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Author: Subject: Skin alterations for Now Playing panel
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posted on 5-13-2004 at 05:21 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Skin alterations for Now Playing panel

I messed around with "Now Playing" panel skin last night. I was basically trying to get the font sizes bigger for viewing on a standard definition 27" TV. It worked pretty well. I have few questions about it that might help me to further optimize it for my needs.

1). I noticed that if I make the album name font too big in the "Now Playing" panel, that the album name might get cut off, depending on the length of the album name. Is there a way to make this album name scroll from side-to-side much like it does in the Album View (if the album names are turned on)?

2). Is there a way to specify the width of the "Now Playing" panel? I was hoping to make it a bit larger than it is now. The ability to adjust the width of this panel & in effect, the size of the main view panel would be cool. That would probably require a lot of coding, though, since everything would have to resize (or not) with the panel widths.

3). I know this has been mentioned in the past, but is there a way to "link" the "Now Playing" panel into the main view? That way, the currently playing song along with its album cover, song name, etc. would show up. Beneath it, the rest of the playlist could appear, along with all of the other suggestions in that "Now Playing" post which I can't seem to find right now.

Thanks for your hard work on making eJukebox customizable!!

Steve
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posted on 5-13-2004 at 07:21 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Nothing to add! I agree with all three issues! Especially number 1 is inviting.

I've struggled with that one myself, and the scrolling idea of yours would be an exellent sollution. It would make up a comprimise between the font size and the viewability of the albumname ;)




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posted on 5-14-2004 at 06:18 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
I also greatly support these 3 points !

1) An autoscroll function in the Now Playing panel?
It's a very good idea! If it start automatically when required, that would be an elegant way to get a panel perfectly locked, preventing any text or image awkward overflowing outside of the panel in cases of long names or big fonts... However, i would prefer the scrolling be unidirectionnal like in Winamp.

2) Ability to adjust the width of the left panel?
A must, of course!

3) A way to "link" the "Now Playing" panel into the main view?
Ah ah! i think i recognize my baby! He must be near to one year old now... and i would love he was finally realized, in eJukebox!
Seriously, i still think a mode where the songlist would stay synchronized to the now playing album could look great on a TV screen using a skin with large fonts. And for once, that would be so EASY for Audiosoft to add a such mode! Please, please... Audiosoft! :)
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posted on 5-22-2004 at 04:00 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Audiosoft,

Any official responses to my questions? Just don't want to chase my tail over something that can't be done yet.

Thanks,
Steve
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posted on 5-22-2004 at 11:15 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
RE: 1) An autoscroll function in the Now Playing panel?

It is possible for us to make the albumname always scroll but not -autoscroll only when the text is too long...unless we add an ini style value to the nowplaying.dis where you can specify the minimum # of characters for it to turn scrolling on.

RE: 2) Ability to adjust the width of the left panel?

This is a long way off. Don't count on this anytime soon...it requires tons of changes and would add a huge layer of complexity to skinning the left side of eJukebox.

RE: 3) A way to "link" the "Now Playing" panel into the main view?

This is possible and we plan on adding a option to make it do this when the mouse and keybord has not been touched for 1 minute.




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posted on 5-23-2004 at 12:26 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Very good news!

3): it will be welcome!
Thanks a lot Audiosoft! That will be a nice plus for eJukebox... :D

1): I'm happy if you can add a scrolling feature in the now playing panel.
So you plan to add an option to scroll the album name under the cover? Great!

And what would you think about to add a scrolling for the song title? maybe following the artist name (in the same scrolling line), like in Winamp... :)
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posted on 5-23-2004 at 09:31 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Quote:
Originally posted by stsirois
3) (....) a way to "link" the "Now Playing" panel into the main view? That way, the currently playing song along with its album cover, song name, etc. would show up. Beneath it, the rest of the playlist could appear, along with all of the other suggestions in that "Now Playing" post which I can't seem to find right now.



Just for the record. I think this is the thread you're thinking about:
http://www.audiosoft.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=445

I even think that it was you who started it back then ;) A good idea indeed. I'd also like to see small albumimages beside the respective songs in this new playlist mode. It actually could look a bit like the songs when dragged currently, like has been suggested earlier.

