Damn... I HAD a bit bigger version of the font, but I think I must have deleted it without thinking enoug... I think I can try to find (or even make) the bit bigger version if you want/need it. I think I myself may need it when I get home in a week. I like the font's size at 1024x768 (which I use here), but at home I use 1600x1200 and it might be a bit too little for me, too

EDIT: Ok, here's the font, now in two sizes, 8 and 9. I believe 9 should be big enough for you people and didn't bother to make even bigger sizes. Anyone of you who has done bitmap fonts know it's quite boring... But let me know if you want it even bigger and I think I can do it.
The font

EDIT2: Crap.. There are some little glitches in the font using size 9. I'll update it soon.

EDIT3: Ok I think all the glitches are gone. Just redownload the font. If you notice any more glitches just let me know.

didn't notice u updated the post
this is much better than size 8....
B)

Thanks for posting that Font as well. Was kind of looking for something similar a few pages back in this thread. Finally it's here. (Am sure you'll enjoy it when you get home, it looks great at 1600 * 1200)

Does, or has, anyone come up with a way to have :B seperate what directory folder the files are in are using the code from anza?

Example: For every root folder is there a way to have a line, or something, that at least gives you a hint to where the files are when just scrolling through all files?

Maybe below will help...

G:\Music\MP3 Files
G:\Music\Downloaded Files
G:\Music\MPC Files

I don't lump every file I have into one folder. I think it would be handy when scrolling through a few thousand files to have something that hints which root folder you're viewing.

Just a thought.

It depends a bit on how you have organized your files. If they're like this:
"G:\Music\MP3 Files\Artist\Album" etc, then it's easy.
Just change the 4 to a 5 here:

and add this line after the one with date and genre stuff:


There are also a few other ways to do this, but this is maybe the easiest if all your files are organized the same way.

@billcow, I have uploaded my syntax file. It's based on reverse engeneering, but it works.
If you improve it, I would be thankful if you could post it.
syntax file
This talk about "ad-blocking proxy", was that something I should have understood?
As for new things to make for foobar. If you have the skills to make a plugin I would like to have the ability to rate tracks. I could do it without a plugin by using %SONGRATING% and %ALBUMRATING% tags or something, but a rightclick menu would make it alot easier. I have never used rating before, but tags with that info could be useful to extend the playlist info.

@pootify, I would like to have that alternative color scheme, could you post the code for playlist and status bar?

@dan83, You are partly right about single tracks. The design is made for use with complete albums, but if you have single track that doesn't belong to a complete album you can use the %SINGLETRACK% tag and set it to whatever you want. This way a single song will display ok, but you have to deside if a track should display nicely alone or as a part of an album.

this is absolutely the same thing happening....

well, i'm more interested in that font that you're using what is that?

I wouldn't mind seeing the code....

On a side note concerning the last track tag, will I need to go add that to every album I have? That's a pretty intense undertaking....

How can I get rid of the "Genre" field from upNorth's script? thanx

upNorth: The ad-blocking proxy was just a random musing for anyone interested. As for the syntax file, I actually wanted to make a VIM syntax file and wanted to use yours to compare the results with while I worked on it. (I used to use Textpad before I switched to VIM after a long stint with linux).

As for coding plugins, it's something I would probably be capable of doing, but at the moment I don't have a C(++) compiler installed, so for the moment I would prefer things that can be done fairly simply with Perl (I'm learning the language as I go). The chief problem I have is that most of the things I would want to do can't be done with regular expressions alone (macros and loops, specifically). I'm thinking of maybe trying to use m4 (an open-source macro language) along with a regular expression-based engine to generate formatting strings, using m4 for loops and macros and the regexp engine to make math easier to debug.

leland: I actually changed the code to make it look good without lasttrack tags. I don't have the code available at the moment, but the gist of it is that I changed the characters on either side of the first track number from L-type lines to T-type lines. I figure the first part seperates the albums well enough that the extra seperation doesn't matter.

Most parts of the script is not made by me, I've only customized it to my taste and needs.
Thx to Daelus, tama and nuhi for the rest.

@manticore:
I removed Date, Genre and Disc.
You can download it here: Light version
I hope got rid of everything...


