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[ElQuia]

Hi guys, Still on MC 18, maybe soon I will be able to pop the cash for 19 AND linux version.
Just one question:

I have not seen new skins for a long time, mega skins of course since devs decided to forgo the mini ones support....

ideas or it's me not looking in the right place?

 ?

[SkGe]

The last addition was an update to the old noir skin to fit the new hd experience, so i don't think you have any choice now in matter of skins. They are old and like you say, nothing new in this matter.
As myself a skin creator i stuck with my last addition and didn't change it, maybe one day i will start to create a new one or to update mine to the HD format, who knows. You can still search the forum and find a good one to suit your taste.

[ElQuia]

  uh, well Ok sirgeo, thanks.

Just a question, what do you call HD format? 1920 x 1080 sreen resolution?

[SkGe]

HD is wrong to say on this term as a skin, but it has a better look. You can see the difference between the new noire and the old skin. And the noire skin have a new thing, called scaling so you can scale the skin for a bigger screen and looks ok. But if you do with other ones you will see why i say HD
You can insert this code at the end of lines in the main file of the skin and you will see what i talk.

Code: [Select]

  <SCALE>
    <Data Enabled="1" />
  </SCALE>

[ElQuia]

OK, its a scaling problem. Understandable.

What it does not explain why skin authors are so quiet.

A couple of years ago you nearly got a new skin every month  now NOTHING. Not even old skins getting this new "scaling" stuff.

My main music PC (I use MC moslty for music) has a 22" 1600 x 900 so old skins with MC 18 look OK.

More than OK there are some old skins that are VERY nice, the fusion series, opus, opulence, metro series, the fly, etc. Much better than the Noire skin (MC18)

(skin preview in the skin manager is another DEBT the devs have with us paying customers along with mini skins  )

[SkGe]

Yeah i did this thing, but at some point you stop doing for different reason, and one was that the direction of the program doesn't put accent on the skin interface and they left in some dark corner, this is my point and this happens for some years, either this new revamp of noire isn't too great from my point of view, but ppl use this for anything than just looking at that nice and shine skin.
I think is time to spend some times also on the part of skinning because the other part of the program are almost to perfect.

[ElQuia]

The program is great. It WAS a little bit greater with nice aesthetics.

Most people buy WHAT THEY SEE.

And if it is a great program (that's why I bought it and I put down cash for each upgrade) that does NOT mean it CAN'T be good looking, have a nice interface, allow some customization, etc.

Moreover: those were characteristics IT ALREADY HAD UNTIL VERSION 17.

I mean: Nice mega skins to chose from, MINI SKINS, and Skins preview. ALL eye candy. But eye candy SELLS and for those who pay for functionality it IS a NICE touch for our bucks also.

[SkGe]

Maybe this new year it brings more wonderful things on this great program, and put as again at work who knows... Probably i will start create skins for the program if my time allow me.

[ElQuia]

That WOULD be NICE 

[6233638]

I have not seen new skins for a long time, mega skins of course since devs decided to forgo the mini ones support....

Mini skin support has been supplanted by "CD Art Display" (CAD) skin support.
 
As far as official skins are concerned, the Noire theme has seen some big improvements, including Retina support. (now scales from 50-400%)
 
As for third-party skins, I can't speak for other people, but I'm very happy with how the new Noire skin looks - I was not a fan of the old one. So perhaps there's less "incentive" for people to design skins, when the stock look is pretty nice.
 
 
I'm not artistically inclined, but I did start some preliminary work on skinning, though I'm finding it to be a lot of work.
 
There are also a couple of changes I would need to see before I'd be happy releasing a new skin.
To support retina resolutions, you need to draw things at 400% size, but there are no options to include art for specific sizes.
Most art looks fine when scaled down from 400% to 100% for example, but some art does not, and needs to be drawn for a specific scale. (e.g. 1x, 2x, and 4x)
 
I had also been working on something prior to the retina support (I was maybe 50% done) and with support for Retina, I have basically had to throw it all out and start again. I would not have been happy releasing a skin which does not support the scaling features.

[SkGe]

For me, neither the old and the (new) Noire skin is the same ugly that it was from the beginning, so that why i started to learn and create skins. Sometimes i done something good and some bad, but i did like what come after. The problem of skins in the old way was as far as you want to create something good, in the end it was a limit of software that scrap your work because when you work with specific size and being so small you can't give some personality so you think if i do this, and you implement in the skin was so small that was so hard to see the difference.
So now with new retina thing and bigger seize the noire skin still suffer from the same problem, poor design, yeah maybe it has some new thing implemented that other skins don't have because, the support offer is so limited.
When i speak about creating stuff, a skinner work on 3 things; the skin itself, the code to be fit the skin and the limit that the program offer. Bring this 3 things in mind you need a solution to what you creation fit.
To be honest i didn't batter to see what's new on this noire skin because like i say, don't like, but from what i saw not much are change, maybe i'm wrong who knows (too little information now), so my own issues with the interface of the program remains, the theater view and the main skin, don't even speak the small version, i didn't even touch that, so the main skin somehow i find a way to be Ok, but for theater view, man, that part is so odd, because has more limited things than the main view.
So, what i expect to, maybe a new motivation to get back to drawn skins and put them to share, some new elements that we can play in that way to be a good part in the skin.
As for main view, is a bit outdated in therm of what should give us an information, i know, we are in 2014 and things change like a blink of an eye, and the support of on skins become less and less with every year and nothing change, i saw this for some times. Maybe this things make a person to get back when draw skins, because a few years ago, when i was active aswell people create something interesting, and now is equal to zero.

