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[JimH]

I'm taking NoCodeUK's comments out of the bug thread and starting a new one because he gave Hairstyle the once-over.  Thanks, NCU.

Some Nice Improvements!!!

Have just been checking out the new Hairstyle...

A Few Comments/Suggestions/Requests (all these relate to Hairstyle)

*  Really like the new skin.  Looks much more professional in the main.  One downside...I don't like the fact that everything is automatically being shown in lower case.  I take great care to tag my files with correct title capitalization yet Hairstyle is ignoring this and displaying everything in lowercase...

Thanks, Microsoft, for hiring great graphics designers whose footsteps we can follow.

Case changes were made today and we may have broken something.  We'll fix it tomorrow.

* The thumbnails don't appear to be of such high quality in this version...may just be me.

It's you, I think.  Nothing changed.

* Playing Now view now no longer shows the thumbnails of the tracks that are there...

This may be a by-product of the changes for "sticky views".  It isn't intended.  We'll take a look.

* I like the missing cover art image...could this be carried over into the main program as well??  There missing cover art is still shown as a blank...

Don't encourage Matt.  The question mark is questionable.    But we will probably make a customizable image work everywhere.

* When reacting to the mouse due to the mouse over nature hairstyle can drastically slow down...would it be possible to have an option to change this feature so that Hairstyle only reacts to clicks for slower computers??

We haven't worked on speed yet, but we will.

* If a section contains more data than will fit on a screen, there is no way to scroll to see the rest of the thumbnails...(In MCE you are able to scroll through all available thumbnails)

That's unintentional.

* Thumbnails still don't do anything at the moment...do you still plan to add functionality to the button area or will it remain static for this build?? (In MCE you can scroll through thumbnails, select individual tracks, edit their properties etc...)

Maybe.

* Options cannot be controlled by a mouse click atm only by pressing enter eg to toggle sounds on and off...

That will change.

* Is the album group logic similar to that in the main program (eg where appropriate) or does it always group albums in this mode...seemed to be grouping in strange places eg in playlists I would expect to see individual track names displayed under the thumbnails not the album title...

Should be identical.

* This is probably for a future build but would it be possible to change hairstyle features dynamically eg change the background, pip position size etc...

Some things may be possible in this build.  We talked about this today.

* Again a suggestion for the future...would it be possibl to click on an image thumbnail and have it show that image full screen in the thumbnail area...

Maybe.

* Could still do with a way to go straight to hairstyle from the display windows right click menu.  Currently you can go direct to full screen then to hairstyle but not direct to hairstyle...

I agree.  Matt is tough to convince sometimes.  He's usually right, so I leave it to him.

* Would it be possible to set different display options in hairstyle than the main program?  eg, Have Visualizations showing in the main prog but show image only in Hairstyle...

Maybe.

---Now a few observations based on reviews of MCE...
* MCE displays clock/date...not a big thing but could be useful for those using Hairstyle solely in an HTPC environment who are starting up MC full screen in Hairstyle mode...

It's a 10 minute change we expect to make.

• show clock
  

  
  * XP MCE allows you to be watching TV in the PIP while sorting albums in the main screen.  Can MC do this?
  

  
  I don't know.  I'll have to see what they are doing.
  

  
  * MCE can dynamically switch between list view/thumbnail view from within a view scheme rather than switching to an options screen
  

  
  That's nice.
  

  
  * MCE integrates playing now style functionality into the main screen rather than the PIP eg shows a time elapsed remaing counter at all times in the bottom left.  Could this be added to MC??
  

  
  Probably.
  

  
  * Playing a DVD/Video/TV in MCE switches to a special full screen mode that is still within MCE.  Will this be the case with MC or will starting a video simply show it in the pip??  Presumably to show full screen you will need to toggle back to fulscreen mode so therefore is there going to be a way to toggle Hairstyle to full screen missing out the main program screen??
  

  
  Yes.
  
  Great questions!  Thanks!  
  
