New Compact Player Layout

[Steven]

nice changes, especially the wave bar being centered now.

since the artist and track name are removed with the wave bar showing what do people think about displaying it within the wave bar. i did a quick mock up.



 a new skin element would probably be required so it doesn't clash with what ever colours people have the wave bar.

this might work ok for some skins (dark ones) and if the wave bar is not narrow - i will try it out and see how well it works but not promising anything.
I figured people could see the now playing information elsewhere in the player if they want to use this layout option

[Steven]

what do you think of this approach?

[ma_t14]

I like it, given that it will scroll if the text is too long.

[Bee-liever]

Like it as well
Maybe swapping it round so the artist/track info is on top, so that if you don't have the ratings showing the track times are centered underneath?

[redwing]

I figured people could see the now playing information elsewhere in the player if they want to use this layout option

This was what I thought as well. No objection to the proposal, but the space might be too short.

[Steven]

i've tried the proposal and i dont think it works so i am going to leave the wave bar as is

[Iasc]

i've tried the proposal and i dont think it works so i am going to leave the wave bar as is

no problem, thanks for giving it a shot anyway.

[Alexis]

Not a bad idea to have the play-bar blended in as an option:

[Iasc]

Not a bad idea to have the play-bar as optional:

love it. +11111111111111111111111

[Serhigh]

I'm absolutely agree with Alexis , it is a great idea .

[9cupsoftea]

Not a bad idea to have the play-bar as optional:

love it. +11111111111111111111111

+1

Seems a bit open to interpretation, but any kind of blending would be awesome I think. I'd even like to see something like that in the main player.

[Alexis]

One of the things we discussed earlier was  how to handle the image display when they do not fill out the screen.  The solution was geared towards avoiding clipping and filling out the sides with a similar color.  Obviously, we arrived at a conclusion, evident in current build.

However, I have been  struggling with this a bit and wondering if I would prefer the magnification of the image, keeping it in proportion, and allowing some clipping.  I have not been pleased with images results like what is seen below with the color on the sides..   I think I may even prefer an image that is not proportionate instead ofthis, but I am not sure.  Just thoughts.

[psychoadept]

However, I have been  struggling with this a bit and wondering if I would prefer the magnification of the image, keeping it in proportion, and allowing some clipping.  I have not been pleased with images results like what is seen below with the color on the sides..   I think I may even prefer an image that is not proportionate instead ofthis, but I am not sure.  Just thoughts.

I'm glad you're not sure, because I would definitely hate to go back to either skewing the aspect ratio or major clipping of images.  There are just too many different ways photos are laid out, and a cropping that works great for some photos can reduce people to their chins or their ears in others.  The really awkward moments aren't entirely gone, but they're few and far between now.

[Steven]

i personally dont like it when the photo doesnt fill the panel either but i dont have any good suggestions for that layout. Anyone else have some bright ideas?

It might be better to use the overlay option for which I have been making some changes to that layout, so you can now have the overlay enabled with nothing displaying in the right panel - it now also shows the track information and spectrum visualiser directly on the artist picture (not in the version available yet). With the overlay option enabled the picture is left aligned (it does look better if you have one of the panels displayed in the right though).

As to the suggestion further up i will look at extending the artist picture into the player controls but anything like the screenshot above is way beyond the time i would have available

[9cupsoftea]

Perhaps you could allow for themes to control what occurs in the background space? Something like a texture, or pattern?

I often see people use background images when they're working with cropped images or video, so maybe using shaded album art as a background is an idea also. Another suggestion perhaps is to use a shaded patchwork of multiple artist pictures as a background, but I don't know how viable that is really.