and won’t overanalyze or misinterpret its intent.

[Artesoll]

I think that when you think about any functionality, you think about what it's for and who it's for!
When I thought about this idea of ​​rounding the edges, it was usually to soften the edges, something I saw on Spotify that I thought gave it a clean look.

In the end, it's all about design, what you can and can't do, from the early days of Winamp with its visually striking Skins, and not to mention the Zune player that created a unique look for covers. Finally, iTunes with the spectacular Cover Flow that, with a black Skin that it supported at the time, was something extremely beautiful. Until finally displaying the cover below with the list of songs.

what makes a player stand out are its features, no matter how silly they may be, and the beauty of an interface counts for a lot, a fact that made Audivana a spectacularly beautiful player.

Time goes by and today I can't even think about Mp3 320 Kbps, everything bothers me, and everyone looks for what attracts them in a music player, whatever it may be. I've used so many and I don't even know why players fascinate me so much, but I can assure you that each one has a limitation when it comes to interface, and in a few months a dedicated group managed to create VU meter, Cool edit Nostalgia and Rounded covers.

The question is, does Musicbee need annoying people like me who charge for these things? Or should we just stop now and settle for Foobar or Aimp or Windows media player that in theory "Play Music"?

We can never give up on foolish things, otherwise we would never have seen the Itunes Coverflow. It is necessary because it challenges the creator, I wish I knew programming like you know, that's why I admire and value it.
Musicbee can be everything, I can have a clean look today, just as someone else can have a fuller look.

What matters in the end is keeping Musicplayers alive and what can be done next and later. I just have to thank those who create.

This plugin considerably increased the distance between the covers and it was great.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/42m8q6zdrqr0upjjixd1z/Rounded.png?rlkey=76iahei4mmv1vpujdawj9vk8r&st=ef9x6yd5&dl=0

[hiccup]

I trust that Mayibongwe will interpret my comment reasonably and won’t overanalyze or misinterpret its intent.

You will probably be right.
Achilles (AKA Mayibongwe) is probably far less sensitive and much more lenient to stuff like this than I am after all these years ;-)

But the core reason for me ventilating my 'annoyance' still stands.
After requests by a couple of users for having some  'rounded artwork' feature, and then some experienced MusicBee users explaining why that would not be a valid suggestion for factual improvement, Achilles (AKA Mayibongwe) has made the effort to create a great plugin that allows for what was asked for.

So I indeed will get annoyed that after all that, some users are still asking for/complaining (or whining, my choice of words) that it should be integrated and implemented into MusicBee by MusicBee's developer, and that that would be much better than what Achilles (AKA Mayibongwe) has created for you guys to enjoy.

So yes, to me that comes across as a bit ungrateful, and unappreciative of both Steven's and Achilles's (AKA Mayibongwe's) work and considerations.

[Haste]

Mockup / Idea: Neumorphism-Inspired Design:

I’ve been working on a MusicBee skin recently and spent some time exploring different design styles for inspiration. One trend that caught my attention is Neumorphism, which gained some popularity around 2020.


Here’s a quick mockup to give you an idea of what I mean:


The main idea behind this style is to create a soft, extruded appearance. This is achieved by combining two drop shadows: a darker shadow placed on one corner and a lighter shadow on the opposite corner.

The light source is typically set to come from the top left, and rounded corners are often used to enhance the effect. For extra clarity, a stroke can be added. Here’s a breakdown of the style in Figma:



It seems like this effect could be replicated in the plugin by layering multiple drop shadows with custom positions.

This setup requires 10px margins around the element to accommodate the shadows. Unfortunately ,without a way to render the shadows outside the standard dimensions of the cover image, album covers will end up looking significantly smaller, which is not ideal.

Note that I've used full-resolution cover art for the mockup, so it’s not representative of how it would look with cached images in MusicBee. I’ve noticed you’ve added a sharpening filter to address quality issues with cached images, but I was wondering if it would be possible for the plugin to access the original album cover images (either embedded or linked) and resize them directly. This could help preserve better image quality and avoid artifacts when scaling cached images.

