INTERACT FORUM

Windows => Third Party Plug-ins, Programs, and Skins => Topic started by: RhinoBanga on October 17, 2003, 01:49:08 pm

Title: Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 17, 2003, 01:49:08 pm
Here is a screenshot of an adaptive skin with the Windows XP Blue theme:

(http://www.mrblobby.ukshells.co.uk/PlayingNow/PlayingNow_Adaptive_Blue.jpg)



Here's the link the the MC plugins page:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/downloads/mcplugins.pl?type=10&start=0&end=10&page=1


Here's what's new since v1.1.0.2:

1)  Added option to hide the popup when you set a rating (PlayingNow.INI ... default is on)
2)  Added ability to save the thumbnail when logging (check PlayingNow.INI).
3)  Issue where re-entrancy of terminate code (due to rename of app) was causing a crash of MC


From now on the setup program will always overwrite the supplied skins, so take a copy of the directory containing the skin you want to modify and make you changes there.

Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: milehigh on October 17, 2003, 02:20:04 pm
I love this plug-in - is there any way to make the window larger?  I would like larger cover art - but when I change the size of the art it just gets bigger but nothing else moves?  I don't know how hard this would be to do but it would be great.  Thanks for your hard work.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Doof on October 17, 2003, 02:22:41 pm
The window displays as large as the background jpg file, so make one the size that you want and you'll be all set. :)

Rhino, I was wondering... is it possible, or could it be possible to have it save the popup image to an FTP site address?
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RobOK on October 17, 2003, 02:29:25 pm
i downloaded from the link above, it told me it was 1.1.0.2 despite the title of this thread.

I have only four files and two folders in the "Playing Now 1.1" folder after installation. (sucessful installation message).   Is that right?

I have no INI files which is where I understand the customization happens.  Is there a problem with your latest install file or am i completely missing something.

The program works, i just cant see how to customize it.

good job on it, it looks great.

Rob.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Doof on October 17, 2003, 02:43:36 pm
You can access the ini files from the Start Menu shortcuts it creates.

The number of folders and files sounds right. Inside the Skins folder you should see a couple more folders. One for each skin installed.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RobOK on October 17, 2003, 02:57:44 pm
thank you sir!  found it!
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 17, 2003, 03:35:41 pm
i downloaded from the link above, it told me it was 1.1.0.2 despite the title of this thread.

Rob,

I just downloaded it and it says 1.1.0.3.

When you pring up the file properties on C:\Program Files\James Dickson\PlayingNow 1.1\PlayingNow.dll (or wherever you installed PN) what does it say on the version tab?


Doof:

Quote
Rhino, I was wondering... is it possible, or could it be possible to have it save the popup image to an FTP site address?

Yeah, that should be easy to do ... I'll look at it tomorrow for you.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: AndyCircuit on October 17, 2003, 04:08:25 pm
Thanks for this great plug-in
I've noticed this:
If MC is inactive after finishing the last track every 12 minutes the last track pops up twice. Was also with 1.1.0.2.
No prob, just FYI
AC
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: matshif on October 17, 2003, 04:19:17 pm
Everything working fine.
No probs when exit or changing skin.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: KingSparta on October 17, 2003, 05:09:55 pm
The window displays as large as the background jpg file, so make one the size that you want and you'll be all set. :)

Rhino, I was wondering... is it possible, or could it be possible to have it save the popup image to an FTP site address?

that would be nice and should be easy for him to do in Visual "C" but I am not sure with what he wrote this in.

basicly in Visual Basic this would take a matter of maybe 5 mins or less
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Snuffy2 on October 17, 2003, 05:27:40 pm
Looks Like it's Fixed!!

Thanx  ;D
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Drowbe on October 17, 2003, 07:47:39 pm
The window displays as large as the background jpg file, so make one the size that you want and you'll be all set. :)

Rhino, I was wondering... is it possible, or could it be possible to have it save the popup image to an FTP site address?