  At this point, most things that MCE can do we could implement without too much trouble.  We're still not clear whether it's the right thing to do, but if anyone has an opinion, please say what you think.
  

[NoCodeUK]

Great Minds Jim...I started a separate thread too LOL

Hope I didn't annoy you guys too much... I really feel Hairstyle is coming on well and the fact that MCE has lareadybeen released gives you guys a chance to make Hairstyle much better!!!

Adam

[JimH]

It isn't in the least annoying.  We're happy to hear where we fall short compared to MCE because we can usually fix it.  Thanks for the detail.

Isn't it past your bedtime?  Or does UK stand for something other than UK, where it's now 1:35 AM?  Does you mother know you're still up?

[NoCodeUK]

Yeah...but I think she said out of sight out of mind and cos I don't live with her anymore she doesn't care (I think)  I am actually scuttling soonas I have to be up for work in about 6 hours.  I guess I just get addicted to beta testing

Adam

[NoCodeUK]

Just Can't Stop!!!  A couple more ideas...

* Could the transport controls be displayed permenantly rather than being an option in the navigation...maybe in a separate rectangle??
* Presumably Media Guide is not going to make it into this edition but when it does (and please make sure it works in the UK ), MCE allows you to scan the media guide while watching TV in the PIP.  Presumably you can also scan through channels in the guide and view them in the background like you can with cable...
*According to a review MCE cannot create playlists but has to use playlists already set up in WMP.  Since Hairstyle is running on top of MC if you could implement some kind of Hairstyle GUI for creating playlists this would be one in the eye for M$
* MCE cannot launch inet links internally it has to rely on IExplore.  If you could have Inet links running inside the PIP which could dynamically resize itself ie artist info or Find CD then again this would be one step ahead...

More as I think on it...just readng some MCE reviews for new M$ beating ideas (apologies for ny typos its getting late (or should that be early))

Adam

[NoCodeUK]

A few points that have come up in a review relating to MCE.  Some relate to PVR features...although I do not have a TV Card yet I thought it may be useful to point them out even tho I do not know whetehr MC does them or not...

* Although MCE is buffering data to implement PVR features unless you have specifically told it at the beginning of a show that you want it to record that show there is no way to save the buffered data when the show has finished...
* MCE will automatically categorize recorded shows by genre/date/name for easy access later
* It has an error display showing which shows were not recorded and for what reason...
* MCE has a very high CPU usuage meaning that recordings often stutter...eliminate that with MC and you will have better recording qulaity than MCE
* MCE allows access to search functions from within its interface...this would be good with MC too if we could have the search box present from within Hairstyle...(btw it uses the numpad on the remote like a telephone dial pad to input letters...)
* MCE has an icon to show what is playing now in the list view...any chance of this being imlemented into hairstyle??
* MCEs photo and video facilities seem pretty weak.  I guess these are areas in which MC and Hairstyle could really shine if they are implemented correctly...I would guess at a minimum the ability to spawn a slide show in a separate window to the main Hairstyle window, ability to use the image manipu;ation features in JRImage.dll from within Hairstyle, quick and easy ability to setup synched music/photos...
Video needs to be able to play full screen away from Hairstyle with an overlay allowing access to the main video functions  (MC already does this it is just the issue of switching between full screen and hairstyle without switching back to the main prog that needs to be ironed out)

Adam

[NoCodeUK]

Jim...

Is there any chance the title of this thread could be changed to Hairstyle Suggestions or something similar??  I would be interested to see other peoples ideas/opinions and views on the suggestions I made but they probably do not realise the thread has anything to do with Hairstyle...

Cheers

Adam

[NoCodeUK]

Thanks Jim!!

[Doof]

A couple of suggestions I had...

1. When viewing the track list of Playing Now, it would be cool if Hairstyle could display some of the selected songs properties. Which properties could be skin dependent, but I'm thinking, Cover Art, Artist, Album, Duration, etc.

