new releases are always mirrored here: http://columns.outerspase.net/

I've got a question about the Columns UI...

Is there an easy way to get a horizontal separation line in the playlist to visually separate albums? ...like a line or colored bar that would run above or through track 01 of every album in the playlist..?

I've seen similar things in some of the more refined FCS settings, but my display is very simple and I'm just looking for a simple horizontal marker - plus I'm new to the fb2k title formatting syntax so the simpler, the better.

Thanks in advance!

~esa

Use this in the global color setting. It will separate albums with a line and setup and different color for the backkground of each album. Note that it will not work if the plalist name containes a #.

$if(%_isplaying%,80FFFF,000080)|
$if(%_isplaying%,80FFFF,000080)|
$if(%_isplaying%,00009F,$if($strcmp($strstr(%_playlist_name%,#),0),$blend(DFFFFE,FFDFDF,$mod($sub(%_playlist_number%,$sub(%tracknumber%,1)),30),29),FFFFFF))|
$if(%_isplaying%,616130,DBDBB7)|
$if(%_isplaying%,646464,D6D6D6)|
|
$if($strcmp($strstr(%_playlist_name%,#),0),$select($min(2,%tracknumber%),A00000,),)|
|
|

Thanks! Works great!

~esa

In regard to the format, it will be slower due to the increased overhead from parsing it. The increased overhead seemed to be significant enough but I'll look into it a bit more.

Why have you separated isplaying the stuff up? Are you implying this shouldn't use tagz, or where you thinking it might be faster that way?

Maybe Microsoft are generally retarded; version 5.81 and 6.00 are behaving differently in a few aspects. I didn't even know the columns ui menubar is a bit messed up on comctl32 5.81.

And Im even using a CCM_SETVERSION message, though maybe Microsoft were trying to imply something when they stated


Try version 0.2, I added separate handling for comctl32.dll version >= 6.00 and <6.00, and I also fixed a couple of bugs.

In regards to the change of colour string format, yeah it would be slower. But other things are just gonna have a neglible speed impact, unless you use them.

Hi,

Would one of you expert "foo_ui_columns" users please help me out? I've installed both "libpng" & "zlib" dll's and added their location to my "Path", but I still keep getting this error when I start foobar2000.

ERROR (foo_ui_columns) : Failed to load libpng. Ensure you have libpng and zlib present in an appropriate location.
INFO (CORE) : startup time: 1112 ms

They are currently installed at C:\Program Files\GnuWin32. Thanks in advance for your response.

Put them in your main foobar directory, or system directory, or make sure "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32" is in your path (system properties/advanced/environmental variables on xp). And goto prefs/columns ui/other/info to see which (if not both) it cant find.

Check you have the right version as well, libpng should be >= 1.2.7, and zlib probably 1.2.1 or 1.2.2 is ok.

[quote=musicmusic,Nov 10 2004, 08:50 PM]
[/quote]
Put them in your main foobar directory, or system directory, or make sure "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32" is in your path (system properties/advanced/environmental variables on xp). And goto prefs/columns ui/other/info to see which (if not both) it cant find.

Check you have the right version as well, libpng should be >= 1.2.7, and zlib probably 1.2.1 or 1.2.2 is ok.
[/quote]

Hi Musicmusic,

I did what you suggested, but I'm still having the same error. I edited the Path statement and rebooted the computer. Path is correct. Upon opening foobar I got the same messege as before, and upon clicking the "Info" button in "Other", I received this error messege:

ERROR (foo_ui_columns) : Failed to load libpng. Ensure you have libpng and zlib present in an appropriate location.
INFO (CORE) : startup time: 1262 ms
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : comctl32.dll version: 6.0.2900
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : libpng version found at
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : zlib version 1.1.3 found at C:\Program Files\Foobar2000\zlib.dll

libpng12.dll is version 1.2.7.1718 and zlib.dll is version 1.1.3.1

Am I still missing somthing here?

Thanks again!