[ElQuia]

Mini skin support has been supplanted by "CD Art Display" (CAD) skin support

By Mini I was speaking of something REALLY mini, like "Blade" or "No frills", small thin bars that can roll down a playlist and have only the basic controls and sit on the top of my screen using VERY little real estate, while I listen to Bach while I work on other stuff.

I agree with sirgeo. MC needs some more eye candy ....

[Maverick07]

well no wonder...
First of all the support of skins, exept from marko, is like zero.
About a year (or more?) ago ive postet some bugs of the standart skin - still nobody cares and they still exist

Second thing is that JRiver has a really small community.
If they would update the Jukebox and promote it, they would get much more users.
I mean, they not even offer it on their main page - you have to google for Jukebox to get to the download link.

And as you said, most of the people look for eyecandy stuff.
Ok the main buttons on the new noire skin look pretty good, but the rest looks still the same.
Their homepage is also very old fashioned - but thats a whole different story - at least they could update their screenshots.

[ElQuia]

Well Its what we got, but it makes you look sideways ... Forget mac, even linux progs (I use a lot of linux) get a a lot of eye candy ...

Some time ago there WERE some nice skins.... the guys who made those should get some kind of incentive to do something for 19, IF the basic 19 structure (I am NOT a programmer) permits it...

I for one would not hesitate donating some cash for a real nice skin for 19 (haven't upgraded yet from 18  but it will come, and linux version also  )

[JimH]

Second thing is that JRiver has a really small community.

Small community?

The forum has
573331 Posts in 81711 Topics by 34674 Members.

Most people never register for the forum.  There are often more than 100 "guest" users at any given time.

[ElQuia]

573331 Posts in 81711 Topics by 34674 Members.

WOW! and so few skinners? 

[Listener]

WOW! and so few skinners? 

In the time you've spent complaining, you could have taken an existing skin and made a modification or two.

The iTunes skin gives me the color and contrast my eyes need.  I added window shading for the file list, a stop button, adjusting brightness and contrast and a few other things.  On one PC, I added the Flip colors(1) effect so that I'm reminded which PC this copy of MC is running on.

Bill

[ElQuia]

In the time you've spent complaining, you could have taken an existing skin and made a modification or two.

Bill:
1- I do NOT code, I am a paying user of MC
2- I am not complaining, I am ASKING for: skin preview and miniskin support and trying to find out why a GREAT program otherwise like MC has so few skins or so little eye candy.

Yes, I love you to. 

[Listener]

 

I am ASKING for: skin preview and miniskin support and trying to find out why a GREAT program otherwise like MC has so few skins or so little eye candy.

I'm a paying customer too. 

No coding required to modify a skin or make a new one.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Standard_View_Skinning_Tutorial

lots of starting material here.

http://accessories.jriver.com/mediacenter/accessories.php

2- I am not complaining,

Good imitation though.

[JimH]

No Whining

[ElQuia]

Just be grateful I have some education 

Down here we say: "el que no llora no mama", that literaly means: "if you dont cry you don't get breast food", meaning that if you don't ask you will not get anything or so...

I thing I am going to trial MC 19 and find out if it is REALLY audibly superior to 18 on my audio system before buying.

Seeya

[SkGe]

I'm a paying customer too. 

No coding required to modify a skin or make a new one.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Standard_View_Skinning_Tutorial

lots of starting material here.

http://accessories.jriver.com/mediacenter/accessories.php

Good imitation though.

I'm gone start and say this mate, you are wrong, skin and code goes together no matter what, if you only want to replace something in the skin, you do, copy/paste and you don't worry about it, and for the new skin, for sure you need a bit coding, i did myself this things so i ensure you, you are wrong. That you link is old, like me and yes, a good start for who want to create or to change something in the skin, what we talked about here is, the part of skin on this program, is kinda forgotten and this happens for some years from now on. And the other link is kinda only forgotten as well. The last skin you can find there is from at least six months older. The point on this thread is to talk about possibility and what not change in the future about skins, and not anything else.

[ElQuia]

The point on this thread is to talk about possibility and what not change in the future about skins, and not anything else.

Agree. 

[jimm2]

Not sure why it would be considered whining or complaining because someone stated there isn't much of a skinning community for MC. It's a fact, there isn't.

As someone fairly new to MC for Mac, I was very pleased when I learned it had a skinning engine. After a day or so of reading everything I could find on the site, I began customizing an existing skin. I was able to get it where I wanted but here's what I found in the process.

The skinning documentation available in the wiki is outdated. I could not find any complete document that outlines the available skin commands. If there is such a document, I would appreciate if someone could point me to it.

I learned by dissecting the skins of others but quickly found that some of the commands used in the XML files of these skins no longer work. Without a list of current available commands there is lot of trial and error involved which makes it much more time consuming than it needs to be.

I suspect these issues may play a big part in why there is no MC skinning community.

I think the JRiver team does a great job of adding new functionality but they don't seem to focus much attention on the UI. Not sure if that's because it's not their core skill or they don't consider it a priority. I do see a quite a few user posts asking for this so I don't think I'm alone. Just updating the skin documentation would be a big help I think.