I'd just like to drop in and say, "Nice work on this plugin." It keeps the default UI's focus on the playlist but manages to be better.

I've spent most of the day ripping apart upNorth's code to transfer most of the functions into columns_ui.

Pretty much got what I want now (though i havent got artist and title guessing yet)

I hope the Foobar formatting site starts including columns_ui configs too

I think you are right about this multiple execution. I pasted all the guessing code fom my "dynamic" formatting in the global string, when I made the formatting I posted a screenshot of a few pages back. It was awfully slow and I removed all the guessing before I posted the code in another thread. I have also thought about the solution you describe here, but I haven't tried it yet.



I don't know anything about the inner workings of TAGZ, but I suspect you're right about the need to parse it anyway. The things I do to make it skip unnecessary code doesn't seem to affect performance that much, if at all. It would be nice to know what exactly cause my dynamic formatting to slow things down as much as it does. I'm not really surprised because TextPad tells me it's 1200+ lines of code to be executed for every track, but it would be nice to know if it is the length alone, the amount of variables or anything else in particular.

@ReLiK: I guess I will use alot of my dynamic formatting in a column based formatting at some point. Just haven't done it yet. If you want to copy and paste parts of the guessing code, you should able to with only minor changes.

Thanks for continuing to improve the plugin, it is fantastic.

The implementation and behavior of the global string was already described by musicmusic, earlier in the topic.

Currently, there is no easy way for a single formatting string to be executed in such a way that its output can be fed into other scripts.

It is possible to require that the global script output in a format that can be parsed into a list of strings that can be passed as the extras parameter to each of the other formatting calls for that row. The only problem is deciding on a separator character for the script to emit in place of null.

Input would be blah=something(separator)blah=something, etc. They would be accessible in the other scripts as %_blah%, or extra("blah") in the new script format.

This would speed up processing of tag guessing code considerably, as it would only have to be executed once per row.

... It will even work for those of you who are using the global string to cache up all of your color constants as named strings. The only difference is that you will have to access your presets in a different fashion.

Just wondering if it was possible (or whether you are planning to make possible) a function to allow the column width settings to have a minimum or maximum value.

I like having the 'No Horizontal scrollbar mode' checked so that the window space is used effieciently. But there are some columns that I don't necessily want expanded to the fill the space (eg playlist number) nor shrunk (eg Trackratings).

A maximum column width or minimum column width would be very handy.

Btw, still loving this plug-in!

Thank you for your nice comments, they are appreciated.


Ok, I will fix that status bar thing, and add your option for next version..

Yes, it sucks..

Yes, that's a decent solution to the problem! I shall make a mock-up version, or something, and you people can test it, evaluate it or something.
But thanks, kode54, for the excellent idea.


Changes to the "no horizontal scrollbar" mode are planned/have half been written for the next version. Here is an example of how it will now work:

Say you have two columns, A and B. The width in prefs of A is set to 100, and the width of B is set to 200 pixels. There will be an extra setting - resizing ratio - wihich controls how columns are resized to take up all of the available space.

Say this is set to 1:1 for columns A and B respectively. When the window is resized to 600 pixels wide, Column A will be 250 pixels wide, and column B will be 350 pixels wide. I.e. the extra width was divided equally between each column.

However, if the ratio was 1:2, the widths would be 200 and 400 respectively.
If the ratio was 0:1, the widths would be 100:500 (i.e. Column A would be fixed width). There's no minimum or maximum widths though, just the fixed-width columns. I suppose you could instead give those columns a really low ratio, e.g. 1:100, the Column A would be near fixed width, but still resize a little bit.

I don't think this is exactly what I planned (I had something more like varying the rate of increase of the widths of the columns as the window is resized in mind), it kind of worked out like this, but it seems to work decent enough.

I'll have to finish implementing the config side of things and see how it works out, if you have any better solutions to allow columns to be resized at different rates, let me know, i don't want to make it excessively complicated though..

Anyway to program this type of color scheme like on iTunes? (eg. Light Blue/White/Light Blue/White/...)

