Topic: Text at top of player window in .35 is now too small (Read 1720 times)

billF · « **on:** December 25, 2020, 07:24:51 pm »

Hello,
MC 27 version 27.0.22 has worked well for me until now. But starting in 27.0.35 and still in .39 the text that gives "what's playing" data at the top of the window of standard view has been shrunk down a couple of font sizes and I can no longer read it from my 16' distance from my 63" monitor. I really like having that data there while I'm listening and hope it was just an overlooked detail in the new versions. It fits in the same space whether larger or smaller so I'm hoping you could just bump it back up in your next revision. Until then I have switched back to version 27.0.22. BTW, MC 26 had the larger text already and in earlier versions of MC 27 the text was reduced until .22 when it was returned to the larger font.

* photo attached

Thanks for considering my request!

billF · « **Reply #1 on:** February 14, 2021, 07:45:03 pm »

Hi, Just a reminder of my wish list: In December 2020 (post above) I asked if you could return the text size at the top of the window to where it was in build 27.0.22. (see details and screen shots above). There have been no replies so I've just kept using the older build. Now were on build 27.0.62 and it still hasn't been changed back. Thanks for a word about it or a fix.

All the best,

Bill (a JRiver lover and daily user)

wer · « **Reply #2 on:** February 14, 2021, 09:16:14 pm »

Or, you could just go to Options->Tree & View->Select Font and change the font and size to whatever you desire.

billF · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2021, 01:07:39 am »

Thanks for the thought, but doing that (changing the font choice from 18 to 21 made the entire window huge with the drop down fonts about 30 times bigger than they were. Also, everything is so large now I can't get to the font size choice to put it back. I only was asking for the one item that gives playback info larger (see my attachment). Everything else is perfect and this item was perfect in 26 and 27.0.22.

I know I'm making it sound simple and easy and perhaps it's not. No worries, I can keep using 27.0.22 and be happy.

Bill

wer · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2021, 01:27:27 am »

There's never been a separate font setting for that area, I'm afraid. The size for that area has always been based on the one font setting for the interface. And if everything is working as it should there's no need for anything else.

I see no change in that area in the Windows version; the font layout looks the same as it has for years.

Try 1pt larger instead of 3pts, or a different font. Your 30 times comment sounds like an exaggeration, and if it's not please post a screenshot, showing the whole window this time.

Maybe someone else with a Mac will see your screenshot showing the 30x problem and be able to reproduce it.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2021, 04:54:18 am »

One thing you can try is, making a copy of the skin's folder you're using in the older Media Center then renaming the folder, and edit main.xml in a text editor to change the skin's name. From there select the forked skin in Media Center and try updating to the latest version. If it's related to the skin, the older skin *should* remain as long as the skin was properly forked.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** February 15, 2021, 07:07:16 am »

Under the View Menu, try adjusting "Size".

bob · « **Reply #7 on:** February 15, 2021, 08:40:38 am »

Use a current build to start with.
27.0.62 is the current stable build.
Builds newer than .22 use the system fonts, not the software fonts that were used when the screen wasn't being written to in native mode.

Here are a couple of screenshots. I have chosen font size 12 and font size 18. They are exactly as you'd expect.

bob · « **Reply #8 on:** February 15, 2021, 08:49:55 am »

I noticed you are using a different skin, try one of the more modern ones. Say modern cards grey.
The Z, Thunderstorm, Pixos, Noire glass, Green eyes, Blue steel and Aruba don't seem to be scaling properly in the playbar area.

This one works great, you have to manually install it on a Mac but it's got a blue theme like the one you were using and is very modern in appearance.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128460.0.html

Scroll down the topic to see how to install it on a Mac.

billF · « **Reply #9 on:** February 15, 2021, 03:49:43 pm »

Thanks for all the suggestions! Bob, I think choosing another skin is the solution for what I want. I just re-downloaded 27.0.62 and tried the newer skins and they put the text in the playbar just the right size for my use - without making other elements too large. Also, I look forward to working with the new customizable "Dream in Blue" skin from HPBEME that you mentioned. Yay! . . . 8-)

HPBEME · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2021, 01:00:16 pm »

Hello Bill,
While I created the Dream in Blue skin, I do think Blue Steel is a fantastic looking skin too. If you prefer the Blue Steel skin, you can independently control the Meta-data text size in the Player Bar just as you wanted. The problem is, skins of that “vintage” do not have the necessary input lines in the XML file by default, so you have to add them yourself.

