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[lalittle]

I just stumbled across this in another thread whose title had nothing to do with the subject of skins.

I had always wanted a "Stop" button in the Noire skin, and was surprised to discover that somebody had already taken care of this and provided a file, and that the change was incredibly easy to make.  Since the original subject of that thread had nothing to do with skins, I thought I'd start a seperate thread for anyone else interested in this.  Otherwise, I didn't think most people would ever know about this information.

I give full credit to Deivit for his post in the other thread, which is copied here:

---------------------------------------------------
It seems that the Noire Skin is prepared to use a "stop" button. You just need to have one!

Download this file It's a "stop button" image. Just place it inside the "noire" folder of your MegaSkins directory... and you're all set. No need to modify anything else, since the XML already has all the entries needed.
---------------------------------------------------

It's that easy -- you just put the file in the specified folder, and when you start up MC and load the Noire skin, the stop button is there, which looks like this (Thanks again to Deivit for posting this picture in the other thread):



Thanks again to Deivit and to all the other helpful users here who provide such useful information.

Larry

[modelmaker]

Deivit: I installed both the stop button and the bluenoire skin and that does make the skin much more pleasing and usable, Thanks!

How about a "grey" or darker blues "noire" skin? The Noire skins are just too bright in a dimmed or darkened media room, (I have MC on a 17" monitor in my A/V rack). The Thunderstorm skin is just about right.

[Magic_Randy]

Larry,

Thanks for sharing Deivit's simple solution for this often requested feature.  You're right, the title of the other thread was not obvious.  I applied it to three different Noire style skins yesterday and it took almost no time to get the stop button working.

I'm far from a skin expert, but if I understand all this correctly, the stop button will be wiped out for the standard Noire skin each time you install a new version of MC12.  So keep the file handy so you can update the Noire directory after you do the upgrades. 

If I'm wrong on this, I would appreciate it if someone would correct me in this post we I don't mislead anyone.

Randy

[Magic_Randy]

Deivit: I installed both the stop button and the bluenoire skin and that does make the skin much more pleasing and usable, Thanks!

How about a "grey" or darker blues "noire" skin? The Noire skins are just too bright in a dimmed or darkened media room, (I have MC on a 17" monitor in my A/V rack). The Thunderstorm skin is just about right.

This is just a guess, but it looks like marko is working on a gray version of Noire.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=37385.msg255573#msg255573

[lalittle]

I'd also like to see a somewhat less "bright" version of Noire -- i.e. a "gray" version as others have requested.

Larry

[Listener]

I've made a lower contrast version of Noire and added the stop button.  Here is a small image.

http://www.wcosf.org/misc/TheSkin.jpg

The zip file and a screenshot are at


http://www.wcosf.org/misc/

I'll be moving these files to another location shortly.

I lightened the dark gray in almost all the images and tinkered with th gridlines and the background for the Tag window.  Whatever 3D effects were in those files is gone.  The reduced contrast between the gray of the frame and th white of the backgrounds to various windows has been reduced.  The gray alternating gridlines in the Panes and file list windows cuts down on the glare from the white area.

Bill

[gappie]

thanks a lot. im gonna put that stop in there also.

this is how my noire skin looks at the moment
http://www.gappie.nl/fotos/skin.JPG
but since the original skin had some interesting updates, i gonna do it over.

it is a pity though that it seems not to be possible to place the three buttons on the right (dsp, shuffle etc) underneath the search function.

[marko]

I think it's done. Please take the time to read the (short) credits...

The Fly

let me know if I missed any bits.

There seems to be a little redundancy thing going on. Can anyone tell me where MC uses the 'tabs' stuff, what's the 'target bar' for, and what's a 'group box' ?

-marko.

[Mr ChriZ]

I think it's done. Please take the time to read the (short) credits...

The Fly

let me know if I missed any bits.

There seems to be a little redundancy thing going on. Can anyone tell me where MC uses the 'tabs' stuff, what's the 'target bar' for, and what's a 'group box' ?

-marko.

Tabs are used in the Advanced CD Ripping Settings box.  Possibly other places.
The Group Boxes are used under options (For example File Location), as group boxes to group buttons etc.
Still trying to work out the Target Bar is used myself....