Any way to set the visualization color to system default? For a person (like me) who can't make his mind on which Windows visual style to use it's a pain in the ass to change the visualization color manually all the time.

Thanks for the great UI, as soon as you implement that I'll finally make it REALLY my default UI

Hey musicmusic, just a small bug report.

1) Reserved width for hidden columns doesn't disappear unless the window is resized.
2) Could you add another pixel of padding to the left in the staus bar? (I think it should be two)
3) // no longer comments out lines in the "Display specification" area.

(1) and (2) can be seen here

Thanks :]

3, it sounds like you're using the current "global" string spec. You'll have to add a blank line or two at the end of the global string, and/or before the comments in your display area strings.

Thanks kode, that did the trick.

OK I know this is probably impossible, but my one-and-only feature request for this already wonderful UI would be the ability to click-to-edit tags as and where they are displayed in column entries. Like iTunes or renaming in regular windows explorer I mean. Alternatively, an 'edit' mode to tab through displayed tags...
Wishful thinking I guess, but as far as my simple wants go that would make this the perfect UI.
Anyway, love your work musicmusic.

PS has there been a change in the spacing between columns somewhere along the line? Is there more of a gap now or am I imagining things?

beta 5 is very very nice ... and fixes some a very annoying bug with the default interface ( not being able to scroll up a list while dragging item(s) )

I have one request that would make your ui a killer one ...

add a new "bar area" (same playback, seek, etc.) and call it "custom commands" (or whatever your imagination will dictate to you). Then in the configuration, offer to the user the possibility to drop in "commands" that will become a button in this custom commands bar (associated with a default icon bmp or a custom one selected by the user)

I hope my explainations are clear .. Ive been waiting for this kind of customization a long time ago but its not coming from the default ui so lets add it in a 3rd party ui

thanks for your efforts,
nIRV

p.s. where can I find custom string formats, Ive seen a couple of screenshot and thats all

assuming images nested in urls work with this forum..

click the pic to get my config

one more request in two parts that would be very nice (I'm enjoying customizing this ui, thanks)

1) make it possible to select the height of one row

to

2) make it possible to bitblt some predefined bitmaps ... here's how I think it could work

You have a list where you can insert bitmaps with an ID or name (much like resource file .. and exactly like your global strings except its bitmaps and a non-editable reference) ... then you make a function like $bitblt or whatever name ...

$bitblt(%my_bitmap_5stars%,center,center)

where the two last center center represent the vertical and horizontal align within the column ...

maybe you could add an option to say weither its a titled background, a stretched background, or an image , then the result could be considered as a background image with the possibility to overwrite text on top of it ... or start the text after the image ...

imagine a column for 1-2-3-4-5 stars with cool bitmaps instead of text ... and a column for media type with the nice icons from 0.8 ... sky's the limit

Firstly, I'd say I like this UI, it's cool and I want it to get better.

Here are the bugs I discovered (in 0.1 beta 5 build 2):

- re-enabled toolbars don't appear at their previous place.

- when 'no horizontal scrollbar mode' is enabled columns' widths are no more resizable one by one

- if horizontal scrollbar was on the screen and 'no horizontal scrollbar mode' was disabled, and then you enable it, this scrollbar remains on the screen, even if you resize the window after that.

- there's no need in 'only when text is clipped' flag to be available if 'enable tooltips' flag isn't checked. make it gray then

- 'show ellipsis when string does not fit' - when the state of the flag changes, it immediatly applies only to currently playing item, other items change only when focus is set on them (or by some other reason such as resizing fb2k window)

Also would like to:

- have more built-in icons, plugin can't import fb2k icons from foo_ui_std

- have the option of whether to show millisecs in selected tracks' time in status bar or not

[quote=Silverbolt,Mar 12 2004, 09:33 PM]Hey musicmusic, just a small bug report.

1) Reserved width for hidden columns doesn't disappear unless the window is resized.
2) Could you add another pixel of padding to the left in the staus bar? (I think it should be two)[/quote]
Thanks, fixed for beta 6 (due soon).

