NSX-999

[ziege]

This isn't the main skin I've been working on for the last month or so, I'll post that one some other time. This is just something I did while taking a break.

It's based off my old stereo, and I plan to make every control work as close to how it does in real life as possible. It'll prolly undergo a name change and have the brand name removed at some point. Will also include the remote control. Graphics are not yet done but you can see what it'll generally look like, all I've done so far is drawn out some shapes and applyed layer styles, some of which will be replaced with manual brushwork since I have more control that way. The screen hasn't been started yet, it'll just be your basic LCD screen with some reflections.

I imagine if you own this stereo, then this skin would be the coolest thing in the world... but for the other 99.9% I'd be interested to know what you think so far



Oh BTW, I suppose I should do a pre-emptive comment about the size of the thing... the one above is only 75% of the original, and will probably be the default size, although I'm considering having 3 different modes (one bigger and one smaller than the above).

[UUL]

w00t, that's a nice pice of work you got there , if you need help coding this baby, you can contact me (just click the banner in my sig)

- UUL

btw, if you r resizing it like this, ake sure you redo the labels, so they will be read-able

[neoflox]

can you say H-U-G-E.
i would hate to resize a skin so let it like this ^^

[carlosp]

there are better looking HIFI gadgets, look at the JVC website.

[ziege]

Originally posted by UUL
w00t, that's a nice pice of work you got there , if you need help coding this baby, you can contact me

Thanks I'll be okay putting it together and getting it working, but if I want to include any unique MAKI touches that I can't do myself then I'll let u know

Originally posted by carlosp
there are better looking HIFI gadgets, look at the JVC website.

Erm, that's not exactly the point though.

1) Starting from scratch isn't a good suggestion, that would in effect be a completely different skin, even if I did a different stereo I'd still have this one to work on.

2) I don't own those JVC systems, so I don't feel any urge to make them into a skin. The point is that I own this one and it would be cool to have *MY* stereo in digital form, not some better-looking flashy one

3) How could I emulate how the controls work, how the display animates, what the remote is like, what the graphics even look like, from looking at a tiny photograph?

4) The ones on the JVC site are incredibly tacky, have you seen this thing? http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?produ...0000&pathId=13 It looks like a sci-fi kids toy. There are MUCH nicer classy systems around, I would probably create something by a better company (Teac for example) if I were to choose at will.

5) If I did one of those, somebody would probably say "not another silver metallic skin" as I heard in a different thread recently.

...

At least one person likes it

[UUL]

any time

[leechbite]

me likes it too!! great work graphics work there.
just make the labels readable though.

[VAG]

Nice work my friend

PS: I looked at the JVC crap, wtf? in 5 years from now those stereos will look more like an alien than a device...not good. Designers have misunderstood their target, that people puting those stereos on the living room and not on a fancy spaceship :P

LaterZzz

[Naamloos]

Vag, you're forgetting JVC is also sponsoring Star Trek, thus having a lot of Star Trek - like products is good for their selling.

[SLoB]

hey dont knock it, i'd like to live in a cool spacecraft surrounded by cool alienish gadgets
theyve come to take me away haha haha

nice grfx, but the tape deck part is too archaic

[ziege]

Thanks guys

Originally posted by SLoB
nice grfx, but the tape deck part is too archaic

Hehe I haven't used a tape in about 5 years They'll be an option to hide the tape deck part at the bottom (probably the CD part at the top also), but it will have a dark see-through window with tapes barely visible, and the tape-wheels turning around when you press play

And *readable* text.... hmmm good idea! I'd thought of this but there's a few problems, namely the text wouldn't look realistic if I make it readable, and also the actual text doesn't tell you what some of the buttons do anyway, it tells you their secondary function (above Play and Stop is the words Set and Clear). I think the way to keep usability and the same look I'm after, is to have an option to switch between realistic-text or readable-text (just a simple overlay image to turn on/off).

I won't bother posting too many more little updates, will wait until I have something worth showing.