Edit: spelling

I modified it and created this "minimalist" version, for all you minimalists out there

[mumbles] I think I am the only minimalists here! [/mumbles]

billcow, thanks for the tips - the next time i need a brain break i'll take a crack at seeing what i can do with your idea. if it works well, i'll post...that said, don't expect anything...

upNorth... a newbie question
errr... and how i use your code plz...
where shall i put it?
thanks

@anza

Already a 5 there. So I left that line alone.

Other one works good as well. Now, if I may, how could a guy change the color of the directory shown to contrast with the rest?

(Don't know where to look, but can figure out a color once pointed out.)

And thanks.

hey upnorth i love ur formating and use it since older versions
but i wonder where is the %preformer% stuff?
i have many house compilations and soundtracks .. it would be nice if u can put back into it..
or is there now a other method?

support for xx/xx track numbers would be nice too
so the last track tag is not needed

ok working after i put in a VARIOUS tag ;D
how i can add a album artist?
i like the dj name more then the "various artist"

something like
if %album artist% artist_text=%album artist%
elseif %various% artist_text=Various Artist
else artist_text=%artist%

i dont know how i write this in the formating lang ;D anyone can help?

Well, the colors are specified on the top of the code and you can always add more there (or wherever you want, I just like too keep them at the same place). After selecting which one to use, just put a $get(<COLOR>) after the $get(SEP3), like this:

$get(SEP3)$get(YELLOW)$padcut('Dir: \'$directory(%_path%,3),$get(WIDTH)),

It should work.

@Luxus:
Now I've added %performer% and %album artist% again.
%performer% will do the same as %various%, and what it says doesn't matter as long as it's there.
%album artist% can be used for DJ compilations as before.
"Compilation" will not show up as it did in an earlier version, but is does the same.
Playlist code

As I've said before, the vertical "Foobar2000" graphics can be turned off at the start of the code. It's only something I did for fun.
No support for xx/xx tracknumbers, maybe later...

I'll be very busy the next two months or so, and because of that foobar2000 will not have a high priority, apart from listening.

have made a couple of additions - mainly to allow more complex metadata combinations (damn format strings are getting to hard to maintain )

now uses :
%variousartists%, %variouscomposers%, %composer%, %compiledby%, %albumartist%, %program%, %vocals%, plus the usual

added support for double width characters (only had it working with MS Gothic - the other fixed width fonts don't seem to make double width characters 2 characters wide)

added support for track 0 (i guess music before the start of track 1 is track 0?)

my colors still suck though lol

screenshot
code

Bringing you more fancy coloring in the billcow tradition:

screenshot
playlist code
statusbar code

Pretty much the same visually as my last config except for the color fade. However, there are some bugfixes too - the old version got screwed up with fields that didn't fit - they are now clipped.

this is nice..
the non-eng characters can be displayed proprly with ProFontWindows from anza
i noticed that if there is one song of the album which the artist is different to the others
can cause the alignment errors....
hmm
maybe i should fixup the id3 tags are first.. B)

Is there any way to disable the playlist selection highlight? Setting the playlist selection and selected item frame to all black helps, but it still affects the colours beneath and isn't an ideal solution. It'd be nice to be able to disable it or set it to transparent somehow. (I could have sworn one of the earlier versions had an option to disable the highlight, but I may be mistaken...)

@anza

Thanks again. Pretty sure I get what you mean with colors. Now to test it out.

PS - Very nice job with this.

quad: instead of doing (weird symbol)BBGGRR(weird symbol) for the color do "(weird symbol)BBGGRR|BBGGRR(weird symbol)" for the same colors when selected, or "(weird symbol)B1G1R1|B2G2R2(weird symbol)" for different colors than an inversion of the original.

and secondly:

.
.
.

New code! Yay!!!!! It's a simplistic rip-off of the infamous upNorth code, this time for variable-width fonts with box-drawing characters (aka those straight line thingies). I'm not doing all the fancy tag stuff - I don't use 'em, so if you want that, do it yourself, ya lazy son-of-a-gun. Seriously though - it's not nearly as elegant as the upNorth code, but it works fuh-ine for me, which means it doesn't need any special tags. If it doesn't look good with your font, just look for a different font. There are quite a few that work that come with windows, so look around for one you like that does.

screenshot
code

I like it. And would love to see how you did it. Thanks very much!

oh yeah, for those of you who wanted the code for this layout:

click here for the code

someone was asking to make these scripts detect the last track automatically if your tracknumber is stored in an xx/xx format.. here's a code snippet that'll do that..



