Topic: New Track Info Skin (Read 7779 times)

principal_X · « **on:** October 30, 2008, 11:33:03 pm »

Because of the extremely poor track info display views out there, I decided to make one myself. Also plugged into last.fm's web service for some more useful info. The part of the page that gets the last.fm info is hosted remotely, but blends nicely. I think its looks good full screen on either a widescreen TV or monitor. I tried to keep it relatively simple, to not fill the screen with too much useless information. Anyway, I have more plans to make it more customized to your locale, sniffing out live shows for artists in your area, and converting the remote part of it into a silverlight app, or other ideas you might have, etc. Let me know what you think.

1280x720 version
http://www.fuseboxpc.com/temp/Now_Playing_on_TV.zip

1920x1080 version (i haven't been able to test this one since I have is a 720p TV)
http://www.fuseboxpc.com/temp/Now_Playing_on_TV_1080.zip

I use the "Nina" true type font for those who don't have it, get it here and extract in your C:\[WINDOWS]\Fonts folder
http://www.fuseboxpc.com/temp/nina_ttf.zip

Cheers,
Steve

principal_X · « **Reply #1 on:** October 31, 2008, 09:49:03 pm »

Due to the lack of interest, I figured a screenshot would be appropriate:

http://www.fuseboxpc.com/temp/screenshot.jpg

edladner · « **Reply #2 on:** November 01, 2008, 12:53:19 am »

The screenshot hooked me. Very nicely done.

neFAST · « **Reply #3 on:** November 01, 2008, 04:23:54 am »

Nice! DO you have any skills in css and that web2.0 stuff?
I think we could mix your plugin and mine and get something really cool.

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** November 01, 2008, 07:24:45 am »

Very nice. Thanks!

prod · « **Reply #5 on:** November 01, 2008, 08:01:40 am »

I really like this, nice design and brings up some interesting info. Certainly customising to locale would be great, looking forward to your next version. Thanks!

principal_X · « **Reply #6 on:** November 01, 2008, 12:54:39 pm »

Thanks! I think it looks pretty slick too. For now, I have a couple of issues to work out. minor encoding issues with the occasional weird character and some tour venues from other countries. Russia and Japan are coming back from last.fm in Russian or Japanese and I get weird character because of it.) I might just remove these all together when I run into them. Not sure how to deal with it. I think my next improvement will be to 1)create a mjp package installer and 2)Read in the City and State, and country of the user to show an alert icon and maybe a quick notification sound on load when the artist you are listening to will be playing in your area. Now I just need to find the time to do it. I will post here when it is done.

principal_X · « **Reply #7 on:** November 01, 2008, 01:06:06 pm »

If anyone is using it full screen on a TV with 1920x1080 res, please post a screenshot if you can. I need to make sure everything looks proportional to the 720 version. I will also be making a low res widescreen version soon enough. Thanks.

)p( · « **Reply #8 on:** November 01, 2008, 01:23:41 pm »

Quote from: principal_X on November 01, 2008, 01:06:06 pm

I will also be making a low res widescreen version soon enough. Thanks.

Thanks that would be great, I control mc with a nokia n800 with a 800x480 screen.

peter

principal_X · « **Reply #9 on:** November 05, 2008, 12:47:30 am »

I posted a low res version below.

http://www.fuseboxpc.com/temp/Now_Playing_on_TV_lowres.zip

craft · « **Reply #10 on:** November 15, 2008, 08:03:37 am »

marko · « **Reply #11 on:** November 15, 2008, 09:19:11 am »

Quote from: principal_X on November 01, 2008, 01:06:06 pm

If anyone is using it full screen on a TV with 1920x1080 res, please post a screenshot if you can. I need to make sure everything looks proportional to the 720 version. I will also be making a low res widescreen version soon enough. Thanks.

I took these 'blind', as in The Wife wouldn't let me switch channels

Need more? Let me know once you have them.

-marko

dappadappa · « **Reply #12 on:** November 15, 2008, 09:58:48 am »

Hey

i cant seem to download or see the screenshot, says "page not found"

any chance of a mirror download?

thanks

DappaDappa

principal_X · « **Reply #13 on:** November 15, 2008, 10:02:41 am »

thanks for posting those screenshots. Also, I reposted those zip files and the nina font I recommend.

c1c9k72 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 18, 2008, 06:05:55 pm »

Very nice info screen. Thanks for the effort.

rjm · « **Reply #15 on:** November 18, 2008, 07:04:09 pm »

I like this a lot. Thanks.

13.0.65

I get following consistent error regardless of which resolution version I use:

A Runtime Error has occured
Line: 188
Error: '_gat' is undefined

Sometimes (but not always) MC crashes after this error comes up.

rjm · « **Reply #16 on:** November 20, 2008, 11:35:11 am »

Quote from: rjm on November 18, 2008, 07:04:09 pm

I like this a lot. Thanks.

13.0.65

I get following consistent error regardless of which resolution version I use:

A Runtime Error has occured
Line: 188
Error: '_gat' is undefined

Sometimes (but not always) MC crashes after this error comes up.

I updated to 13.0.79 and still see this error. No one else is reporting it which might mean that I am doing something wrong. Any suggestions?

principal_X · « **Reply #17 on:** November 23, 2008, 07:58:56 pm »

never seen that error before, but I will look into it when I get back from vac.

