ok - i have a small update for the Graviton skin

textscroll is proving to be a pain in the ass for this skin.

it's because of the beautifully rounded edges - it makes it very very hard to get a smooth scroll that fits inside the skin boundaries.

it was easy with micropanel since it had rectangle edges, so i could make the text scroll right to the egdes and foo_looks would chop off the letters as they moved out of the window

with graviton, if i use the same technique, then you see the letters sliding out at the edge of the skin.


anyway enough technical shit... i got an early version of the new textscroll script working - but it's still too jerky for me to be satisfied with it.

in fact.... it sucks!

test it & you'll see



tk32-Graviton_0.8.zip

Note: still a BETA - and lots more work needed

i'll refine it when i work out the best way to do so.

also.. progress bar coming soon..

well, what can i propably say?
You've once more proven you're the god of foo_looks scripting ^^
Except the mentioned problem of un-smootheness, the textscrolling is working perfect here
go tk32 go!
*Note*
/me needs to make up a cheerleader song&dance

when things were really bad - i had some guidance from danZ


he's the real god

With tk32-Graviton_0.8, the cpu usage goes too high.
I tested with ver 0.7 and 0.8.
When I used ver 0.7, the cpu usage was around 3% with foobar2000.
But, with ver 0.8 it went up to 40%.

I guess that there is some leakage of cpu with the scrolling of title.

you're absolutely right

text scroll is causing loads of cpu use since it is forcing the whole skin to update

when the skin was not using text scroll, it didn't update that often.


which now forces us to answer the question 'what is more important - visuals or cpu usage'


perhaps i'll just put a button to toggle text scroll mode

..or dicuss a new text layout method that fits all details in the orb without the need for scrolling.

my job is being made harder becuase i am sticking to the strict specifications of the designer (who is also having a port coded for winamp5).

the designer had no knowledge of foo_looks when he designed the skin - so he was not aware of the unique features (and limitations) that are present in our, very unique, scripted skin language.

the main motivation behind Graviton is as an eye-candy skin to attract more contributors to the community.

i realise that, in practice, many users prefer more basic but data-rich skins, that take full advantage of foo_looks & fb2k's powerful TagZ formatting.

ok..

as the famous saying goes:

"one step forward.. 2 steps back"

due to the cpu usage and jerky nature of the text-scroll in Graviton, i'm gonna take 2 steps back.

don't be worried though - i've implemented a very nice auto-size script that will change the font size to guarantee that the artist-title will fit without the need for scroll

all you need do is overwrite the graviton.ski with this new one:



graviton.ski


sorry for the confusion - and i'd love to hear comments on how people like this new text layout method.

next on the to-do list:

• progress bar (very soon)
• playback controls only when hover over blue section (not the grey ring)
• mini winshade mode
• shuffle / repeat modes

Maybe foo_looks also needs a dirty rectangle update system. Although, considering that the entire interface is assembled by a script, perhaps that would be more complicated than I think... especially if the entire image is assembled from scratch by several script calls... Then it might need to log every drawing function called since the last erase, check for changes in any of the parameters or functions called since the last redraw, then limit redrawing intelligently. ...boy, sounds like fun.

hi tk32, i saw that graviton uses arial narrow as default font to display the tag infos
i don't have this font by default in windows xp, so i wondered why i saw no info, only the time displayed until i figured that i needed to change the font type in the script

maybe take a font that all users have by default on their systems (don't know if i'm the only one who doesn't have this font)

and is it planned to show the VBR in realtime?

i assumed that since foo_looks is now win2k/XP only that everybody would have Arial Narrow installed

perhaps i need to revise my knowledge of the basic font set

sorry.

as for the realtime update of the variable bitrate.. i've tried to implement it before, but it always only shows the average.

when writing tagz scripts for the fb2k playlist you can make use of a tag called %__bitrate_dynamic% (i think) which updates about 5-10 times per second.

unfortunately danZ was not able to support this custom tag in foo_looks

hi tk32,

I've seen loodi's aeroamp using to show file info, and I wanted to control Quicktag (3rd party component) using the same function...
But a doesn't work.

I think it isn't implemented in foo_looks v2, could you confirm this ?
Or did I misunderstood this function ?

hmm

i can't say for sure becuase i don't have quick tag installed

but the contextmenu command (in theory) should be able to trigger any command that appears in the context menu

make sure you are typing the command exactly as it appears in the menu


EDIT:

it seems there are still problems with some of the fb2k commands.

fb2k 0.8 caused a lot of problems for foo_looks because it really messed around with the menus.

i've tested a number of different context commands .. and it's clear that some work, and others don't

for example, i can get 'Open directory' to work, but not 'Properties...'

unfortunately, it looks like danZ may have to help us investigate this problem

Thanks for answering,
I tried 'Properties...' and 'Properties' and both didn't work, but 'Show File info' did...