There are a lot of possibilities in this. It would be interesting to see some mockups which conceptualizes it in more detail though.
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posted on 5-23-2004 at 10:36 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Well maybe you are right Fishy... i don't know now... I just can say i wish that since i remote control eJ on my TV screen, and i do that since a very long time... Maybe my first request for this was in the old forum, or in another life...? :D No matter, that still remain a good idea! ;)

I wonder if Audiosoft plan to display in the songlist the Now playing album or the playlist songs? "My" first thought -when i look eJ on my TV- was to have the Now playing ALBUM songs displayed in the songlist, but i don't know what is really planned?

Maybe we could have the 2 ways together:
"Playlist" mode when there are songs in the playlist... and "Now Playing Album" mode when eJ go in its Auto play mode.
What you think guys?
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posted on 5-23-2004 at 06:44 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Thanks for the official response, Audiosoft; much appreciated!!!

#2) would be OK to shelve for now if #1) could be fully implemented. Can't wait to see what you folks come up with for #3)!

Thanks for reminding me of my original post, Fishy. Maybe it was inspired by Pirk?!?:D

Thanks,
Steve
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posted on 5-23-2004 at 07:58 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Quote: Thanks for reminding me of my original post, Fishy. Maybe it was inspired by Pirk?!?:D

Probably i thought that so loud that you have heard it Steve?!? :D :P
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posted on 5-25-2004 at 07:04 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
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RE: 3) A way to "link" the "Now Playing" panel into the main view?

This is possible and we plan on adding a option to make it do this when the mouse and keybord has not been touched for 1 minute.

Audiosoft,

I would like to understand what you plan to display in the songlist panel after that famous 1 minute of inactivity:
The playlist or the now playing album songs?

- If it's the playlist: well... ok, but then, when the following song start to play, what it will occur in the songlist panel? It will display the same playlist again, -1 song? and so on... And when the playlist will be empty, what will be displayed in the songlist? A list of "x" autoplayed songs?
- If it's the now playing album: There, things appear more clear and simple as wathever "Play mode" eJ is, you only need to display 1 album at a time: the now playing album!


Rather, i would see both ways used depending on whether ej is in the Playlist mode or in an Autoplay mode:

- Playlist mode: the songlist reproduce the crude playlist, diminished of 1 song each time the current playing song change, and so on...

- Autoplay mode: each time a new song start to play the songlist will be updated with the entire album from which it come from, and that's all! Even to be perfect, the concerned song in the songlist could be highlighted.
And the benefit proceeding like this, is the user will be encouraged to click on another song (or several songs...) of the current album when he feel it good; and so on for each new album displayed...


I think that would be a good incentive to explore its musical collection in the depths of each album rather than only at the height of the most popular songs... worthy of a great jukebox! :)
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posted on 5-25-2004 at 07:37 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Pirk,

We were just planning on making it show the songlist for the now playing album automatically after 1 minute of inactivity. The same songlist you would see if you clicked the album cover on the now playing panel. How does that sound? Then we could also have it highlight the now playing song in the songlist as suggested.




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posted on 5-25-2004 at 07:51 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Ahh! That sound very good for me! as it's exactly like i've always felt things... since a long time! :)
Furthermore, i think it's easy to program. ;)

Thanks a lot Audiosoft.
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posted on 5-25-2004 at 08:58 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Do you plan to add the new "inactivity" function from eJ v3.83 ?
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posted on 5-25-2004 at 09:58 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Yes, it will be included in v3.83.

We have it working right now so that it automatically loads the songlist for the current song's album when the now playing song changes...if the user has not touched the mouse for 1 minute or more.

I think we will make this feature on by default and not even have an option for it...since you will always be able to click the songlist Back button once to go back to your last intentionally loaded songlist. This is because when it autoloads the songlist it will replace the last autoloaded one in the songlist <- -> history.




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posted on 5-25-2004 at 10:34 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
That's terrific! I'm impatient to also enjoy this awesome feature on my own computer...

Thank you very much Audiosoft.
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posted on 5-26-2004 at 02:42 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Hmm.. don't want to kill the pleasure over this new feature which is a cool one indeed, but is it a good idea to not make it optional? May some users become confused and dislike it when their songlist suddenly changes to something else, just because they took a coffeebreak or simular? Just food for thought..

Also it would be nice to have the possibility to define the time interval before it's activiated, if possible?




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posted on 5-26-2004 at 08:26 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Yes, i agree... there are times where i use eJ as tool as well as means for entertainment... for instance when i am searching for samples to use in my music, i'd much rather use eJ than browsing in directories. So then i might be opening an album, working on the samples for 20 minutes, then return to eJ to continue when i left off. So to have an option for this, even hidden deep down somewhere, would be helpful for non-standard eJ users at least.
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posted on 5-26-2004 at 10:20 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
We have added an option to the OTHER tab: "Link Songlist to Currently Playing Song's Album when Inactive" - which will disable by default.



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posted on 5-31-2004 at 11:48 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
We have updated v3.83 so that the nowplaying panel supports filters.

You may also now add the following to the bottom of the nowplaying.dis file in v3.83.

[AutoScroll]
Title=15
Artist=15
Album=15

[ShowArtistOverTitle]
Enabled=0


Replace "15" with the number of characters the text must contain in order for scrolling to turn on. Change this number to a really high number such as "9999" or do not include it in the .dis to disable scrolling.




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posted on 6-1-2004 at 11:22 AM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Thanks a lot for these 2 new animations! That should be nice, i'm impatient to enjoy using them... :)
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posted on 6-1-2004 at 08:33 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Setting the following will make it so the Artist Name is displayed above the Title instead of the default of Title then Artist:

[ShowArtistOverTitle]
Enabled=1




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posted on 6-1-2004 at 08:49 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Great! junk will be delighted to hear that! ;)

And what have you planned when both names (title and artist) will be superior to the number specified in the dis file? eJ will scroll both on the same line, or seperately?
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posted on 6-1-2004 at 08:51 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Each of the 3 is a seperate scroll.
We have decided not to implement the option for an "Artist-Title" single scroll at this time.




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posted on 6-1-2004 at 09:06 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
OK! So like this, we will see the effect produced with a separate scrolling when that occur; and if ever it look really too bad...

Also, i suppose it's a continuous scrolling, i mean always in the same direction: from right to left? (I don't like the "ping-pong" scrolling used in the Album list...)
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posted on 6-1-2004 at 09:14 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
You can use filters like Glow() and DropShadow() etc on the artist, title and album in the nowplaying.DIS in v3.83 and if the scrolling turns on the filters will still be a part of the scroll.

Also you will be able to set individual background images in the nowplaying.DIS for the artist, title, and album name rows. Which might come in handy for a nice looking 3D background behind the scrolling text.

Right now it bounces the scrolling text back and forth like in the album list.




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posted on 6-1-2004 at 09:28 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Ah... it's interesting to know that you have allowed filters in the now playing panel! And in the other panels too? (artist list, playlist)

But that will scroll like in the album list... i'm not a big fan of this kind of scrolling.
You couldn't program a continuous scrolling instead? But maybe it's not a pre-programmed function, so that complicate things too much... well, at least for this time! :)
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posted on 6-1-2004 at 09:36 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
OK we have added the Settings property as seen below so you can setup the properties of the scrolls yourself.

[AutoScroll]
Title=9999
Artist=9999
Album=9999
Settings=WIDTH=180 DIRECTION=Left BEHAVIOR=ALTERNATE SCROLLAMOUNT=1 SCROLLDELAY=10

You can change it to BEHAVIOR=SCROLL to get it to work how you wanted.

Allowing filters on each artist of the artistlist is not a good idea because it will slow the list down allot because there are so many things to apply filters to. It is not possible to allow filters in the playlist at this time either. The nowplaying panel is very short and doesn't have scrollbars so allowing filters will not hurt performance.




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posted on 6-1-2004 at 10:01 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
Great, great! i'm delighted!
So you have already all planned!!! ;) Thanks a lot! :)

Otherwise, OK for the filters not allowed in the artist list, i forgot the slow down issue...
And, interesting to know you are considering to allow filters for the playlist later.

Also, thanks for the different backgrounds now possible behind the names in the now playing panel!
I'm sure junk will have a great 3D background for each of them! ;)
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posted on 6-2-2004 at 10:13 PM Edit Post Reply With Quote
First of all, i want to say i'm very satisfied with the new version 3.83!

The scrolling look very good when used with a big font and adjusted to "scroll". The songlist animation works very good too!
And when both are applied together on the Junk & Fishy "Arctic" skin, eJukebox come alive... it's very nice! I like that a lot! :)

Just a little thing: sometimes during the song change, before the new songlist be displayed, i don't know why but the Home page appear during a short time! Is it when the synchronisation process take a time a bit too long?
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