Okay i discovered a problem concerning CUE/MP3 files. I always add some extra information to my cue files using foo_cue_ex.dll. These extra taggs are stored as REM DATE, REM GENRE etc. With latest stable version i could read/change/display these infos in my playlists. But since i tried BETA3 these REM taggs are no more read by foobar. When i click update info from file(s), they are gone but always present in the CUE file.

Sorry, that probably should have said "libpng not found/failed to load". You should have libpng12.dll or libpng13.dll. Anyway try updating to zlib 1.2.1 from zlib.org.

edit: in fact its loading zlib from your foobar dir, not your other path. Put either both in there instead, or delete them from there.

I don't know how foo_cue_ex works, maybe it is trying to override the standard cue reader and fails if its service gets loaded after it.

But it was nothing changed in foo_cue_ex. Even when i use the Standard UI and the new Columns UI DLL is in the plugins folder of foobar, the REM tags are not read or changed. When i delete the Columns UI plugin or use the stable version, it works.

EDIT:
Its strange but after disabling foo_uie_albumlist.dll it works again.

Yes, but that does not help if foo_cue_ex was broken in the first place.

See here, and here. You could probably come up with a list of plugins that cause foo_cue_ex to stop working as long as all of the components that exist. See the foo_looks thread for example..

By messing about with the components, you are messing about with the order things get loaded. For example, watch the order of the titleformatting strings in prefs/display/titleformatting move around when you add/remove components etc.

I don't know, all I can assume is that sometimes foo_cue_ex is being loaded before the standard cue reader, and sometimes it isn't.. Im not sure, but that's what I think.

Yes, this problem comes and goes with different releases of the columns ui and/or the various panels. I have been trying to get in touch with WigBam (author of foo_cue_ex) to see if he can help with this at all, but no luck so far.

not to be petty or anything, but you mispelled minimize in the "statusbar/systray" area of options.

It's not misspelled (dictionary.com).

I tried your suggestion again and here's the error message:
ERROR (foo_ui_columns) : Failed to load libpng. Ensure you have libpng and zlib present in an appropriate location.
INFO (CORE) : startup time: 1081 ms
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : comctl32.dll version: 6.0.2900
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : libpng version found at
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : zlib version 1.2.1 found at C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\zlib.dll

I'm at loss at this point. Any help is appreciated.

Yep, it's spelt MINIMISE here in Australia & in the UK (where I'm guessing musicmusic resides).

Hi Musicmusic,

I was finally able to find libpng13.dll and that seems to be recognized, but now I'm getting this top line error message:

ERROR (foo_ui_columns) : error creating png read structINFO (CORE) : startup time: 1072 ms
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : comctl32.dll version: 6.0.2900
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : libpng version 1.2.5 found at C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\libpng13.dll
INFO (foo_ui_columns) : zlib version 1.2.1 found at C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\zlib.dll

I really appreciate your help, so thank you very much. Hopefully, you will know what to do to correct this error. Just seems like a whole lot of trouble just to bring in a png file. (Yikes!) ;-)

I didn't realize that.

Yep


I don't know where you've been downloading your binaries from.. It should be zlib1.dll, not zlib.dll for a start. I don't know why you are getting that error, maybe you need libpng 1.2.7.

Lets try things the fail-safe way. Download my compiles, and unzip them to your foobar2000 dir.

Failing that, try the binaries linked to in the first thread (libpng 1.2.7, zlib 1.2.1), and again put them in your fb2k dir. It doesn't matter if libpng is named libpng12.dll or libpng13.dll, its the version that matters. Though zlib should be named zlib1.dll.

Hi,

I downloaded your compiles, but cannot open them. The file does not have an extension on it. Is it a .zip or .rar or .exe file? If it is neither, can you tell what I need to extract them? Thanks again!

The file does certainly have an extension here, namely .7z (7 zip). You will either need 7zip or WinRar installed to open the file.

Thanks for the clarification. I was not aware of 7Zip, but I just downloaded a copy.

Hi there!

I just found a bug using ColumnsUI (or at least I'm quite sure that's a CUI bug):
Try selecting a song in your current playlist where the title is cut off, now move the mouse over that specific string and wait till the hint pops-up that contains the songs whole title (you must have this switched ON in the settings), now try double-clicking this song to start playing - it won't work. The hint is covering the songs name, so the first click will hide the hint, the second will do nothing at all. Is this a standard Windows problem - or a CUI specific one?
I won't say it should be high-prio, but...