I requested the same thing a while back.  Since the plugin can call a script, I wrote one to upload the stuff using the built-in FTP program in windows.  You need 2 files...one is the BAT file (which the plugin runs) and the other is a LIST file (Which contains the ftp commands).  They are very simple:

ftp.BAT:
@echo off
ftp -s:"c:\insert-the-path-here\ftpcommands.lst"

ftpcommands.lst:

open ftp.site.here
username
password
binary
put "C:\insert-the-path-here\filename.html"
cd images
put "C:\insert-the-path-here\playingnow.jpg"
put "C:\insert-the-path-here\wishedtheywere\ifilename.jpg"
bye

As you can see, I am uploading a text file, the album art, and the pop-up to my site.  The key is to use full paths to your files.  I have all of mine (including the bat file) in my custom skin directory.  I haven't started parsing the text yet (later tonight perhaps), but the album cover is showing up on my site at www.wishedtheywere.org (http://www.wishedtheywere.org) in the lower left part of the screen under "Listening to..."
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: bvm on October 18, 2003, 01:17:56 am
Just installed this plugin -- very cool.  Is there any documentation besides the ini files and posts in this forum?

Following one of those posts, I expanded background.jpg, which seemed to work (after restarting MC -- before restarting MC, the extra space in the jpg wasn't being filled with background or text).  And after noticing the loophole for <"arbitrary field name"> I was able to get Composer in there.  Remaining questions:

1. How hardwired is the thumbnail?  Few of my albums have cover art, so I was thinking of doing away with it.  In the config.ini under [Thumbnail] it says 0 = None for Type, but the program doesn't seem to pay attention to it.

2. Similarly, the "raised" lines above and below the first three text sections -- hardwired also?  They seem to be designed to match thumbnail type=1.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 18, 2003, 02:39:09 am
AndyCircuit:

Quote
If MC is inactive after finishing the last track every 12 minutes the last track pops up twice. Was also with 1.1.0.2.

I cannot reproduce this at all.   I have one track in my playlist and when it finished I left it alone for 30 minutes and the popup did not re-appear.   Has anyone else seen this issue?



bvm:

Quote
Is there any documentation besides the ini files and posts in this forum?

None whatsoever ... it is free software after all.


Quote
1. How hardwired is the thumbnail?  Few of my albums have cover art, so I was thinking of doing away with it.  In the config.ini under [Thumbnail] it says 0 = None for Type, but the program doesn't seem to pay attention to it.

That is a bug which I have fixed ... look for it in the next release.


Quote
2. Similarly, the "raised" lines above and below the first three text sections -- hardwired also?

No

Quote
 They seem to be designed to match thumbnail type=1.

Correct.


Have a look the GradientFills sections in the Adaptive\Config.INI file.   You will see that there are three.
One to fill the background of the image inside the borders and two that provide separators parallel
to the thumbnail.



Drowbe / Doof:

I am adding an FTP sites section to PlayingNow.INI where you can enter one or more FTP sites.   Then you can right-click on a popup and choose "Send To" to send the image to a nominated address.   Also you can nominate a site for automatic sending everytime the popup changes.   This does not apply to logging though at the moment.   I may address this in a future version.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Doof on October 18, 2003, 03:35:38 am
Sweet. Although I can easily have the image saved to my web server while I'm here at home (since it's on my LAN), when I'm work, being able to use the FTP send will be great. :)

I actually was thinking about this some more tonight, and this might sound a bit crazy but... how hard would it be to specify two different skins be used?

1. For your actual popup display.
2. To be FTP'd or saved to a local image file.

That way, I could have the nice big popup that I normally see, but only showing here on my local PC, and then a smaller skin image that gets uploaded automatically to a webserver for use in things like my signature. Does that make any sense?

Like, I'd specify Adaptive for my display skin, and Slimline for my upload skin, so the signature stuff takes up less room.

Just a crazy thought I had tonight... :P
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 18, 2003, 03:51:41 am
Quote
Like, I'd specify Adaptive for my display skin, and Slimline for my upload skin, so the signature stuff takes up less room.

Interesting ... I don't think that'd be too difficult to do.   Probably have something like "FTPSkin=Slimline" in the Adaptive\Config.INI file.

Let me get FTP'ing out of the way first (and all the internal rename/organization of classes/namespaces that I am doing too) then I'll look at that.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Marko on October 18, 2003, 04:17:34 am
Sweet idea Doof.

I spent a fair bit of time making a larger background image file, then arranging the text and images etc, then, when I had it looking real good, I thought "woohoo" and was very pleased with myself!!

