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[marko]

New for Media Center 33, cncb has been working hard on this new feature.

For any other of you long time users who may be familiar with rhinobanga's decades old plugin, cncb's work is at least as good, and in some areas, quite a bit superior.

First off, rhinobanga is an absolute legend, to me He built a full featured, rock solid plugin that has worked, pretty much, flawlessly with MC for decades. Time, sadly, was catching up with it... FTP, awesome back then, but no sFTP... hosting providers do not like that these days... only 32 bit compatibility... that's not, erm, compatible, with the general desire, user-drift, towards 64 bit.

cncb's work takes care of all of this, and a little bit more...

For anyone who fancies a stab at creating a skin, this new MC feature gives access to three extremely useful things...

• Any visible item shown can be assigned an MCC command
• Any item can use the output of an MC expression
• It is possible to create a dynamic skin, where backgrounds, ratings, fonts etc are all inherited from whichever standard view skin is currently being used

The only things currently lacking in the JRiver iteration are the "Current Playlist" button, and sliders for volume and progress, none of which, to me, are deal breakers (though the current playlist button is a really close call)

I also feel it's worth pointing out a 'thing' regarding settings, and what may or may not be acceptable to you personally... namely, the "Show for (seconds)" setting...
When I'm using the "Notify" skin, I find a time of twenty seconds is good. The thing is, the popup offers useful information via tooltips, such as album review (if set) and artist Bios (if set), along with ratings and next/previous track info... so long as the mouse is over the popup interacting with it one way or the other, it will not hide after the set twenty seconds. This, is wonderful

Dev on the plugin has kind of plateaued recently, with, for me, only the above two mentioned, non-deal breaking 'cons' outstanding.

For decades, with the old plugin, I've used, exclusively, the 'Top Toolbar' skin, but recently, I've leaned heavily towards the "Notify" skin. imho, it's pretty cool
I strongly advise making the ctrl+i combo global (via settings). It will then hide/show the popup as desired regardless of what you're currently doing.

With that, and in the hope of inspiring some others with vision/imagination way better than mine, this weekend I am sharing the four skins for the playing now popup feature that I've kept up-to-date as development has progressed. Pictures are below, zip files are attached.

I've actually no idea if mjp files can be made to auto install these skins (Craig?), so, for now, you need to download the zip files and extract their contents (the folder) to your [MC install directory] > Skins > Playing Now Popup folder. Enjoy, and, as always, all feedback, +/-, is encouraged

Note:
All of the skins below have been produced on a screen using a 1920 x 1200 resolution @ 100% on Windows 10 Pro. Feedback from users on other platforms is especially appreciated.

Logo
This is quite simply, the MC logo, that actually does what it suggests it might do


Notify
This skin changes dynamically as per the chosen standard view skin. The only constant items are the outer frame and the volume control buttons. The example shown here is from the stock "Aruba" skin.


Play
Perhaps because of my over-exuberant excitement over this new feature, I forgot to mention above that, the popup allows skinners to use transparent backgrounds, but currently, these only work for Windows users. With that in mind, I created this primarily so that any Linux or Mac users who wanted to, could try the interactive MC logo too. In this skin, the MC logo and track separators are constant. Everything else adjusts dynamically as per the current standard view skin. The pic below is from my "Seamless" skin


Top Toolbar
This is the one I first ported from the old plugin to the new. It's designed to sit along the top of the screen offering the ability to rate the previous or current track, as well as adjust the volume, along with the expected transport controls, and other useful information via tooltips. There is no dynamicism with this skin, it's always the same regardless of standard view skin choice.


---------------------------------
Attachments are below. You must be logged in in order to download. Enjoy

[cncb]

The only things currently lacking in the JRiver iteration are the "Current Playlist" button, and sliders for volume and progress, none of which, to me, are deal breakers (though the current playlist button is a really close call)

Check the next build for a "current playlist" command that shows a popup list.  It will take more work if you want the list customizable.

I'm not sure about .mjp.  I will check it out.

[JimH]

Craig,
Open any mjp file in notepad.  MC owns the file type (Media Jukebox Package) and will execute the contents of the file when you click on it.

Marko,
Thanks for the great write-up!  Remind me to suggest you to jmone for VP of Marketing when he finally gets to work!

Rhinobanga,
If you're reading, thank you!

[marko]

Check the next build for a "current playlist" command that shows a popup list.  It will take more work if you want the list customizable.

Nice. Will test as soon as it's out. Customizable would be a bonus, the old plugin's list was not, it just showed [artist] - [name]

I'll update the attachments in the first post as the skins progress. "Notify" has been changed for now as I've found that's reliably causing MC to crash if you try to move it with mousebehavior set to "1"

-marko

[cncb]

Nice. Will test as soon as it's out. Customizable would be a bonus, the old plugin's list was not, it just showed [artist] - [name]

I was referring to the list colors, etc., but we can make the actual text customizable if you want.

Note that the next build supports Popup skins in .mjp files.

[marko]

Confirmation that the "Move" bug is fixed.

I was referring to the list colors, etc., but we can make the actual text customizable if you want.

Very neat approach to the playing now list presentation. I like it. I think the current standard view list will always work, don't you?
Being able to customize the text would be a lovely bonus if it's not too much hassle

Top Toolbar and Notify now have the button, but it won't work until build 23 is released publicly, so I've removed them for now.
I am extremely inept when working graphically on tiny things like these. I know they look a bit rough and amateurish. I'll keep trying though

Note that the next build supports Popup skins in .mjp files.

Currently, to install a skin, we do:

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<MJPF version="2.0">
<Package>
<Name>Seamless</Name>
<Action>INSTALLSKIN</Action>
<URL>http://www.mpw.scot/files/ia/Seamless.zip</URL>
<Version>1.0</Version>
<HasActions>0</HasActions>
</Package>       
</MJPF>Is there a "INSTALLPOPUPSKIN" action or is it more complex than that?

-marko

[cncb]

Currently, to install a skin, we do:

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<MJPF version="2.0">
<Package>
<Name>Seamless</Name>
<Action>INSTALLSKIN</Action>
<URL>http://www.mpw.scot/files/ia/Seamless.zip</URL>
<Version>1.0</Version>
<HasActions>0</HasActions>
</Package>       
</MJPF>Is there a "INSTALLPOPUPSKIN" action or is it more complex than that?

It is exactly the same as a standard skin (use INSTALLSKIN).

[cncb]

Being able to customize the text would be a lovely bonus if it's not too much hassle

Done.

[marko]

Awesome sauce. Is this in build .24?

[cncb]

No, .25.