[LonWar]

I think it's done. Please take the time to read the (short) credits...

The Fly

let me know if I missed any bits.

There seems to be a little redundancy thing going on. Can anyone tell me where MC uses the 'tabs' stuff, what's the 'target bar' for, and what's a 'group box' ?

-marko.

Very nice Marko... I like it alot...   
Thanks,

Ohhh ya,   Any chance the PN Skin Trans 3.1 will become Fly 3.1 ?   

[Deivit]

I think it's done. Please take the time to read the (short) credits...

The Fly

let me know if I missed any bits.

There seems to be a little redundancy thing going on. Can anyone tell me where MC uses the 'tabs' stuff, what's the 'target bar' for, and what's a 'group box' ?

-marko.

Nice one, Marko! Thanks for making it available.

[Listener]

I also tinkered with the MC 12 Aruba skin.  The dark brown background of the Tag window was too dark. There wasn't enough contrast with the tag name and value text.

Here is the result:

http://www.wcosf.org/misc/My_Aruba_small%20screenshot.jpg

A full size screenshot and a zip file are at

http://www.wcosf.org/misc/

I had to experiment a bit to figure out how to change the background of the Tag Window. I found that the background was being set by the ActionWindow_Template.png file.

That file is 114 by 54 pixels. The line in ActionWindow section of the Aruba main.xml

   <Entry Name="Template" Bitmap="ActionWindow_Template.png" Margins="10,26,10,6" NumberImages="2" InternalMargins="8,7,8,8" HeaderHeight="16" VerticalSpacing="0" />

caused the the contents of the template image to be drawn over the entire background of the Tag Window.  I edited the ActionTemplate image to be 26 pixels high and changed the corresponding line in the main.xml file to read

   <Entry Name="Template" Bitmap="ActionWindow_Template.png" Margins="10,26,10,0" NumberImages="2" InternalMargins="8,7,8,8" HeaderHeight="16" VerticalSpacing="0" />


Now I can set the background color with the following line in the ActionWindow section:

   <Colors Text="282200" ActiveText="000000" Back="B5B194" />


This behavior is specific to the Tag Window. The ActionWindow itself behaved as expected; its background was always controled by the

Back=  parameter.

The ActionWindow_Template image and the corresponding lines in the main.xml file seem to be the same for MC 11 but the result is different.  The template image is not drawn over the background of the Tag Window in MC 11.

Since this behavior is not consistent between the Tag Window and the Action Window in MC 12 and isn't consistent between MC 11 and MC 12, I'd say that there is some kind of a bug here.

Bill

[lalittle]

Does anyone at JRiver happen to know when an "MC12" category might be added to the official downloads page so that these skins and any other mods can be placed there?  It seems like enough people are using version 12 now, and it's diffiicult to keep track of this sort of thing via the forum.

Thanks,

Larry

[Magic_Randy]

No 12.0.124 today - but we have more Noire skins.

Noire = J River
SolidNoire = glynor
BlueNoire = Deivit
The Fly = marko
Gray Noire = Listener

Others in Process:

Mr. ChriZ
gappie

I hope I didn't miss anyone.

I think Larry's right - it may be time to have a separate category for MC12 skins.

Thanks everyone.  Sorry I'm kind of useless in making skins, but I really appreciate the efforts.

Randy

[glynor]

I didn't do much, and SolidNoire doesn't really do anything anymore now that they changed the transparency effect (other than roll back to the older version of Noire before the "3D gradient effects" were added).   

[Magic_Randy]

I'm far from a skin expert, but if I understand all this correctly, the stop button will be wiped out for the standard Noire skin each time you install a new version of MC12.  So keep the file handy so you can update the Noire directory after you do the upgrades. 

I verified that you do not lose the stop button when you upgrade.  Maybe there are some circumstances when it could happen, but at least upgrading from 12.0.123 to 12.0.125 was OK.

Randy

[park]

How would you go about making the stop button smaller? I want one, but i think the one in this thread is a bit too big. About the same size as the previous and next buttons would be better.

[lalittle]

How would you go about making the stop button smaller? I want one, but i think the one in this thread is a bit too big. About the same size as the previous and next buttons would be better.

