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[RhinoBanga]

Here is a screenshot of the popup:




Here's the download link:

http://www.mrblobby.ukshells.co.uk/GetPlayingNow/gpn.exe


Here's what's new:

1)  Added slimline skin
2)  Added ability to specify 16x16 thumbnail which resizes the 64x64 one
3)  Added ability to align the ratings
4)  Added ability to specify size of border on background skin to make popups look neater
5)  Added transparency option for Windows 2000/XP users
6)  Speeded up parsing of INI
7)  Refactored entire popup drawing code to almost match how MSN works
8)  Popup dynamically handles placement of taskbar, i.e. if you move the taskbar after showing the popup it recalculates it's new position.
9)  Fixed issue where time to show/hide was now being used properly
10) Fixed issue where thumbnail centering position calculation was wrong



Check the GetPlayingNow.ini and the default skin config file for a description of each of the entries.


As I have mentioned before the setup will overwrite the Default skin, so if you have made any changes you had better back them up.

[RhinoBanga]

Ahhhh ... the wonderful "Supers Ready" ... I find myself singing that on an almost weekly basis!

Anyway #1 is already there ... Alt+Ctrl+F8 ... check the GetPlayingNow.ini file.

#2 may be do-able ... I'll need to give it some thought.

#3 is a biggie and I don't know if I will do that just yet.

[hit_ny]

Wow ..its looking good..starts up behind the task bar as desired. i notice its a bit slower to pop up now, so took a look at the config.ini, set TimeToShow=10, made no diff at all.

Pls could we have it faster. not sure what im doing wrong. I did check it was the right config as well. tried it with the default skin no diff.

.  In line with number 2, it would be great to be able to click on the stars to set the rating.  The hotkey would let the user even pop it up mid song to do it.

there is already a way to pop up mid-song its CTRL+ALT+F8 ...i set it to win+p (much easier)

regarding the rating in the popup, i wanted this as well, then got used to making a toolbar for it and it works quite well. i am not aginst having the ability to rate in the pop up at all. but if you want to replay a tune, the tool bar is useful as u can skip to previous with it.

In fact i asked to have the popup show behind the task bar as it was obscuring the toolbar.

[BlueGlow]

Bug fixed, current version now pops up from the task bar top edge. Looks great!

 BG

[RhinoBanga]

Wow ..its looking good..starts up behind the task bar as desired. i notice its a bit slower to pop up now, so took a look at the config.ini, set TimeToShow=10, made no diff at all.

Pls could we have it faster. not sure what im doing wrong. I did check it was the right config as well. tried it with the default skin no diff.

Firstly the value in the INI file is wrong, it should be 500 milliseconds; but also consider the following:

1)  The time to display is 100 milliseconds.
2)  The height of the background image is 120 pixels.
3)  I use the Windows SetTimer function.

Now if we do a quick calculation Windows will have to notify my window every millisecond to get the window on the screen smoothly.

Unfortunately Windows is not that good at timers and there is a minimum amount of time it spends before it posts the next message.

That's why even with a smaller number there is no perceivable time to display difference.

[hit_ny]

Has anything changed between .05 & .06 to affect pop-up behavior ?

the pop-up time was quick in 05,

has making it appear behind the task bar slowed it down ?

[hit_ny]

i realise the time is wrong i set it to be faster.

i dont understand why 06 is slower, surely all you said applies to 05 as well.

05 pops up quick, what has changed ?

[RhinoBanga]

I have been doing more checks and it seems that the minimum latency with WM_TIMER is 16 milliseconds.

So 16 * 120 (the background height in pixels) = 1920 = 1.9 seconds.

Is this how long it takes to display?

[Marko]

I've not made any tweaks to the ini files yet, still on defaults. It's still stealing focus when it pops up for me, so if I'm in the middle of typing something, anything, anywhere, I lose the keys typed while the popup shows. Focus is returned when the popup goes away.

Here's another wierd one for you too....
I couldn't figure out how come each time I re-installed the plugin (with MC closed) I was having to reboot. Something was locking the your .dll preventing it being overwritten. I have a neat little app here that shows what's locked a file when you choose it from the context menu, and it showed hypersnap as the program!!!
Hypersnap is a directX capable screengrabber. I also found, when I brought it out the tray to close it, it was fully loaded with arbitrary screen grabs I had not taken. I used the popups uninstaller, which informed me it had been removed, but the .dll was still there. locked. when I closed hypersnap, it was deleted.
All the popups hotkeys are ctrl+alt by default. As far as I can see, hypersnap's are all ctrl+shift....

Sorry to ramble on. In normal usage, the 2 programs *appear* to be OK, although hypersnap still has a lock on your .dll.

Any ideas/suggestions?

[RhinoBanga]

Try setting the following in GetPlayingNow.ini:

MultiMediaKeysEnable=0
HotkeysEnable=0

[hit_ny]

So 16 * 120 (the background height in pixels) = 1920 = 1.9 seconds.

Is this how long it takes to display?

Correct !

[RhinoBanga]

Looks like I have to redesign the popup code

[Marko]

hypersnap only hooked the .dll if one of hypersnap's key combo's were pressed while mc was running.

disabling hot & multimedia keys via the ini file does stop hypersnap from hooking the.dll

disabling multimedia, leaving hotkeys enabled, hypersnap did not hook the .dll. pressing gpn's hotkeys got messed up though. the info was arriving on the clipboard, but not being pasted into the active area (trillian chat window in the test) and at some point in the testing, my keyboard came to be of the impression the ctrl+alt were permanantly pressed. I had to reboot to clear the problem.

If there's anything else you want me to try, just say the word. Currently running with hot&multimedia disabled and the popup is behaving itself.

Listening to: 'Hardcastles in the Sky' from 'Mysterious Pony' by 'Emperor Penguin' on Media Center 9.1

[RhinoBanga]

If you don't run hypersnap is the .dll hooked anywhere else?

If not then maybe it's a hypersnap issue?