The relevant xml input lines for each skin are shown below for reference. If you add the bolded lines to the Blue Steel skin, you can make the Title & Status text quite large, and do so without changing the text size elsewhere in the skin. NOTE: text size values for these inputs are not “font points” - I am not sure what units they represent (HTML/CSS related perhaps?), but clearly they mean something to MC. Bottom line, bigger value = bigger font. Based on your screenshots, I updated the Blue Steel main.xml to match the previous font sizes you preferred (as best I can by eye anyway). Just replace the existing main.xml in the Blue Steel skin folder with the attached version.

For additional info/guidance, take a look at the “main+comments.xml” (in Dream in Blue skin folder), and read the PLAYERBAR section’s meta-data display settings comments. Note that for Blue Steel, the Data Style input (= 0 or 1) does not behave exactly as I describe in my comments, which I attribute to age of the Blue Steel skin. That said, make sure you use 1 for Data Style, otherwise the status text gets pushed outside of the display window for larger fonts.

BLUE STEEL
<PLAYERBAR>
<Entry Name="Display" Bitmap="Playerbar_Display.png" NumberImages="1" Columns="80,?-Flex,80" Row="25,?-Flex,25" Scale="2" >
<Colors TitleText="132243" StatusText="0E1A34" WaveformBarA="c4cfdd" WaveformBarB="132243" />
</Entry>

DREAM IN BLUE
<PLAYERBAR>
<Data AllowEnlargeForFont="1" />
<Entry Name="Display" Bitmap="Display-W2.png" Margins="20,20,20,20" Scale="2" >
<Colors TitleText="FFFFFF" StatusText="FFFFFF" WaveformBarA="FFFFFF" WaveformBarB="0094FF"/>
<DisplayFont TitleSize="130" StatusSize="88" TitleWeight="200" StatusWeight="100" />
<Data Style="1" />
</Entry>

billF · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2021, 02:47:01 pm »

How generous of you to offer these code hints for making the MC skins customized. I have copied it all and am keeping them with your previously posted aides. I have spent some very fun evenings working with Dream in Blue to customize it to my room situation and flat screen monitor and am pleased with how it is working for now. I'll attach a view of it for you. Our other passion is astronomy so I've added some stars to the background as well as making the song data text white to help our 16' distance from the monitor. We listen to music every night so it's so nice to have an artistic and pleasing skin to navigate with. Thanks again!

HPBEME · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2021, 06:18:43 pm »

Your welcome Bill. I am glad you are enjoying the skin and are customizing it to your own taste.

I see that you have definitely made a number of changes... not just swapping images from among those I created (by changing the option number), but you clearly also edited some of the images directly too - nice job on adding the starscape background! I do have a question though... from the screenshot in your post, I isolated the horizontal slider of the right side of the Tabs bar.

Did you edit the slider image to create space around the grip? Or, does it look that way by default on a Mac? If it is the latter, then I guess there are some skin image translation issues on Macs. If that is the case, there is not much I can do about it, as I don't have a Mac to test out differences. Regardless, I am curious if there are major differences in how the skin looks on Mac vs. Windows, and I would consider this a major difference. For reference, below is how I intended the horizontal slider/grip to look (and how it does look) on a Windows machine. If you edited the image itself to look that way because that is what you want, then great! With all the experience you are gaining, perhaps you will become the next person to release a new skin yourself.

In any event, please let me know if this was intended or a discrepancy. One other possibility just occurred to me - it does look like you use a much larger font than I do... that could force that particular image to be taller to match your font's height. In this case, I am referring the font you specify via the Options Window settings, NOT the text size set in the XML file. If you don't mind sharing, what font style/size do you use, and what is the native resolution of your monitor?

For completeness, I should point out that the slider pic above shows only 1 of the 6 "built-in" image options for the slider background, and 1 of the 4 unique grip image options. 4 of the 6 slider backgrounds are ovals just like above (with different colors and/or 3D effect), while 2 of the slider backgrounds are thin lines (with 2 different colors).

billF · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2021, 07:22:53 pm »

The Options font choice is: English, Helvetica, Regular, 18. I found that in the Blue Steel Skin, on the Mac, that if I started sizing with the View/Size already set to a number higher than 100%, the Options font size did not happily change as I directed it. So with Dream in Blue Stars I left "View/Size" at 100% and just changed the Options font choice to the above.

