Topic: BRING BACK THE 'NO SKIN' OPTION!!!! (Read 3681 times)

Laffer · « **on:** November 20, 2003, 09:11:12 pm »

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE........... bring back the 'no skin' option.

urm..... why the hell you take it out in the first place i just dunno......

Laffer

xen-uno · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2003, 11:07:46 pm »

There is no going back...

Skins and the skinning engine are an integral part of MC now. It would virtually be a command line program without them. To get the nice non-rectangular features you see requires skins. The need was for them to display quickly and be easily modifyable...so the non-skin mode was jettisoned. At least that's how I see it. So beggin is futile.

There is no going back...

10^-27

edit: ...and if your post survives past tomorrow morning, I'd be surprised. You need to tone it down (starting with a re-phrase of the thread title) and then maybe you'll get an official response from the headmasters themselves...rather than a lock or a thread deletion.

kiwi · « **Reply #2 on:** November 21, 2003, 07:29:25 am »

That's how I see it too. Sure it might not run as quickly on a 500mhz machine, but do you really want to have the developers limit themselves that much?

kiwi

Laffer · « **Reply #3 on:** November 21, 2003, 10:24:51 am »

Ok - this is how I see it......

Firt let me point out I DJ & VJ for a living. I use MJ professionally (and have done so since the first relatively stable version 8's) - yes theres loads of software out there - most of it I have used at one time or another. MJ just really suited me (and I used it in the 'no skin' mode - as I found it to be the clearest & most concise). However two things have become frustrating 1) no BPM counter fucntionality (and just maybe, it was my original wish list item that got it put into MC) and 2) Not having good contrrol over visualisations (borderless window or multi monitor control).

I downloaded MC just to try and see if any of these features had been implemented. Yep, they are there (and I appreciate that fact, although I am a bit disappointed that ther is no 'on the fly' BPM calculation). But removing various other features that customers use and have gotten used to I don't see as a real step forward.

Now I have not had the time to delve very deeply yet, but I am also annoyed that the playlist manipulation and in particular seeing what playlists a song belongs to has changed quite significantly (not in the bubble if you hold the mouse over a song) as has the old (easy) file properties window (where everything could be accessed). I am forced to ask my self why when both were very simple and easy to understand before. I also firmly believe that having MJ/MC appearing as a standard windows app no matter what style you have chosen in windows is (was) an important feature.

The old adage comes to mind - if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Laffer.

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** November 21, 2003, 11:25:29 am »

Xen is correct above. Skins are here to stay.

You might get better answers if you would split your message and repost by topic.

It will also probably help if you just ask rather than complain. Some things you miss may be there but may have moved.

ZRocker · « **Reply #5 on:** November 21, 2003, 12:28:09 pm »

Try WinDoze Skin.

KingSparta · « **Reply #6 on:** November 21, 2003, 02:30:06 pm »

Quote from: ZRocker on November 21, 2003, 12:28:09 pm

Try WinDoze Skin.

"Dowdy" was it?

jleerigby · « **Reply #7 on:** November 21, 2003, 04:42:52 pm »

Quote from: Laffer on November 20, 2003, 09:11:12 pm

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE........... bring back the 'no skin' option.

urm..... why the hell you take it out in the first place i just dunno......

Laffer

Each time I read this I don't see a complaint. Just someone making their view in a passionate way. I love skins and never understood why people wanted rid of them but what I love about this forum is finding how other people see things.

xen-uno · « **Reply #8 on:** November 21, 2003, 05:22:42 pm »

There's no problem with the body of his post...just that the thread title sounds like a demand and a loud one at that.

10^-27

KingSparta · « **Reply #9 on:** November 21, 2003, 05:37:21 pm »

well what i seen when i read the post was

Quote

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE........... bring back the 'no skin' option.

urm..... [size=9]why the hell[/size] you take it out in the first place i just dunno......

Laffer

jleerigby · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2003, 05:43:57 pm »

It's just a figure of speech. You made it big and bold and red, not Laffer. We all see things differently.

KingSparta · « **Reply #11 on:** November 21, 2003, 05:51:10 pm »

Quote from: JLee on November 21, 2003, 05:43:57 pm

It's just a figure of speech. You made it big and bold and red, not Laffer. We all see things differently.

thats how I saw it, It's Just the facts

sraymond · « **Reply #12 on:** November 21, 2003, 06:50:21 pm »

Can we PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go back to discussing the merits of the apostrophe?

Scott-

jleerigby · « **Reply #13 on:** November 21, 2003, 06:54:10 pm »

Quote

thats how I saw it, It's Just the facts

Exactly. You see it like that and I see it another way - fact.