I tend to agree -- I liked the sizes of the buttons in the Thunderstorm skin, where the only "big" button was the "play/pause" button.  That said, I'd rather have the big stop button than no stop button at all.

Larry

[marko]

updated the fly... I quite like the results, thanks for the 'push' Deivit, without that, the Fly wouldn't exist!!

small stop button, toned down the text in the player display...


(download)

ijag, I started on a "trans-noire" pn skin, but I'll need to go back to the drawing board later on. That diagonal reflection line is a tad distracting, and plays some wierd optical trickery with the overall layout. A lot of work in there to get all the bits and pieces done, time is precious, give me at least a week!!

-marko.

[lalittle]

Is there a simple way to make the background color in the panes a bit less bright?  I feel like I don't really need to make any "major" changes to the existing Noire skin colors, so I'd rather not use an entirely "new" custom skin.  I just want the background color a LITTLE bit darker while keeping the other colors.  Can somebody tell me what to edit to change the background color/s in the panes?  I looked at the main.xml file, but it wasn't obvious what changes to make.

Thanks,

Larry

[gappie]

go to C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\MegaSkins

make a copy of the noire folder besides it and call it for instance lalittlenoire.

now open in that folder the file main in notepad.

change the skin name at the top in for instance lalittlenoire.

go to <tree> and change the Back="f0f0f0" in for instance  Back="D3D3D3"
go to <List> and change the Back="FFFFFF" in for instance  Back="D3D3D3"
go to <ACTIONWINDOW> and change the Back="FFFFFF" and Listback="FFFFFF"  in for instance  Back="D3D3D3" and ListBack="D3D3D3"

save.

now go to skins and choose  lalittlenoire.

when it is a bit to gray or you want an other colour search for rgb in google. it will give enough sites with all the codes for the colours (the FFFFFF part in the script).

succes.

dont forget to back up the folder to a saver place when it is what you want.

[lalittle]

Thanks gappie -- that sounds like exactly what I'm looking for.

So the "Back" value in "<List>" will effect ALL the panes, not just the track list, correct?

Thanks,

Larry

[gappie]

you may also want to change the <ACTIONWINDOW> back and ListBack in d3d3d3.
then youve covered most of it.

im always bad in what those terms mean. but when you mean with all the panes, everything right of the tree. then yes, list covers that all.

edit ill change that up.

[marko]

the list colour is also used in the AW for the background of list type fields in edit mode, you know, what you see when you click on [people]. had me scratching my head for a bit did that!!

[lalittle]

gappie -- it's working in general, but when I use the colors I want, I can no longer see the gridlines.  I can only see them if I go darker or lighter than I'd like.  How do I adjust the gridline "difference"?  (I'm referring to the way every other line is a slightly ligher/darker shade.)

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

Thanks Marko for the extra info.

Larry

[gappie]

gappie -- it's working in general, but when I use the colors I want, I can no longer see the gridlines.  I can only see them if I go darker or lighter than I'd like.  How do I adjust the gridline "difference"?  (I'm referring to the way every other line is a slightly ligher/darker shade.)

Thanks,

Larry

i dont know, larry. never found that one, maybe someone else knows. what colour do you use, because until now i lost them only with all white.

[Listener]

gappie -- it's working in general, but when I use the colors I want, I can no longer see the gridlines.  I can only see them if I go darker or lighter than I'd like.  How do I adjust the gridline "difference"?  (I'm referring to the way every other line is a slightly ligher/darker shade.)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I get alternating light and dark with this line in the List section for my Gray Noire skin.

   <Colors Text="484E59" Back="F8F8F8" SelectedText="f0f4fd" SelectedBack="008bfa" HotText="000000" Gridline="E0E0E0" GridLineBack="f0f0f0"/>

If I change the line to GridLineBack="f8f8f8", I don't see gridlines.  So the gridlines value needs to be different from the Back value.

I think that the Back parameter controls the darker line and the Gridline parameter controls the lighter liine in the alternating pair of lines.

Bill

[lalittle]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

I get alternating light and dark with this line in the List section for my Gray Noire skin.