[Krynis]

my sister used to have that stereo O_o it was a peice of crap and dead in less then a year

[Velvet Sledge]

hey good work looks pretty neat, those glowing buttons look a tad too bright though,

*IDEA* how about for shade mode, you use the remote? unless that's what you already intended... but i thought it was cool if that's what you intended,

love the tape decks btw.. i was thinking of doing something similar... but with a really old system... nice work

[neoflox]

my knees are hurting

[SLoB]

rofl, wont ask what your doing on your knees

[ziege]

Originally posted by Krynis
my sister used to have that stereo O_o it was a peice of crap and dead in less then a year

Heh yeah that's the problem, the CD decks on all the Aiwa units from mid-to-late 90s were rubbish and stop working, so there's probably nobody else still using this model. According to google it's a known issue and Aiwa had some legal action against them in the US. The tape deck is buggered on mine too. I don't use CDs or tapes though, just the radio and amplifier (for MP3s), it's about 400w RMS which makes my house shake and that's why I still use it. Too many new stereos have a piddly 200w or something, I can't afford the ones I want so I'll keep using this until the amp gives up on me. Anyways

Originally posted by Velvet Sledge
hey good work looks pretty neat, those glowing buttons look a tad too bright though,

*IDEA* how about for shade mode, you use the remote? unless that's what you already intended... but i thought it was cool if that's what you intended

Yes the glow from the buttons is too exaggerated, I was going by a picture I took with my crappy camera, and on the pic they glow like hell Will reduce it. The remote will probably be too big for a shade mode, but it will have some kind of shade/stick, there's no way I'd force users to only use the super-huge version.

Originally posted by neoflox
my knees are hurting

Why are you...
No, SLoB's right, some things are best left untold

[ziege]

Weeeee I've really suprised myself here and managed not write not only my first script (not just for Winamp), but probably the most complicated script I'll need on the whole skin I really thought I'd have to get UUL or somebody to write this for me. Huge thanks to iPlayTheSpoons for his thread on how to write MAKI scripts, I made this from scratch just after reading his first two scripts in that thread, so he rules. I got it working far better than I thought was possible, it's pretty much identical to the real stereo.

There's one *TINY* problem though, and wondered if someone can help with it please...

I have a MAKI Timer running and am displaying the value of it in my skins timer. The only problem is it displays as 60:00 (minutes) and I'd like it to just show 60. So just MM instead of MM:SS, here's the bit of code I bodged together:

PHP Code:

b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
Timer1.setText(System.integerToTime(b)); 


It's not that big a deal if it has to display MM:SS, would just be nice to get it *exact* to how the real stereo works.

Oh BTW here's my whole script, may as well put it up for critique as well It's a sleep timer script combined with a power button. The user clicks 'sleep' then press's the left/right buttons to change the timer in steps of 10mins, and when nothing is pressed for 5 seconds it accepts the choice then starts the timer. At the end of the timer, the system 'powers off' (lights go off, music stops, etc). I realise there's a lot of show/hide lines, in hindsight I could have put all those items in one group, but I just kept adding more and it's done now so I'll leave it. Also the actions for the sleeptimer turning the power off, and the user pressing the power off manually, are all the same - this is because I don't know how to set that bit of code as a function and just call on it twice, so it's all repeated.

God I type too much Anyway here's the sleep-timer script:

PHP Code:

#include "../../../std.mi"

Global Container MainContainer;
Global Layout NormalLayout;
Global Group NormalGroup;
Global Button SleepButton, SleepLeft, SleepRight, Down, Up, PowerButton, CD1, CD2, CD3, Tape, Tuner, VidAux, CD;
Global Layer SleepIcon, VolumeKnob, DispTextLit;
Global Text Ticker, Timer1;
Global Timer QuickTimer, SleepTimer;
Global Int a, b;

