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The Blacklight Skin (Version 1.9)
mchawk - 10-10-2007 at 01:27 AM

http://www.be-frank.net/en/blacklight/images/blacklightbanner.jpg

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*** DOWNLOAD NEWEST VERSION FROM MY HOMEPAGE ***
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Actual Version: 1.9 from April 06th, 2008

New:
- Some better fitting (free!) fonts.
- some changes in the Albumlist (see screenshoot)

McHawk


Pirk - 10-10-2007 at 03:55 PM

Very nice McHawk, the blue beams.. The beam on the now playing titles looks great!


mchawk - 10-10-2007 at 10:28 PM

@pirk: thanks. Actually it's just a slightly edited picture of a blacklight-neonlight.

I changed the name to "Blacklight" for the skin and uploaded the beta 0.3.

Any suggestions are welcome.


mchawk - 10-11-2007 at 10:30 PM

Gosh - It's difficult for me to choose.

Which one of the menu-buttons looks best?

1.) KDE2
http://www.hoffmanns-home.de/misc/ej/prevkde2.jpg
2.) flat oval
http://www.hoffmanns-home.de/misc/ej/prevoval.jpg

Actually I use the first one.... But I'm not sure, what's best.
What do you folks think?


Pirk - 10-12-2007 at 10:38 AM

Nice to see that eJukebox can provide sandwiches and coffee! ;)
Maybe the second one with the square buttons? Well the buttons are easy to change.. so I don't care if you don't change them.


mchawk - 10-13-2007 at 07:21 PM

OOPS! F***!
@audiosoft: I'm so sorry I revealed the secret feature on eJukebox 5 and the need for a FSB. (Food Supply Bus). :P

@Pirk: The beta 0.7 has now flat rectangles... But I don't know... I must think about this.

@all: How can I get rid of this vertical black lines through my blacklight bar?:
...and how can I turn the vertical blue background-area to black? (It appears when the artist-list is turned off)
http://www.hoffmanns-home.de/misc/ej/rid2.jpg


Pirk - 10-14-2007 at 09:39 AM

RE: The beta 0.7 has now flat rectangles... But I don't know... I must think about this.

This is not that I don't like the oval shape, even in your skin the oval shape looks really better, but I just don't like the crenelated borders of these oval buttons. If these borders could be shaded they would look perfect! But we can't change that..

EDIT: Maybe you could try to turn the oval buttons in light blue so that borders will desappear.. Well I'm not sure that will be better!


Pirk - 10-14-2007 at 09:50 AM

Concerning the vertical blue area.. you just need to edit these 2 images: "leftborder.jpg" and "rsnglistbrd.gif".

As for the vertical black bars it's in the colors.ini file..


Pirk - 10-14-2007 at 10:25 AM

mchawk, I love your blue beams.. :o
I think you are on something! Keep up your excellent work.. :cool:


mchawk - 10-16-2007 at 11:43 PM

Yeah! I like them too.
Did you realize, these beams are just photographs from blacklight-neon-tubes?


Pirk - 10-17-2007 at 09:19 AM

Good sight the large magnifier on the search box!
OK for the blacklight neons. Could we see the original picture? I'm just curious..


mchawk - 10-17-2007 at 04:14 PM

I'm glad I found the "L" in "Webdings.ttf" for the searchbox. ;)

Quote:
Originally posted by Pirk
OK for the blacklight neons. Could we see the original picture? I'm just curious..


O.K.

1) Take a look at the first posting. Follow the picture-link "Schwarzlicht"

2) Look @ attachment.


Pirk - 10-17-2007 at 07:09 PM

Ahh.. thanks a lot mchawk! I haved not seen the picture links on your first post: It seems you have found a great source! ;)


mchawk - 10-17-2007 at 08:37 PM

It was impossible for you to see the picture-links. I added them today. :D


Audiosoft - 10-18-2007 at 06:03 AM

mchawk,
Thanks for the latest update! Blacklight is coming along great! :o
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

BTW i had to rename your skin zip file to Blacklight.zip and take off the version #. For some reason the number was making the file get saved without the .zip extension when you click the link to download it. Anyways if you make all the updates to this theme as 'Blacklight.zip' then it will have the added benefit of automatically replacing the old version of the skin on the menu.


mchawk - 10-19-2007 at 03:46 PM

audiosoft,

Good to hear, you like my skin so far.
I had little time the last days. I hope I can work on the skin now. (Yeah! Weeeeeeeeekend!)

Is it possible to set the bars in the right from "now playing" to transparent?


drewster98 - 10-20-2007 at 12:20 AM

Congrats, you just beat out Crimson Live for my new permanent skin. :) It's awesome. Keep up the good work!!


Pirk - 10-20-2007 at 05:11 PM

drewster98,
No problem.. I just would like to be beaten more often! :)

mchawk,
Excellent skin indeed! And I'm sure you will improve it even more since it's only a beta version! ;)


mchawk - 10-20-2007 at 07:50 PM

@drewster98 & Pirk:
That's what I like to hear. ;)
It's a good motivation to go on - but of course it isn't a "competition" between CrimsonLive & Blacklight. These two skins are to different to compare.
I think it's good to have some Skins to choose - it's best for eJukebox.

I hope you like the new beta 0.15

As soon I finished redesigning the songlist (and understanding the songlist.dis :o ) it's time for the first "real" release.

mchawk


Pirk - 10-20-2007 at 09:06 PM

mchawk,
Wow, one more update! You are more prolific than me.. :o
Ah ahh, the songlist.. my favorite part! ;)


mchawk - 10-21-2007 at 01:45 AM

pirk,

Thanks, but I only wanted to finish my first release-version.
And think what: It's done! I just uploaded version 1.0

Puh! Now I can rest in p ....errr.... sleep peacefully. :D

Good night and nice Sunday,

mchawk

PS: chhhrrrrrrrr, zzzzzzzzzzz, ........ ;)


Pirk - 10-21-2007 at 10:20 AM

Good morning mchawk,

It's midday!!

Yeah, to make a eJukebox skin is like a vocation..

Thank you for your 1.0. I like the mouse over effects on the songlist and your browse buttons.
Keep up the good work!


mchawk - 10-24-2007 at 09:52 PM

Here's a little preview...


Pirk - 10-25-2007 at 06:06 PM

Wow mchawk! you are already in 2008!! :D Maybe too much backlight? :P


privatejz - 10-25-2007 at 07:28 PM

I really like this Skin mchawk.. great job

i was playing around with it last night and revised a few things to suit my tastes.

i retiled both the brick and light background behind the now playing album art, and changed up the image to show some worn rusticated brick. i toned down the light in front of the brick as well and retiled that so it wouldn't show the line from when it tiles when in a larger screen res. i also changed up the NEXT image you have above the next playing track. i think yours was like 140 pixels or something and mine ended up being something like 849. when i used yours the NEXT was really stretched out and looked pretty bad.
anyway here is a screen shot of my changes..

looking good.

audiosoft. is there a way to be able to skin this area without it stretching when resizing the artist list?

pjz


mchawk - 10-25-2007 at 09:05 PM

Thanks privatejz, I'm glad you like the skin.

I know, my skin isn't made for very high screen-resolutions. That's another thing on my task-list.
ATM I use 1152 x 864 Pixels. The Skin works also with 1024 x 768 as well.

I like the real bricks in the back. Where can I get the picture? Mine original are "made by Corel-Draw". The real ones looks way better.

I'm also looking for a good "next"-picture.
I thought of styling the "x" like the "X-Files"-X. ;)
But I did not know if this looks good, when eJ streches the picture. Another point is, that the space for X might be to small.

Can I come back to your "playing next"-picture?

Here is my "todays work": A new "now playing"-area.
Gosh! This background-picture won't work on big resolutions.
I think I have to make a second picture for big resolutions.


privatejz - 10-25-2007 at 09:21 PM

sure this was a free texture with no copyright attachments so use away.

its a pretty low res image but for this purpose it doesn't really matter i guess.

you might want to re-look at that neon beam that is above the brick. it doesn't tile very well in high res. i adjusted mine so it does however by just cutting your image in half mirroring it and re-saving. that did the trick for me anyway.

keep up the great work..

by the way can you just post the image without the beam for the album track names that you just released. thanks.

pjz.


mchawk - 10-25-2007 at 10:28 PM

@privatejz:
Of course I can.
I think I use the right format for your graphic-program, do I? ;)

Ahhhh... I'm sorry, but you have to remove the beams by yourself. I hope it doesn't matter.

Yes, the neon beam "Song Titel" isn't really high res. But I don't have a better version of the picture.


mchawk - 10-26-2007 at 11:55 PM

Version 1.5 is now available.

... but I'll added a beta-version of the album-list.

You'll find the normal version in the attachment of this posting.
It's for all screen-resolutions the same.


Pirk - 10-27-2007 at 10:51 AM

Wow mchawk! Your "up next" area looks damned good in your 1.5, well on your last screenshot! But where is the big blue star and the "bar" logo in 1.5? This is only for the next version? I'm longing.. :)
Excellent work!

EDIT: Well OK.. I think I understand the situation: you tried to upload your "big" 1.5 version but, as Audiosoft limited the max upload to 10Mb, your 18Mb upload failled. So the skin on the Audiosoft forum is still the previous 1.1 version... :(


mchawk - 10-27-2007 at 05:09 PM

pirk,

you can download the new version at rapidshare.com
O.K. the link was a little bit hidden. It's now on the top in my posting!

The blue stars are in the songlist as in the popup-window.
The stars in the "now-playing"-area are also new - but still yellow. (Blue stars don't look good here - I'll tried it. They were almost invisible. You don't notice them in blue.)


privatejz - 10-28-2007 at 04:27 AM

sweet.. thanks

great work.

i wish i had time to do a skin. i have some ideas sketched out but need to find a block of time to dedicate to it.


Pirk - 10-28-2007 at 08:06 PM

mchawk,

OK perfect.. Thanks a lot for your great work on this skin!


SimonC - 10-28-2007 at 09:27 PM

I love this skin!

I alternate between this skin and Pirk's excellent Crimson Live.

One request:

I'm probably unusual here, but I use a Lilliput 10.4" touch screen for my jukebox. This has a native 800 x 600 resolution. (I will post a picture of my setup soon)

Any extras that could be squeezed into this res would be especilly appreciated by me!

Keep up the good work


mchawk - 10-29-2007 at 06:45 PM

SimonC,

glad you like my skin.

A good setting for a 800x-resolution is on my tasklist. So it's just a matter of time.

At the moment I'm working on the album list and I try to shrink the file-size of the skin.

What do You think of the new album-list?
It's tricky because I can't use different pictures for the different elements (or I don't know the trick how to do it ;) )

mchawk


Audiosoft - 10-29-2007 at 07:08 PM

mchawk,

Looking good...
See http://www.audiosoft.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=2234

In the albumlistscroll.dis you can set the td{ } for the album and can now add .artistheader { } for the artists.


mchawk - 10-30-2007 at 12:32 AM

audiosoft,

thanks, I will try it the next days.

SimonC,

I just made some modifications for a 800x - profile.
Is this better?

BTW: I can't make a continuous top-blacklight-tube.
I cannot alter the filenames for ten "np?.jpg"-files in any .dis-files. And I like to keep the tube continuous for 1024x-and-above-resolutions.

Of course Playlist / Songlist-Backgrounds are modified for 800x.

mchawk


SimonC - 10-30-2007 at 07:16 PM

Hi McHawk

I very much like the optimized 800 x 600 skin.

The differences are very subtle but add to the overall effect in a big way.
Thanks for taking on board my request for this resolution - I didn't know whether my request was a viable one and it was a nice surprise to see you had worked on it so quickly.

I very much llok forward to downloading it when it becomes available.


mchawk - 10-31-2007 at 12:06 AM

Good morning, a new day has broken!

I just uploaded the version 1.6.

Good night - it's bedtime!

McHawk


mchawk - 11-1-2007 at 03:34 PM

privatejz,

is this the way you thought of the songlist?


privatejz - 11-1-2007 at 03:56 PM

sort of .. i was actually matching both the album and artist font with the nowplaying font. for me it is easier to link them in my brain when looking from one to the other. and it makes it nice and consistent.


mchawk - 11-4-2007 at 12:36 AM

Version 1.7 is up.

I'll tried some fonts to replace the Arial- and Bitsumishi-font.

I like the Bitsumishi-font but it has no small chars. And I like to use a font with small chars in the play-, artist- and songlist.

I replaced them with the "King Richard"-font. I like this font but it lacks on local chars like äöüßéáúâ...

What do you think?
Do you have any suggestions for another font?
Should I use Arial? - simple and good to read - but nothing special.
???


privatejz - 11-4-2007 at 05:11 AM

personally i like the all upper case letters. but i write in all uppercase anyway all the time so it could have something to do with that.


