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[JustinChase]

I was wondering if anyone has/can make a skin that can show MC just above the taskbar that will show Name - Artist - Rating - Duration - and Navigation Buttons.  I am trying to rate about 2500 tracks and I want to just be able to rate a track while I work, then skip to the next one, and listen until I decide how to rate, then skip again.  I hate having to open MC to rate a track, and playing now does not respond very well to my mouse clicks when I try to rate, and it just frustrates me.

So, either a long, thin bar just above the taskbar, or maybe a small, taller box above the status bar (or movable).

I have no idea how to make a skin or I'd give it a go myself.

Thanks

[LonWar]

How bout using the Playing Now plug in and a skin for that, that has ratings?

[JustinChase]

As I said above, I have playing now, and it's pretty slow to respond to mouse clicks, which means the songs don't always get rated.  It does work, and I do like it, but more to just show me what's playing, not for rating songs.  Also, it's too big, and it doesn't stay on top all the time.  Yeah, I can make changes to the .ini file to keep it on screen longer, but I have some tracks that are over 2 1/2 hours long.  I would just prefer a small mini skin that can always be on top, that takes little space, and allow me to rate songs as I need/want to.

[LonWar]

Sorry man, I missed that and forgot about the other problems you were having...

My Bad....  

[RhinoBanga]

As I said above, I have playing now, and it's pretty slow to respond to mouse clicks, which means the songs don't always get rated.

Aren't those issues sorted now that we found out it ws HT that was causing your problems?

Also, it's too big

Depends on the skin you use, for example slimline is 32 pixels high.

and it doesn't stay on top all the time.Yeah, I can make changes to the .ini file to keep it on screen longer, but I have some tracks that are over 2 1/2 hours long.  

Not a problem ... the maximum you can make it stay on screen is 24 days. By just specifing TimeToStay=0x7FFFFFF

Wouldn't it be easier just to hit Win+P to bring up the popup to rate the track as you need/want to?

[JustinChase]

As I said above, I have playing now, and it's pretty slow to respond to mouse clicks, which means the songs don't always get rated.

Aren't those issues sorted now that we found out it ws HT that was causing your problems?

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to make pn any better.  The visualizations are better, but pn is still slow to respond

Also, it's too big

Depends on the skin you use, for example slimline is 32 pixels high.

Yes, and that would be a great choice, but I can't rate with that one, or rate the previous track, or advance to the next track from that one.  I did just notice the 'PreviousNowNext' and it's closer to what I want, but not quite.

and it doesn't stay on top all the time.Yeah, I can make changes to the .ini file to keep it on screen longer, but I have some tracks that are over 2 1/2 hours long.  

Not a problem ... the maximum you can make it stay on screen is 24 days. By just specifing TimeToStay=0x7FFFFFF

Well, I don't have any tracks that long

Wouldn't it be easier just to hit Win+P to bring up the popup to rate the track as you need/want to?

Not really.  I use my machine about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time I'm in the office, the rest is spent shuffling papers around my desk.  I would like if I could just spin around and click a rating, advance to the next track, and get back to work.  I usually have MC minimized to the system tray, so I would have to open MC, hit win+p, rate, advance, minimize again.  I think it would just be easier for me if I could have a little skin (or pn) visible all the time in the lower part of my screen to rate and advance with.

Also, I noticed yesterday, after turning off hyperthreading that my visualizations were pausing every 3-5 seconds for just an instant, then resuming.  This suprised me, since I thought everything was much better after turning it off.  I wasn't sure what was causing it, so I turned off pn, and the pausing stopped.  I can't imagine how having pn running would cause the vis's to periodically pause, but it was happening.  To be fair, I turned pn back on later (cause I like it so much) and was not having the pausing issues again, so it seems pretty much 'hit or miss'.

