Author Topic: Some changes for top bars  (Read 15272 times)

mikebo

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What would happen when the track info is displayed on the top?
I don't have a good answer to that. I think that it shouldn't go between the tabs from the address bar, i see the tabs and address bar as one element.
The player controls could go under the caption with the tabs and address bar below, much like it is now only the tabs are below address bar. Unfortunately we would lose the extra space we got from moving tabs to caption area, but i don't see any other solution for skins like yours that rely on the controls being up top.

Really nice Mikebo :o
The inactive tabs shown as traslucent are really nice, and if i'm not wrong i think we could use MB as a standard window and that would avoid some problems with windows management.
I don't like it when applications draw their own window borders, but some people like it that way.

Steven

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i've made the change so the menu can now be displayed as a button (like Firefox) - it replaces the auto-hide option for the menu bar in the Layout preferences
show menu in: Caption Bar (Button)

i have also added a couple of skin elements for when the default menu button colours dont work so well - see the new skin elements topic for that

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

next up i will add an option to show the tabs in the caption bar, however that is not as easy as i thought it was going to be. When this config is set, it will force the menu button setting


lnminente

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MANY thanks for your big efforts Steven!
It looks very nice, and before you advance more with the tabs to save some work, could someone verify if when MB is maximized the caption bar has a few pixels less in height? I see the buttom a bit bigger than the caption bar when maximized.


Steven

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MANY thanks for your big efforts Steven!
It looks very nice, and before you advance more with the tabs to save some work, could someone verify if when MB is maximized the caption bar has a few pixels less in height? I see the buttom a bit bigger than the caption bar when maximized.
i already put in handling so that the button height should be no more than the caption height and in my testing its handling correctly. Did you get the updated musicbee.exe during the day or the one posted on the weekly updates topic? And if it is the most recent, is there anything unusual about your setup eg. not using 96DPI, large default font in MB, tweaked window border settings, custom UI theme etc
Looking at your screenshot, there is only 1px available before the icon overflows to the bottom button border
Last Edit: June 05, 2012, 11:56:37 AM by Steven

lnminente

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Good news, it was my configuration, it seems i configured the height of the captions to be 19 pixels instead of 21. I'm always looking for more vertical space  ;D
EDIT: That value is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

(BTW, if some people can't see the button we should ask them for enabling "Desktop composition" in the appearance options of windows.)
Last Edit: June 05, 2012, 03:52:52 PM by lnminente

Steven

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EDIT: That value is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
because this is a not info from a standard windows API call i am not sure what i will do with this. I believe the registry entry is not supported in windows 8. So i will leave this for now

Steven

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i have implemented tabs in the caption bar (set in the layout preferences/ main panel config)
i have done basic testing but it needs more testing, so keep a copy of your current version in case you find something you dont like

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

for skin creators, a couple of override elements when the tabs are displayed in the caption bar - borders are ignored and set to windows values when displayed in the windows glass area
  <element id="TabsBar.TabInCaptionBar.Default" bg="225,225,225" fg="30,30,30" bdr="170,170,170" />
  <element id="TabsBar.TabInCaptionBar.Highlight" bg="245,245,245" fg="20,20,20" bdr="190,190,190" />

beeing good

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I haven't tested it much yet but the tabs in the caption bar is a very nice feature, it seems to work really well.

lnminente

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Hi Steven, i would like to remove the dark line between tabs on top and the player controls without enabling skinning borders for better windows compatibility. Is there a margin option i could change? TIA


Steven

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for better windows compatibility
what do you mean by that? the border under the caption bar comes from windows or have misunderstood what you meant

lnminente

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I'm saying windows as the "dialogs", not as the O.S. of course. I'm refering to the aero functionality for example, i remember you had to do some tricks to do it work similar, and have some exceptions like the compact player. I would prefer not skinning borders for maximun compatibility with aero, multiple monitors, etc.

If i'm right, that line comes from the tabs not docked to the most bottom pixels from the caption bar. Would give a lot better aspect if we could remove it :)

lnminente

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This is an example from a modified version from the outlook skin from jistme. The first one is the actual behaviour, the second one is a mockup with that line removed: