Not using an old version of foo_uie_trackinfo are you?

Unfortunatly not, but I'll keep trying from time to time.

Gord
i use last foo_uie_trackinfo at 03-May-2006 17:21 from http://stephan.kochen.nl/proj/foo_uie_trackinfo/

Hmm, I had troubles with both that and my video drivers with my multi-monitor setup. You could try testing some other plugins and see if they effect anything. Have you added any new ones lately?

My vis keeps updating when paused (I plan to change that). But what I wanted to know, is how large is your vis?

Thanks. I think maybe it was caused by deleted p_node. I'll make some changes in areas that would delete them and it might help.

What OS are you using btw?

Windows XP - Professional (5.1.2600) Service Pack 2

unlike other people, i don't have any extreme CPU utilization (max 15% on a 1GHz CPU - with a constant 5% 'background' usage due to some messengers, antivirus, etc.)

but fb2k is consuming over 15 Meg of RAM with CoulmsUI (standard UI is around 1700 kbytes). I am using albumart displaying tiny 150x150 jpeg pictures and two trackinfo panels.
Can anyone confirm something like this? Is this a normal memory cunsumption value?

my vis height 220 px

On my old Athlon 2000+, I have between 0 and 7% of CP usage. But Foobar is using 35 Mo RAM. But I guess it depends on how many tracks you have in your playlists, and on the plugins you are using. For example, Prettypop needs RAM, I don't know why...

If you have 5% constant CPU usage due to IM programs and antivirus etc, I highly suggest you switch to another client, that is easier on system resources.

I almost never go above 1%, maybe 2% load on my Athlon XP 3200+, when Foobar, Miranda IM and FTP client and server etc is running...

what´s "create left toggle area" in layout options? nothing happens here when i activate it.
i´m searching for a way to align buttons "right" and "center".
anyone?

Not sure myself about the "create left toggle area."

But to align the buttons, you simply have to group it together with a trackinfo panel. Then make the info panel have no border and change the background to the corresponding color. This will make it basically a blank area, and you can increase it and decrease it till the buttons are where you wish for them to be.

You must put the track info panel on the left of the buttons for this to work.

^^

right u are. that workaround do work quite well, but still, even when u lock the parts, changing foobar-windowsize reluslts in everything displaced again. i want them flexible in all windowsizes and therefor i´m askin for an align-feature.

here´s what i mean:
normal size
|----|splitter|splitter|splitter|----|
same on maxed windowsize:
|----|splitter|splitter|splitter|------------|
i want them like that in maxed windowsize:
|--------|splitter|splitter|splitter|--------|

I have searched and searched but can't seem to find anything on this.

%_isplaying% doesn't seem to work when you switch playlists. e.g. if I have the same track in two different playlists the %_isplaying% function only seems to recognise a track as playing in the playlist it was played from.

Am I missing something? This worked fine in 0.83

I just experienced something similar: If you delete the playing song from the playlist and the put it in again, it does not show up as if it was playing (depending on my config).

As far as I understand foobar2000 v0.8 was identifying songs by their path. Now every song has some internal "index". Old behaviour was a bit ugly IMO.

Then why doesn't it show up as being played (if removed and readded), with this neat new behavior?
I've also noticed that if I move files, playcount for them resets to none.

got another question:
when volume is set to vertical caption orientation the volume knop still moves horizontaly. any chance to make it move in relation to caption orientation?
well, besides the question to use images (bmp/png) for knop/background of volume & seekbar)

and

THANKS FOR UR WORK! FOO_UI_COLUMNS RULES!

In the playlist view what do you do to change the edge styles? I've tried to do the same thing, but I cannot seem to get it to look the same.

In foo_browser, I am basically using this code:



Do you set the style of the list control or the dialog window?

Thanks.

Yes, that is large. Normal size is default size. I can try and optimise it a bit, but I can't promise anything.


I don't use a dialog and Im not sure if you would call the playlist view a list control. But basically yes that's what I do. Spy++, Winspector, .. may be useful for yourself

I found another bug(?)/wierdness in the layout system: everytime I change something in the layout (lock status in my case), the Playlist view loses his Edge style setting. Example:
I've got the following layout:

When I change the lock status of the h. splitter, the Playlist view loses his Edge style (switches (reverts?) to 'None'), but in the options the drop-down-box is still set to 'Sunken'. I have to reselect 'Sunken' to make it display again.
Don't know if it is of importance, but I had 'None' before I changed to Sunken. Maybe after a restart....
Ok after a restart it stopped reverting back to 'None'.
Is it intended? By design?

I see.

Yes, it has to use it. No, it has nothing to do with configuration..

Yes, it's used there too.

As for how you can get it working (I assume that's what you meant since you don't expect me to not use that function), well you just need to implement that function in Wine (yourself.. or whatever). Use the patch I linked to if you want, it should work for at least Columns UI but its not quite correct.


Well, seems like I managed to cut it right down, so test the next build whenever it comes out.

@music² : Is there any way that logarithmic scale for frequencies on the spectro could be made? Just use log(freq) instead of freq as a scale, and use log(20) and log(22000) as extremums... This would be really great, and would fill the spectro more than it currently is (with dead high-ends...)
Also, I'm not sure if you're combining both channels into mono before displaying the spectro, but individual channel displays would be sweet, too

Thanks for your time,
T.

musicmusic, could you add special button command which would toggle autohide status for its parent splitter.

something like 'pin' in some guis. it would be nice if it could use some temporary autohide status, i.e. override autohide status for nearest parent with autohide actually checked (ignoring parents with autohide not set).

Hi all,

I have some problem with Formatting String in columnsUI : I want to able the user to choice between two Themes, so in Variables, I wrote this code :



The result is : blue, even if the condition is verified
I've tried to put this code :
in a colums, and this work perfextly, so why this don't work for the theme???

PS : sorry for my english ^^

Am I the only one who gets this line here? I went a couple pages back and didn't see any mention of it. It was fine in b1v2 but just changed to b1v5.


moderation: please refrain from inlining images larger than roughly 800x600 and 80KB. please use thumbnails and/or links for large pictures instead.

OCedHrt: I'm too lazy to check what it looks like on my own computer, but it's probably an issue with that particular style (it's the Watercolor version of HmmXP right?). As in, that line is probably part of the tab glyphs or whatever as defined in the actual visual style.


musicmusic, i have some requests for you to consider when you're done doing all the more important stuff, if you don't mind:

(1) The new layout dialogue thing is amazing, but there are two things that seem missing. The first (and you've probably heard this already and maybe even addressed it, but i'm bringing it up anyway) is drag-and-drop of the items in the list. If i decide i want to get rid of a splitter or something, i have to completely redo all the panels that were underneath it, which is just tragic. :/

(2) The second thing that i would really love to see in the layout options is a way to set the minimum width and height for each item. Just now i decided that one of the panels in a horizontal splitter wasn't as wide as i'd prefer, and i tried resizing it, but that threw off the size of all the panels after it. It would be great if i could just go into layout and say, hey, this panel should always be at least 150 pixels wide, no matter what i resize, the end.

(3) I'm not sure what your feeling is regarding the development of playlist switcher, but the release of Playlists Dropdown has reminded me that i would really love to see icons in the playlist switcher, if that's at all possible. :x

from the Columns UI wiki:

Actually, it's even worse if i turn off themes or switch to XP's default themes. They weren't there with 1.3beta1v2.

o. Well then.

I suppose there's two parts to the issue:

(1) Tabs in Windows are designed to be used at the top of a pane.

(2) Play-list tabs in particular are designed to be used like a splitter, meaning they're supposed to 'contain' the play list, and it must be necessary to add the top pixels of the tab pane to the bottom of the tabs in order for the pane as a whole to look the way it's intended to. If you decide you don't want to use it the way it's designed to be used, it's naturally going to look weird.

A possible solution might be for musicmusic to add something to check whether or not the tab 'splitter' contains something. If it does it'd continue to work the way it is in your picture, and if it doesn't it would use the individual tab glyphs and ignore the pane graphics entirely.

I obviously have no idea whether or not musicmusic could easily do that, though.

Feature Request.
Ability to clone layout presets. It is a pain to set everything right if you want some stuff to stay the same for different presets. Like my fileinfo fields. I have 7 of them.

ok Thx i didn't see that, and even if I saw it, I think I didn't realize what it means Thx, but know, I must find a way to do what I want... Does anyone have a idea???

I don't know if this either the time or the place for a feature request...but would it be possible to allow the user to add multiple column ui playlists (we can do this already), but to specify which playlist is opened in each instance?

Cheers

using the new album list panel, is there any way to use the directory structure but remove the bullets/arrows?

hey musicmusic, I don't want to hassle you but it looks like you missed my query. can you confirm that this is normal behaviour at the moment and if so would it be possible to change how %_isplaying% works so that the file is recognised as is playing whenever it occurs not just the instance of the file that initially played (if you can follow what I mean )

This 'feature' has nothing to do with ColumnsUI, it was introduced in v0.9 and it is not planned to change it. However it MAY be possible to change this behaviour through ColumnsUI, however i'm pretty sure that it is more difficult than it's worth...

After looking closer at my layout with 1.3beta1v2, I notice that the line is still there, but in a much less noticeable color. This means I much prefer the old color

Even if the tabs were at the top of the pane, the line would still be visible. It's not the lines themselves that bother me, but instead because I put other things ( like buttons, seekbar, etc ) on the same horizontal plane, and the fact that the termination of the line seems so abrupt.

But anyways, great to know why it's there and maybe I will just rethink the layout

I don't mean to sound harsh in any way but the whole Idea of tabs, like in firefox or any other program is to show which specific tab is being displayed and this horizontal line visibly makes the distinction between then, and in my opinion is necessary.

I am sure music music is busy enough without having to cater of everyones visual prefernce.

Personally I would rather any bugs get fixed and any benefficial features get added.

It's actually a horizontal line.

And while i don't personally have any problems with it being there, what you just said doesn't make sense, because

(1) musicmusic obviously was not 'busy enough' and did consider it 'that big a deal', otherwise he wouldn't have gone out of his way to add it just recently, and

(2) i think graphics glitches (which you can sort of consider this) count as 'bugs', not to mention making a music player that isn't ugly is a pretty 'benefficial' feature.

Well, I haven't changed anything.

I would suggest you put the playlist in your tabs.

That is how they were intended to be used.

If you didn't know, now you do..


Use 'local' variables.I.e. $put[s], $get. Then put it in a global if you like when your done processing/whatever.

hi musicmusic, I have got a strange behaviour and I guess it's more due to ColumnsUI than to the used component PlaylistDropdown.



I have to left 2-3px space between Playlist-Dropdown and Columns Playlist to be able to see the drop-down-box of Playlist-Dopdown.
If I don't spend this space, it looks like Playlist-Dropdown opens but gets covered by Columns Playlist

I feel sorry that I cannot give a pic atm.

Proposal for radically different playlist-sort approach in 0.1.4:
I think sort-patterns should be completely seperate from the defined columns. Currently, they are linked to individual columns, but i do not think that this is a good idea, because one may want sort-criterias which do not relate to any specific column.

Keeping sorting independent from columns also allows the possibility to have FCS-independent sort-patterns - thus, defining your favorite sort-patterns, and then import various FCSs (possibly unchecking an "import sort-patterns"-checkbox) while keeping your defined sort-criterias.

Another reason for this approach is usability: According to which criterias a person wants to sort, has not much to do with which playlist-design he prefers. Needed sort criterias depend on music collection-type, listening-habbits, etc. etc. - it is mostly unrelated to visual preferences(playlist design).

From an UI-POV, i think sorting should be done via a dropdown-menu toolbar-element.

- Lyx

Wow I totally didn't think that playlist tabs functioned as a splitter even though it was under the splitter menu. I always wondered why it was there haha! But in my quest to have the tabs and other stuff on the same horizontal plane to save real estate ( and because it's empty there most of the time! ) I discovered that it doesn't appear when the tabs share the horizontal splitter with only the seekbar. Sharing the horizontal splitter with either the buttons or the playback order dropdown causes the line to appear.

Thanks for the report, looking into it..


Well, its not that simple to change the horizontal scale. Maybe you could log your requests on the page in my wiki, and I'll probably look at sometime I decide to add features to vis.. (late 0.1.3 / 0.1.4 probably)

Well yes I agree it would be useful, I just ran out of space Also the presets are intended for independent layouts, so I don't really want to encourage such redunancy which will just create inconsistencies.

"Not from me"

No there isn't.

I would like a screen shot. But to be honest I don't see it being anything to do with me. Is it like it drops down but only 1 pixel in length?


I think you entirely missed the point of searching by columns. I think instead you are probably misusing the ability to sort by columns with a custom script, or even misusing the columns ("album formattings" kind of comes under that).

As for it being useless: I use it all the time to do sorting on the fly without having to write scripts. For example, if I want to sort by artist and title I click on title column then artist column. That is why I haven't bothered porting foo_custom_sort, which sounds more like what you want.. In addition I am hardly going to add random toolbars built into foo_ui_columns.dll, even more so if they don't particularly belong there..

Quite alot of asumptions without a basic foundation to base them on.


I see - if it works for your config for your purposes, then it has to work for everyone else. (How many percent of your users do you think are aware of cross-column sorting (click one, then click other)? Just one example of your asumptions about user-behaviour clashing with the real world in practice)


Based on your previous above asumptions that they are unneeded.