..and then just replace all occurences of %lasttrack% with $gets(lasttrack) (or even $or($gets(lasttrack),%lasttrack%) if you wanted to be fancy.)

EDIT: i need to learn to type. corrected a typo in the code that made this not work.

I second that. I'd like the b&w position-bar in the status-bar too...

I fell in love with pootify's colors immediately when I saw them and I just had to change my formatting a bit to match those colors That green is just something so neutral and looks great, unlike black..

Code+notes: http://koti.mbnet.fi/antsau/foobar/formatt...tting_green.zip (just open the .fb2k files in any text editor)
Screenshot: http://koti.mbnet.fi/antsau/foobar/pic/greenish.png

I've tweaked Jan's code to use a custom FORCETRACK tag to format albums that are missing one or more tracks at the start of the album.

[URL=http://members.shaw.ca/mcramer1/foobar 030612.gif]screenshot[/URL]
[URL=http://members.shaw.ca/mcramer1/foobar code.txt]code[/URL]

In the screenshot you see that the live Japan album is missing the first 2 tracks. I want the playlist to format Track 3 as the first track, so I add a %forcetrack% tag with the value 1. Tracks 4 and 5 are assigned values of 2 and 3 respectively, and the playlist formats them as the second and third tracks.

The code needs a lot of cleaning up, but it illustrates a concept that works well for me.

Edit: Sorry, I can't get this post to show active links.

I was thinking how should I do the same thing (albums with songs missing), and I think you solved it, thanks

EDIT: Ok, updated my script to use %faketracknr%. Further instructions are in the zip file. Also, it now uses %singletrack% as I found it more useful than %fullalbum%. If you already have tagged your albums with %fullalbum% tag, you can change all occurences of "$not(%singletrack%)" to "%fullalbum%", or you can sort all your files by %fullalbum% and then add %singletrack% to all songs that need it and remove the %fullalbum% tag, the choice is yours

Download: still the same link

Glad I could contribute something useful. I was reluctant to use yet another custom tag, but it seems to be the only way to deal with incomplete albums.

Do you or others, have some thoughts on the drawbacks of using custom tags?

Custom tags aren't a problem IMHO, mainly because of foobar's powerful masstagger. I find them actually really useful, at least for all of us who make these formatting strings. We "designers" can (or even should?) use them to get the formatting look exactly what we want. If one doesn't want to tag his/her files, then it's his own problem, and shouldn't use formatting that "needs" custom tags.

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, have been a bit busy. Here is the script for the "Playlist" only.

Updated foobar and decided to make a new theme.. Took some ideas from previous posts and created this -> screenshot.

Quite simple one. My files don't have %lasttrack% or num/num so the code isn't using them.

Edit: made a nice progress bar with Tahoma font (Lucida is just so ugly in statusbar ). Some people seem to have got rid of those extra boxes in statusbar, how could it be made?

Oh, all I meant is that I thought it would be more elegant if I could figure out a way to format the incomplete albums without a custom tag -- a bit of a challenge, you might say. ;-) Beyond that I have no problems with extra tags.

anza

[cut]

edited:
it is so bitter to be both stupid and blind.
thanks god not deaf yet.

Screenshot

Basically it is UpNorth's code that I modified to my personal tastes. I removed the genre and some other things internally and slightly changed the way things are viewed. Then obviously changed the color scheme to something that I'm still not quite content with (but getting closer). Once I get back from vacation I am going to modify some more things (like a real progress bar).


Also, if anyone is interested, I have created a very simple Textpad syntax highlighting script. For some reason it doesn't correctly handle the %, | or weird block character like I'd like. Though I haven't actually looked into having it do it how I want. There is still a lot of work that I could to it (like adding some of the tech info keywords, and maybe more common metadata info), it does turn lots of text into somewhat easier to read text. Anyways, I present to you my Textpad syntax file.

To install you just save it and toss it into your Textpad/system folder. Then make a "New Document Class" and when it asks for the syntax highlighting select the fb2k.syn file and check the "enable syntax highlighting" box. Then you can also play around the colors to your own personal choice.

