Archive for the 'FofR' Category
June 27th, 2007
Here we go, I finally think that this version is ready for release – I had planned to launch this on June 1st – glad I didn’t make that known to anyone at the time. I have been hard at work making changes, the big new additions are out of the box support for Lyrics (I finally caved on this one – the component used is included in the package), full transparency support, library filter support and the Theme and Background selectors.
All component and font requirements are listed when you first open the configuration, an installation display will show what you do not have installed and shall provide a click-able link to download it.
FofR V0.9 needs PanelsUI Version 13.7+
Version 0.9
- Menu Buttons: Buttons Now Consistent across all tabs, “Song Info” button removed, just click the text area on the
- Now Playing section instead to close/hide the box. This is much faster and easier.
- Menu Buttons: Full Mode button now increases fb2k window size to a minimum of 800 pixels (if it’s currently smaller than that in tabbed mode) when Full Mode selected to allow correct display.
- Menu Buttons: Cog now opens menu but defaults to the “controls” section with seekbar, search, etc.
- Now Playing: Artist Images now show in Full Mode
- Now Playing: New Image Toolbar that appears on roll over with image options (hide/show artist image, switch to scaled cover art, hide/show text, scale top margin, hide/show spectrum, hide/show progress bar, hide/show quick playlist)
- Now Playing: Added Next and Previous buttons to left and right of album art (appear on hover)
- Now Playing: Added Option to add/remove a gloss on the cover art
- Now Playing: New Quick SCPL Playlist using transparency in PanelsUI v0.13, with optional side image showing a preview of selected track’s cover art.
- Now Playing: Improved the Progress Bar, now also displays track length, year and genre.
- Now Playing: Added Buttons to do Google Video, Google, Last.fm and Wikipedia quick searches of Artist
- Mini Now Playing: Fixed some display bugs
- Spectrum: Fixed resize bug that placed Spectrum in wrong place
- Menu: Removed Menu Toolbar as now available as button, also caused problems with VS clashes.
- Full Mode: Added Borders (optional), tidied it up – combined all playlist control/browsing into one tab, smarter solution. Split popup browse and browse tab removed.
- Lyrics: Added Support for Lyrics in form of new tab, code created by jclim00, uses foo_lyricsdb.dll component, download here: http://lyrics.mirkforce.net/download.html or use packaged version
- Global Background: Added support for a global background image, using transparency of Track Display, SCPL and Library Filter.
- Theme Selector: New Theme Selector Tab, Theme IDs and Theme Names
- Themes: 2 new themes, Graphite-Blue and Silver-Blue
- Background Selector: Choose your global background, enable/disable, support for unlimited number of images. Put new backgrounds in the backgrounds directory following the naming structure (e.g. 1.jpg, 2.jpg,…)
- Installation: On Installation diagnostics will check which components/fonts/images are installed/located and if not will give download links or highlight the problem. Can be re-opened by clicking the diagnostics link in the menu.
- Sort Panel: Re-arranged to include a Presets menu
Known Bugs:
- Transparency can show the wrong image when backgrounds/themes are changed, an fb2k restart will fix this. This is a PanelsUI issue.
Time for some screenshots:
Transparency and Global backgrounds are turned on by default. The redrawing of large images and text shadows shall inevitably reduce performance. For those wishing to optimise, turn off transparency via the background selector (see this image for help). Turning off transparency in SCPL cannot YET be automated so you need to change this manually, to do so right click the SCPL, select Settings then at the bottom click the “Transparent Background” checkbox. This will improve your scroll speeds, don’t forget to re-enable it if you switch back. Here’s an image showing the box.
Download FofR Version 0.9.1
Update: Version 0.9.1 :
- Fixed ‘square’ issue
- Adjusted requirements on installation to include Wingdings 3 font.
For troubleshooting check the guide:
FofR Configuration Guide (now updated for Version 0.9)
More pictures after the break Read the rest of this entry »
May 2nd, 2007
Version 0.7 | Digg This
NEW FEATURES:
- Browse Panel: Explorer Component replaced with CWBowron’s Playlist Tree (may be buggy installing/using with PanelsUI – works good here).
- Browse Panel: Browse Component Selector for Popup on Playlist Tab and Browse Tab added to configuration panel – “just select the component you use”. Default is Playlist Tree
- Sort Panel: Show Number of Presets and Current Sort string
- Sort Panel: Display first 6 Presets as buttons
- Sort Panel: Main Menu/Edit/Sort By/ Menu items apply a sort preset then sort accordingly so as to display correctly.