[quote=anza,Mar 12 2004, 01:02 PM]Any way to set the visualization color to system default? For a person (like me) who can't make his mind on which Windows visual style to use it's a pain in the ass to change the visualization color manually all the time.

Thanks for the great UI, as soon as you implement that I'll finally make it REALLY my default UI [/quote]
For the next version, I added the standard colour as a custom colour in the choose colour dialogue, and a set of frame styles (like playlist etc.) to make it looks a bit better, and also fixed a bug where background would be wrong colour when not playing (dont know if it was in beta 5 or not).
As for automatically using the standard colours, I could make an option for that if you still want.

[quote=cjb,Mar 13 2004, 04:44 AM]OK I know this is probably impossible, but my one-and-only feature request for this already wonderful UI would be the ability to click-to-edit tags as and where they are displayed in column entries. Like iTunes or renaming in regular windows explorer I mean. Alternatively, an 'edit' mode to tab through displayed tags...
Wishful thinking I guess, but as far as my simple wants go that would make this the perfect UI.
Anyway, love your work musicmusic.  [/quote]
It probably would be possible, with an extra column setting (which field to edit), I'll look into it..

[quote=cjb,Mar 13 2004, 04:44 AM]PS has there been a change in the spacing between columns somewhere along the line? Is there more of a gap now or am I imagining things?[/quote]Actually, several times..
[quote=nIRV,Mar 13 2004, 04:44 AM]beta 5 is very very nice ... and fixes some a very annoying bug with the default interface ( not being able to scroll up a list while dragging item(s) )

I have one request that would make your ui a killer one ...

add a new "bar area" (same playback, seek, etc.) and call it "custom commands" (or whatever your imagination will dictate to you). Then in the configuration, offer to the user the possibility to drop in "commands" that will become a button in this custom commands bar (associated with a default icon bmp or a custom one selected by the user)

I hope my explainations are clear .. Ive been waiting for this kind of customization a long time ago but its not coming from the default ui so lets add it in a 3rd party ui

thanks for your efforts,
  nIRV

p.s. where can I find custom string formats, Ive seen a couple of screenshot and thats all[/quote]
Its a nice idea, but might be a bitch to implement.. I'll look into it..
[quote=nIRV,Mar 13 2004, 07:03 AM]one more request in two parts that would be very nice (I'm enjoying customizing this ui, thanks)

1) make it possible to select the height of one row

to

2) make it possible to bitblt some predefined bitmaps ... here's how I think it could work

You have a list where you can insert bitmaps with an ID or name (much like resource file .. and exactly like your global strings except its bitmaps and a non-editable reference) ... then you make a function like $bitblt or whatever name ...

$bitblt(%my_bitmap_5stars%,center,center)

where the two last center center represent the vertical and horizontal align within the column ...

maybe you could add an option to say weither its a titled background, a stretched background, or an image , then the result could be considered as a background image with the possibility to overwrite text on top of it ... or start the text after the image ...

imagine a column for 1-2-3-4-5 stars with cool bitmaps instead of text ... and a column for media type with the nice icons from 0.8 ... sky's the limit[/quote]
1) If you mean items on the playlist with different heights, i dont think so..
2) Yes, I thought about that briefly already.

Its not like I can make my own titleformatting functions, though, not that that would work anyway, I might be able to do something like colour codes. I'll look into it..

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]Firstly, I'd say I like this UI, it's cool and I want it to get better.

Here are the bugs I discovered (in 0.1 beta 5 build 2):

- re-enabled toolbars don't appear at their previous place.[/quote]
I think that is more of a feature request..

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- when 'no horizontal scrollbar mode' is enabled columns' widths are no more resizable one by one[/quote]Not really a bug, columns are meant to be auto-resizing. There is no simple way I could make them resizable from the UI.

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- if horizontal scrollbar was on the screen and 'no horizontal scrollbar mode' was disabled, and then you enable it, this scrollbar remains on the screen, even if you resize the window after that.[/quote]Fixed for next version, thanks.

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- there's no need in 'only when text is clipped' flag to be available if 'enable tooltips' flag isn't checked. make it gray then[/quote]If you insist..