[URL=http://members.shaw.ca/mcramer1/foobar 030613.gif]screenshot[/URL]
[URL=http://members.shaw.ca/mcramer1/code 030613.txt]code[/URL]

Tweaked Jan's code further. For collections I set %artist% to "Various" and use a %band% tag for individual artists. Setting colors and lucinda characters is now easier with variables at the top of the code.

This is my string for playlist. (It is quite huge, but completely feeds my needs. It also display great with randomized playlists)

I tried to create a smart string, it guesses (and matches) many things and arrange them quite nicely.
(At least with my collection)
I hope you will enjoy it. (PM me!)

COLORS:
playlist background color: 24, 22, 72
playlist selection color: 30, 60,120
selected item frame: 178,178,185

PLAYLIST FONTS: (choose one)
narrow: Terminal, 9pt
small: Sheldon narrow, 9pt
normal: Onuava, 9 pt
large: Simsun, 12pt (http://www.langlab.jhu.edu/SIMSUN.TTF)

FEATURES:
It tries to guess the year using %year%, %date% and the directory name.
It looks for the string "(2001)" in the directory name

It displays the codec used and the bitrate (as 192 or 3M if >999kbps) (with rounding)
The bitrate is a gradient from red to yellow to green to show the quality. mpc 158 > ogg 160 > mp3 192 !
It also handles mono and non<44Khz files
If the codec is unknown, it displays its name, and doesn't use color to display the bitrate

It tries to guess the track number from %tracknumber% and the file name.
It looks at the 3 first characters of the file name, avoiding to get confused by >100 track (I have som track ordered 201 to tell track #1 from cd #2)

If TITLE and ALBUM are present, it displays them with proportional lengths.
If Title is very different to the filename, it displays both.
If YEAR is not tagged, nor guessed, it uses more space to show the title. Same for Tracknumber.

If no TITLE present, it display the filename and the directory name.
If it guessed informations in the file/directory name, it does not display them twice !

It displays the time as 1:23 or 17m for >9:99 songs. (with rounding)
If ReplayGain is not present, the time is shown in RED.

BY THE WAY:
How to test if a string is >=0 ???? I did if (ST>0 or strcmp(ST,0) ).
REQUESTED FEATURES:
TAGZ: $ifgreaterorequal or $ascii(x) or $isint($x).
GUI: playlist autoscroll when dragging item inside the playlist

Screenshot
Code

could you post an adress to your code...?
i'll be glad

Sure. Something to take into consideration..
- does not use %lasttrack% or anything => does not work well with single tracks / albums with less than 3 tracks
- bitrate is taken from directory name. can easily be replaced with %__bitrate%, though.

Font Lucida Console, statusbar font Tahoma.
Selection 5, 55, 0
Frame 11, 85, 0

screenshot
statubar code
playlist code

I hope it will work well, people seem to have problems with some fonts' special chars...

edit: Some minor changes, a new stupid vertical foobar text before track lengths.

Is there any documentation for the TAGZ stuff or atleast a document with a list of diferent tags that can be used?

Documentation: Check the help button in the title formatting page of the prefs.

Tags: Check the file info box. TAG_NAME=[STUFF] TAG_NAME corresponds to %tag name% in Title Formatting.

Enjoy: Enjoy.

$if($strcmp($left(%tag%,1),-),true stuff,false stuff)

@ammpa
thx a lot....
my statusbar looks good......finally..

It won't work if %tag% is not a number.
--> it will report it is >=0

So it looks like I've gotten myself into a project which is a bit too time consuming for me, especially considering I'm soon leaving the country for a month and a half. I put together a basic web page which can be used share playlist, statusbar, etc formatting scripts. You can view the functional, but without content version of it here.

I'm basically willing to give it away in hopes that someone would be willing to put time into collecting and posting the scripts in a much easier to navigate system than this thread is turning into. I've even included some short instructions on how to maintain the site (not to mention you can PM me to ask anything). The whole page is included in the following file: Ff2kWeb10.zip. It has been written in simple HTML, without the use of frontpage or dreamweaver.

Anyways, even if my specific page outline doesn't get utilized, I think it would be very worthwile to have a separate page dedicated to formatting strings (much like the GUI thread did with "foobar Looks"). As it is now 4:17am, I'm going to bed, good day all.

~Alfred Ska