Pirk - 11-4-2007 at 12:05 PM

mchawk,

I like much your new small control-buttons, well the light blue version, like on your screenshot.. Nice work!

Concerning the fonts, in my skin I use the "segoe ui" fonts: It's the fonts used by Vista! The big advantage is these fonts have all the non-english accents for any language..


mchawk - 11-11-2007 at 04:22 PM

Thanks pirk,

there are more light blue icons hidden under the "big buttons" :D

Concerning fonts:
I'll test a lot the last days. But the only fonts who are
- readable
- not serif like New Times Roman
- support international characters
- support small characters

are "Arial" and "segoe ui" this far.

"segoe ui" is AFAIK copyrighted by Micro$oft and part of windows vista.
At the moment I think I use both in the .dis-files and "segoe ui" in first priority - but do not pack the font in the skin...


Pirk - 11-11-2007 at 04:56 PM

RE: "segoe ui" is AFAIK copyrighted by Micro$oft and part of windows vista.
Ahh?! Really? :D I'm not going to dwell on these details.. I don't make any money with my skin, in fact using the segoe ui font, I just promote Vista for free! My skin requires that users install IE7.. So rather I think Micro$oft should send me a few bucks, ATi and $ennheiser as well!! And maybe $ony too for my blue disc which, after all, looks like a "Blu-ray" disc.. :cool: And I will not tell you from where I taken my new artist header graphic.. :)

PS: I'm frightened by the bright idea of Audiosoft for his eJ flow!! ;)


mchawk - 11-11-2007 at 05:52 PM

I know M$ think so... if you have time feel free to google...
Anyway: I've read, PowerPoint-Viewer 2007 installs this font to any system. :P

BTW: The "big play buttons" remind me to WMP10 fullscreen-buttons. ;)

Here's a little preview - New visors for the artist-list... O.K. not really new - but now I can don't see the buttons below anymore and I can let them glow in any color I wish. :cool:


Pirk - 11-11-2007 at 07:24 PM

Ah very nice, I see you also promote the blue ray! :)


mchawk - 11-11-2007 at 07:42 PM

In this thread only. ;)


mchawk - 12-10-2007 at 08:20 PM

Version 1.8 is available on my homepage


Pirk - 12-10-2007 at 09:04 PM

Thanks for the skin update on your own site.. You sell some bread too?


mchawk - 12-11-2007 at 12:45 AM

pirk,
you really don't want to taste my self made baguettes. :P


Pirk - 12-11-2007 at 09:53 AM

Well I don't know.. It's blessed bread?


mchawk - 12-11-2007 at 06:05 PM

I'm afraid not.
I'm not a citizen of Vatican. ;)


Pirk - 12-11-2007 at 09:13 PM

OK. But then why it's written "jesus christus" at the bottom of your oven??


mchawk - 12-11-2007 at 11:59 PM

Ahhh! Now I got it! Sometimes it took longer for me to understand. :-)

This is the logo of a youth-meeting place from a local protestantic church. I run the homepage - and I made a service-provider change.
I plan a redesign of this page... and in the meantime everybody can see the program om my page.
The translation from the text in the logo is:
"I am the bread of life - Jesus Christ" - It's a quote from the "Lord's Supper".
In fact the building was a bakery, 20 years ago.


Pirk - 12-12-2007 at 10:37 AM

Ah OK.. right! So now we know the story. Thanks for your explanations. I'm too curious you know.. :)


drewster98 - 12-15-2007 at 01:59 AM

The blacklight portion of your website is down. Let me download the skin damnit!!!! :)


mchawk - 12-15-2007 at 02:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by drewster98
The blacklight portion of your website is down. Let me download the skin damnit!!!! :)


Uh-Oh! I thought everybody were asleep, when I update my homepage. :)
It took me half an hour, but it's online now: Just follow the link!
I began to split the site to an english- and german-speaking part.


Pirk - 2-24-2008 at 08:37 PM

mchawk,

Thank you very much for the link to my skin on your web site! ;)


mchawk - 4-6-2008 at 07:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pirk
Thank you very much for the link to my skin on your web site! ;)

You're welcome. ;)

BTW: I just make a update to 1.9 for Blacklight (see first post).

I think the Version 2 will be finished after EJ5 is released.
I'd like to make a fully integration of the Shelf3D.

mchawk