One of my main gripes with fb2k is the lack of components that have web-interactivity, in fact my comments in the “How can foobar continue to improve?” post were something to this end.

For those out of the hip circle or the cool loop; Last.fm is a service that aggregates tracks user’s “scrobble” and with this information generates recommendations, similar artists, charts and a lot of interesting relationships. There already exists a standalone Audioscrobbler component to submit tracks to Last.fm, yet with all the information contained within this personalised radio service foobar2000′s 3rd party components can get and give a lot more.

So here comes the news! Chronial has been working on a new “scrobble-charts” component. It is still very much in beta (i.e. it crashes) but its features are too impressive not to announce here. The component uses Internet Explorer connection settings to retrieve information from Last.fm’s web-services. Using this information two features are currently available;

• Create an artist playlist with tracks ordered by the Last.fm Artist Charts – essentially this mode re-orders your tracks in order of their popularity.
• Create a playlist of similar artists using the Last.fm similar artists list – this creates a new playlist filled with the artist selected and performers similar to. This makes creating theme based playlists extremely easy and is surprisingly fun to play with.

These playlists only select songs in your library. You can check out the latest version, change-log, some information and most importantly a download link here: Chronial’s Foobar Components (Thread).

I’m looking forward to new features.

Posted in Components, News | 2 Comments »

Version 1.1:

• Languages English and Spanish availables
• Possibility to select between ulimited backgrounds
• New player buttons
• Use Artist picture as background
• Use small artist image / small album cover
• Show/hide big album cover
• Button to get lyrics using lyricsDB
• Link to Artist website
• Rating buttons
• Artist images
• Album covers

Components needed:
Columns UI
Panels_UI 0.8.1
Unofficial Playcount
Cwb Hooks
Lyrics DB
QuickSearch Toolbar
Playlists Dropdown
Foo Run Services

Download my images from here
Download my PUI file from here

Installation:

Copy the PUI file in PanelsUI folder (C:\Program files\foobar2000\PanelsUI)
Unzip images in your foobar install folder (C:\Program files\foobar2000). Be sure you get this folder: C:\Program files\foobar2000\dark1. If you get C:\Program files\foobar2000\dark1\dark1 or C:\Program files\foobar2000\images\dark1 folder then the skin won’t work.

After install:
- Go to Preferences (Ctrl+P) -> Media Library. Delete my folders and add yours.
- Go to Preferences (Ctrl+P) -> Tools -> Playcount and add this to appended information: %W %D/%M/%y

How to use the artist website link button:
It works when you have a metadata called “WWW” in the mp3 tags.
Go to Preferences -> Run services and add a new one labeled “web”, in Path put “iexplore.exe %WWW%”.

How to use backgrounds:
Just put your backgrounds images in %foobarInstall%\Dark1\walls folder.
Rename the image using correlative numbers (1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg, etc.)

How to use artists images:
Artist images must be in %foobarInstall%\Artists folder or in the mp3 folder in JPG format
The name of the image must be the same of the artist (Metallica.jpg)

How to use album covers:
Album covers can be in %foobarInstall%\Covers folder (Artist – Album.jpg) or in the mp3 folder (folder.jpg)

Enjoy it.

Posted in CepiPerez, Configurations | 27 Comments »

Good day to you all, I hope you are enjoying the latest of my configurations and aren’t having too many problems with it.

The purpose of this post is to make a request. I am looking to build an easy to use PanelsUI configuration file (.pui) database that uses the WordPress/forums user base, login system and cookies (and possibly a component database too). I am hoping to make it as simple and efficient as possible for both users wishing to install configurations and those wishing to upload them. I am hoping for the following:

• A ratings system
• Comments and review system
• Components used (choose from drop down)
• Upload forms
• etc.

The problem is, my PHP skills aren’t that good so I need someone to help out with the development of this, particularly someone with experience in developing WordPress plugins. If you feel it may take a long time I can pay you for your services.

If you are interested in helping out leave a message in the comments and I’ll contact you by the email address you provide.

Posted in Fooblog | 7 Comments »

EDIT: Be sure to read the new Installation Guide & FAQ
EDIT 2: Be sure to help out

Ah ha! Here it is – after a long wait, and it comes with a huge change list.

To summarise my improvements, all configurations and settings have been shifted down to the bottom menu which now comes with it’s own tabs. Making new themes has been made easier – each theme has its colour variables defined in a separate track display panel. The major updates also include a new SCPL layout for singles and ‘non-album’ playlists; a new fullscreen mode with improved functionality; new ratings section with support for album artist; playlist switcher support and lots of new options and bug fixes. Personally I am loving the ratings panel.