2. Absolutely agree with NoCodeUK about having the transport controls displayed on all screens of Hairstyle (as actual icons instead of words). But make this an optional display for those of us who have our remotes setup to do all this without having to navigate to the controls on screen.

3. Move Transition options into Hairstyle's GUI instead of the XML. That way we could just pick a transition type and speed (preferably some sort of slider) and it would just be set.

4. As somebody else mentioned, if there was a way to make a Hairstyle skin using Flash, that would just rock.

5. I haven't even tried this so it may already be possible, but if there was some mjextman command that could be issued while in Hairstyle to remove files from playlists and playing now, then we wouldn't need to scroll to the Remove option beneath that track. We could just navigate to it, and hit our Remove button. This should work under Playlists, Playing Now, and even Media Library (although not so much as I plan on doing most of my maintenence from the main display, and just using HS as a front end for my HTPC.

6. Can Hairstyle work through Media Server? I'm thinking of having one PC in the back that does all the maintence, and the HTPC just connect through Media Server and run Hairstyle. Possible?

[Kurt Young]

<snip!>
4. As somebody else mentioned, if there was a way to make a Hairstyle skin using Flash, that would just rock.
<snip!>

That was me,  Rock it would, for sure!  I've seen some pretty PHAT flash-based websites, and the thought of my HTPC front-end being able to do some of the sweet things that Flash can do makes me giddy like a little schoolgirl!  

Heck, have you guys considered making Hairstyle its own .exe?  Like (again with the comparison) MCE and Windows Media Player are two separate .exe's or MC9 and Media Server are two separate .exe's.  They have different functions that could benefit from being separated from one another.  

MC9 is the media management/playback/ripping/organizing .exe and Hairstyle would be just a front-end for consumption, without having any of the management tools available.

Heck, you could even move the "party mode" over to the Hairstyle app, where it seems to totally fit in.  Just random thoughts, don't take me too seriously this morning... I'm having a great day today!  

[Doof]

I figured out that the Apps key jumps you back and forth between Hairstyle and Full Screen. It doesn't take you to the MEGA-ME at all, so for those of us using Girder, it should be fairly simple to incorporate that into our remotes. I still think an mjextman command would be better, though. Ideally, I'd like to see MC start up in one mode when fired off from a shortcut, but the remote automatically brings up MC in Hairstyle mode. That should be relatively simple to accomplish with an mjextman command.

* Options cannot be controlled by a mouse click atm only by pressing enter eg to toggle sounds on and off...  

Actually then can be now... you just have to double click rather than single click.

[Doof]

I just had another idea for this. On the screen where we can choose a skin for Hairstyle, it would be nice if we could see a screenshot of the skin. Obviously this would be a thumbnail, but it would need to be a bigger thumbnail than those used to display the Media Library, etc.

It would also be cool if there was some way of deleting a Hairstyle skin from within Hairstyle.

And yet another idea... For the music thumbnails that don't have coverart assocated with them, how about an icon that shows it's media type (audio, video, or image)? Obviously images would just display, so that one's not important, but music and video could be. Since MC can't display thumbnails for Quicktime files, it would be nice to see a thumbnail for video as well as audio.

[Jaguu]

I guess these are areas in which MC and Hairstyle could really shine if they are implemented correctly...I would guess at a minimum the ability to spawn a slide show in a separate window to the main Hairstyle window, ability to use the image manipu;ation features in JRImage.dll from within Hairstyle, quick and easy ability to setup synched music/photos...
Video needs to be able to play full screen away from Hairstyle with an overlay allowing access to the main video functions  (MC already does this it is just the issue of switching between full screen and hairstyle without switching back to the main prog that needs to be ironed out)

1) I agree with NoCodeUK. The implementation of a slide show in Hairstyle is not satisfying right now. Who wants to see a slide show in a small PIP? A slide show should be full screen, maybe with transparant controls or controls that you can hide/display.