- Sort Panel: Artist, Title, Randomize apply preset ’0′ aka “None” by default “Singles SCPL”
- Sort Panel: Album, Path apply preset ’6′, by default empty, I made this a “sort by folder” preset “Album SCPL”
- Spectrum: Config Panel now has option to switch between normal and “Egoh” spectrum analysers
- Mini Mode: Click the triangle in the bottom left to go into a mini player/browser, click it again or the title to return to the previous window size, old tab/mode saved and reverted back to also.
NEW FUNCTIONS:
- Ratings: Added VA “ALBUM ARTIST” tag to ratings panel to allow easy marking of various artists albums (tags with content of %composer% or as ’1′ if no composer exists, %composer% comes from the NOW PLAYING or SELECTED track depending on the mode of the panel).
- Ratings: Added “Remove Buttons” for VA tag, Playcount and Ratings (resets them, if you make a mistake).
- Config Panel: Choose the side that SCPL cover art (if enabled) is shown
- Config Panel: Column paddings Scale with Width, Options now scoll across. (Thanks Kabuki!)
- Config Panel/Full Mode: Column Width Percentage & Minimum Width now changeable via configuration panel
- Config Panel: Change Size of Group Header Album art
- Config Panel: Change Size of Now Playing Art when art is not scaled to fit.
- Config Panel: Turn on/off Now Playing progress bar
- Menu: Improved navigation; quick links to mini now playing and ratings menu.
- Menu: Song Info box button moved to right and icon changed
- Menu: Fb2k Main Menu button added on left for quick access.
- Menu: Triangle in bottom right let’s you show and hide the new navigation buttons
- Sorting: Support for sort by Rating/Title/Folder “out of the box”
AESTHETICS:
- Fixed Titlebar bug
- SCPL: Full 5 star rating now shown in singles SCPL
- SCPL: Added support for Cover Art in Group Headers, option in Configuration panel: need to refresh playlist for changes to take effect!
- Now Playing: Separate background colour to rest of panels to aid theme development
- Now Playing: Top Margin dynamically changes based on window height, minimum margin declared in theme and can be turned off in options.
- Now Playing: Artist Image shifts when space is tight (like text does).
- Now Playing: Added Progress Bar which shows at the top of the cover art
- Mini Now Playing: Shows Artist Image when enabled/available
- Menu: Bottom menu icon changes (thanks to Kabuki!) and tabs shifted left
- Full Mode: Song info panel added to Now Playing screen when enabled
- Numerous bug fixes
CUSTOMISATION:
- Easy Images Installation
- Component Variables added to top of PanelsUI configuration settings to facilitate changing panels shown (e.g. quick change browse panel or spectrum)
- Added support for a 4th & 5th Custom Tab that enables itself when user modifies, to facilitate adding a lyrics panel, etc. (e.g. set tab4txt to lyrics, tab4panel to your lyrics component)
- Cover Art and Artist Image paths now use Global Variables
- CWB Hooks, Playlist Tree, Album List Panels now included in package
UPDATE: 0.7.1: Included Toggle SCPL Layouts, acts as it did in FofR v0.6.
Animated Image showing off a number of new full screen/config panel features:
Mini Player (click bottom left triangle):
General Feature Overview:
Installation
General guide here (which I will update shortly): FofR Configuration Guide
There are some important changes to note. Installation has changed. And hopefully for the better, using the new theme based images in PanelsUI v0.10, to install this pui/theme simply extract from the zip and paste the folder “FofR Foobar Code Release v0.7″ (you can omit the components folder but images MUST be included) into your panelsUI layout folder, commonly:
C:\Program Files\foobar2000\PanelsUI
So, the pui file should be located in: C:\Program Files\foobar2000\PanelsUI\FofR Foobar Code Release v0.7\. From here the images should just work, without having to change a variable. For those that want to store the images elsewhere, the old installation method of modifying the PVAR “dir” to the appropriate directory still works.
With this release I have obtained permission from a couple of component authors to include their work, so with v0.7 cwb_hooks, playlist tree and the album list components are all included to facilitate your installation.
Sadly, something is still complicated…
The biggest reason this layout was delayed is because of the sorting changes to PanelsUI. This new version uses the Default sort/group by criteria provided by PanelsUI v0.10. I’ve been struggling to employ the sorting/grouping system exactly how I want it so I have had to implement a work around. After installation, make sure that the 6th preset (i.e. on a fresh panelsUI install just make a new preset) is a “Sort/Group by Folder”. Otherwise some sorting methods will not work correctly.
When sorted or grouped by folder the traditional SCPL mode that you are all familiar with will be shown. Otherwise Singles mode will be activated, and for sorting by Ratings or Title a slight modification with different group headers will be shown instead.