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- 'show ellipsis when string does not fit' - when the state of the flag changes, it immediatly applies only to currently playing item, other items change only when focus is set on them (or by some other reason such as resizing fb2k window)[/quote]Setting is updated instantly, and playing item gets updated every second if dynamic info is on. Press "Apply" to update everything anyway, I could make the setting not update instantly if that is what you are asking.

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- have more built-in icons, plugin can't import fb2k icons from foo_ui_std[/quote]Meh. Use Resource Hacker.

[quote=yandexx,Mar 13 2004, 08:55 PM]- have the option of whether to show millisecs in selected tracks' time in status bar or not[/quote]If you insist, I dont see what difference it makes..

I have some requests/ideas, and two of them might seem like copying iTunes, but that's only coincidence (I swear I thought of them before I tried iTunes for the first time a couple of days ago ).

First, is the ability to enable/disable columns. AFAIK it's not possible at the moment, only deleting them is. In iTunes you can right click the column name to do this, a nice touch, but an option in preferences would do. The real advantage as I see it, is that you can make one extensive config that can easily be modified according to current needs.

Second, is an album list as seen in iTunes. I kind of like that approach, but a standard one would do (both? ). What I would like to see above all is this done as a split view with the playlist. I'm not really that fond of all the pop-up plugin windows, hence my request here...

Third, a small area that can display info about the current track configured with TAGZ. Support for albumart would be great.


Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the next version, and I'm not at all expecting any of these requests to make it into it by then.

This can be done by using the playlist filters in the preferences menu. Just pick "show only on playlists:" and then leave the field empty.

Thanks, but that sounds more like a workaround, as it will interfere with the "intended" use of that feature as I see it. I was thinking about more of a "don't touch anything, just disable it for now" kind of feature. Like the way you can hide and show layers in Photoshop.

But, this workaround will be useful if what I request isn't implemented. Thanks again

Thanks, musicmusic!

I also noticed this: I have many playlists loaded, and sometimes a tooltip appears, which shows album, that is present in playlist that is not currently active. This tooltip appears when any playlist is active. All tooltips are disabled. Very strange. But I can't post screenshot for now...

After using your ui for some time, I noticed two things that are irritating me slightly

a) when you drag songs to new tabs, it auto-focuses to this new tab ... there should be an option to disable that (maybe there is but I searched a little bit ... at 4 in the morning ... sleepy ... )

b) when you drag songs to new tabs, and switch to the new tab, the list should scroll to the new songs _and_ the selection should change to the new songs added, please

except those two things, I found this ui to be very very nice (I repeat myself)

oh,

- when you right drag items to new tabs, you only have the option to copy to the new playlist ... in 0.8 official ui, there's also a very useful (copy and erase from current playlist ... a "move items' instead of copying)

- when you dbl-click on the tab region, it should create a new playlist

bouh, that's it
nIRV

I will add it for for the next version.


Yes, I'll see after 0.1. I dunno about "small area that can display info about the current track configured with TAGZ.", sounds like status bar to me..


Are you sure you have them disabled? Doesn't make much sense then..

I can imagine the ghost tooltips appearing if they were enabled, and you use keyboard or something to switch playlist. Should be fixed somewhat in beta 6 anyhow.

If it is something wierder, you will have to show me an screenshot..


a) its an option, which is disabled by default..
b) should be fixed in beta 6
3. i will look into that
4. done


beta 6
- fix ellipsis + colour codes
- fixed wrong tooltips when playlist horizontally displaced
- fix toggling playlists autohide setting + tabs
- maximised state is correctly restored after closing foobar whilst minimised
- fixed status bar font colour
- fix horizontal scrollbar when switch playlist
- fixed toggling no horizontal scrollbar mode setting if h scrollbar is visible
- fixed sorting - colour codes, non latin (?) characters (é í ó ú á etc.)
- numerous other bug fixes