2) There should also be a possibility to display certain tag information on the screen for a certain amount of time.
Let's say the intervall between two images is 15 seconds. Then we should be able to  display tag properties for let's say 5 seconds, so that we can fully enjoy the picture for other 10 seconds. There could be several options such as marquee like tag information

Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Title: In the Jardin du Luxembourg
Gallery: Louvre, Paris, France
Year: 1888
Style: Oil on Canvas
Movement:  Post-Impressionism

with different colors, shapes, positions (top, middle, bottom, left, right), even transparent mode, of course everything configurable. (under image playback options)

3) When running Hairstyle on a regular TV there is always a black border around the pictures. It would be nice to smooth the border by framing the picture with nice frames like real paintings.

4) Playing now and controls should be available on every screen.

5) You may also not want to display everything you have in your library to everyone. If you have guests at home and you show them a certain slide show, they do not need to know what else is stored in your library. So there should be somewhere a function that defines what you want exported to Hairstyle and what not!
Consider Hairstyle as the living room of your house. You do not necessarily show your bedroom or bathroom to your guests.

6) There should be a way to stop a slide show, go back one or two pictures and restart from there again.

7) Controls work very well with remote control, but not yet with the mouse! You still need the keyboard to go back to upper menu.

[JimH]

1) I agree with NoCodeUK. The implementation of a slide show in Hairstyle is not satisfying right now. Who wants to see a slide show in a small PIP? A slide show should be full screen, maybe with transparant controls or controls that you can hide/display.

When you start a slideshow, it should probably switch to full screen display.  You can get there with F11 or the Menu key (just to the right of the space bar).

2) There should also be a possibility to display certain tag information on the screen for a certain amount of time.

a reasonable idea[/quote]
Let's say the intervall between two images is 15 seconds. Then we should be able to  display tag properties for let's say 5 seconds, so that we can fully enjoy the picture for other 10 seconds. There could be several options such as marquee like tag information
with different colors, shapes, positions (top, middle, bottom, left, right), even transparent mode, of course everything configurable. (under image playback options)
[/quote]
Maybe a toggle on and off might also work.

3) When running Hairstyle on a regular TV there is always a black border around the pictures. It would be nice to smooth the border by framing the picture with nice frames like real paintings.

That could be the way the video is sized.  Try playing with right click display options.  Regular TV's should be set to 640x480 or lower.

4) Playing now and controls should be available on every screen.

Maybe.  Not sure that's right for Hairstyle, but a limited set would be nice.

5) You may also not want to display everything you have in your library to everyone. If you have guests at home and you show them a certain slide show, they do not need to know what else is stored in your library. So there should be somewhere a function that defines what you want exported to Hairstyle and what not!
Consider Hairstyle as the living room of your house. You do not necessarily show your bedroom or bathroom to your guests.

This is probably best handled with a library.

6) There should be a way to stop a slide show, go back one or two pictures and restart from there again.

Space bar toggles it on and off.  Page up, page down, or right arrow, left arrow switch slides.  Please see the instruction thread for more.

7) Controls work very well with remote control, but not yet with the mouse! You still need the keyboard to go back to upper menu.

We're not finished yet.

Thanks for the ideas.

[NoCodeUK]

Defo agree that clicking something like a video/slideshow should automatically jump to full screen mode...in this case transport controls are already present.  This is really what I was meaning ... MC can already do this if you press F11 the next step is to do it automatically...
For playing now/transport on screen at all times... I think all there needs to be is the basic transport control and some kind of bar to show the currently playing track...similar to the transport in the main window only more simple...Again the comparisons to MCE are there where once a track is playing it displays track name, elapsed/remaining time and a play / pause control what ever screen you move to...
Like the idea of displaying tags for images...don't like the marquee idea.  I think possibly a seperate rectangle in the slideshow screen that can be toggled on and off would be much nicer and would fit in better with the overall MC theme... a bit like the properties dialog in the main screen when you switch to Tag Dump...

Adam

[Griff]

Hello

Well, I really dont have many complaints with Hairstyle.

