New Compact Player Layout

[Alexis]

Working well for me Steven..
I see what you mean by wavebar box also.   Thank you very much.

[Bee-liever]

reverted to the old colour picker algorithm as i dont think the new one was working as well overall

Yah-oo! Linda has the red visualiser back  

On the the idea of 'Modern' being the default view for MB, for that I think you need quick access to all the player bar settings from the current main view. So here is a mock-up suggestion for that:


remove the shuffle button and replace with a panel access icon, clicking on which collapses the wavebar, creating room for all the controls:


hit 'close panel' and the wavebar reverts back to normal view.
I thought this might be achievable now as

- wavebar is reloaded on resize

Regardless, I do think the auto-play action needs to be added to the shuffle button as per the main player panel

[redwing]

Regarding rotate artist picture setting,



I don't see the point of listing web sources that are not configurable. And I'd like to have an option of disabling all web sources, not just flickr.com. How about giving just one option "web sources": if it's ticked, then MB rotates custom + web pictures; if unticked, only custom pictures.

[Alexis]

Curious...are you saying that you have local pictures for all your artists? If so, that is amazing to me.  Isn't that Hard? By the way, you remember why he enabled the option to uncheck flicker...the results it was returning?

[redwing]

Curious...are you saying that you have local pictures for all your artists? If so, that is amazing to me.  Isn't that Hard?

Don't get why you're saying such a thing. It's about limiting sources for "rotating," not for "showing." If there's no custom artist pics, MB would retrieve one just like when rotate option was unticked.

By the way, you remember why he enabled the option to uncheck flicker...the results it was returning?

What was requested originally was the ability to run sort of "custom gallery" without web sources. But it was replaced with option to disable flickr.com only. This was why.

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.

i would think that comes from flickr, so maybe just the option of disabling flickr might be a better approach otherwise just using your own pictures for rotation would be quite limiting to the majority of people

What I want is not just less variety by disabling one source but complete control of what's showing when rotate option is ticked. If you have many obscure artists that results in wrong pics, you wouldn't want the rotate option ticked. Also you can't exclude some occasional horrible web pictures with the current option. Then what's the point of building custom pics library?

[Alexis]

@Redwing,
 Thank you and forgive me if it appears as anything but a sincere question for the sake of learning.  Though I have been using MB for a while now, a LOT of things about it go over my head.  Do not assume I know what may appear as the obvious .

[redwing]

@Redwing,
 Thank you and forgive me if it appears as anything but a sincere question for the sake of learning.  Though I have been using MB for a while now, a LOT of things about it go over my head.  Do not assume I know what may appear as the obvious .

That's OK.

BTW if some people prefer the current option, making each source tickable could be a better option, if possible. Then unticking all would rotate custom pics only.

[9cupsoftea]

So the compact player is default view now? Will the other view still be available?

Will you be releasing this version on the Beta channel Steven or keeping it in this thread til the next full release? I haven't yet tried it because I'm happy with the last beta, but if this is stable at the moment I'd switch over just to see.

[Bee-liever]

So the compact player is default view now?

Not at the moment. It's only been suggested as a possibility.

[redwing]

Regarding empty rows in track info display,

1. When row span is two, the field always occupies two rows regardless of actual length of value. It doesn't look good with an empty line in the middle. Would it be possible to make the meaning of row span as maximum, not as reserved?
2. When a field is empty with if or isnull function, remaining values are going up, which is good; but it leaves an empty line at the bottom. Can this empty line removed?

[redwing]

Some observations about the current right sidebar:

<Now Playing list>
1. Search box is not displayed most time when clicking on "text search" (bug). Also when clicking on "text search" command, now playing list gets hidden and shows lyrics instead, if the place of the command happens to be outside of right sidebar (auto-hide mode).
2. If you right click on the area where text search box should be displayed, selecting "Customize panel setting" opens up classic compact player settings pane (bug).
3. Even when sorted by other fields, search by typing always works for title field. Cannot find a way to search for artist by typing.
4. When lyrics pane is disabled, the width of now playing list (auto-hide mode) is about two-thirds of the whole window. But when lyrics pane is enabled, it's the same as the width of lyrics pane. This makes sense aesthetically, but not efficient functionally. If you have set up more than two fields for now playing list, then you have to adjust right sidebar to read now playing list. How about making the width of now playing list consistent regardless of whether lyrics pane is enabled?

<Lyrics pane>
Artist pane and Now Playing list can be auto hidden, but not for lyrics pane. This makes it hard to open and close lyrics pane. Currently it requires four mouse clicks. How about offering a right-click menu item of "open/close lyrics pane" that has the same effect as ticking "show lyrics" option in configuration pane?

[psychoadept]

<Lyrics pane>
Artist pane and Now Playing list can be auto hidden, but not for lyrics pane. This makes it hard to open and close lyrics pane. Currently it requires four mouse clicks. How about offering a right-click menu item of "open/close lyrics pane" that has the same effect as ticking "show lyrics" option in configuration pane?

I would much rather have lyrics as the left panel auto-hide than bio.  But a right click item would be an improvement, definitely.

[Alexis]

As seen in  most of the images I have posted.. I really like  having the artist information on a single row.problem:  It s not possible to have star rating stars on  the same row.. when I try to add rating, it is converted to a number.. so if a track is rated  5 stars, it would show up as a number figure 5.  show a5.  if no rating, it will show text 'No rating'

Request:  The ability to populate it with rating ' stars' the same way it would appear if I added the stars on a separate row.

Advance thanks.

[Steven]

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

the following changes:
- you can now auto-hide any of the right sidebar components - now all of them popup from the right side
- some improvements to the layout of the track info as requested by redwing (not the star rating request from Alexis)
- the now playing panel stays in focus (so when you type text the find text panel opens)
- the shuffle button now toggles to the auto-dj mode the same as the main player
- this version also contains substantial reworking of the artwork display caching and should work better now with radio streams if you have artwork set for the radio station, and should work better with artwork for web-files when used between the Theater Mode and Compact Player, as well as more efficient internal handing. Same for the lyrics handling.

Although the artwork and lyrics handling has been tested quite a bit, I suggest you keep a copy of MusicBee.exe handy in case there is an annoying bug with that.

[redwing]

Thanks a lot for the improvement!

Just a few quick observations:
1. Handling of row span improved, but leaves empty rows at the bottom. Can these be removed, too?
2. To make the new auto-hide lyrics panel useful, its width should be the same as that of open mode. Currently it's too wide.
3. Column width adjustment for now playing list is not working properly.