I just think we should spend more time listening to what people have to say and less time getting hung up on attitudes. It's really hard to interpret attitudes in text and can often be misinterpreted so we should give some slack until it's plainly obvious that someone is being obnoxious. I don't think it's plainly obvious that Laffer was being obnoxious - just saying how he doesn't understand the reasoning behind a decision.

This is a forum for listening to people and making MC better as a result - not jumping on people because they get the Caps lock stuck on.

KingSparta · « **Reply #14 on:** November 21, 2003, 07:01:17 pm »

Quote

It's really hard to interpret attitudes in text and can often be misinterpreted

thats so true

Thats why I Never said anything about what he typed until tonight when everyone was talking about it.

both is really, a dead subject (the orginal question, and interpreted attitudes).

jleerigby · « **Reply #15 on:** November 21, 2003, 07:04:29 pm »

I think we agree.

Listening to: 'U Got The Look' from 'The Hits (Disc 2) (Prince)' by 'Prince' on Media Center 9.1

Laffer · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2003, 10:43:03 pm »

Ok - it does not really bother me that there is some debate about politeness I'm afraid. To those that have defended me - I thank you. To those _very_ quick to critisize - get a life, and look a little deeper. I have made what I consider to be a valid point...... (and one that should be answered in full by the developer, if it already has been answered - please point me to the link, as I cannot find it). "No going back" is simply not good enough.

Why was it taken out? MJ8 had No Skin mode and you were able to use skins if you so desired. Now with MC all of a sudden (and reading through the forums, earlier versions of MC had 'No Skin' support) it has been removed completely. Personally, software is supposed to be 1st functional and 2nd aesthetic. Basically having the nice aesthetics has removed what I consider to be raw functionality & ease of use let alone caused a significant decrease in performance, even on a relatively modern machine (Athlon XP 2.4, 1GB Ram, ATI 9700)

On to playlists, I consider the playlist functionality the lifeblood of this software yet a huge amount of usability has been removed - holding the mouse pointer over the song to get an info bubble was a great way to quickly see what playlists that song belonged to But now it's gone (the bubble remains but only tells you what you can see anyway - nothing of playlists) and you have to open some resource hogging window of playlists to see what playlist the song belongs to (and the window does not appear to be configurable to display details - just the stupid 'icon' view, sucking even more resources). The question has to be asked again - why?

Now I am faced with a catch22 that the developer has neatly created for me - get the features I have been waiting for in MC9 with reduced functionality and frustration or carry on using MJ8 that is missing what I consider to be key features (hey, why don't you put BPM, per song DB and the same visualiser monitor control in MJ8? After all, many thousands have paid for it and you claim it's now a seperate development stream.....as in still being developed. Is that still the case or is MJ8 now dead?)

I sincerely hope that 1) I get answers to my questions and 2) That this is taken constructively. MJ River have thus far done a fantastic job with MJ8, but in my opionion have gone slightly off track with 9.x - in the process removing solid, tried & tested functionality and alienating users.

Please someone - MJ River or otherwise, help me understand the rationales behind these decisions.

Laffer.

rocketsauce · « **Reply #17 on:** November 22, 2003, 12:42:22 am »

Quote

(...one that should be answered in full by the developer, if it already has been answered - please point me to the link, as I cannot find it). "No going back" is simply not good enough.

It has already been answered by the developers many times. You can probably find all of the old threads on this topic by using the Search function (you might have to tweak the search parameters a little to go back far enough). Anyway, here is a link to one thread:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=10433

Quote

Why was it taken out? MJ8 had No Skin mode and you were able to use skins if you so desired. Now with MC all of a sudden (and reading through the forums, earlier versions of MC had 'No Skin' support) it has been removed completely.

Skinning wasn't taken out all of a sudden. The first betas of 9.1 appeared back at the beginning of June...almost 6 months ago. Before that, MC9.0 was very much like MJ8 in that you could have a no skin option. However, with MC9.1 the devs made a decision to take the interface in a new direction and the only way to do what they wanted was to have a skinned gui. Skinning is integral to the interface. In 9.1, no skin would mean no gui.

Quote

...in my opionion have gone slightly off track with 9.x - in the process removing solid, tried & tested functionality and alienating users.

Unfortunately, that opinion seems to be in the minority. The response to the new interface has been overwhelmingly positive.

Rob

rocketsauce · « **Reply #18 on:** November 22, 2003, 01:18:26 am »

Quote from: JLee on November 21, 2003, 04:42:52 pm

I love skins and never understood why people wanted rid of them but what I love about this forum is finding how other people see things.

