[Not my release] Biography view Options

[tedgo]

v0.2.6

- I made that you can set border of text and background color.
- Be made to coordinate deployment automatic.(except overlay mode.)
- You want to keep aspect ratio can be selected (right menu)
- Line breaks contiguous text at the end was so removed.
- To add functionality switches automatically if you have multiple images, 15-second units.(Right menu)

(translated with Windows Live Search)

[Dirhael]

Hope there's another update soon because this latest one will crash fb2k (0.9.6.5 b2) instantly if you add a biography panel to your layout.

[Aveneu]

Hm, even if artist artwork already exists, the first time it downloads biography information, it will still retrieve alternate artist images (but not cache them), but after the biography is cached it will no longer retrieve said images.
Also, if it can't find a bio for a particular artist, it'll continue displaying the artist artwork/bio from the last artist it displayed them for, but worse is that it won't change to album artwork view. After a while it'll give up on the biography retrieval and display the image, but it takes a bit. It also doesn't make a cached blank biography, so when you view that artist or switch from album art view to artist/bio again you have to wait forever all over again

This post has been edited by Aveneu: Apr 18 2009, 12:20

[jeremija]

it seems to me that the biography text isn't antialiased correctly on my system. take a look at the screenshot.
The text "Released in 1983 Progressive Rock" is the same font, size and style (Segoe UI, 8) as the biography text and it seems like the biography text is uglier.



also, i have a feature request:

- a vertical scrollbar that can be enabled/disabled
- make possible to align the whole contents to the top (not center when auto-adjust is disabled) and when you scroll the image should scroll along with text.

+ i have an idea to make this plugin even better:
instead of displaying text info, it should create title formatting variables from last.fm info like this:
%lastfm_bio%, %lastfm_tags%, %lastfm_timesplayed%, %lastfm_similarartists%, %lastfm_albums%

and then we could use the panelsplitter/trackinfomod to display this information as we like.

This post has been edited by jeremija: Apr 20 2009, 07:54

[EdgedInBlue]

I love this plug-in...especially with the multiple image shuffle. It has kept me busy tho, updating most-listened-to artist's bios on last.fm.

[pee_wee]

Would be a nice addition to this plugin to also scan wiki for artist info. I mean last fm came up with the sex pistols bio as

A band featured on guitar hero

LOL wth, one of the greatest punk bands and thats all they had to say.

Edit-Seems last fm is really picky about have "The" in the artist name

This post has been edited by pee_wee: Apr 22 2009, 16:45

[carmenm]

hi, First i must say that i love that plugin! It made me go back from songbird to foobar2000!
now i miss one thing, a good panel that allows to see albumart eihter from the a folder,jpg or from lastfm if there is no folder.jpg. the album art view of columns ui does it but it resize algo is not good and the album art quality is bad.

In biography view the image quality is great! So i was wondering, could you add local image as a source? something like folder.jpg, artist.jpg and artist.nfo or txt.

Moreover it seems that the autocycle image setting is not saved

Thanks for that great plugin

[emoryy]

hi, First i must say that i love that plugin! It made me go back from songbird to foobar2000!
now i miss one thing, a good panel that allows to see albumart eihter from the a folder,jpg or from lastfm if there is no folder.jpg. the album art view of columns ui does it but it resize algo is not good and the album art quality is bad.

I dont understand completly what you need.
So you want first to display folder.jpg. If this doesn't exist, then the picture from last.fm?
If yes, this is what I do with my Panel Stack Splitter album display (and ELplaylist too)
Biography view can be set to save the downloaded pictures automatically, eg. into an alternative directory. (or can be set to save these as folder.jpg)
So I check first for folder.jpg, then for %artist%-%album%.jpg in this alternative directory, else display nofolder.jpg
Image quality is good in panel stack splitter too.

I dont know that the author would implement a feature like loading alternative local sources for albumart, because basically biography view is not for this kind of function.

This post has been edited by emoryy: Apr 24 2009, 09:27

[carmenm]

What is Panel Stack Splitter album display? i dont have that panel here so i cant really talk about it.
About the saving feature of biography. Can you make it so that it checks it cache folder first then if no folder.jpg in this cache folder then it will download one it?