I want to be clear here.  I DO like playing now.  It is a kick a** addition to MC, but it is giving me some little annoyances when I'm mainly trying to rate music.  Otherwise it's great. Like I said before, most of the time MC is minimized, so the pausing with visualizations is not really an issue when rating.  I just don't have a small skin to use with pn that allows me to rate, and advance songs.  If there was such a skin, it would almost certainly fulfill my wants for this project.

If anyone can point me in the right direction to making a skin, I might have some time this weekend to play around with it.

Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[LonWar]

If you have MC minimized to the tray, Hit Win P it will bring up PN. YOu do not have to open it first.

[hakuin]

I just happened upon an old message board post you made regarding a playing now skin for rating songs.  I am doing exactly the same thing -- I sit and work at my desk and as good songs play,  I rate them.  I developed a very thin playing now skin which sits above my taskbar....it shows a tiny thumbnail of the album cover, the track name, artist, album, time/duration, and and has 5 small dots for rating.  I would be happy to send you either an image of it, or a zipped version of the folder if you are interesting. I could't figure out how to include an image this message board system.

Regards,
Lee

[JustinChase]

I just happened upon an old message board post you made regarding a playing now skin for rating songs.  I am doing exactly the same thing -- I sit and work at my desk and as good songs play,  I rate them.  I developed a very thin playing now skin which sits above my taskbar....it shows a tiny thumbnail of the album cover, the track name, artist, album, time/duration, and and has 5 small dots for rating.  I would be happy to send you either an image of it, or a zipped version of the folder if you are interesting. I could't figure out how to include an image this message board system.

Regards,
Lee

That would be great.

my email address is chris @ travelcommentary.com (no spaces)

If you don't mind just sending the zipped version, that would be fantastic.

Thanks!

[Monkeyboy]

Hakuin, do you mind e-mailing me a copy of this too if you dont mind. Sounds good.

RichardKemp @ hotmail.com

Cheers
Rich

[dedidio]

Count me in - I was just trawling the boards looking for this very thing!

dedidio @ ntlworld.com

cheers!  

[JustinChase]

Unfortuantely, the file was stripped off by your server.  did anyone get a copy they can forward to me?

Thanks

[hakuin]

I resent the email to two people (chris, rich) who emailed me about the file being stripped out.   This time I removed the .zip extension.  If you guys still don't get it, let me know and I will try to post it on a public web server for direct download.  Hope you find the skin worth it.  

[Tril0byte]

Hey, can you send this skin to me as well?  I too have been looking for something like this for a while.

tril0bit @ hotmail.com

Thanks!

[hakuin]

I have posted my 'mini' playing now skin here (case sensitive):
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~leenewm/documents/LINmini.zip

Few things to note:

(1) make sure to unzip the file in the Skins folder within your PlayingNow folder.  

(2) the position of the playing now popup is currently set for (200,735).  If you want to change where the skin appears by default, edit the line "Position=200,735" towards the top of the config.ini file (located in the folder where you unzipped my skin) and change the x and y coordinates.

(3) the popup is set to stay visible for 5 min. If you want to make it stay visible for more/less time, edit the line "TimeToStay=300000"  towards the top of the config.ini file. The number is in milliseconds...so if you want 10 minutes, you would use 10min x 60sec/min x 1000 = 600000

-Lee

[jleerigby]

You could try the win32 version of NetRemote.  That will stay always on top and you can make the skin any size you like and put all the buttons you need in it.  This is the skin I use on my pocket PC (thanks to Dragyn's graphics) but it will work perfectly well on a standard windows PC or you could make you own skin.  There is a learning curve to the app when it comes to configuring your own skins but you can easily learn from other people's.  Also NR is shareware and it'll cost you $19.99.  For that you get the coolest, most user-configurable way of controlling MC.

This is OpusNr running on Windows:

[TAFKAFEX]

I'm a great fan of 'Playing Now'.

But try ButtonBar. Great to listen and rating besides. Very fast. And hidden 'til you need it.

You'll find it here:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/bbar_e.html

The necessary icons for MC (scroll down a bit):

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=10011