   <Colors Text="484E59" Back="F8F8F8" SelectedText="f0f4fd" SelectedBack="008bfa" HotText="000000" Gridline="E0E0E0" GridLineBack="f0f0f0"/>

If I change the line to GridLineBack="f8f8f8", I don't see gridlines.  So the gridlines value needs to be different from the Back value.

I think that the Back parameter controls the darker line and the Gridline parameter controls the lighter liine in the alternating pair of lines.

Bill

Based on your respose, you appear to understand what I'm asking.

You're post makes sense, but  I don't have the "GridLineBack" entry in my main.xml file.  The ONLY presense of the word "grid" in my main.xml file is the "Gridline=" entry, which changes the color of the VERTICAL lines in the grid.  Where did you find out about the "GridLineBack" entry, and why do I still have gridlines without this entry?  They must have changed something recently that altered the way the gridlines are made since I clearly still have two tone gridlines, but I have them WITHOUT the "GridLineBack" parameter.

Thanks again,

Larry

[LonWar]

updated the fly... I quite like the results, thanks for the 'push' Deivit, without that, the Fly wouldn't exist!!

small stop button, toned down the text in the player display...


(download)

ijag, I started on a "trans-noire" pn skin, but I'll need to go back to the drawing board later on. That diagonal reflection line is a tad distracting, and plays some wierd optical trickery with the overall layout. A lot of work in there to get all the bits and pieces done, time is precious, give me at least a week!!

-marko.

Extra time.... Sure.... No problem... If you take to long, I will bill you..     jk

I have tried to do a skin, I played around and destroyed someone's skin trying to figure it out.... I hope everyone fully appreciates all of the additional work that the Skinners and Plug in makers put forth...  You guy's really do make this program that much better!!

Thanks

[Listener]

Based on your respose, you appear to understand what I'm asking.

You're post makes sense, but  I don't have the "GridLineBack" entry in my main.xml file.  The ONLY presense of the word "grid" in my main.xml file is the "Gridline=" entry, which changes the color of the VERTICAL lines in the grid.  Where did you find out about the "GridLineBack" entry, and why do I still have gridlines without this entry?  They must have changed something recently that altered the way the gridlines are made since I clearly still have two tone gridlines, but I have them WITHOUT the "GridLineBack" parameter.

> Where did you find out about the "GridLineBack" entry,

I saw them in the Blue Noire skin.  That may have been the first place I saw them.  See the "Your 30 day free trial has expired..." thread.


> ... why do I still have gridlines without this entry?  They must have changed
> something recently that altered the way the gridlines are made since I clearly
> still have two tone gridlines, but I have them WITHOUT the "GridLineBack"
> parameter.

Well, in a reasonable world you would have looked at complete, up-to-date documentation and had no need to ask your first question.  I have only found incomplete, out-of-date documentation.  I have been reading main.xml files, asking questions and doing experiments. 

Before my last post, I experimented with the gridlineback and back parameters to verify what I thought I knew.  What I wrote was based on the results I saw.  If you set both those parameters, you can control both the dark and light background colors in adjacent lines. 

I understand that you can get alternating colors without the gridlineback parameter.     

I tried to give you a practical way to get the results you want.  You seem to want to argue about theory.

I didn't say that you had to have the gridlineback parameter.  I did say that if the values in that parameter and the back parameter were the same, you didn't get any alternation.

As far as I know, the full logic of the program in setting the background isn't  documented.  I think that questions like yours are better directed to J. Rivers staff.

Bill

[Magic_Randy]

I hope everyone fully appreciates all of the additional work that the Skinners and Plug in makers put forth...  You guy's really do make this program that much better!!

Agreed.  Let's hear it for the skinners.

[lalittle]

I tried to give you a practical way to get the results you want.  You seem to want to argue about theory.

Argue?  You must be reading something into my post that I did not intend, because I had no intention of "arguing" about anything.  I definitley appreciated your response, and I was asking an honest followup question.

I figured that the gridline entry you had referred to came from an earlier version of the Noire skin, which has gone through LOTS of changes recently, including the fact that the gridlines disappeared a few builds back, and were re-introduced with the following build.  I was simply reluctant to use an entry that was potentially "out of date" with the latest version of the skin -- I didn't want to lose any of the latest features that are always being added to this skin by JR.  They apparently use a different method of defining the gridlines -- I was simply trying to determine what this was by asking people that clearly know more about this than I do (including yourself.)

