Windows 7 Taskbar Integration plugin v2.0 (14/11/2011)

[TheSaw]

I made a plugin that integrates Winamp with the new taskbar of Windows 7, exploiting the features of it. More information, screen shots and the installer is available at:

Link: Project page

Feel free to post bugs / suggestions here.


Project page is at: http://code.google.com/p/win7shell/

[mynameisnobody]

very cool!
will use it for sure, as soon as i get win7!

[cengizhan]

Thank you. Is it possible to display album art ?

[Chris000001]

Thanks for this. Seems to work pretty well, although I do see a small window called dummymessageb... that says You shouldn't see this that immediately closes when I first open Winamp.

[Hanschke]

niche idee

[TheSaw]

Originally posted by cengizhan
Thank you. Is it possible to display album art ?

It is, but Winamp doesn't offer support for it's development, so I have no idea how to get the album art. As soon as I find out how to do that, I will add the feature. Actually it was my initial goal, but I changed to this since i couldn't do that.

Originally posted by Chris000001
Thanks for this. Seems to work pretty well, although I do see a small window called dummymessageb... that says You shouldn't see this that immediately closes when I first open Winamp.

There were 2 important bugs, including the one you mentioned, both are fixed now, please download the current version, and sorry for the trouble

[Chris000001]

Thanks again. It seems to work perfectly now. This should come with Winamp.

[net-cruizer]

I tried this plugin twice, and my popup window above the taskbar icon looks nothing like the screenshot on this page.
I don't get the play/pause, etc. etc. buttons showing, and the text is all messed up.
Sure looks like a cool plugin if it worked.
I'm using windows 7, and my taskbar is set the default way for it, just like in the screenshot. WMP shows the controls.

[TheSaw]

Originally posted by net-cruizer
I tried this plugin twice, and my popup window above the taskbar icon looks nothing like the screenshot on this page.
I don't get the play/pause, etc. etc. buttons showing, and the text is all messed up.
Sure looks like a cool plugin if it worked.
I'm using windows 7, and my taskbar is set the default way for it, just like in the screenshot. WMP shows the controls.

You can post bugs and suggestions here:
ht tp://code.google.com/p/win7shell/issues/entry

If you want to, I'll be glad to look into it, but I'd need more information about your windows 7 build, language, winamp version, and maybe some screenshots with the messed up thumbnail.

[net-cruizer]

I reinstalled a 3rd time, and all is good now, thanx.
Sweet plug-in by the way, great job.

[TheSaw]

I'm happy it works

Feel free to suggest features / modifications.

[Chris000001]

I may have had another bug (it may just be my computer/Winamp install. So far, not reproducible.) I started Winamp and when I hovered the taskbar icon, the player control buttons didn't show up. I checked the prefs and it was still checked to add the buttons, so I unselected it and reselected it (it tells you that you have to restart Winamp, so I did after re-selecting.) The second start up had the four squares for the buttons, but no icons in the buttons. The buttons still worked without icons. Later I restarted Winamp a third time and now everything is back to normal.

I thought I'd report this just in case it happens to other people then maybe it is a bug in the plug-in.

My settings from winamp.ini in case that is helpful.
010201000300050101000100010000000000000101010101010000000E00000024

Still loving this plug-in!

[TheSaw]

Hm, I didn't experience this, but it might happen in case the icons can't be loaded from the .dll. I'll try your settings just in case.

Anyways, I'll have a new update out tomorrow, with some extra features, will post here.

[cengizhan]

Another taskbar button pops up near start button and it is not placed alongside other buttons. after this you cant click anywhere in winamp. It happenned when i have locked the computer and then unlocked.

i am using windows 7 final and free launch bar 64 bit.

[TheSaw]

New update!

- Lots of minor bugfixes / compatibility issues
- You can now select a custom background picture for the thumbnail (it will be stretched)
- The thumbnail automatically resizes depending on the number of text lines

See screenshots and get the installer from:
ht tp://code.google.com/p/win7shell/

P.S. Winamp staff doesn't accept my plugin because Windows 7 isn't officially released yet. Douchebags imo.

Originally posted by cengizhan
Another taskbar button pops up near start button and it is not placed alongside other buttons. after this you cant click anywhere in winamp. It happenned when i have locked the computer and then unlocked.

i am using windows 7 final and free launch bar 64 bit.