System.onScriptLoaded() { 
    MainContainer = getContainer("main");
    Layout NormalLayout = MainContainer.getLayout("normal");
    NormalGroup = NormalLayout.getObject("player.normal");
    SleepButton = NormalGroup.getObject("sleepbutton"); 
    SleepLeft = NormalGroup.getObject("sleepleft");
    SleepRight = NormalGroup.getObject("sleepright");
    Down = NormalGroup.getObject("down");
    Up = NormalGroup.getObject("up");
    SleepIcon = NormalGroup.getObject("sleepicon");
    DispTextLit = NormalGroup.getObject("disptextlit");
    Ticker = NormalGroup.getObject("songticker");
    Timer1 = NormalGroup.getObject("timer");
    PowerButton = NormalGroup.getObject("power"); 
    CD1 = NormalGroup.getObject("cd1");
    CD2 = NormalGroup.getObject("cd2");
    CD3 = NormalGroup.getObject("cd3");
    Tape = NormalGroup.getObject("tape");
    Tuner = NormalGroup.getObject("tuner");
    VidAux = NormalGroup.getObject("vidaux");
    CD = NormalGroup.getObject("cd");
    VolumeKnob = NormalGroup.getObject("volumeknob");
    SleepLeft.hide();
    SleepRight.hide();
    SleepIcon.hide();
    SleepTimer = new Timer;
    QuickTimer = new Timer;
    SleepTimer.setDelay(3600000);
    a = 1;
}

SleepButton.onLeftButtonUp(int x, int y) {
    QuickTimer.setDelay(5000);
    SleepTimer.start();
    QuickTimer.start();
    Down.hide();
    Up.hide();
    SleepLeft.show();
    SleepRight.show();
    SleepIcon.show();
    Ticker.setText("SLEEP");
    b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
    Timer1.setText(System.integerToTime(b));
}

SleepLeft.onLeftButtonUp(int x, int y) {
    QuickTimer.setDelay(5000);
    SleepTimer.setDelay(b - 600000);
    b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
    Timer1.setText(System.integerToTime(b));
}

SleepRight.onLeftButtonUp(int x, int y) {
    QuickTimer.setDelay(5000);
    SleepTimer.setDelay(b + 600000);
    b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
    Timer1.setText(System.integerToTime(b));
}

QuickTimer.onTimer() {
    SleepLeft.hide();
    SleepRight.hide();
    Down.show();
    Up.show();
    Ticker.setText("");
    Timer1.setText("");    
}

SleepTimer.onTimer() {            
    CD1.hide();
    CD2.hide();
    CD3.hide();
    Tape.hide();
    Tuner.hide();
    VidAux.hide();
    CD.hide();
    VolumeKnob.hide();
    SleepIcon.hide();
    SleepLeft.hide();
    SleepRight.hide();
    Ticker.hide();
    Timer1.hide();
    DispTextLit.hide();
    QuickTimer.stop();
    SleepTimer.stop();
    a = 0;
    system.pause();    
}

PowerButton.onLeftButtonUp(int x, int y) {
    if(a == 1){
    CD1.hide();
    CD2.hide();
    CD3.hide();
    Tape.hide();
    Tuner.hide();
    VidAux.hide();
    CD.hide();
    VolumeKnob.hide();
    SleepIcon.hide();
    SleepLeft.hide();
    SleepRight.hide();
    Ticker.hide();
    Timer1.hide();
    DispTextLit.hide();
    QuickTimer.stop();
    SleepTimer.stop();
    a = 0;
    system.pause();    
    }
    else if(a == 0){
    SleepTimer.setDelay(3600000);
    CD1.show();
    CD2.show();
    CD3.show();
    Tape.show();
    Tuner.show();
    VidAux.show();
    CD.show();
    VolumeKnob.show();
    Ticker.show();
    Timer1.show();
    DispTextLit.show();
    a = 1;
    system.play();    
    }
} 


Edit: Oh I just thought of another easy question, how can I hide the Vis? I'm not sure what kind of Global to give it, Layer or AnimatedLayer or what?

[Boricuaso]

Originally posted by ziege
At the end of the timer, the system 'powers off' (lights go off, music stops, etc).