- scrolling horizontally with mouse wheel moves in slightly bigger steps
- ctrl + mouse wheel scrolls horizontally
- ctrl + lmb drag does drag & drop; old ctrl + lmb click behaviour moved to ALT-click
- can remove total length of selected tracks from status bar
- some sorting selection only stuff
- middle clicking stuff works in the playlist sidebar
- items are highlighted when you drop then on foobar
- option to not have mouse over effect on column titles (as a result you cant click them, though)
- extra padding on left side of status bar
- standard/system vis colours are in choose colour dialogue
- can select vis border
- separate playlist sidecar + playlist item height settings
- redesigned columns prefs page
- toggling columns title header no longer requires restart
- can set no. decimal places in selected tracks length
- can double click in tabs/ playlist sidecar to add playlists

- replaced global string with global variables.
- improved "no horizontal scrolling" mode; see explanation here . for old behaviour, set width + resize settings the same

NOTE: config compatibility is broken, export your configs first, then import with new version.

rushed global strings guide Ignore the bottom bit, i removed it because it was trash. Also ignore the script, that is crap too.

new documentation - even less complete than old one

Beta 6 is just amazing! Thank you very much for this great UI

Here's what mine looks like:


It's just great how this UI looks just like the default one and still is amazingly more powerful. It's just great! I love it.

Perhaps someone could start a thread with formatting files for this GUI and/or a section at http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/fb2k/ could be made?

My main request is to use stable sorting algorithm for playlists. I mean, that after sorting with one field and then with other, the first field shoud remain with the same order where the other filed has the same value.

I will see if I can whip up a site.

Give me a few days.

Edit: for now go here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=193900

beta6 is impressing, thanks

one tiny feature request that I'm sure is nothing to add:

an option to disable the automatic switch to new playlist when you drag items in it... (last time I wasnt clear enough, I mean that once you dropped the files, I dont want it to jump in the new playlist, I still want to browse my main playlist and drop other stuff to other playlists ... thats what I meant)

thanks,
nIRV

nIRV's idea is good.

Also can you make it optional to have ctrl the same as it was, and make alt+left click for drag and drop?

ctrl+left click for multi select is second nature for me.

The current design of the playlist engine in fb2k does only support modification of the active playlist. So in order to add items to a playlist, it must be set as the active playlist. Implementing a work-around in any user interface would interfere with existing mechanisms. So the easiest solution for you is to wait until a later version of fb2k that adds support for this (and most likely breaks compatibility with old components).

man, the new ability to individually lock columns is great

Oh... the HORROR!

this no longer works...


using this in global:



I did however read about some recent changes so i also tried:


and then


but that did nothing ...

either i'm missing something or it's broken

anyway, my old style should work imo

And i really can't find any variables fileds in beta6 .. maybe that screenshot is from your dev edition of the plugin?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/musicf/gl.png

I agree, I will see if I can find some alogorithm that is as fast as quick sort (qsort) and acts as you describe. (I have no clue if it exists or not). If not, I will make an option with a slower alogorithm that acts as you describe.


What about making ctrl-click select stuff if not selected? (i dont think it does that current, cant check right now). That way it would allow for selecting and drag+drop.

If not I will probably just swap them around.


You are correct, colour codes dont work (i never tested colour codes).

I think foobar itself doesnt like them in extra fields. I will have to check what is going on. Its weird, just one $char(3) and the entire field is killed. But you can still use just FF0000 etc. and insert the markers in the display code instead. (Obviously its a lost cause if you are using $rgb())

Finally yes, i removed that thing at the bottom (i did say that already..). So make sure you are putting in the separator chars.

Seriously, the old style is crap. If you have say 7 columns, the script was exectuted 14 times, instead of one as it is now.. I.e. very slow. It also allowed for abuse by making it output things etc.

Ok, i'm trying this on the time field...

this does nothing but outfut it as it is, no good for colors...

 those are supposed to be in the quote, damned firefox
this seems to work fine


i wish i could do VAR=somecolor so i could use them globaly and in an easy way

I find bug in last version (beta 6).

When "Enable middle clicking to delete playlist" is checked - double left clicking also delete playlist. It is very bad.