I can't reproduce the bug, I'm using Windows 7 RTM 64 bit. Maybe it has something to do with the launch bar?

[net-cruizer]

Sweet, thanx!!

[Good_Bytes]

Super cool!
Congrads! I truly love it.
Keep up the superb work you have done!

We might had to wait for Win10 for Winamp to have it integrated, I mean it still doesn't properly support Vista.

It has it's share of bugs, but I look forward for future versions.

[Saturn2K]

This is utterly fantastic. As for the cover art display, can you pull out the information about where the MP3 is stored? If you can get that, and have it search for the image in that folder, that should solve it. Even if you have to pick a predefined name and format for the album art, I'd gladly convert all of mine for this plugin.

[TheSaw]

Originally posted by Saturn2K
This is utterly fantastic. As for the cover art display, can you pull out the information about where the MP3 is stored? If you can get that, and have it search for the image in that folder, that should solve it. Even if you have to pick a predefined name and format for the album art, I'd gladly convert all of mine for this plugin.

I could get the image file in the folder, but lots of album art is embedded directly in the ID3tag. If loading it from the folder would be enough, I'll see what I can do.

[Wildrose-Wally]

Winamp staff doesn't accept my plugin because Windows 7 isn't officially released yet. Douchebags imo.

Not only that, but you are also still updating it. We don't accept beta versions of plugins either.

Douchebags? Quite a way to make a favorable impression on the reviewers, don't you think?

[TheSaw]

Well ofcourse I update it, that doesn't mean it's not working. I'm just trying to make it better

You should review my plug-in based on the ... plug-in, not my attitude.

[Saturn2K]

Originally posted by TheSaw
I could get the image file in the folder, but lots of album art is embedded directly in the ID3tag. If loading it from the folder would be enough, I'll see what I can do.

Oh yes, please start there . Truthfully, that would be all I'd ever need. The "Get Albumart" command in Winamp throws a jpeg into your MP3's folder.

Though, I have noticed that if you had an older albumart file in addition to the one Winamp downloaded for you, Winamp will know to use the one it fetched. I don't know if that's a timestamp thing or what, but maybe it keeps a database of chosen albumart somewhere.

If I were you, I'd ask other developers how they get albumart, because they also get the right one. For example, the classicpro widget Now Playing displays a large version of the albumart in its own tab.

[Saturn2K]

Also, I made a background that people using Win7's default theme may like. I got this by taking a screenshot of the glass part of the thumbnail when it is over a completely white background and using that gradient. It gives the illusion that the backdrop is just a square that doesn't have transparency.

If it's doable, I'd like the option to use no background at all, and have it just sit on the glass. Also, being able to choose the font, the color of the shadow, the depth and direction of the shadow, and pretty much everything else would be cool

Eventually, it would be nice to be able to create almost a theme. Say, a little text file that, pixel by pixel, layed out where you would have everything, including the size and position of the albumart. I would like to be able to recreate the notification window of some of my favorite skins.

[TheSaw]

Hm. I might not do that afterall, because I'm trying to write my own ID3v2 parser, that will extract the picture embedded in the mp3 file. For loading the .jpg I would also need some image format converting to .bmp, since it's the only format supported in Windows. This also makes creating the transparent background a bit tricky. There would be some workarounds to create the illusion of a transparent background, but I do not have the skill and time to manipulate those kinds of effects

About the "theme" file, I'll consider it. I won't make any editor for it, so you just open it, and write the values manually.

[Saturn2K]

Originally posted by TheSaw
Hm. I might not do that afterall, because I'm trying to write my own ID3v2 parser, that will extract the picture embedded in the mp3 file. For loading the .jpg I would also need some image format converting to .bmp, since it's the only format supported in Windows. This also makes creating the transparent background a bit tricky. There would be some workarounds to create the illusion of a transparent background, but I do not have the skill and time to manipulate those kinds of effects

About the "theme" file, I'll consider it. I won't make any editor for it, so you just open it, and write the values manually.

I'm all for the parser, I'm only saying that many people just have image files in their album's folders for album art. Like I said, even if you make it a requirement that it needs to be a .bmp file of a certain depth and resolution, I'm sure people would like it.