I actually do use a dirty rectangle minimal redraw system but I also use double buffering. So the rendering is as follows.

• Update all sprites - each sprite will, if necessary, add its bounding rectangle to the invalid region
• Draw each sprite on the back buffer (memory surface) but clipped to the invalid region. If a sprites bounding box doesn't intersect the region it is skipped completely.
• Flip the buffer to the front buffer. This used to be an actual blit from the back buffer to the window DC but is now a call to UpdateLayeredWindow()

I believe it is the last step that causes the CPU spike when the look is rapidly updating especially for Graviton which uses a lot of alphablending in the look and to the desktop.

If the look was opaque I'm guessing the CPU usage would go way down. GDI+ is cool and has great stuff but it isn't really optimized for this rapid redrawing, etc. with all the complex blends, anti-aliasing, etc.

I'll have to take a look - I didn't check these when I updated to 0.8.

Does text-scrolling with Gravition works on your system? On my system it doesn't work correctly: The text doesn't scroll evenly, it seems like the system would be to slow! (I hope you uderstand what I want to say) Sometimes the text scrolls back one or two pixels. But the cpu-usage ist "only" at 40-50%!
Somebody has this problem to?

Big_Berny

If you look a few posts back (here), you will see that tk32 posted a new ski-file for Gravitation. As the scrolling didn't really work out very well, the new ski-file will disable it. See his comments.

Yes I downloaded it, but I put it in the components-folder and not in the foolooks-folder.

Thanx
Big_Berny

yeah

i tried a dirty solution to text scroll in a round skin - but i wasn't happy with it

there's a good chance danZ & myself will solve the problem, but for now i've decided to use a auto-fit script in Graviton that dos it's best to always fit the text without the need to scroll.

low cpu usage is important to me - and smooth scroll is important too

Yeah yeah, I get it, it's Graviton not Gravitation, sorry

another quick fix fro Graviton that i should have done sooner..

i fixed the hitbox area, so the buttons only fade-in when you are hovering over the inner blue orb

previously they showed as soon as you hovered any part of the skin

this new method is better:

graviton.ski

----
Edit:

progress bar is coming along nicely - should be ready this evening if there are no setbacks

I kind of got scrolling to work, but there are still too many "fixes" in the script. I'll try to improve it and add more features later.

I made a very simple look to show it off, and it looks like this: Download here
The two lighter bands on each side of the text are sprites on a layer above. They screen the areas where characters appear and disappear. No text will enter the areas to the left and right of these (hopefully... )

@tk32: I tried this script with Graviton and it worked, but not as well as with my look. I'm not sure why, but maybe it has somehting to do with the higher CPU usage. If you try it, be aware that my "fixes" are made mainly for fontsize 8, larger fonts might make scrolling jerkier.


Btw: There might be some code from danZ's scroll script in it, as it turned out he had already done sort of the same thing as I had in mind. I thought there was no need to reinvent the wheel, so thanks to danZ

i'm very impressed

in fact, you may need to explain it to me some more - i can't get my head around it yet (although it is the middle of the night here in London)

the reason it probably works badly in Graviton is because the potential for high cpu usage is already present.

anything that requires Graviton to update more than 2 times per second will cause a spike of some kind, purely due to the high level of pixel-accuracy & anti-aliasing

Hi tk2, danZ, upNorth,
I'm trying to build my own look, but I wonder if I can include your scripts ?
progress bar & playlist in micropanel, volume control & scrolltext in graviton, coloration layers in concept... are really a must-have ; I think I'm not able to program these concepts better than you all three did ! Of course full credits will be given to their authors in the look infos
Best regards

in the .ski file for your look



watch out for scripts with the same name when you import multiple files - this is probably unlikely but if 2 lua/endlua blocks have the same name only the last one encountered is retained.

Don't worry about credits - script sharing is part of the reason scripting will be useful.

@carel: I'm not really sure what you mean by "coloration layers in concept". If you're talking about the patchwork script you would probably want the rewritten one. I'll try to upload it as soon as I have had a second look at it. I currently consider "concept" as an abandoned project, but I might do something more with it later. It was just for testing in the first place. Right now I'm more tempted to continue on the simple look I posted yesterday.