Thanks!
Moon

Hi Musicmusic & Picmixer,


Thank you very much for the .dll files and your kind help. Your compiles did the trick!


Best Regards,
Dirk

Its a bug in the common controls.

More specifically, its a bug in version 6.0 of the common controls. It works fine with version 5.81, so Im guessing you use Windows XP.

There's nothing you can do about this, I will see if I can hack fix it.


Glad to hear it I will add an entry in the FAQ as well.

terribly sorry, i cant seem to change the color of the default vis. either in the panels or the regular toolbar. when i click 'choose back color' or 'choose fore color' , nothing happens, the menu just goes away. i thought this was once in the prefs??

thanks for your time.

Are you using the current version? That was a bug in alpha 4 or something.

ok, thanks, i'm good now. thanks for columns, thanks for panels!

I'm been really behind the development of Columns UI (since I last jumped to foo_tunes), but since the development of foo_tunes is discontinued, I'm looking at other alternatives.

Just to ask, does Columns UI offer full tree explorer support (like foo_tunes?)

Thanks, and looking forward to checking out Columns UI again!

Yep, WinXP. Anyways: I would appreciate your "hack"
Moon

Had a little idea: maybe the Azrael config could be cleaned up a bit and made to be the default configuration for the foo_ui_columns distribution. It certainly appears to be the standard.

I'm not familiar with the code of that particular config, but unless it can catch alot of (all) exceptions, an advanced config like that (album/tracknumber/tag based) isn't really "fool proof", and display will look like s**t and probably be confusing to new users.

I disagree. Azrael is overly complicated for a default configuration, and could possibly scare off some folks. I think a simple config for default is good, then stuff like Azrael stands out as to what you can really do with the columns ui if you're creative.

edit: typo

I'd also vote for keeping the current default configuration. As said, a simple config is way more fool-proof than Azrael. Also, some of us don't like it at all, and IMHO the default config should be designed "the foobar way", as it currently is.

Not unless someone develops such a panel, of which there seem to be several popping up..

You're assuming I will be able to workaround it


Because that is the best reason to make it the default config

I think others have covered the reasons not to well, but mine are:
-Its slow
-I don't such configs particulary usable
-Probably blow up with bad tags

I haven't checked his config specifically, but Im also not going to encourage tagging I think is stupid, like tracknumbers in the format xx/xx, VARIOUS=1 tags, LASTTRACK=1 tags etc.

I was considering making some changes to the default config actually to make it more new user friendly. Maybe some more inviting colours. But nothing drastic.

Having a fairly simple config will also encourage more users to try and make their own adjustments to it. With something like Azrael, they will only get confused.

Heh, you all make good points, which is to say that you're right, the Azrael thing likely isn't the smartest move.

It's just that there are so many gorgeous configs for the columns ui that the current default looks rather bland.

I finally started using ColumnsUI, but I'm having a peculiar problem. For about 1% of my albums, the formatting doesn't seem to recognize the necessary album-related tags.

Here is a screenshot, with three Pink Floyd albums in the playlist:
Screenshot

As you can see, "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Meddle" are recognized, but there is a problem with "The Early Singles" (that's the album in the middle). Note that I use the "Azrael" config, but I see the same problem with other configs as well, so it appears to be a general ColumnsUI issue.

I'm puzzled, because I don't see anything wrong with the tagging of this album when I look at the properties of the tracks in foobar2000.

Here is a screenshot I made using the default UI instead of ColumnsUI, showing that the files are indeed properly tagged.
Screenshot

Also, I displayed the tags with Case's Tag, and I still don't see any problem with this album. Here is the output of Tag for these albums:
A Saucerful Of Secrets (which works)
The Early Singles (which doesn't work)
Meddle (which works)

The files use ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags, because I need the compatibility with my hardware MP3 players.

Does anybody of you have any idea what can be wrong with these files? Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this?