I dont really see why it s a bad source, it s just a local source that is often use in many plugins.
Moreover i like to master my album arts and often i dont want those from lastfm. I just want them when i did not download an abum art with AADXUI, or when i am listening to a stream

[2E7AH]

in the latest version (0.2.7) auto cycle option is remembered (in current session at least)
also there is option to choose what to display if no image can be found (server preferences) either local image path or built-in foobar art reader or what's preferred in list source

+ exclusion filter

This post has been edited by 2E7AH: Apr 24 2009, 03:48

[acmodeu]

Somebody, tell the author to fix the misprint "enbale" in artist and album preferences tabs. And once again, how about proxy support, because plugin doesn't retrieve anything behind corporate firewall, though others work just fine.

[ssenna]

I think Biography View use a proxy server configured in Preferences->Networking->use proxy server.

Somebody, tell the author to fix the misprint "enbale" in artist and album preferences tabs. And once again, how about proxy support, because plugin doesn't retrieve anything behind corporate firewall, though others work just fine.

[acmodeu]

I think Biography View use a proxy server configured in Preferences->Networking->use proxy server.

Once again:

though others work just fine.

[acmodeu]

It's somehow all right with proxies now, but there is one small glitch - plugin seems not to create folders in patterns like d:\docs\Biography\%artist%\info.

[Aveneu]

Found another bug. Album description will only be downloaded if no album art exists nor the album description/info text file, but it isn't saved, and thus won't be retrieved again unless you delete both files.

Edit: Also, even if a song is excluded, the plugin will still create "base" artist and album info text files, although it won't download any information.

This post has been edited by Aveneu: Apr 30 2009, 01:02

[pee_wee]

Hm, even if artist artwork already exists, the first time it downloads biography information, it will still retrieve alternate artist images (but not cache them), but after the biography is cached it will no longer retrieve said images.
Also, if it can't find a bio for a particular artist, it'll continue displaying the artist artwork/bio from the last artist it displayed them for, but worse is that it won't change to album artwork view. After a while it'll give up on the biography retrieval and display the image, but it takes a bit. It also doesn't make a cached blank biography, so when you view that artist or switch from album art view to artist/bio again you have to wait forever all over again

I have some obscure bands and this hang up happens quite frequently.

[Falstaff]

@SSENNA :

could you fix the refresh pb on track change please ? in other words, on track change, could you set to empty the panel display, because actually, it keeps the previous artist info until the new artist info is loaded (and with transparency on over a variable background image, it keeps a bad refresh of the bg too)

i've find a way to fix this bg refresh problem, but fixing this pb in your component would be more easy for everyone.

not urgent, just when you'll have time if you can do it (and if you are agree with this request of course)

[jazzy73]

nice component!why only 5 images...?

[bismuth]

I'm using this component in windows 7 RC and the text is not displayed, only images
Is it just me?

[dreadroach]

I'm using this component in windows 7 RC and the text is not displayed, only images
Is it just me?

I also have Windows 7 RC, works like a charm.

Try to fix it in plugin's preferences (adjust color), or upgrade to newer version if available.

[bismuth]

Really?? I thought it's a problem with Win7

Actually I didn't install foobar normally in Win7

I installed foobar, then copy folder program files\foobar2000 and folder Application Data\foobar2000 from WinXp to Win7,

My foobar looks exactly the same as in Winxp, no need for any adjustment,
only this plugin Biography has problem, only images, no text, (I already checked Show text in prefrence)

Should I try to reinstall foobar and manually setup a new foobar without copying those folders from XP?

[bismuth]

Ahh now it works

I just have to disable "Use glow effect to text"

Just can't live without this plugin!

This post has been edited by bismuth: May 7 2009, 18:23

[dreadroach]

I don't know, I did the same thing a week ago (upgraded from xp to 7), installed foobar and copied all componets, folders ..etc, to their place in "program files/foobar2000"

What version of foobar do you use? I use latest (0.9.6.5).

Works without problems..

EDIT: I see you got it work

EDIT 2: Sorry for double post :S

This post has been edited by dreadroach: May 7 2009, 18:15

[bismuth]

Thanks for your concern, I feel so stupid, should have checked all the preference before asking

[s33m33]

@SSENNA :
The latest one 0.2.7.6 displayed artist images properly until it came across one it couldn't find. Now it stopped showing artist images for which description exists. A restart of foobar2000 did not solve the problem.

Also, a request, please make it possible to manually specify aspect ratio 1:1.

WinXP.SP2 | Foobar2000 0.9.6.5 | Biography plugin 0.2.7.6

This post has been edited by s33m33: May 9 2009, 07:07