As for the use of my scripts, see danZ post. We are one big happy family

@danZ : Thanks for the cheerful welcome ! And er... A newbie question : what valign, halign, trimming properties (near, far, center, etc.) are available ? I haven't seen them in lua reference....

@upNorth : you're right, I thought the patchwork script would be useful as I want to be able to change the global color of my look 'on the fly', without having to desactivate my look, open photoshop, readjust a layer, save a .png, reactivate my look... I managed to do it using with different images per layer (full red, green, blue, black with different alpha levels adjusted with lua) but the result is not so good : it hogs my cpu at 100%, and the color isn't what I expected. Seems the order within the layers is important. I haven't read the whole thread concerning your project "concept" but did you solve these issues ?

danZ is the dad, tk32 is the mom.

What are you?

I must be the grumpy uncle who gets drunk at the christmas party.

Excellent work, all of you!

Now that I have gotten the album art figured out, I was wondering for the default look, in TV mode, is there a way to add the equalizer bars (spectrum analyzer thing, cant think of the right term long day at work) for that view?

As well, is there a way to make the playlist that shows in the look to skip to the now playing track? If i have it on shuffle and I want to see whats coming up next I have to scroll through everything to find out where in the playlilst I am.....

Hope that all made sense!

TIA

I don't know if it is related to the skin I am using (fooAmp2) or it is the foo_looks component but I have the following problems:

• Every time I start fb2k the volume slider of the skin starts at the same position no matter what the volume at the startup is. But as soon as I click (not slide) the volume slider, the volume abruptly jumps to the intended level of the slider position. However when fb2k starts the volume slider position should reflect the volume of that instant -> it should not jump if the slider position is not changed after a click.
• When I adjust the volume with +/- buttons the volume slider position is not affected. I don't think this is how it should be.
• When I am playing some song in say Playlist 1 and click once on another song in Playlist 2, the track info part at the bottom reflects the info of the song in Playlist 2 not the one currently being played in Playlist 1. I guess that's also a problem. It does not happen with files in the same playlist. I have "Follow cursor" set to OFF.

Thanks for the help and keep up the good work.

fooAMP2 needs a desperate update

i've learnt many things since i coded that baby - and it's time i revisited it and added some of the new features i've learnt

i'll make a full update including all of these requests tonight.

Carel:

you are welcome to use anything i have written, coded or painted in your own designs

no problem

------------------------------------------
to get a progress bar like the one i made in micropanel, use this script in your ski:

tk32_progBar.ski

download into your /foo_looks/ folder and use this line of code:


instructions on using the script are contained in the file
(NO GRAPHICS REQUIRED )
-------------------------------------------

also.. if you need help with anything else - i am often available to offer assistance

tkelly32@btinternet.com
ICQ: 486-325

one problem though - i don't think you'll be able to use any of the Graviton graphics, since they are owned by a skin designer called Dan Mauch.

however, if you redesign the volume bar with new graphics, then you are welcome to use the scripts i wrote for them.
(although they will need some modifications by me)

@tk32 :
Thanks for the script, I was just testing the one in micropanel to understand how it works
I will use your volume script for sure, with small adjustements because my volume control is vertical (mouse management may differ ?)
I think I won't use any graphics, as I'm trying to paint my look from scratch... and it's quite difficult, as Graviton is really awesome !

if you want to have a vertical volume control - i will make a custom script for you

just show me the graphics of the volume bar when they are ready - and i will write a custom script for you

quite like the one i made for URMEL's skin, but perhaps without graphics:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=181520

btw, if you want a volume bar without graphics, then decide if you want to use a grip of not

--
i'll be updating my own skins this evening (fooAMP/micropanel/graviton/etc..) - so i'll definitely be available to answer any questions

wow, thanks for offering help, I will give you the graphics asap, but I think I'll try to stick to Graviton policy : a set of different vertical volume bars at different states (ranging from 1 to 12), each at the right of the higher one... I mean like that : a 70x120 pixel height picture with volume1 (dims : 50x10) at x=0, volume2 at x=10, volume3 at x=20, etc.

So there would be minimal changes on your script, just setting the srcoff coords on x instead of y, and inverting the mouse x y axis management I guess ?

I'd like to use a grip, and maybe a non-grapical bar would be useful if the alphablending costs too much cpu ? Well I have to paint it first to see how it behaves... Let's work !

sure

for URMEL's volume bar, i just had a single graphics that was painted line by line to show volume in %

so if the volume was at 0dB it would show 100% of the volume bar graphic

if it was at -10dB then it would display 75%

and if it was -40dB then it would show 0% of the graphic


it worked quite well, and used a lot less cpu than the graviton version

If could be added pretty easily but I'm guessing that at that size the CPU usage will go through the roof. The new alpha blending support with the desktop might make a fullscreen look impractical. At one point I was making a dedicated fullscreen UI but I never finished that project.



