New Compact Player Layout

[Steven]

Well, I still prefer what you did here, before these two last patch:

i dont know what you mean - the only substantial difference is the blurred black band for the track info

have undone all your hard work on the background for smaller pictures. The darker bands left for the visualiser and track info detract from the great work you did on getting the colour-blending right.

Please, please, please return it to how it was before.

i actually like it more but i will see if anyone else offers an opinion. I do think it needs a darker band for when the opacity gets lower so i could start showing the band only for low opacity settings

[KissCool]

Well, I still prefer what you did here, before these two last patch:

i dont know what you mean - the only substantial difference is the blurred black band for the track info

Last patch


previous one:

What I like here is that you have a really clean layout. Would be perfect for me without the overlay.
That's why I asked for a transparency setting starting from 0 'cause I just wanted to get rid of this overlay for this view.
If I untick the overlay in the settings, I can't get that (visualiser doesn't override the fanart and doesn't have transparency, dark overlay between fanart and track info).
If I don't care about the lyrics and just want a show off mode, I set the opacity to 0%.
Just bought a new album? Wanna read the lyrics? Then I just have to set the opacity to 60-80%.

Another wish (for compact player and main player):
Can you get rid of the scroll bar when the lyrics are synchronized? IMO, quiete useless since the lyrics auto scroll.

[psychoadept]

My only opinion on the overlay effect is that if it looked the way it does in KissCool's third image - the shadow on the font - I might actually use it.  (Added: I also observed the awkward overlays as shown in KissCool's most recent post, when I checked it out just now.)

I'm REALLY happy to have the auto-hide for player bar, thanks!  I only wish that the MusicBee button and window buttons were full opacity, since they hide so quickly now.  It looks weird when they should be the same color as the player bar and aren't.

My main concern at the moment is images like this.



I'm not sure I entirely understood the changes to background fill, but I'm perfectly happy with the single-color background. 

This looks really weird, though.  Shouldn't the photo at least be scaled to the full window?  I see others that are displaying correctly with the image behind the track info, but only when they fill the whole window.  I assume it's intended, but it seems inconsistent, and with a *compact* player to begin with, I don't want the images scaled down more than necessary.

[Steven]

what it is doing is resizing the picture above the album cover/track info bar when the width of the picture doesnt extend to go over the album cover - before you could have the album cover, a gap and then the picture so it looks disconnected and in my view doesnt look good especially when the track info starts in the gap and extends to the start of the picture.
But i take your point about the fact that the compact player can be small so reducing the picture size is not great.
I am near to calling time on the compact player for this release though but i will have a look and see what can be done. It seems others didnt mind the old behavior and maybe its just me!

[SimonBRT]

The same as scampbll , some of the discussion as to the exact nature of recent changes has gone over my head.  All I will say though is that i have also experienced the strange artefacts shown here by kisscool



For this reason alone I preferred the previous patch.

[Steven]

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

i've undone most of the changes made (not fully tested). I cant say i think it works that well when pictures are not full size. I also think some of the examples above are either bugs or extreme cases shown that fit the point being made but might not apply to a wider range of pictures.
Let me know if i missed anything out.
I might have another look at this but probably not as i think its time to call it a day with this

[KissCool]

You've forgot to remove the track info overlay (opacity=0.3-0.5).

[Steven]

You've forgot to remove the track info overlay (opacity=0.3-0.5).

its intentional

[ma_t14]

You've forgot to remove the track info overlay (opacity=0.3-0.5).

I've been following the discussion and I can't figure out how to make this show up. Someone help please?

Nevermind, found it. It seems it only appears when the album art is set to small size. Any particular reason a black bar is shown instead when the artwork is set to large size?

I like the overlay and I can imagine times that it would not work if it wasn't there so I am with Steven on this one. But as I said I would love to see this overlay for when the album artwork is set to large picture. As it is now with the black bar a large part of the artist background kinda goes to waste

[KissCool]

its intentional

Arf.. Well, I'll have to set the opacity to 0.51 

I like the overlay and I can imagine times that it would not work if it wasn't there so I am with Steven on this one. But as I said I would love to see this overlay for when the album artwork is set to large picture. As it is now with the black bar a large part of the artist background kinda goes to waste

From my point of view, u already have a view with just track info overlay (untick the overlay boxe option).
When you tick the overlay boxe option, this view already got a global overlay. So adding one more for the track info isn't necessary. Then having the abilities to set the opacity of the overlay in the options  start to become useless: if you want a light overlay, then it adds a second darker overlay. Excactly the opposite of what your looking for. Make no sense, IMHO.

But I'm agree with you about the bigger cover view. Would be nice (same for the now playing panel when docked in tab).

[ma_t14]

Here's an example of an artwork background where not having an overlay would probably not work:

Transparency set to 30


So my opinion on the matter stands

For some reason though the now playing list is barely visible and that should NOT be happening

[KissCool]

Here's an example of an artwork background where not having an overlay would probably not work:

Transparency set to 30

So my opinion on the matter stands

For some reason though the now playing list is barely visible and that should NOT be happening

it's not readable because of the overlay but because of transparency applied to the lyrics. Check this:
(Track info aren't affected, Steven may have set the opacity to 0.95 I guess)

About the lyrics, ATM, MusicBee apply a transparency to the text. That's why it's not really readable in some cases. It's not 'cause of the overlay opacity.
So, something like this would be better:
layer #1: background (fanart) -> opacity=100%
layer #2: overlay -> opacity=0-80% (can be set in option)
layer #3: album cover, track info, lyrics and visualiser (without background) -> opacity=100%
layer #4: player bar, MusicBee icon and menu, Windows close, restore, etc. buttons

So, dunno if the lyrics are on the layer #2 or if you apply the transparency setting on the overlay and the lyrics, but I think something like this would be better:
1st picture: previous patch, opacity=40% / 2nd picture: last patch, opacity=60% / 3rd picture: how I think it should look like
     ---->          ----->     

As you can see on the third picture, lyrics are readable even without overlay. Just added a shadow effect to the fonts (since border effect doesn't look good in MusicBee). So, you should try to get ride of this transparency on the lyrics. Just my 2 cents

And here the Steven' answer:

yes i am aware of that, although and as i said in the previous post i am not planning to change that as its too much to do.

I'm not trying to convice you. And that's why I didn't asked Steven to make a lighter overlay but I asked him if we could have a transparency setting. This way, everyone could be happy. Those who want a dark overlay for having the lyrics always readable can set the opacity to 0.80. Those who just want a clean layout can set the opacity to 0.30.

[ma_t14]

it's not readable because of the overlay but because of transparency applied to the lyrics. Check this:
(Track info aren't affected, Steven may have set the opacity to 0.95 I guess)

I'm talking about the now playing list not being visible. Is that somehow connected to the lyrics?

Additionally when I said not having an overlay would probably not work I was talking about track info and the extra overlay applied there. I was referring to your post here:

...
When you tick the overlay boxe option, this view already got a global overlay. So adding one more for the track info isn't necessary.
...

It appears to me that in the screenshot I posted if the overlay on the track info wasn't there it would result in the track info not being easily readable.

[Steven]

kisscool is correct but i am going to make one more attempt at it so it draws the text directly on the picture.
As to filling the panel with the artist picture when overlaying the panels and using the large album cover, i agree and will change that

[Alexis]

Loving the last update VERY much regarding just how clean it is with overlay.