Could you also put system default background, selected item frame and playlist sidebar color (same as background) colours to custom colors?
This plugin just gets better and better with every release, keep up the great work!

Ok, i'm currently using this string to sort my playlist



and it works great that way, so i thought i'de add it to the custom column sorting thingy, but for some reason the tracknumbers don't get sorted, and no, it's not that i'm missing tracknumber tags

any idea on what it's causing it to missbehave ?

I dont think you understood me correctly.

Do say var=FF0000, then in display string $char(3)%_var%$char(3)blah

But it isnt ideal, I agree. Unless the colour code thing is changed, I may just make an option so you can toggle between old/new behaviour.

Ok. I will change it to rename playlists like standard ui.
Sure I will do it for the next version.

Thanks


Works fine here. Either you didnt check the "use custom sort" box, or you have file names which do not have zeropadded tracknumbers at the beginning of them, or you didnt apply changes/exit prefs page first, or something like that.

Beta 6 is great! Works like a charm.
Thank you musicmusic!

I have an idea for ui_columns, but it might be a bit complicated, so i'll explain it in a couple of steps...

Firstly. Have an enable/disable option for each column. So if a column is disabled it doesnt get displayed, by default columns should be enabled.

Secondly. Provide a mechanism to automatically enable/disable columns depending on the width of the main foobar2000 window. For example most of the time i have a small windows with just 3 columns (track num, title and length). But if I maximise foobar2000 i'd like to see other colums for example artist, album and format etc.
This is when the automatic column enabler kicks in and shows appropriate fields.

Is this do-able? Or is it going to make ui_columns even more complex?

Cheers and good work by the way!

the enable disable columns is already present in the configuration, and even let you select which playlist will display a specific column

as of the second option, I dont see what would be the use to spend some times to enable this kind of behaviour since you can deal with horizontal scrollbars and place the most important columns at the beginning ... the only situation where it could be cool is when you have the "auto-stretch" feature and you could set an option in the column like "dont show until width of window equals or go beyond X px"

Oh yeah forget to mention i'm using the "auto-resizing column" mode. my bad.

I'm currently using the "auto track number" feature of the masstagger and it still dosen't work, very odd, i've even tried to manually change the tag then as "01" and so on, but still no luck

it's really strange, because, like i said, the "sort by ..." in the menu works with that very same string... i'm baffled

please do



first it checks for a tracktag in the file, if it does NOT have one it goes after the filename, and all of mine are corrent, my files are actually both correctly tagged AND named.

i've really tested this out just to make sure i don't do any foolish mistake, so i'm confident that it's nothing like leaving out a checkbox or anything.

but anyway, nothing to loose sleep over, it just surprises me

EDIT: maybe ul a config file would help... i'll do it later if you want
pm me your email or something

and dude, thanks for this, it's really cool, i appreciate it alot!

just a request,

is there any way of getting the current playing track to show up in bold and a color?

i'm using %_isplaying% and red, it just doesn't stand out

Regards
AMED

Is there a way to disable the sorting? Sometimes I click on a column by accident and it resorts the whole playlist by whatever column I clicked on. It would be nice to disable that feature.

p0wder,
Uncheck "Enable header mouse interaction" on the Column UI preferences panel. You can still sort column when you want to though, you can right-click on the header and choose from the context menu.

Nice, thanx!

I'm new to foobar.. and ui_columns. I searched hard for this, so apologies in advance if it's already been asked.

I have a considerable number of tracks with missing tags. i.e., Title, album, etc...

I setup the corresponding column to display a different color if a tag is missing. It works perfectly for both selected and non-selected tracks. However, when I play the track, the columns with the custom colors don't display the correct colors. That is, on my setup the columns without the custom color display a darker grey backgroun, but the columns with it displays white (which is my custom background color of non-selected).

What am I missing?

it sounds like the formatting string you're using for colours is dependant on id3 tags being present.

$if(%_isplaying%,do this,otherwise do this) should be enough, and will work regardless of formatting or tagging.

that said, you might consider posting this to the foo_ui_columns formatting strings thread over @ http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....view=getnewpost