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Author Topic: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?  (Read 7432 times)

richard-ec2

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I love JRemote but I do think those stock icons are a big let-down. Is there any way to change them?

The ones I'm talking about are these:




and even worse, these:


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csimon

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2015, 10:10:50 am »

This depends on the icons that MC returns to JRemote, so it's not really a JRemote issue.  The request has been made lots of times over the years and crops up failry regularly, probably a couple of times of month at least. See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96102.msg669114#msg669114 for an example.

See the same request in the eos thread: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89392.msg674942#msg674942 and also http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89392.msg676712#msg676712
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marko

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2015, 11:18:46 am »

"Even worse, these:"

They've never really bothered me that much, but you got me wondering... so, as a test, I changed mine....
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ualau0aqnkaotzz/Screenshot_2015-06-02-17-00-06.png?dl=0

As a quick test, I used the "Playlists" image.
also note that changing these this way will also change them any place that they are used in the main application

Go to your MC installation directory, enter the "Data" folder.
Create a new folder there called "Custom Art"
Go into the folder called Default Art and identify the images you would like to change. Note the file names.
Place your alternative images in the "Custom Art" folder, using the same file names as noted from the Default Art folder.
MC will use your custom images instead. Updates will not over write your custom art.

If your choices don't sit well when used inside the main application, and you want to return to defaults, simply remove the files from the Custom Art folder.
If you decide to have a play around, and get something that makes you happy, post a screen shot for us :)

-marko.

csimon

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2015, 11:58:08 am »

I assumed he meant customisation according to the folder name.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2015, 12:25:01 pm »

"Even worse, these:"

They've never really bothered me that much, but you got me wondering... so, as a test, I changed mine....
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ualau0aqnkaotzz/Screenshot_2015-06-02-17-00-06.png?dl=0

As a quick test, I used the "Playlists" image.
also note that changing these this way will also change them any place that they are used in the main application

Go to your MC installation directory, enter the "Data" folder.
Create a new folder there called "Custom Art"
Go into the folder called Default Art and identify the images you would like to change. Note the file names.
Place your alternative images in the "Custom Art" folder, using the same file names as noted from the Default Art folder.
MC will use your custom images instead. Updates will not over write your custom art.

If your choices don't sit well when used inside the main application, and you want to return to defaults, simply remove the files from the Custom Art folder.
If you decide to have a play around, and get something that makes you happy, post a screen shot for us :)

-marko.

Well, well, well - so it CAN be done. How ingenious!

Referring to my OP, I've found the second type of icon ("Even worse, these") in the data folder. It's called LargeIconGeneric and it's 512 x 512 pixels. I'll have fun experimenting with substitutes - I think something with a bit of colour in it would be a good start. Do the custom icons need to be exactly the same dimensions?

My other question is, referring to my OP again, what about the icons used in the first view I showed? Where do you think JRemote gets those from? I can't see them in the data folder so I'm wondering if maybe they're a native JRemote thing.

csimon, thanks very much for your reply and I'm sorry my question wasn't clear.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2015, 01:17:14 pm »

OK, here's my first attempt - I just borrowed the JRiver logo from the data file and already it's looking a bit better - to me, anyway! Size doesn't seem to matter.

From this:



To this:


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csimon

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2015, 01:36:53 pm »

Needs a grey background to merge in seamlessly lol!
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2015, 01:40:49 pm »

Or what about this?

The possibilities are endless!

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Hendrik

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2015, 01:44:21 pm »

Ideally it should use a transparent background, or automatically use the background colors as background, MC can deliver it with transparency or with any background color the app wants (ie. one matching the grey background).
Who knows why it requests that with black background...
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csimon

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2015, 01:50:45 pm »

Can MC deliver any image format? If so it might be worth saving the icons as png after editing the background to be transparent and see if JRemote handles that.
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Hendrik

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #10 on: June 02, 2015, 01:52:43 pm »

The original "folder" icon is PNG with transparency. The app can request the image format that MC is going to deliver, png or jpg work at least. Not sure what the iOS version does.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2015, 04:27:00 pm »

Yes, I think the reason we're seeing black is that all the icons we've seen so far have been png files with transparent backgrounds and jremote is filling in the transparent background with black. If you have an icon with no transparent background, there's no black. Here's an icon that's exactly 512 x 512 with no transparent background and as you can see, there's no black:



So although it would be nice if jremote would render the transparent backgrounds properly, I think I can manage without.

I'd still like to know where jremote is getting those upper level icons from - the ones shown in the first view of the OP. Does anyone know?
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Hendrik

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2015, 02:35:41 am »

They are hard-coded in the application, you cannot change those.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #13 on: June 03, 2015, 04:15:01 am »

They are hard-coded in the application, you cannot change those.

OK, I feared as much but thanks very much for confirming.

Presumably when you say application, you mean the JRemote application, not MC.

I do wish JRemote would either make these icons more visually appealing or allow users to customise them.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #14 on: June 03, 2015, 05:45:06 am »

OK, I played around with this a little and here's what I've come up with:



I think that looks almost tasteful (notice how I reduced the icon size) but if you want to create your own icons, here's how I did it:

1. Choose icon online.

2. Bring it up in a picture editor. Use the magic wand to select the icon, so separating it from its transparent background.

3. Invert the selection so the transparent background is now selected.

4. Flood fill the transparent background with JRemote grey. The RGB colour values to enter in your colour picker are 230 230 230   E6 E6 E6.

5. Resize image to 512 x 512 pixels. I'm not sure if this is necessary.

6. If your icon comes up too big, open it up in the picture editor again and keep adding grey borders around it and resizing the total image to 512 x 512 until you've squeezed your icon down to the desired size.

7. Follow marko's instructions for installing the icon.

Many thanks indeed to marko for coming up with this idea. I think it really improves the user experience.

Here's a link that you can use to download my icon in the event that anyone wants to try it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4z9medfnjdr01kq/JRemote%20icon.jpg?dl=0
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Hendrik

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #15 on: June 03, 2015, 05:52:41 am »

In case anyone wonders, JRemote for Android should properly respect transparency, so hard-coding a specific background color is not required.
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csimon

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #16 on: June 03, 2015, 06:18:09 am »

OK, I played around with this a little and here's what I've come up with:

That looks brilliant, well done!

This shows exactly why some (many, a lot) of us want to be able to specify custom icons for genres, album artists etc.
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #17 on: June 03, 2015, 10:44:20 am »

That looks brilliant, well done!

This shows exactly why some (many, a lot) of us want to be able to specify custom icons for genres, album artists etc.

Many thanks indeed - much appreciated!

I think it looks nice in iPhone, too:

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lepa

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2015, 03:01:16 pm »

Folder icons should have media type like Standard View's Tree though. I'm assuming that once you have changed these folder icons they are also used with images and videos...
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richard-ec2

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Re: JRemote - is there any way to change or customise those stock icons?
« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2015, 02:51:11 pm »

Folder icons should have media type like Standard View's Tree though. I'm assuming that once you have changed these folder icons they are also used with images and videos...

I only use JRiver for audio so I never thought about that but yes, I can see that would be a problem  - you only get to use one icon and it's the same for everything. I wish there were more customising options.
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