New Compact Player Layout

[spartan]

Steven,

just wanted to let you know the new patch fixed the queue issue and the new visualizer looks great with the blending.
Thanks again for all the hard work on this program.

[HHM]

- new option to show a smaller album cover (so it doesnt spill into the artist picture like the larger album cover)

It's great there's option to choose the size, however I think the "larger" one right now is muxh smaller than it used to be. Previously it was just all right to admire the cover without doubleclicking it, right now it recquires doubleclick to see the details. So I guess there should be 3 sizes of cover picture to choose : small, medium & large.

EDIT: the large one shouldn't be bigger that it used to be in previous layout though!

[redwing]

I just found out an alternative compact player mode using playing track tab.



Great thing about this is that you can do pretty much everything you can do with main player (of course, it's a minimized main player): auto-hide left navigator, switch between tabs, search box, toolbar buttons, etc.
I wonder if some options like small (and no) artwork can be supported for playing track tab too.

Edit: So usage-wise, this is basically activating compact player as a tab in main player.

[VX]

I'm very pleased with the changes in the wavebar and other improvements in the 2.1.4827 dev build. Congratulations 
A sorting function for now playing list in this view and an easier way to switch to the Classic view (as suggested above) are the only things I miss to find the current development stage fully functional.

[Steven]

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

- the new compact player layout is now labeled as "modern" layout rather than "flat" layout
- artist images can now be set to rotate - they are retrieved from your artist artwork folder, htbackdrops, fanart.tv, last.fm, and when that has exhausted from flickr
- MB will now retrieve multiple artist pictures from the artist artwork folder (set in Tags(1) preferences) - the files need start with the artist name eg. "Anika.jpg", "Anika_2.png" etc where "Anika.jpg" would be used if artist picture rotation is not enabled
- you can directly paste a clipboard image into the artist artwork folder (it overwrites the primary picture only): right click/ Paste Artwork
- if no artist picture is found, the album cover is used instead
- i've removed the flattening of colours for the visualiser and some tweaks to the background colour picker and artwork cropping/ scaling
- when configured to show small album covers, the track information is now aligned to the bottom of the album cover
- right click in the Now Playing list/ List/ Sort By if you need to sort the now playing list by one of the displayed fields
- quite a few bug fixes
- i experimented with putting a circle around the Play button but it doesnt work well unless the player panel height is increased so i havent done that
- i dont think i will integrate library navigation directly into the compact player as the layout is too small

[redwing]

Looks like you've done quite a lot improvements. Thanks a lot especially for implementing artist picture related wishes!
I just tried pasting and rotating pictures, and it worked flawlessly.

Regarding this,

- you can directly paste a clipboard image into the artist artwork folder (it overwrites the primary picture only): right click/ Paste Artwork

when clicking on Paste Artwork, how about opening, instead of confirmation dialog, standard file browser dialog with cursor on the filename for Save As? Then the user could either just press enter for a primary picture or append "_number" to the filename for additional pictures.

[VX]

Thank you very much for the sorting option and other improvements with the latest development build. 

Compact Player looks really great, but what is worth mentioning is that most visual improvements introduced for the New Compact Player are applicable for other layouts (ie. Classic Player) as well. Well done! 

[psychoadept]

- the new compact player layout is now labeled as "modern" layout rather than "flat" layout
- artist images can now be set to rotate - they are retrieved from your artist artwork folder, htbackdrops, fanart.tv, last.fm, and when that has exhausted from flickr
- MB will now retrieve multiple artist pictures from the artist artwork folder (set in Tags(1) preferences) - the files need start with the artist name eg. "Anika.jpg", "Anika_2.png" etc where "Anika.jpg" would be used if artist picture rotation is not enabled
- you can directly paste a clipboard image into the artist artwork folder (it overwrites the primary picture only): right click/ Paste Artwork
- if no artist picture is found, the album cover is used instead
- i've removed the flattening of colours for the visualiser and some tweaks to the background colour picker and artwork cropping/ scaling
- when configured to show small album covers, the track information is now aligned to the bottom of the album cover
- right click in the Now Playing list/ List/ Sort By if you need to sort the now playing list by one of the displayed fields
- quite a few bug fixes
- i experimented with putting a circle around the Play button but it doesnt work well unless the player panel height is increased so i havent done that
- i dont think i will integrate library navigation directly into the compact player as the layout is too small

WOW!  Awesome work on all of this.  I've already had the artist photo rotation and pasting functions working to great effect.  Just one question: is there any way to exclude a picture, if you don't want it in the rotation anymore?

[Steven]

Just one question: is there any way to exclude a picture, if you don't want it in the rotation anymore?

that isnt supported

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

- i have changed the paste artist picture to open the windows "file save as" dialog as suggested so that makes it easier to add multiple pictures
- when there are multiple pictures, it now chooses one at random as the first picture (rather than the primary picture only as before)
- also put in some handling so the rotation is not reset on resizing or saving settings as before
- if you have no artist picture configured to be displayed (ie album cover only), then the Bio tab will now include an artist picture

if anyone has any further suggestions about reducing the need to go back to the main player then i will consider but as mentioned i am not planning on putting in full library navigation from the compact player as the layout can be too small

[ma_t14]

Just one question, is the new compact layout the default layout? If not, why? IMO it looks much better than the old layout and new users won't immediately know that a modern "better" layout exists as well. Personally I never used the old compact player because I found it kinda ugly and limited, but now I keep using the new one all the time.

Opinions?

[Steven]

it will be the new default - i havent done that yet, but it would only apply for people who start with MB v2.1

[ma_t14]

it will be the new default - i havent done that yet, but it would only apply for people who start with MB v2.1

ok, cool 

[redwing]

Thanks a lot! Now it's quite easy to save multiple pictures for artists.

With some tests, I found these:
1. For secondary pictures, filename need to start with artist name following by any character other than alphabets and numbers.
2. If there's no primary picture but only secondary pictures in artist picture folder, MB won't read them. (Is this intended?)

[Iasc]

artist picture rotation is a great addition and i love the way the visualizer changes color with the artist picture change.

one question though, is it possible to set the artist artwork folder as the only source for the artist picture rotation?

[Iasc]

one question though, is it possible to set the artist artwork folder as the only source for the artist picture rotation?

just to clarify why im asking is because when your dealing with lesser know bands and artists you get some very strange pictures which have nothing to do with the band.