The main reason, for me, is that I like the programs I install on my computer to have a consistent appearance and I like to be able to control this via Control Panel/Display/Appearance. Also, I like the classic Windows 9X look. It's easy to use. Sure, back in 1998 I thought skins were cool too, "Look at all the pretty shapes and colors!" But eventually I realized that most of the time they are so badly designed that they hindered my use of xyz program and I have pretty much banished any skinned apps from my system. The exceptions currently are Firebird (it does a good job of acting like it's unskinned) and MC9.1 (I'm still fairly ambivalent about the interface and not sure I won't ultimately revert back to 9.0).

Rob

Doof · « **Reply #19 on:** November 22, 2003, 01:48:15 am »

Quote from: Laffer on November 21, 2003, 10:43:03 pm

Ok - it does not really bother me that there is some debate about politeness I'm afraid. To those that have defended me - I thank you. To those _very_ quick to critisize - get a life, and look a little deeper. I have made what I consider to be a valid point...... (and one that should be answered in full by the developer, if it already has been answered - please point me to the link, as I cannot find it). "No going back" is simply not good enough.

If you can't recognize the implied attitude in the wording of this post, then there's some serious communication break downs going on here. First of all, the developers don't owe you any explanation for why they chose to do this. "Because we wanted to" is a good enough reason. They didn't force you to buy this product, and they didn't forcibly upgrade the version that you did buy. Others have already told you why the developers chose to remove the no skin option though, so I'm not going to repeat it.

Quote

Why was it taken out? MJ8 had No Skin mode and you were able to use skins if you so desired. Now with MC all of a sudden (and reading through the forums, earlier versions of MC had 'No Skin' support) it has been removed completely. Personally, software is supposed to be 1st functional and 2nd aesthetic. Basically having the nice aesthetics has removed what I consider to be raw functionality & ease of use let alone caused a significant decrease in performance, even on a relatively modern machine (Athlon XP 2.4, 1GB Ram, ATI 9700)

I fail to see how a structured skin like MC's MEGA-ME skinning engine is any less clear than a non-skinned version. The controls are all in the exact same place. If you were blind, and thus couldn't tell if a skin was installed, MC would act the same way, regardless. In this instance, aesthetics have NO impact on functionality. The Windows skin illustrates this well. It still looks like a standard windows app, but the functionality is the same.

Quote

On to playlists, I consider the playlist functionality the lifeblood of this software yet a huge amount of usability has been removed - holding the mouse pointer over the song to get an info bubble was a great way to quickly see what playlists that song belonged to But now it's gone (the bubble remains but only tells you what you can see anyway - nothing of playlists) and you have to open some resource hogging window of playlists to see what playlist the song belongs to (and the window does not appear to be configurable to display details - just the stupid 'icon' view, sucking even more resources). The question has to be asked again - why?

How does throwing words and phrases like "stupid" around help your case about not having attitude, exactly?I'm not even sure what this "stupid 'icon' view" thing is that you're talking about? To view File Playlists, just open up the Action Window, choose File Properties, then File Playlists. You can now select any song and see what playlists it is in.

Quote

Now I am faced with a catch22 that the developer has neatly created for me - get the features I have been waiting for in MC9 with reduced functionality and frustration or carry on using MJ8 that is missing what I consider to be key features (hey, why don't you put BPM, per song DB and the same visualiser monitor control in MJ8? After all, many thousands have paid for it and you claim it's now a seperate development stream.....as in still being developed. Is that still the case or is MJ8 now dead?)

How is this different from any software product, exactly?

Quote

I sincerely hope that 1) I get answers to my questions and 2) That this is taken constructively. MJ River have thus far done a fantastic job with MJ8, but in my opionion have gone slightly off track with 9.x - in the process removing solid, tried & tested functionality and alienating users.

Please someone - MJ River or otherwise, help me understand the rationales behind these decisions.

Laffer.

Nobody's forcing you to upgrade. That choice lies solely with you. JRiver creates a product. You decide if you want it. It's that simple. If you want, you can hang around in here and offer suggestions for the next version, if you wish. The developers are very open to suggestions. I'd tone down your wording a bit, though. Whether you see it or not, your wording leaves a lot to be desired. If you need some help, consider this.

"why the hell" and "this is stupid" are not considered suggestions.
"how about...", "one thing I'd like to see...", and "what would you think about..." are considered suggestions.

jleerigby · « **Reply #20 on:** November 22, 2003, 02:53:41 am »

Now I see the attitude. The first post was pretty tame in comparison.

KingSparta · « **Reply #21 on:** November 22, 2003, 05:53:21 am »

Its Not Going To Change

Are we Done Yet?

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** November 22, 2003, 08:14:28 am »

Not quite.

To Laffer:
I'm sorry you don't like some of the decisions we've made. We try to listen hard to what people want. We don't always do exactly what's being suggested, but we often do.