Deivit · « **Reply #18 on:** December 02, 2008, 03:31:54 am »

Haven't had too much time lately, but I just installed your skin and wanted to say thanks for sharing it. It looks very nice and the bio scrolling is definitely something I dig very much.

rpalmer68 · « **Reply #19 on:** January 06, 2009, 06:49:51 pm »

I've just installed this skin and I like it a lot, nice and simple and I like the scrolling bio.

Just one request, the new Obsidian skin in MC13 has a really nice way of displaying the cover art (at an angle with the reflection).

I've not done any of this so don't know, but Is it possible to do this in this skin for the cover art?

Thanks
Richard

principal_X · « **Reply #20 on:** January 10, 2009, 10:59:05 am »

The Track Info skins are all HTML based. I sure with some client side technology, I could pull it off. I am in the process of making this into a display plugin so I can get access to more JRiver data. Can't say it would be a high priority item, but I will put it on my to do list. Thanks for the input.

Osho · « **Reply #21 on:** January 11, 2009, 11:50:07 pm »

This is a great skin. I wish it would also show elapsed time/total time. Is this possible?

thanks,
Osho

mabes · « **Reply #22 on:** January 14, 2009, 01:57:35 pm »

This looks great. Can't wait to try tonight.

principal_X · « **Reply #23 on:** January 14, 2009, 02:19:21 pm »

Quote from: Osho on January 11, 2009, 11:50:07 pm

This is a great skin. I wish it would also show elapsed time/total time. Is this possible?

thanks,
Osho

Once I plan on converting it to a display plugin, I should have access to the elapsed time data. I plan on adding this eventually.

mabes · « **Reply #24 on:** January 14, 2009, 03:03:05 pm »

How would a display plugin work differently?

principal_X · « **Reply #25 on:** January 14, 2009, 06:51:21 pm »

If it was a plugin, I would be able to access the JRMediaCenter's assemblies rather than being restricted to the limited keywords that JRiver provides their "Track Info" template users.

mabes · « **Reply #26 on:** January 14, 2009, 07:01:25 pm »

Well darn I can't seem to get it to work. MC said it was installed correctly but it's not there.

principal_X · « **Reply #27 on:** January 14, 2009, 10:04:59 pm »

If you extract the zip into the Visualizations\Track Info into its own folder and restart JRiver, it should load it into your trackinfo menu options. The install path should look like this:

[install path]\J River\Media Center 13\Visualizations\Track Info\Now_Playing_on_TV

mabes · « **Reply #28 on:** January 15, 2009, 10:20:49 am »

Quote from: principal_X on January 14, 2009, 10:04:59 pm

If you extract the zip into the Visualizations\Track Info into its own folder and restart JRiver, it should load it into your trackinfo menu options. The install path should look like this:

[install path]\J River\Media Center 13\Visualizations\Track Info\Now_Playing_on_TV

Ok, I put it in the skin folder so I'll move it tonight.

Now if I could just find something like this that worked for last.fm, slacker and pandora. I've just started playing around with all of them. For the first 2, the text is way too small for me to see on my TV screen, for pandora, I can't believe the GUI. It looks like something a high school kid put together over the weekend.

principal_X · « **Reply #29 on:** January 15, 2009, 06:10:11 pm »

Just as an FYI... The lower half of this track info skin pulls data from last.fm

Let me know when you get it working.

mabes · « **Reply #30 on:** January 15, 2009, 09:40:39 pm »

Got it! works great and now with the AutoDJ running I can see about the artists without leaving theater view.

I would like to make a couple of changes for myself if you don't mind, this has to do with the resolution on my TV. I would like to change the color of the bar with similiar artists, it's a little hard to see. I think I just need to make a change in the CSS, if so if you could point me to the line to change that would be great. Also change the font for duration and number of plays to white.

One of these days we'll have TVs that can properly display from the computer.

principal_X · « **Reply #31 on:** January 15, 2009, 10:02:38 pm »

Sorry, the last.fm content area is hosted on a webserver. If I changed it for you, it would change for everyone. Once I finish converting this to a plugin, everything will be local and easy for you to modify. Did you try any of the other 2 resolutions that are posted at the top? Maybe the lower res will come in clearer.

mabes · « **Reply #32 on:** January 15, 2009, 10:48:12 pm »

Quote from: principal_X on January 15, 2009, 10:02:38 pm

Sorry, the last.fm content area is hosted on a webserver. If I changed it for you, it would change for everyone. Once I finish converting this to a plugin, everything will be local and easy for you to modify. Did you try any of the other 2 resolutions that are posted at the top? Maybe the lower res will come in clearer.

Didn't realize it was on a server, just wanted to change it for myself. It's not a huge deal, will wait for the plugin, thanks for the good work.

If you don't mind a suggestion, make the artist bar the same color as the last.fm logo and make the song title that color as well. Sort of like the rug in The Big Lewbowski, it would tie the whole page together.

principal_X · « **Reply #33 on:** January 16, 2009, 11:00:28 am »

I will give it a try. Thx.

mabes · « **Reply #34 on:** January 16, 2009, 11:21:22 pm »

This is the first night that I've had to sit back and relax and listen to music with this running. Very, very nice to not have to make a move to go to allmusic or wherever if I didn't know the artist.

Are you planning on making things like Similar Artists links? Or would that be too good to be true?

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Author Topic: New Track Info Skin (Read 7779 times)

craft