[/B]

by that you mean it powers the computer too? or just winamp?

if it power the computer too that would be greate!

[ziege]

I really wish I could make it switch off the Computer Power (that would be so cool), or even close Winamp, but I don't think either of those are possible in MAKI What this does is just stops/pauses the music (like Wils old sleep-timer script, and the one in Boom), but it also does a 'fake power off' which is hard to explain, but basically it's just for show. The skin comes alive and lights up when you press the 'power' back on again.

[frisbeemonkey]

Make use of the strLeft() function to get the left N characters of a string. In your case, you'd want to use something like:

PHP Code:

b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
Timer1.setText(System.strLeft(System.integerToTime(b), 2)); 


This would take the leftmost 2 characters of "MM:SS", yielding "MM".

Hope this helps,
~FrisbeeMonkey

PS. I was seeing some weird behaviors from string operations before, so if you have trouble with this, try making a temp string and then setting the text to that.

[UUL]

ahm, don't know excactly what you want but i guess this is what you need (if your highest value is 60 minutes (and your lowest under 10))

code:
b = SleepTimer.getDelay();

string c = integertotime(b);

if(strlen(c) == 5) {

Timer1.setText(Strleft(c, 2));

} else {

Timer1.setText(Strleft(c, 1));

}

edit: Frisbee, you beat me

[ziege]

Man that was super-quick Frisbee (and UUL!), it worked great too, thank you I would have never found that out on my own.

Edit: Oh wait, it just occured to me that when you get to 100 minutes it will show as 10, damn =/ Any easy way around that, or is it more hassle than it's worth? I guess what I need is a command that will hide the last two digits instead of one that just shows the first two.

[UUL]

Originally posted by ziege
I really wish I could make it switch off the Computer Power (that would be so cool), or even close Winamp, but I don't think either of those are possible in MAKI

closing winamp is easy, just make a dummybutton, hide it sumwhere, and add dummybutton.leftclick(); when winamp has to be shut down

don't know for shutting down the computer. there's a command line to shut down the computer, so if you put in a browser, hide it, and change the Url when computer has to shut down.

The only prob is that the command line isn't always the same...

Originally posted by ziege
Oh wait, it just occured to me that when you get to 100 minutes it will show as 10, damn =/ Any easy way around that, or is it more hassle than it's worth? I guess what I need is a command that will hide the last two digits instead of one that just shows the first two.

code:
b = SleepTimer.getDelay();

string c = integertotime(b);

if(strlen(c) == 6) {

Timer1.setText(Strleft(c, 3));

if(strlen(c) == 5) {

Timer1.setText(Strleft(c, 2));

} else {

Timer1.setText(Strleft(c, 1));

}

[frisbeemonkey]

UUL brings up a good point though, if you are ever gonna have just "M:SS" you should check for the length and only grab one.

Just saw your edit too, you can also check for "MMM:SS" and take the left 3 as well.

An easy way might be to use: string System.getToken(string str, string separator, int tokennum);

Using values like
System.getToken(System.integerToTime(b), ":", 0); To get the first string of characters before the first colon. If '0' doesn't work, try '1', but I think the index starts at zero. This method would get any number of M's before the ":SS" w/o using any if/then/elses.

Play around with that and see if that works for ya
~FrisbeeMonkey

[edit]PS. Another easy version would be:

PHP Code:

b = SleepTimer.getDelay();
Timer1.setText(System.strLeft(System.integerToTime(b), strLen(System.integerToTime(b))-3)); 


[/edit]

[UUL]

look up

edit: edited it like 10 times

[ziege]

It works like a dream now
I prolly say this way too much here, but, thanks!

closing winamp is easy, just make a dummybutton, hide it sumwhere, and add dummybutton.leftclick(); when winamp has to be shut down

don't know for shutting down the computer. there's a command line to shut down the computer, so if you put in a browser, hide it, and change the Url when computer has to shut down.

The only prob is that the command line isn't always the same...