In foo_looks.ski find the script "lua playlist"

change the onplaybacknewtrack function to this

plz update the foo_looks gallery or at least put those links from the old 2.0 thread some where ppl can find them easily , 20pges is a lot of pges to go hunting thru hehe

Gallery is updated!!

http://www.btinternet.com/~sean.m.kelly/fo...oks/gallery.htm

..updates to the rest of the site will follow

sorry i'm so slow at updating things - i spend more time assisting individual skin problems and questions

i forgot that not everybody spends as much time checking the forums for every single post on foo_looks

Edit the foo_looks.ski like this:

change


to



Now i've got a little more difficult problem - how to set up on start "Show remaining time" . Correct me if I'm wrong but this functions isn't working. When I mouse over on this option and it's turned on it should change to "Show elapsed time" but it don't! Why?
I know this is cosmetic but I like details ;>

D3LLF,

thanks for being helpful, but linkin was talking about my micropanel skin, not the default look

so the solution you gave will not work (since foo_looks.ski is the file for the default look)

unfortunately, there is currently no way to set micropanel to start in mini mode as default.

i'll add it to my to-do list for the next update (which will be soon)

also, i noticed the progress bar acts strangely in mini-mode - i will fix this too.

--

so perhaps the problem with elapsed time is with the default look too??

Looks like i messed up like usual ;>
Tx for understanding.

i make mistakes all the time

but what i really like to see is users helping each other

that's much more important than getting things right

--

linkin:

i had a spare minute, so i added the feature to set mini-mode as default

first, download these updated skin files:

micropanel_common.ski
micropanel.ski

i've already set it to use mini-mode as default, but to change it back, open up micropanel.ski in notepad, and change the presets:



mini can be 1 or 0 (on or off)

btw - i didn't have time to fix the progressbar bug in mini-mode yet (coming soon....)

mini-mode in micropanel was just a bonus feature - i didn't think anyone would use it - so perhaps i should spend some more time on it.

any other suggestions?

hi everybody,

I'm currently working on a look (codename HeaBside) with great tech support from tk32
I hope I'll be able to release it this week-end : here are some pre-release screenshots. A few features are missing : volume bar control, playlists navigation, but almost everything I wanted to implement has been coded. I'd be happy if some users would take a few minutes to test it. Obviously, this look is not intended to be small and compact : no mini-bar here (DanZ's one in microlayout mode is the one I like most).
I wanted it to be visually pleasant with a lot of informations visible & many functions available via clicking, that's why it's sooo big


ps : the blue bar on the background belongs to my aston shell, it's not a look part

hi
I'd like to set the font color of every text-sprite to a global value using lua scripting :
is there a easy way to do this ? I currently have to perform this for each sprite in the look using a 'for' loop...

I can't think of a better way to do that. The for loop sounds like the best approach. Do you know about the built in global look_sprites which is a table of all sprites defined in the look?

Thanks for your reply..... I use extended desktop to my TV, so when I'm listening to music, I like some eye candy.....

The "now playing" works like acharm, thanks!

Thanks danZ, works very well i've never seen look_sprites before ; maybe i'm too lazy to find it in the other 24-page topic

danZ, I miss the option look_setValue(section, name, value), to be able to update my presets section. Do you think you could add it?

hi everybody,

I've finished my look HeaBside, some tests were done and I hope it's bug-free now
Some features :
- multicolored & transparent layers configuration
- global color & alpha control over : font, backgrounds, bars
- many functions available with left and right buttons, and sometimes with mousewheel
- trackrating support using the tag %TRACKRATING% (used in the popular upNorth formatting strings 'hybrid' and 'dynamic')

you can download it here. (500k)

Here are a few screenshots :
Solid background color modes ; font color modification

Alphablendings


if you experience bugs, find a strange behaviour, please report them to me
Just read the tooltips if you wonder what each button does.
Hope you'll enjoy this

Excellent work Carel!!

it's a little bulky for my own tastes (as is Graviton)...
(UpNorth's Concept skin is my current weapon of choice)

BUT I LOVE YOUR SPECIAL FEATURES!!

amazing script work for a first-timer.

i love changing the colors with the mouse wheel


with so many capable coders in the team, the future of foo_looks is looking bright

(although i suspect we may need to enlist some more professional graphics designers)