Then I saw it on the forum as my sign off, and was like oh heck, and was back to the small one before JimH got his edit stick out and smacked me around with it ;)

Rhino,
Thank you once again for all your work on this. I have a feeling it could become the most popular plugin of all time.

Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Marko on October 18, 2003, 05:34:18 am
Rhino, forgot to mention before, but whatever you changed lately, hypersnap is not hooking playingnow.dll any longer.

Nice one  8)
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 18, 2003, 05:38:11 am
LOL ... I love it when I fix something that I didn't know I fixed :D
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: milehigh on October 18, 2003, 10:40:11 am
Marko,

Any chance you could share your larger window set up config file?  I want a bigger pop up and would love to see it!  Plus I am lazy.....    ;)
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Marko on October 18, 2003, 11:01:23 am
Marko,

Any chance you could share your larger window set up config file?  I want a bigger pop up and would love to see it!  Plus I am lazy.....    ;)

You'll need an image file to use. The text placements in the config are relative to the image. If you have an image in mind, post it here, PM it to me or mail it me, tell me what text you want and I don't mind knocking it out for you, or if you're just curious to see what this looks like, I'll send you the package.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Dan Da Man on October 18, 2003, 11:23:42 am
Rhino,

Could you add a feature that puts blanks or (Nothing) in the song/artist/album area when I have playback stopped?

Otherwise, I have it on my computer's local webserver and it looked like I was listening to a 1:41 interlude on a CD for over 9 hours.  That way, if you're not playing anything, it really shows nothing.

Dan "da Man"
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: dragyn on October 18, 2003, 01:12:38 pm
I would agree. Same when no entry for a field is givin like genre: n/a
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: bvm on October 18, 2003, 08:03:20 pm
Quote
>>Is there any documentation besides the ini files and posts in this forum?   

None whatsoever ... it is free software after all.

Not a complaint, just checking that I didn't miss anything.  I love free software, after all  :)

Quote
Have a look the GradientFills sections in the Adaptive\Config.INI file.  You will see that there are three. One to fill the background of the image inside the borders and two that provide separators parallel to the thumbnail.

Got it, thanks.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: dingoBaby on October 19, 2003, 12:49:12 am
Rhino,

Just wanted to say thank you.  This is a great plug in.  Excellent work.

dingo
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: milehigh on October 19, 2003, 10:38:44 am


You'll need an image file to use. The text placements in the config are relative to the image. If you have an image in mind, post it here, PM it to me or mail it me, tell me what text you want and I don't mind knocking it out for you, or if you're just curious to see what this looks like, I'll send you the package.
Quote

Hi Marko,

I don't mind playing around with it - I really am just curious to see what you did - is it the now playing box in your post?  - I just want to have a larger cover art.  I have PM'd you my email.... Thanks.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Marko on October 19, 2003, 10:52:39 am
nope.
that's one I was mucking around with this morning :)

The big one is in the PlayingNow Skins Library Thread. (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=16136)

It's just a small zip file, 40-odd kb if I remember rightly.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: nila on October 20, 2003, 06:11:19 am
aww - I saw the volume icon in the screen shots and thought it was a mute button on the plugin.

It's not :(

it's just a picture.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: RhinoBanga on October 20, 2003, 06:26:07 am
Didn't think people would want that since most keyboards these days have mute and volume controls.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: Doof on October 20, 2003, 09:12:23 am
Sounds like somebody should just stick to ZRocker's Lower Left mini-me skin...
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: nila on October 20, 2003, 10:06:17 am
I've stuck to many mini-me's - the best one to date is just the controls I've added to my task bar as they always just stay out the way - never get in the way or block anything - only down side is they take up space which wasn't a big deal - but now with this plugin it's wasted space as I no longer need the rating buttons.

I'm gonna re-try that winamp skin u mentioned to me ages ago - last time I tried though it just didn't work too good on this high a res.

I just liked the idea of being able to have controls for the pop-up built in - esp. if as someone requested it also displays lyrics and stuff.
Title: Re:Playing Now v1.1.0.3
Post by: dragyn on October 21, 2003, 02:08:30 am
How about a language filter (find/replace)?

I listen to some nasty ****. not good for youngins' who browse these boards.