My guess is that "The Early Singles" triggers the "singles" recognition in Azrael. Hence it treats that album as a collection of individual tracks.

@Canar: Nice timing

I noticed this problem on one of my albums yesterday, i thought it was a tagging problem but couldn't see anything wrong with the tags. I have attached a screenshot

Little Problem

This is the only album i have noticed it on so far.

Edit: ahh yes what upnorth said, so i guess Azrael need to be edited.

Actually, right after I made my post I suddenly realised this: "Hey, it contains the world "singles"".

And my other album with this problem is called... "The Singles Collection" by David Bowie. (and it appears that Saint also has this album)

So I guess I need to make some modifications to the Azrael settings?

Edit: As a quick and dirty workaround, I changed this:

to this:


And it works now (fortunately I don't have any albums with "bleh" in the name).

every now and then i try to customise the way my songs are displayed in the database explorer panel to suit my needs better. today i came up with two interesting (i hope) strings, i decided to share with you. i know there's nothing special about them, at least for the ones already experienced in creating foobar formatting strings, but anyone new to this feature of foobar may find it useful. having said that i move to the sharing section of this post.

(to use a string copy it, then go to: Preferences>Database explorer panel and paste the it in the Tree hierarchy field)

the first string organizes your music display according to the number of times a particular song was played.






the second one organizes your music collection display by rating.





when you switch between different display types you have to refresh the database explorer panel manually, if you want it to display correctly (e.g. not to display recently played songs, e.g. with play count = 1 in the 'not played, yet' section). when you restart foobar the panel refreshes automatically.

I just noticed a PROBLEM : when i restart foobar the database explorer panel disappears and i have to add it once again. happened several times in a row. still happening. any ideas why?

Like the rating sort string, great idea using it now.

hi, nice string, but i have a problem. example: i have one song that i heard 58 times and another one that i heard 52 times.
how can i make the string disply songs that was played between 50-60 times for exmple?

I wouldn't say bland is the right word. Unadventurous, uninspired maybe.

Anyway I think changing the colour scheme, and maybe defaulting to auto-sizing mode, would be fine. I don't know what the new colour scheme should be though..

Do you have the current version of foo_uie_tabs?

I didn't get anywhere trying to work around it, sorry..

Hmm, I just recently changed some of column settings, and I noticed a few things:

1. What happened to the realtime column resizing? It used to let me fit the column by double clicking on the column itself while I was configuring it, and then the new size would show in the config box. This was really useful for making sure that each column fit the field perfectly (e.g. on date, tracknumber, etc.) and then I could keep it that way when I turn on auto-resizing mode.

2. Could there be more options as to how columns are resized? I'd really like to see some sort of autofit option. I realize that this would probably be slow on big playlists, but it'd be real nice for when I'm looking at small playlists.. maybe an option to keep/exclude it on certain playlists?

I'd like to add a suggestion for Columns_UI, a drop-down list for toggling between different sidebars. This would serve the purpose which Tabs plug-in provides, but without the clutter which would be brought upon by having many tabs in a narrow sidebar.

If what I'm suggesting is not clear, take a look at the Firefox extension EZ Sidebar, which adds this feature to the browser's sidebar. Screenshots can be seen here.

1. If you mean double click on the divider whilst the columns prefs page was shown, it never happened. It would be impossible to sync the changes made in the ui to those in the prefs window, unless the changes made to the prefs where applied in real time. And that would be annoying to be honest.

If you rather meant generally double clicking on the divider, it only works when not in auto-sizing mode.

2. Would be slow, slow, slow. Even if it was implemented on a per column basis it wouldn't stop people bitching about it being slow.
Maybe could be implemented as a panel. Depends on what exactly your looking for.

Well, what I'm looking for a just a quick, unobtrusive way to switch between panels, as I don't want them stacked atop eachother, nor do I want a multitude of tabs. My idea was that a button which would reveal a drop down menu could be placed on the right-most side of the panel caption. A tiny arrow could do the trick, and I'm sure people would like it to be optional.

musicmusic, could you compile the foo_search_ex panel? I really want to try it, but Im not a developer and have no idea how to compile a dll.