Thanks again for any help with this, and I'm sorry for any misunderstanding about the intentions behind my quesitons.

Larry

[Listener]

Argue?  You must be reading something into my post that I did not intend, because I had no intention of "arguing" about anything.  I definitley appreciated your response, and I was asking an honest followup question.

I figured that the gridline entry you had referred to came from an earlier version of the Noire skin, which has gone through LOTS of changes recently, including the fact that the gridlines disappeared a few builds back, and were re-introduced with the following build.  I was simply reluctant to use an entry that was potentially "out of date" with the latest version of the skin -- I didn't want to lose any of the latest features that are always being added to this skin by JR.  They apparently use a different method of defining the gridlines -- I was simply trying to determine what this was by asking people that clearly know more about this than I do (including yourself.)

Thanks again for any help with this, and I'm sorry for any misunderstanding about the intentions behind my quesitons.

Larry

OK.  My understanding of your earlier post was wrong. 

Perhaps you could experiment with settings of the back and gridlineback parameters on your system.  Then post again to say whether you agree with my results or not.

Bill Hunt

[lalittle]

Perhaps you could experiment with settings of the back and gridlineback parameters on your system.  Then post again to say whether you agree with my results or not.

I actually never doubted that you're method would work -- I'd simply rather get it to work with the "new" system of creating gridlines so that I don't end up missing out on any other improvements that are made to the skin.  There must be a reason that JR made it work the way it now does -- I simply have to understand the parameters.

I experiemented quite a bit last night, but I wasn't been able to figure out how the "new" gridline system works.  It seems to take the "gridback" color and create two seperate shades from it somehow.  This works fine until I get the color too close to a certain shade of gray (which just happens to be the shade I want to use.)  At this point, the gridlines no longer show up, which I assume is due to the fact that both the light and dark shades end up at the same value for some reason.  What I am unable to determine is "how" the current system decides to create two shades from the single "gridback" color.

Any information on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Larry

[gappie]

   <Colors Text="484E59" Back="F8F8F8" SelectedText="f0f4fd" SelectedBack="008bfa" HotText="000000" Gridline="E0E0E0" GridLineBack="f0f0f0"/>

gridlineback. didnt know that one, was not in the original skin. but it works nicely. thanks a lot.

[Listener]

gridlineback. didnt know that one, was not in the original skin. but it works nicely. thanks a lot.

Yes, that parameter appears to be rather useful.

I found that adding the gridlineback parameter to the same line in  the iTunes and iTunes 5+ skins fixed in MC 12.  Those skins work as expected in MC 11 but when used with MC 12.0.120, they cause MC to display alternating black and white lines after the last filled line in the panes and file list areas.  Quite ugly and hard to view.

Bill

[hit_ny]

That gridline is interesting, i liked the way in 11.0 when there was nothing in Playing Now, there would be no lines in there at all or there would only be lines for as many items, instead of lines all the way to the end like in the versions since. Hope its just as simple a tweak to get it back.

[Magic_Randy]

I hope the skinners don't get frustrated with trying to create custom skins based on a moving target - the non-skinners really appreciate your efforts.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=37578.msg256365#msg256365

[georgem29]

updated the fly... I quite like the results, thanks for the 'push' Deivit, without that, the Fly wouldn't exist!!

...

Wow!  I just grabbed "The Fly" and it's terrific.  Very easy to look at.  Oughta be the default that ships with MC12 IMO.

Thanks to you and everyone involved for your efforts on this.

[marko]

Wow!  I just grabbed "The Fly" and it's terrific.  Very easy to look at.  Oughta be the default that ships with MC12 IMO.

Thanks to you and everyone involved for your efforts on this.

Why, thank you for your kind words. Apart from splicing it together, and creating a few new things such as splitter bars, I'd say a 90%+ of the skin is other peoples work, so the credit should go that-a-way really
The only thing I'm not entirely happy about atm is the way the dialogue buttons are and sooner or later, I will fix that, because I really enjoy working with the rest of skin. I find it very easy on the eyes during long sessions.

-marko.