We also get tired of explaining over and over, so sometimes we say, "it's been discussed ... take a look at old threads."

As you can see, if you read a little, there are a lot of smart and experienced people here and even they often don't agree.

To everyone else:
A big "Thank you!".

You make this forum work. You've done a lot to establish a culture here that is respectful, thoughtful, energetic, and often fun. Thanks.

I've thought for a few months that I should say something about it, but I didn't because I couldn't think how to do it without sounding a little sappy. Maybe it sounds that way now, but I am truly grateful to you for your dignity and values.

For the first couple of years we ran this board, I had to watch it carefully. I checked it about once an hour seven days a week from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. People sometimes made some very ugly remarks here and it took time to clean it up. (Laffer, your comments weren't in that ugly category.)

Now the forum almost runs itself, thanks to the backbone of fine people who spend time here. It's great to have the help from Doof, KingSparta, and Xen-Uno. They have the power to delete. But many others here, like RocketSauce and SRaymond and JLee have the power to think and to influence. It's something I'm really proud to see.

It's a lot like the way a team of developers comes together. As I read once in a book, it happens on its own. There isn't much you can do to make it gel, but there are a lot of things you can do to prevent it from working.

Anyhow, have I said "thanks" enough?

Laffer · « **Reply #23 on:** November 22, 2003, 08:34:33 pm »

Urm I'm not sure I know what to say! First one topic get's locked (this one) then another then this one is unlocked. JimH I was being sort of helped by xen-uno - may I enquire why you closed/locked the thread? Just thought I would ask..... Hope this is not taken as some sort of insult.

Laffer.

jleerigby · « **Reply #24 on:** November 23, 2003, 03:46:51 am »

Quote

.....Now the forum almost runs itself, thanks to the backbone of fine people who spend time here. It's great to have the help from Doof, KingSparta, and Xen-Uno. They have the power to delete. But many others here, like RocketSauce and SRaymond and JLee have the power to think and to influence. It's something I'm really proud to see.

Nice words Jim and appreciated.

Occassionally we say things we regret or could have been better thought out but I agree that on the whole people are very considerate and respectful here.

The thing that makes this place tick is that the vast majority of us want the same goals, (and I believe that classes us a team). The goals being to make MC get better and better and to encourage new users. The fact that we all have different ideas about how that might happen makes this forum even more successful.

(Oh... and the fact that JRiver has the best team of developers on the planet is kinda useful too!).

loraan · « **Reply #25 on:** November 23, 2003, 07:40:03 am »

Quote from: Laffer on November 21, 2003, 10:43:03 pm

Now I am faced with a catch22 that the developer has neatly created for me - get the features I have been waiting for in MC9 with reduced functionality and frustration or carry on using MJ8 that is missing what I consider to be key features (hey, why don't you put BPM, per song DB and the same visualiser monitor control in MJ8? After all, many thousands have paid for it and you claim it's now a seperate development stream.....as in still being developed. Is that still the case or is MJ8 now dead?)

There's no way that you can say that MC9 has reduced functionality over MJ8. It's all there, and more, but it might be in a different place than you remember. For example: to see what playlists a song is in, check out the Action Window in the lower-right.

AFAIK, MJ8 is no longer being developed, but I'm not a developer.

KingSparta · « **Reply #26 on:** November 23, 2003, 07:59:30 am »

development in MJ8 was ended over a year ago, and only small maint fixes have been made to MJ8 since then.

BPS was added to MC9 after development on MJ8 basicly ended.

Quote

There's no way that you can say that MC9 has reduced functionality over MJ8.

I agree, I could not even start to understand how anyone could say "MC9 has reduced functionality" if they have used MC9. Other than the fact someone wants to bash something because they have nothing better to do.

there is a few problems with MC9 however, but less than MJ8

LisaRCT · « **Reply #27 on:** November 23, 2003, 02:27:11 pm »

The best remedy for skin problems is regular exfolliating and frequent use of moisturizers. Vitamin E is good too.

Laffer · « **Reply #28 on:** November 23, 2003, 04:59:57 pm »

Is there any way I can simply view what playlists a file belongs to (not all playlists with some ticks on them - just the playlists that the current file highlighted belongs to)? If I use the 'action window' I just get all playlists displayed (over 100 on my setup) with ticks by the ones that the file belongs to (by the way is there anyway I can change the way items are viewedin the action window playlist option? The default seems to be rather large icons, just text would be ideal). Better yet - is there anyway I can configure the info bubble that comes up on a file if you just hold your mouse over it to contain playlists (ala MJ8).

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: BRING BACK THE 'NO SKIN' OPTION!!!! (Read 3681 times)

jleerigby

jleerigby

sraymond

jleerigby

jleerigby

jleerigby

jleerigby

LisaRCT