Now you mentioned the dummy button thing I actually remember finding that out already, I just didn't get around to trying it yet

The closing the computer thing is interesting, I hadn't thought of doing it like that. As you say the shutdown command isn't always the same though, it would depend on the users O/S. I could perhaps do several browsers and make them all do the commands for 98/2000/XP/etc, or if it doesn't work I can just make it XP only... hmm! I'll put it on my list of things to try out

[ziege]

I found the instruction manual There's tons of drawings in it I could use for reference, but my scanner has decided to stop working, so I had to just do this pic by hand looking at the manual. Took over an hour, I was planning to do the entire manual but that might be a bit crazy time-wise... besides each page will likely add 80kb onto the size of the skin, so I'll try keeping it to a minimum.



I also added some extra functionality to the sleep timer/power button. Now you can right-click the power on/off and see the same effect without the music stopping, and the sleep timer is limited within 10-to-240 minutes. The two last features listed on the above pic ('check remaining time' and 'cancel') aren't in the script yet. I forgot they existed until I read the manual.

Am also thinking about letting the user turn the unit around to see the back (Propellerheads Reason proggie has this), where I would have a control panel with any advanced settings such as the one about it closing XP and turning off the comp.

[UUL]

manual looks good try searching on the internet, maybe you'll find the whole manual

UUL

[ziege]

Ta

I'm stuck again! Is it possible to display how much time has passed on the current timer? Everything else is done, but when you check the remaining time all it does for now is shows the value for getDelay()

Say I set the timer for 10 minutes, I wait 9 minutes then check the remaining time, it will still say 10 minutes even though the timer runs out a minute later.

In std.mi it has these:

extern Timer.onTimer();
extern Timer.setDelay(int millisec);
extern Int Timer.getDelay();
extern Timer.start();
extern Timer.stop();
extern Timer.isRunning();
extern Int Timer.getSkipped();

I've used all of those apart from the last 2 - I guess isRunning() just returns a 1 or 0, but I have no clue what getSkipped() does. I searched here but nobodys ever mentioned it before. I hoped it would show how many minutes have passed, but it always returns 00:00

Anyone know what getSkipped() is supposed to do? Or how I can display the remaining time?

[Velvet Sledge]

with your shut down problem... shutting down windows that is, there's a whole selection of software, mostly freeware that does what you want, if you can get maki to run this program, then you should be able to shut down your machine via winamp. if you don't like this, then you should be able to find somewhere on the net that'll tell you how to do it...

Try here for starters

adios

[UUL]

Originally posted by ziege
Ta

I'm stuck again! Is it possible to display how much time has passed on the current timer? Everything else is done, but when you check the remaining time all it does for now is shows the value for getDelay()

Say I set the timer for 10 minutes, I wait 9 minutes then check the remaining time, it will still say 10 minutes even though the timer runs out a minute later.

If you want it to work that way, you shouldn't use the delay function, but sumthing like this:

code:
int sleepvalue = 60;

int sleepvalue2 = 0;

sleeptimer.setdelay(60000); <-- that's one minute in msecondes, right? 





SleepTimer.onTimer() {

 if(sleepvalue-1 == sleepvalue2) { 

    CD1.hide();

    CD2.hide();

    CD3.hide();

    Tape.hide();

    Tuner.hide();

    VidAux.hide();

    CD.hide();

    VolumeKnob.hide();

    SleepIcon.hide();

    SleepLeft.hide();

    SleepRight.hide();

    Ticker.hide();

    Timer1.hide();

    DispTextLit.hide();

    QuickTimer.stop();

    SleepTimer.stop();

    a = 0;

    system.pause();    

  } else {

    sleepvalue2 = sleepvalue2 + 1;

} 

for you timer text you now just can use

code:
Timer1.setText(integertostring(sleepvalue - sleepvalue2));

to change the sleep value, change sleepvalue to the desired minutes

UUL

[leechbite]

or to be more accurate, use the system clock. save the last system time when you start the sleep function then just constantly check on the new system time and do a difference, that should give you elapsed time.