The default sort criteria looks like this:
Download
Please give me some feedback about the sorting mechanisms. I’m still not entirely happy and I am open to new ideas.
If you have previously installed PanelsUI v0.9 or greater then you will need to remove the component, open foobar2000 and select “DO NOT save settings”, close foobar, reinstall the NEW panelsUI and load up again, this way you will load the default sort/group by criteria and the appropriate presets. You will lose all of your custom criteria however.
FAQ:
Possible Cause for Crashes:
There’s a bug with Playlist Tree. First time you load it up LOAD IT IN COLUMNS UI OR DOCKABLE PANELS. This should avoid the error. Its a Panels/Playlist Tree incompatibility that I think is caused by the popup and can be avoided using this method.
For Menu Image Problems:
No menu images: click the triangle in the bottom RIGHT. This hides/shows the menu buttons.
To Sort by Directory:
Right Click > Sort/Group By > Edit: Select Folder group/sort and any secondary sort ONLY things you want, save this as a new preset. If you have the PanelsUI defaults loaded then the SCPL layout selector will choose the Folder SCPL.
March 17th, 2007
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:
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 $setpvar(tab3panel,…) to display a component you do have, such as a Queue Manager or Playlist Tree.
What components do I need?
On top of PUI, you need: Quick search panel, Album List panel, Playlist dropdown, cwb_hooks. Find them here.
March 2nd, 2007
The feedback and bug reports keep coming in – helping me to continue developing and improving this configuration. I’m proud to announce version 0.5 of my design (maybe I should give them names). Once again, this version uses some new PanelsUI features so be sure to get the 0.7.0 beta so that everything works.
So, what’s new?
Version 0.5:
- Added last played and playcounts to Song Info panel
- Improved track codec text in Song Info Panel
- Album/artist group headers crop when there is not enough space
- Added installation notice
- Added Volume slider to bottom ‘cog’ menu
- Added second but primary source for album art in Now Playing: “$replace(%path%,%filename_ext%,folder.*)” before resorting to the old method.
- Added support for %album artist%, if this meta tag exists then both artist and track are displayed in playlist
- Switched SCPL album art from %tracknumber% to %_itemindex% based drawing, so that tracknumber errors do not render image erroneously. Similarly multi-cd albums show artwork only once unless discs are in separate groups.
- Added “Sort By” panel on SCPL – clicking Sort by Artist changes how items are grouped then sorts the tracks by artist.
- Sort by Artist, Sort by Path, Sort by Title, Sort by Album, Reverse Sorting
- When Sorted by title – No tracknumber is displayed, Artist appears to right of song title
- When Sorted by artist – no album art is shown, instead an artist image is used
- Improved White Theme pause on Now Playing, fixed Spectrum overlay bug.
- Improved Theme and in particular Hotness colours for White Theme
- Border of selected tracks now colour of “hotness”
- Random other bug fixes
If you have any requests please make them known in the comments.
At the moment I don’t have much time to write a full html enriched tutorial describing how to install this configuration and then customise it. If anone could take the time to do this, explaining fonts, components, etc I would be most grateful as I am sure many others will be.
Animated screenshot after the break. Read the rest of this entry »
February 26th, 2007
I’ve been hard at work improving the reported bugs and adding new features and today I am proud to release the fourth version of this configuration. New features include a white theme, style image folders, more options. This new release uses the latest PanelsUI for the $eval function, I repeat – you need the latest PanelsUI version.
The most reported bug with the last two versions were image loading problems – please, the first thing you should do when loading this configuration is double-click the titlebar, go to settings and update the pvar “dir” to the correct folder, without any trailing slashes (‘/’).
Version 0.4:
- Updated all maths from $sub, $add etc. to the new PanelsUI $eval function
- Bug fixes
- Made changing button text and panels easier, fixed centre-ing issues
- Added “fave track” image to track display when %RATING% exists
- Option to place artwork on right of SCPL (0 = left, 1 = right)
- Added optional spectrum analyser atop of album art on Now Playing (off by default)
- Tweaked track display text positioning to adapt to screen size – not enough space: text shifts up, if still not enough space crops line by line.
- Song Details track display added to Now Playing tab
- Added Theme Selection (0 = black, 1 = white)
- Refined background image display code, still needs some fixing
- Added white images for white theme
- Moved more options into configuration section, SCPL options mainly.
I am sure there will be bugs with this version, mainly with the white theme. Please post them in the comments. Something to note, many panels do not allow multiple instances, for example the search bar and the album list panel. For these sections you will have to manually change the colour settings, but that takes all of 2 seconds.
Screenshots after the break… Read the rest of this entry »