At the time I didn't really understand your direction to change a number or letter in the XML and get different options. So I did more color changing with the "FFFFFF" color code and image brightness, and resizing changing in Photoshop. I am experienced in HTML coding and Photoshop already.

I just tried changing the Options/font size from 18 to 12 and the space (frame) around the slider reduced to follow the font change and looks like yours. Changing it back to 18 made it taller again. Now that I know more, I'll go back and try some of your "built in" options for these things. I would really like a larger and lighter "back" and "forward" buttons in that same tab row but ended up surmising that they are controlled by MC27 not by the skin code and can't be user changed.

HaWi · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2021, 07:40:53 pm »

Quote from: bob on February 15, 2021, 08:49:55 am

I noticed you are using a different skin, try one of the more modern ones. Say modern cards grey.
The Z, Thunderstorm, Pixos, Noire glass, Green eyes, Blue steel and Aruba don't seem to be scaling properly in the playbar area.

This one works great, you have to manually install it on a Mac but it's got a blue theme like the one you were using and is very modern in appearance.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128460.0.html

Scroll down the topic to see how to install it on a Mac.

Can someone please help me to deal with the .mjp file on MacOS? I put it the Skins/Standard View folder but that doesn't seem to be enough. Unzipping was mentioned but it's not a .zip file. Im at a loss.
Many thanks for any help

HPBEME · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2021, 10:03:05 pm »

Hello HaWi,
When I first released the skin, I attached a zip file to my 1st post that anyone could download. I wanted to make it available to more folks than just those viewing the thread, so I moved it to the accessory page. Per Bob in post #35 of thread: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128460.0.html:

Quote from: bob on February 11, 2021, 09:24:18 am

The automated install method only works on windows at this time. For Mac,
you can download the skin from the accessories page then unzip it into
~/Library/Application\ Support\J\ River\Media\ Center\ 27/Skins/Standard\ View/
It should be in a folder of it's own, if you use the zip file from the accessories page, create the folder
Dream\ in\ Blue
under Standard\ View and unzip into there.

Since I have a windows machine, the MJP auto-installs. But I see your problem - when you save the file from the accessories page, it saves it as an .MJP, not a zip... so how does one unzip an MJP file? I don't know. I tried to change the extension to zip, but no luck there. Hopefully Bill/Bob/others will weigh-in and explain what you need to do to get it onto your Mac. I wish I could offer some actual help, but I did at least confirm the issue you are having.

HPBEME · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2021, 10:19:29 pm »

Quote from: billF on March 02, 2021, 07:22:53 pm

The Options font choice is: English, Helvetica, Regular, 18.

18 points... that is some mighty large font, Bill! Good to know that font size affects that image height... thanks for confirming it.

Quote

Now that I know more, I'll go back and try some of your "built in" options for these things.

That's great to hear! Please let everyone know how that goes - on this thread and the original skin announcement thread too https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128460.0.html

Quote

I would really like a larger and lighter "back" and "forward" buttons in that same tab row but ended up surmising that they are controlled by MC27 not by the skin code and can't be user changed.

That is correct... those are not a user-controllable images.

HaWi · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2021, 09:50:29 am »

Quote from: HPBEME on March 02, 2021, 10:03:05 pm

Hello HaWi,
When I first released the skin, I attached a zip file to my 1st post that anyone could download. I wanted to make it available to more folks than just those viewing the thread, so I moved it to the accessory page. Per Bob in post #35 of thread: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128460.0.html:

Since I have a windows machine, the MJP auto-installs. But I see your problem - when you save the file from the accessories page, it saves it as an .MJP, not a zip... so how does one unzip an MJP file? I don't know. I tried to change the extension to zip, but no luck there. Hopefully Bill/Bob/others will weigh-in and explain what you need to do to get it onto your Mac. I wish I could offer some actual help, but I did at least confirm the issue you are having.

Thank you HPBEME, I figured it out. Opening the .mjp file in an editor reveals a URL from which the .zip file can be downloaded. This .zip file contains the actual skin.

HPBEME · « **Reply #18 on:** March 03, 2021, 11:52:43 am »

I am so glad you figured it out. Hopefully your solution here will help others similarly stymied.