My main thing was "ease of use" , in other words, remote on coffie table without Tech. Manual.

Hairstyle, gives this to me.

Anyone can come into my place pick up the remote and navigate Hairstyle without questions.
(Using Uice / with on screen display of what the remote is doing)

The only thing that bugs me is:

You play audio with Visual.

You change to slide show with audio.

Then you want to go back to Visual. and there is no quick way of doing this.

Other than that, Im happy.

Griff

[Doof]

Last night I sat down for the first time and tried out MC & Hairstyle while watching a video. While some of what I'm going to say isn't directly related to Hairstyle, it does all fit in with the MC-as-HTPC experience.

First of all, the button text that looks so good on my monitor at 1280 x 1024 res, isn't as nice on the 640 x 480 TV. And when I say "nice" I don't mean clarity, as I realize that's a function of the TV. What I mean, is that the text doesn't fit anymore. Text above a certain length ends up looking like "Media Li..." or something similar. I could choose a smaller text size, but at that point it started getting hard to read due to the low resolution & dot pitch of the TV.

Beyond that... I hit pause on the remote and got a drink, when I came back, I hit play (instead of pause) and MC started playing the same file over again, rather than unpause. Considering the standard for VCR's and DVD players seems to be to combine the play and pause into one button, it just feels natural to hit play to restart playback. But mjextman only has Play and Pause. Maybe add a Play\Pause command as well, so we can configure it how we want?

The Pause thing wouldn't have been such a big deal if I could have fast forwarded with any kind of usefulness. MC's default of jumping ahead 5 seconds with every button press is just not a viable option when you have to fast forward a half hour! A better solution would be something similar to TiVo, where one button push starts fast forwarding, 2 presses speeds it up even more, 3 even more, and the 4th resumes normal playback speed. My Sony DVD player has the same functionality, so again, I'm thinking this may be a standard. It would only make sense for MC to follow suit, IMO.

[sraymond]

Doof,

I agree with your observances.  I first came to MC because of Hairstyle, but I've come to believe that there are still some improvements to be made to the "video" portion of MC.  You're right that the problems aren't specific to Hairstyle - but until the "layer" below Hairstyle is fixed, Hairstyle will still be limited.

I've seen a lot of improvement, though, in the last month of two, so I'm hopeful that by the time MC releases, MC will be *THE* multimedia app on the market.

Scott-

[Eiffel]

In the skin description file, I didn't see any way to change the font (style, size, etc) of the menus... Is there a way to adjust them (I'd like to have the same look and feel for these menus as in some of my other GUI stuff, and this is the key missing piece for now)

Thanks

[NoCodeUK]

I think Hairstyle uses the same font that is set for the main interface.  This can be altered using tree and view settings in the Options screen.  However this will also change the main font used in the program as well.  Could this be added as an option Matt??? Cos we know you love extra options!!!

Adam

[Doof]

Hairstyle isn't resizing video to fit the PIP correctly.

Did I report this already? If not, I'm having a wicked case of deja vu.

Anyway... some videos resize to play at some resolution, I think it's whatever resolution fullscreen mode is set for, but it's top left corner is set to whereever the PIP's top left corner is.

Also, sometimes the PIP is the right size, but the video inside it is still at the fullscreen resolution. This sometimes happens on track change. Jumping to fullscreen and back to Hairstyle corrects it.

[Doof]

I also noticed that Hairstyle's FFWD and REW player controls behave exactly how I wish mjextman's FFWD and REW would function. Just hold the button down and it keeps fast forwarding. Although I think TiVo's method is even better, especially how it jumps back a few seconds after you're done fast forwarding. That's a really nice feature and it makes it really easy to skip through commercials without missing the show.

[Eiffel]

NoCodeUK, thank for the suggestion to change the font in the MC setup dialog boxes...

FYI, I just did this. It works for the text shown on top of the menus, but not for the menus themselves, unfortunately.