[ziege]

Fantastic Works great.

leechbite your method would have been the easiest way to do it, and it would be more accurate since it goes by the second, but I decided not to use the clock. I'm only showing it in minutes anyway so accuracy doesn't matter, and I thought using the system clock may introduce other bugs - such as if the user changes the time, or XP updates the time and it changes by a few mins, or the daylight saving makes the clock go back/forward by an hour - it would make the remaining time wrong.

So I used UULs method, it took me a while to understand and meant I needed to re-write lots of other lines, but in the end it works out best. Now in my code I'm dealing with minutes instead of milliseconds, I've got rid of all the getDelays, and it turns out I no longer need that thing I got help with the other day (where I wanted it to just show minutes and not seconds).

Thanks both of you though, either way would have worked pretty good, and I had no clue how to go about doing it

Originally posted by Velvet Sledge
with your shut down problem... shutting down windows that is, there's a whole selection of software, mostly freeware that does what you want, if you can get maki to run this program, then you should be able to shut down your machine via winamp. if you don't like this, then you should be able to find somewhere on the net that'll tell you how to do it...

I'll only include it if I can do it without the user needing seperate software. I'm sure I remember reading a few years ago that you can type something into the address bar of IE to close a windows computer... but I've searched for a while and can't find it. All I found is "shutdown -s" which you type from the command prompt. So if anyone knows what you can type in the browser to execute shutdown, lemme know.

[SLoB]

thats not a good thing imo
think of the wave of idiots creating skins with browser windows to shutdown windows etc..
dont think any1 would be too please with that lol

[ziege]

True, but that's why we have skin reviewers to check them before they go on the site Granted that wouldn't help for ppl posting their skins on the forum. There's probably lots of other malicious things someone could do by directing the user to a URL. It would make the timer more useful if it could switch off the comp instead of just stopping the music though, wouldn't you agree?

[Wildrose-Wally]

At one time a certain skinner submitted skins with his url in the browser, and they caused a good number of very annoying pop-ups. The skins did get published however, but not until I had changed all the urls to www.winamp.com.

However, the most annoying for a reviewer is if by checking out a skin, you click on buttons, and one of those buttons will bring up the skinner's or especially sponsor's (on sponsored skins) website, wiping out the skin review page I would be on at that time. Very annoying and not very good to get your skin published on time.

It is not as bad now anymore with the new site, but before winamp5, I would not be able to get back to that skin to publish it.

[ziege]

Originally posted by wildrose-wally
However, the most annoying for a reviewer is if by checking out a skin, you click on buttons, and one of those buttons will bring up the skinner's or especially sponsor's (on sponsored skins) website, wiping out the skin review page I would be on at that time. Very annoying and not very good to get your skin published on time.

Ah, I'm not sure if this will be helpful or not but there's something you can do to stop any programs from opening links and taking away the page you were viewing. This used to annoy me for years and I didn't realise but you can switch it off in IE. In the advanced options, you can untick "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts", which is one of the first things I do when reinstalling XP

I have a question about the featured skins Wally, if you're still about You said a couple weeks ago that any brand names or copyrighted pics skins means it can never be featured. I'm cool with that, but I'm wondering if I submit this skin when it's done and I remove the 'aiwa' logo's and all the references to things like Dolby,BBE,etc and I give it an original name, would it qualify for a possible featured skin or still be too risky? And do you think I would have any chance at all of getting Aiwa to give me permission to release it with the logos?

[Wildrose-Wally]

Take a look at this skin:
FusionAmp WA-2
At one time it sported the Sony label. The question of trademarks came up one time, and I wrote to Sony about using their name. In short, request denied, name was changed.
It became a featured skin on March 7, 2002, just because one of the people at Nullsoft liked its usability.


(It was still called FusionAmp DFX-5 at that time.)

[ziege]

Lots of new stuff, gonna put this all in one long post.

In an attempt to become Mr.Jones favourite skin, it's starting to get packed with cool animations and little features that a skin probably doesn't really need, increasing file size and taking up CPU - I'm still working on getting it to make the toast though.

