New Compact Player Layout

[Steven]

What I'm missing the most is shuffle button (when overlaid). Now turning it on and off is not easy.

i'm reluctant to add it back in as it would likely make layout of some configurations harder (space constraints)
is it mainly because it requires 3 clicks as opposed to 1 click? and how often would you change it?

The frequency depends on what I'm playing  e.g. a filter vs. an entire album. I could use a hotkey for shuffle, but there's no indicator either to show the current shuffle mode. Probably I would return to main player to adjust the shuffle setting and come back.

i'm not really getting this and why its too much to do 3 clicks to toggle the state, but i know others will make the same complaint so i will look to do something but without adding in the button.
If you click the controls button it currently shows if Shuffle is enabled or not because its ticked when enabled. I will change it so it indlcates the Auto-DJ mode with some text eg. "Shuffle [DJ]". Currently you then need to click on that menu item to open a sub-menu to toggle it and see the available settings if you wanted to enable it. I guess i could split the shuffle settings, so you only need to click directly on the Shuffle menu item to toggle it, so saving that extra click.

[endeavour1934]

i'm not really getting this and why its too much to do 3 clicks to toggle the state, but i know others will make the same complaint so i will look to do something but without adding in the button.

Maybe adding the buttons on the popup menu?

[endeavour1934]

Another version, based on your original concept...

[Steven]

i have tweaked the auto-hidden close/ minimise/ restore buttons. For the MusicBee menu, it doesnt really work very well just showing text, even with shadowing so i am not sure what i will do with that. The player buttons are now returned to their original left orientation for the permanently displayed player panel.
This version also fixes a couple of bugs with the controls menu

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_3/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

edit:
i decided to display a bee icon and "MusicBee" text where the menu button used to display

[Steven]

Maybe adding the buttons on the popup menu?

yes i think thats a good idea that i should be able to implement - you can see the state of all the buttons and would be able to click the button to toggle

[Alexis]

Steven,
Thank you very much.
I think this is a major improvement on the menu/min/max etc buttons.  It  just feels  so much lighter and clean.

With the play-bar always showing,  I think it is a very nice looking implementation but its background could be a bit lighter so that there is not such a sharp distinction between that and the main background (Unless this is what you are going after). 
In cases like below, the smoother transition should prevent it from feeling like 'something is wrong'.



When the visualizer is  visible,  the visualizer space background could be more subtle.  (It  seems as though we had overcome this issue in the previous setup, but I do not recall).  The gradient used there seems a bit rough, but I do not know if we could overcome that.



When the playbar is auto-hidden and the visualizer is in use, I realize that when one hovers it feels as if the player has frozen, because of course the visualizer is buried and not frozen.

Finally, I thought I would post these images below to see if there is anything we can pick  up for handling transitions with lighter colors.:

       

[Alexis]

Just want to note that with the transparency added to the play-bar, I may not even want to have it auto-hidden.  Just thinking maybe a bit lighter or a a bit more transparency, whichever is the case.

[Iasc]

a lot of the new changes look really promising. one issue i would like to raise is with the spectrum visualiser. my favourite feature about the compact player was the vibrancy of some of the colours of the spectrum visauliser. because this was discussed earlier in this thread i know that was only possible when a black background was displayed behind it which no longer seems to be the case. is there a way to bring this back? i have posted a before and after to show the difference.

Before



Now

[redwing]

- player controls don't show up after settings button(shuffle, repeat, etc.) was clicked

It's working better, but the controls still don't show up if the button is clicked but no menu item is selected, i.e. the user opens up the menu by clicking on the button, but does not select any menu item, and then clicks on desktop background to close down the pop-up menu (the only way), which makes MB lose focus. After that controls don't come back.

[Bee-liever]

liking the these changes except for the search icon always being displayed

since the minimalist route has been taken for the player bar, IMO it's an unnecessary duplication to have it show unless I have the "disable auto-open" option for the now playing assistant checked in Settings(2).  Even then it should be relegated to the same level as "shuffle", "repeat", etc. i.e. one click down.

[Steven]

one issue i would like to raise is with the spectrum visualiser.

I havent changed the algorithm to select the colous - the pictures dont look the same size which can affect the colours selected.
Is that a medium or large size album cover?

Also the first image looks lighter - one thing i was planning to change back was the ability to extend into the windows caption bar even when 'overlay panels' is not enabled, which i suspect is what you were using before.

[Steven]

- player controls don't show up after settings button(shuffle, repeat, etc.) was clicked

It's working better, but the controls still don't show up if the button is clicked but no menu item is selected, i.e. the user opens up the menu by clicking on the button, but does not select any menu item, and then clicks on desktop background to close down the pop-up menu (the only way), which makes MB lose focus. After that controls don't come back.

i am not able to reproduce that. Is that something you can reproduce just doing those steps only?
You can click anywhere on the application window or press escape to close the popup.

[Alumni]

Can we please have the option to display a solid color behind the lyrics? Sometimes it can be hard to read with certain backgrounds.

[Steven]

disable "overlay panels on the background feature"

[Alumni]

disable "overlay panels on the background feature"

Actually the new 'overlay' layout mode already does this but only when the aspect ratio leaves too much empty space on the side.
MusicBee automatically puts a solid color here, my wish was for it stay this way when the window is re-sized, overlapping the picture.