Once again it is essential to have the latest PanelsUI (v0.8.1 as of writing) and some new features use the cwb_hooks component, so get that if you don’t have it. I tried implementing the Playlist tree panel but it kept crashing so I left it out, sorry.

Get PanelsUI version 0.8+ or this configuration will not work.
Make sure to define the images directory on installation – right click titlebar, select settings > $setpvar(dir,YOUR DIR)

There’s a lot of changes here and I advise you to check what’s new before you use it:

Version 0.6 (yeah that’s a lot of changes)

• Theme Colour content moved to separate track displays to facilitate making new colour themes, this is proving to be a little buggy when changing themes & start up in Panels UI versions pre v0.8.1, variables now persist between fb2k sessions so everything works nicely in the latest PUI.
• Hotness colours now defined in theme track displays
• Improved background image display, now shows on all resolutions – sharp edges smoothed out, less code
• Background image variables added to Theme track displays (horizontal shift, vertical shift relative to cover art, top margin shift)
• Bottom Menu now location of all options – added tabs to menu
• Moved Sort Panel to Bottom Menu
• Moved Configuration Options to Bottom Menu
• New SCPL for single tracks, random orders, sorting by track title, search results, etc.
• Clicking “Sort by Title” automatically switches to new SCPL
• Button to toggle between new and old SCPL layouts
• All new menu options use existing theme colour variables
• Playlist Switcher (Columns UI) support added to Pop Up Browse
• Added Randomize to Sort tab, also switches to new SCPL
• Added playlist details to pop up browse panel – no. tracks, playlist title, duration of playlist (cwb_hooks dependency)
• Fixed Progress Bar Bug for streamed tracks
• Added dividers to the vertical pop-up browse panel on SCPL tab
• Fixed pop-up info button and text overlay bug
• Changed Group by from %album% to “$replace(%path%,%filename_ext%,)” so that groups with one erroneously tagged mp3 aren’t split. Basically all tracks in one folder are grouped together. For all those lazy taggers.
• In artist sort mode, grouped by $upper(%artist%) to stop case differences from splitting a group, again for all the lazy taggers.
• Track number & Track length now show when track selected, when item is focused it shows the total length of all selected tracks instead of the single track length, for example – clicking a group header will select all items in that group and the first item will display the total length in Hours:Minutes:Seconds (cwb_hooks dependency)
• Added correct tooltips for all buttons
• Spectrum Analyser & Scale Art options moved to config panel in menu to make easier
• Huge Code cleanup and commenting added to make editing easier
• Added option to enable/disable cover art reflection in Now Playing tab, should make theme creation easier
• Added mini now playing tab to bottom menu
• Added Ratings panel – Rate tracks from 1 to 5, Rate Albums using ALBUM RATING from 1 to 5; note: this updates your mp3 tags!
• Added ALBUM RATING to group header, now shows rating out of 5 if a rating exists
• Updated fullscreen mode – NO LONGER SHOWS AUTOMATICALLY, you need to toggle the layout through the menu
• Fullscreen: Determine percentage width of column and left or right position
• Fullscreen: Now has tabbed browse panels which appear instead of the now playing section – use menu buttons as per usual
• Fullscreen: Bottom menu, complete with all new features, added.

This is all best illustrated with pictures:

A general overview of the features available in this configuration

The Ratings Panel

A Theme “s3″ available in the beta theme pack. Beta because not everything works (e.g. s4)

Two download links this time:

Configuration Pack:

Download Version 0.6

Download Beta Theme Pack
Place these folders in the image directory.

FAQ:

Why are there no images / why is the reflection not fading out? / there are blank spaces?
Make sure to define your DIR variable in the main panelsUI configuration where it states $setpvar(dir,K:\…)

The PUI is resetting to a 2kb default file, the config is not working!
Downloads PanelsUI v0.8+ and try again

The Browse panel is blank, why?
You need the Explorer Tree component OR you need to edit the variable $setpvar(tab3panel,…) to display a component you do have, such as a Queue Manager or Playlist Tree.

What components do I need?
On top of PUI, you need: Quick search panel, Album List panel, Playlist dropdown, cwb_hooks. Find them here.

Posted in Configurations, FofR | 80 Comments »

I finally got around to writing an up to date “Getting Started” tutorial. It took a while but I hope it will be of some use to all the newbies. To summarise, it covers intial setup, titleformatting, components, essential components and the beginnings of the customisation process.

In the process I also added commenting features to Pages and not just posts. So you can go ahead and comment on and add to this tutorial as you please. You should note that comment moderation will be much stricter on permanent pages and only relevant information should be added, questions should be directed to the forums.

Posted in Fooblog | 1 Comment »