First off, the tape deck is done, and I got a bit carried away now that I've learnt some MAKI. Originally the plan was to have the wheels moving when the music plays, which it does. But it now has a seperate animation in the middle playing much slower, to show how much of the tape has been wound. After about 20-30 mins (depending on your timer resolution), the tape reaches the end of Side A, auto-reverse kicks in, and it goes back the other way, and so on It pauses the animation when you press Pause, it rewinds to the start when you press Stop or Previous, and it fast forwards when you press Next. I'm really happy with it, but it was an awful lot of detail for something ppl might not even notice. Oh well, I skin for myself and I notice so that's okay. You will be able to toggle between which tape deck moves, and be able to turn off the animations completely.



I've also attempted to replicate the T-Bass, BBE and Karaoke functions from the stereo. Since I don't think it's possible to access reverb/delay in winamp, these functions are just simple things that alter the EQ. There's a 4-step T-Bass, 4-Step BBE (Treble), and 2-step Karaoke (works by removing the mid frequencies, not much use but then it isn't on the real thing either). The Bass/Treble are more useful than on some skins, since EQ is turned on automatically when they're clicked, you don't have to remember to do that manually. Lot's more stuff planned for the EQ if I can manage it, such as programmable presets.



Here's a (very) early drawing of the remote control, just to give you an idea of the size and shape, no detail has been added yet.



Another two pages of the manual got finished, the front and back covers. Not very exciting but they're very accurate




As promised the text is now switchable between 'realistic' and 'readable'. The default being readable with the idea people can swap to the better-looking realistic text once they know where the buttons are. The main player is also now switchable between 3 different sizes (full size not shown because ppl who run at under 1152*864 would freak out). When the skin first starts it will ask the user which size they would like, and remember that setting. Here's a pic of the medium and small sizes with the readable text. I'm not sure if it's readable enough but it will do for now. They look very ugly to me, and I'll be swapping some of the text for icons instead (such as close, repeat, shuffle), at the moment it looks like somebody went crazy writing all over them...




To further satisfy the needs of extra screen space, you can now switch off different parts of the player, a toggle button cycles through the 4 modes.



In some of the pics you can see the cursor control on the right of the unit (the up/down/left/right buttons). These also control the look of the player. The left/right buttons cycle through all the colour themes, while the up/down buttons cycle through 4 different sets of images for the background, totally changing the look and allowing hundreds of style/colour combinations. Below is an example of one of the temporary styles and colours.



Lastly, I haven't been able to get the computer to shut down on the Sleep Timer yet. It *almost* works apart from one thing, Internet Explorer will open a dialog box asking if you want to run the script, and only when you click 'Yes' does the computer shut down. It needs to be automated to be of any use, so the current method is no good. I've tried lowering my security level in IE but it doesn't help (not that it would have been a good workaround anyway). So I'm still looking for any ideas/info on getting the comp to shutdown.

Too much other little bits to list, such as the lights now fade on when the skin starts, every button updates its status in the songticker (no clicking a button and wondering what you just did), repeat/sleep/shuffle/crossfade/etc all have icons to show their status, I've even written in a little debugger which I used to help me earlier with the tape animations.

Further plans include making a playlist/avs/medialibrary in a drawer that opens to cover the tape-deck part, since it seems every skin has to have a playlist in it now, and it would make use of some of the wasted space. The stick-mode and another 'mini-mode' (which may resemble an old tape walkman) still to come.

Phew, that's it. MAKI should be kept away from me I think, it's addictive.

[Velvet Sledge]

i saw a stereo yesterday that'd make a KICK ASS winamp skin.. i think it was a phillips stereo, i saw it at myers, it was a mini hifi system, the speaker boxes were a dark oak-like timber, the system display had a brushed metal look, and the dials were a very higly polished metal (look) with a mauve light surround... looked awesome... i might try and find a pic to show yas all... just for the hell of it, since we're talking about cloning stereos... well... we are now.