I have to say though, this is a rather non-obvious way for Mac users to get and then manually install skins that are not pre-loaded with MC. This procedure/solution should be provided in such a way that all Mac (and Linux?) users cannot help but see it vs. being buried here in some random forum thread. Perhaps Bob can update the Accessories page to have 2 links... one for windows that auto-installs via MJP file, the other link downloads a zip directly for manual Mac/Linux installs. The explanation for why there are 2 links could be stated prominently at the top of the Accessory Page for skins.

For an inexperienced and/or non-tech savvy user to realize that maybe they should try opening the MJP file with a text editor seems highly unlikely. They then of course must notice the URL within it and conclude that if they copy/paste that into a browser, it will take them to the skin's zip file... and of course, the zip file is NOT the name of the skin, but a generic number! And after all of that, you can now finally manually install it by navigating to the correct location and following the instructions Bob previously provided.

You know what? I changed my mind... the best solution is to create an auto-installer that works for Mac/Linux!

HaWi · « **Reply #19 on:** March 03, 2021, 01:12:38 pm »

Quote from: HPBEME on March 03, 2021, 11:52:43 am

I am so glad you figured it out. Hopefully your solution here will help others similarly stymied.

I have to say though, this is a rather non-obvious way for Mac users to get and then manually install skins that are not pre-loaded with MC. This procedure/solution should be provided in such a way that all Mac (and Linux?) users cannot help but see it vs. being buried here in some random forum thread. Perhaps Bob can update the Accessories page to have 2 links... one for windows that auto-installs via MJP file, the other link downloads a zip directly for manual Mac/Linux installs. The explanation for why there are 2 links could be stated prominently at the top of the Accessory Page for skins.

For an inexperienced and/or non-tech savvy user to realize that maybe they should try opening the MJP file with a text editor seems highly unlikely. They then of course must notice the URL within it and conclude that if they copy/paste that into a browser, it will take them to the skin's zip file... and of course, the zip file is NOT the name of the skin, but a generic number! And after all of that, you can now finally manually install it by navigating to the correct location and following the instructions Bob previously provided.

You know what? I changed my mind... the best solution is to create an auto-installer that works for Mac/Linux!

Completely agree with you. To get the skin properly into the Linux version on my Pi, in addition to doing the URL/download thingy, I also had to find where the skins are kept (/usr/lib/jriver/Media\ Center\ 27/Skins/Standard\ View) and then change permissions because it's a root owned folder. That's a bit convoluted in my mind.
EDIT: of course, I got the path wrong...

LilyAarseth · « **Reply #20 on:** March 03, 2021, 05:02:20 pm »

Hope it's not impolite to ask since skinning has been discussed a bit in here, is it possible to edit the config file to change the highlight colour of both text and the highlight "box" itself?

HPBEME · « **Reply #21 on:** March 03, 2021, 05:56:20 pm »

Hello Lily. It depends on what you mean by highlight.

Anytime you click inside a user-editable text box, all text is automatically highlighted a sky-blue color. This color is not editable, and is the same sky-blue color for ALL skins, regardless of their general color scheme.

For the textbox itself however, each skin uses a custom image. That image consists of 3 "sub-images": default appearance, mouse-over (or "highlight") appearance, and clicked-on appearance. It is not required that all sub-images be unique however, so depending on the skin: all 3 states appearances may be unique, all 3 may be identical, or 2 of the 3 states might look the same.

If you are referring to my skin specifically, Dream in Blue, and have already downloaded it, open the main+comments.xml (located in the skin folder) and review the comments for further info/guidance. Fair warning, the comments are extensive. Hope that helps.

LilyAarseth · « **Reply #22 on:** March 03, 2021, 06:07:44 pm »

I was actually going to, but despite having used MC for years, I never tried to install a skin before, and I can't find any obvious way of doing so. I tried to open the .mjp with MC27, tried to put the .mjp into the same folder as other skins, even tried to rename the file to .zip and tried to open it, nothing worked so far. I don't see any import skin option anywhere I looked so I'm beat. Maybe it's in plain sight and I just missed it

HPBEME · « **Reply #23 on:** March 03, 2021, 06:12:52 pm »

The solution is indeed in plain sight

. Go up few posts in this thread and read HaWi post #17, and my subsequent post #18.

LilyAarseth · « **Reply #24 on:** March 03, 2021, 06:24:43 pm »

Thank you! I was wondering why the file was so small, I should have figured it out sooner. Seems what I wanted to make more visible was the list select elements, but on your skin this isn't an issue since it's very visible.

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Author Topic: Text at top of player window in .35 is now too small (Read 1720 times)