Edit: are there apps to automatically insert your images into the id3v2 tags? I'll need to look into it.

And sorry for asking so frequently, it's about the biggest feature I could ever want. If I can work it out so that it just shows the song title beneath a square of albumart, it would be great. Doubly so if I can choose the icons for the playback control so they're thin outlines that would look good overlayed on the album art.

I'm sorry I'm throwing all this out, I only wish I could code myself.

In fact, if you ever feel like releasing the source code, I might move towards trying to get this in.


Edit 2: Also, doesn't Windows also accept PNG files? Whenever I've deconstructed theme files, it uses png files for pretty much everything. Then again, I'm not sure what the various limitations are.

[duntkno]

very nice, thank you!!

[TheSaw]

Okay, I found a solution to one of your suggestions, I'm working on it Stay tuned.

(Also rewriting all the code responsible for drawing the thumbnail )

[retchless]

This is awesome!

[Wildrose-Wally]

Originally posted by TheSaw
Well ofcourse I update it, that doesn't mean it's not working. I'm just trying to make it better

You should review my plug-in based on the ... plug-in, not my attitude.

I don't have to do a damned thing, and neither do other reviewers. Isn't volunteering a good thing, especially if you are called names for doing things right?

BTW, this thread should be in Winamp Development, not in Winamp Discussion.

[retchless]

Well, all I can say is that it's nice to see some people taking an interest in Winamp on Windows 7. So far, my Winamp experience has been less than favourable on that platform.

Oh, and Win7 was released in early August for use by OEMs and MSDN subscribers. Not to mention the multiple millions of users running the RC, which IMO is as stable as XP and then some.

[Saturn2K]

Originally posted by Wildrose-Wally
I don't have to do a damned thing, and neither do other reviewers. Isn't volunteering a good thing, especially if you are called names for doing things right?

All he said was it was silly to not support an operating system that is RTM, nothing about reviewers.

[TheSaw]

Originally posted by Wildrose-Wally
I don't have to do a damned thing, and neither do other reviewers. Isn't volunteering a good thing, especially if you are called names for doing things right?

BTW, this thread should be in Winamp Development, not in Winamp Discussion.

Okay, sorry for calling "you" douchebags, and no I didn't say you "have to" do anything, but I'm not getting payed for this either, I'm just trying to make Winamp better. If you volunteered for it, you kinda "have to" do it, or just... leave?

Saturn2K: It's getting a bit harder than I thought it will be, but I found an approach to do it, so I'm on it :/

[Omega X]

TheSaw, a tip:

Don't worry about submitting to the plugins directory. There are a LOT of great and legit plugins out there who don't.

If you were rejected for that point alone, then wait on submitting it. Find a mirror or project site like Sourceforge or Google Code in the meantime.

[TheSaw]

Originally posted by Omega X
TheSaw, a tip:

Don't worry about submitting to the plugins directory. There are a LOT of great and legit plugins out there who don't.

If you were rejected for that point alone, then wait on submitting it. Find a mirror or project site like Sourceforge or Google Code in the meantime.

Yeah, thanks for the tip, I've already made a project page on Google code.

[TheSaw]

OKAYYYYYY... I think it's working! I didn't have much time to test it out, so I marked it as BETA, I will upload another version soon.

Updates:

• Transparent (blurred) background with antialiased text
• Support for LOTS of image formats for custom background
• Minor teaks, improvements

You can download it from the project page, check my first post for the link
Give some feedback...

[TheSaw]

Transparency and album art support.



Download at: http://code.google.com/p/win7shell/

(Click reply to read the link)
ht tp://code.google.com/p/win7shell/

[Good_Bytes]

I don't have music on my laptop which has Win7 RC build 7100 64-bit. But, when playing internet radio music (shoutCast radio), and I select "show media info" or "album" or "Winamp logo", I get this a floating thinking cursor.

Also, if I disable the "set intermediate progress bar state for streaming media" I get this 2px thick green bar.

Screen shot of both problems:



Using build 0.5
Winamp 5.56

[TheSaw]

I fixed the green bar issue (it's uploaded)
About your other problem... what screen resolution are you using? Is it working for non-streaming files?

[Chris000001]

Would it be possible to get the media info over the album art?

[TheSaw]

You mean draw text on the album art? Well ... i could do that but it wouldn't look good :/