[BoringName]

The only real benefit of supporting things natively is it removes the risk of a developer going awol and it no longer functioning.

The flip side to that is you are adding more to the pile for one person to support.

I'm 100% certain Steven could program my addons better than me as I just don't have the same experience. But I'm also 100% sure I have a lot more free time than he does so I can put more time into them.

We are spoiled with how active he is on here. I can't think of a single piece of software I've used where the developer will provide a patch to fix a non critical bug within hours of it being reported and do that consistently. He is also very quick to respond to plugin creator queries which is another reason not everything needs to be natively supported.

Just to keep things on topic. While some of the purists might not like it, those skewed images do look cool. More things for me to possibly incorporate into 3DBee.

[voodoopunk]

The only real benefit of supporting things natively is it removes the risk of a developer going awol and it no longer functioning.

The flip side to that is you are adding more to the pile for one person to support.

Plus, bloatware and extra complexity/controls for the people who will never use it.

[Mayibongwe]

Because I intend to be here on the forum for a good time and a long time, I tend to refrain from engaging in discussions where people seem to hold very strong differences in principle.
MB is a part of my almost daily life, so naturally, any 'bad day' here would spoil a bit of the day outside the forum - that's why I don't read/think too much into the little things.
Without getting too much into it, I know that users like to find comfort in software that carries an "official" badge (good rule of thumb generally), but for a solo project like MusicBee:

we would only be adding more to the pile for one person to support.

___________________

Mockup / Idea: Neumorphism-Inspired Design:

Thanks, I will play around with this (as mentioned before though, may be some time before I get to it).
While a mixture of black and white shadows won't do it on my primary skin, I think other colours will be a nice sight! (that's not to say I'll hardcode any colouring).

I was wondering if it would be possible for the plugin to access the original album cover images (either embedded or linked) and resize them directly.
This could help preserve better image quality and avoid artifacts when scaling cached images.

That's not going to be, given the filenaming structure that MB is using on the cached artwork.
I could get the original artwork, but won't be able to link it back to the corresponding filename that MB expects for that particular album.

[Artesoll]

After update 1.8 the images below the album looked like this, and sometimes giving an error. I thought it would be a good idea to uninstall it, but I'll have to download all the covers again one by one. Anyway, the main covers were great, but who knows in the future.

[Haste]

To avoid this issue in the future you can backup the content of the album art cache:

Code

%localAppData%\MusicBee\InternalCache\AlbumCovers

You can backup the content of the artists thumbs cache as well (if you are applying the plugin to artist pictures)

Code

%localAppData%\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs

Another tip for using the plugin and tinkering with the different settings is to empty that cache before each change. (with MusicBee closed)
This also applies before changing to another skin.

Otherwise you will get images that are processed several times.

[Mayibongwe]

Another tip for using the plugin and tinkering with the different settings is to empty that cache before each change. (with MusicBee closed)
This also applies before changing to another skin.
Otherwise you will get images that are processed several times.

Yes, right on the mark Haste. When one changes a plugin setting or switches skins, the plugin detects that as a need to reprocess the artwork.
I can add another setting so that users can decide whether or not they want this enabled by default. Will you want this Artesoll?

[Mayibongwe]

Mockup / Idea: Neumorphism-Inspired Design:
 

Thanks, I will play around with this (as mentioned before though, may be some time before I get to it).
While a mixture of black and white shadows won't do it on my primary skin, I think other colours will be a nice sight! (that's not to say I'll hardcode any colouring).

Still early stages, there's touchups to be done...
but is this something like what you have in mind?

[Mayibongwe]

I really like how those hybrid shadows are turning out:

[cereal_eater]

This plugin seems great, but before I try it, I have some questions:

I use Folder.jpg in every folder. Will the rounded effect only apply to *.png files?
Are there black corners in the expanded view in Album Covers view in the main panel, or will there just be no rounded effect then?

Thanks!

[hiccup]

This plugin seems great, but before I try it, I have some questions:

Why not install the plugin and see for yourself if things are as you would like them to be?
If they are not, then simply remove the plugin again.
(or make suggestions for 'improvements')