It is your component and you decide what to do with it. If you simply say "i'm not interested in that" or "i dont have the time", then i would accept that without any questions asked. But half-heartedly refusing a proposal from a user who is known to think about usability alot, with arguments which more or less simply said "it works for me so your idea sucks" - thus, completely void arguments, is like telling constructive users that they are simply wasting their time if they think about how to make columns ui better for the majority of users.

Since this is not the first time, that constructive criticicm and ideas of me got refused simply because of ignorance, i got the message and will spent my efforts more efficiently in the future. To clarify it a second time, this is not about you disagreeing with me - it is about the reasons and attitude with which you disagree. You are a great coder and created the most powerful UI for foobar - usability, UI-design and social-design however are not among your strengths. This by itself is not bad - everyone has his/her strength and weaknesses - the more wise ones however are aware of that and value advice from outside in those areas.

good luck,
- Lyx

oh snap

wow ice burn

@Lyx:
IMHO, you should reconsider your attitude.

In the spirit of HA that kindly hosts this forum, and in the spirit of TOS8, statements like this seems out of place:

"the real world in practice"
"a user who is known to think about usability alot"
"for the majority of users"


Hopefully we can blame it on "having a bad day", and forget about it.

Sorry, but what kind of artificial relation are you trying to construct here? Do you want me to start a poll? If you want that i will do it - and the stats will agree with me.

By the way - neither you nor musicmusic responded to a single argument by me - i am making founded arguments which have substance but the responses i get do not reflect the same quality - and you are trying to tell me about "the spirit of HA"?

- Lyx

You just basically told me sorting and columns are unrelated actvities. Why does every other list view app have sorting by columns? Windows Explorer?

As for baseless assumptions I see no other conclusion why you would not like having sorting by columns. And do you really not use a "album/content grouping" formatting script? Yes, baseless, I concur.


No. If it works for intended use of Columns UI, then it works for everyone that uses Columns UI as intended.

If you misuse a feature to do something unintended obviously it will not work optimally and cause undesired effects.

I never said what you just said - it seems to me the only one doing the infering here is you.

Lastly, I gave you an idea / something to think about in suggesting that your second proposal could be similar to foo_custom_sort. I really don't see how that caused such a backlash from yourself, it was only a helpful and constructive comment, as to how possibly *your* actual sorting needs could be filled. No, I don't consider removing column sorting part of your sorting needs.


It has nothing to do with any assumptions. Please try and understand what I said, that is, I don't believe a sort dropdown toolbar belongs in the Columns UI component itself. 3rd party panel, fine, that is what the panel API is there for! Do you really think I want Columns UI thread spammed with "I want abc" toolbar? Hint: Here is how you do it!

Excuse me, but I don't understand how my post could have been interpreted as anything other than I am not interested in your suggestion. Apparently you don't like justification..? Truth hurts..?

In addition, personally I consider it slightly rude to just reply "No".

Known by whom? Not me certainly. Who do you really is going to know more about usability, person who designs and writes UI or person who uses it? Hint: Who considers it when designing the UI? Also note consider is the key word there.

No what I said was and/or implied was:
-Your idea is two separate ideas mixed up. 1. removing column sorting. 2. adding toolbar for sorting. You may think I am being pendantic, but only one of those directly related to Columns UI.
-I don't agree with 1.
-I gave a single reason why having column sorting can be useful. Im sorry I didn't take the time to write an essay on it for you.

I have no social design? What does that mean..?

You say I am bad at designing a UI with high usability. But did it occur to you that rather I have a set of aims and objectives, and am targetting other things than usability? Do you really know I couldn't create an awesomely usable UI if I wanted to?

Its not about my strengths and weaknesses but Columns UI's strengths and weaknesses. I don't know why you decided to make it so personal, but anyway it takes more than enough time just reading through posts in this thread, let alone personally reply to all the ones that need replying! So please don't tell me I don't consider suggestions.

In addition, please look at you respnose to a reason I pointed out as to how sorting by a column can be useful.

Ok.. now you say Im bad at UI design. Well shucks, I may as well stop working on foo_ui_columns then!! Yes, that is sarcasm and not a threat before you start accusing me of god-knows-what.

Last but not least, you said "Keeping sorting independent from columns" is a good idea. I think you are deluded if you think having no columns sorting is better for usability. No, it doesn't relate to my social design.

Finally, since you apparently also like bluntness (rudeness) I also think you are deluded for thinking I care about how you spend yout time.

Good day.