Quinto Black CT - New Winamp Modern skin

[Victhor]

It's quite doable, I never messed around with snappoints but if you look at Multipass you can see that:

1- Snap point can move to accomodate to vertical and horizontal drawers (opened or closed).
2- Shadows can be ignored to place the snap point where needed.
3- Snap points can even be disabled with a in-skin option

Some parts can be a bit complicated I imagine (points 1 and 3), but for you it shouldn't be impossible to crack .

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Victhor

It's quite doable, I never messed around with snappoints but if you look at Multipass

Someone once said: "You can achieve a lot alone, with others you can achieve everything".
Thanks for the skin link. I will definitely have a look at this. Might work.

Originally Posted by Victhor

... but for you it shouldn't be impossible to crack .

Hey, you really want me to add those shadows, do you not Vic?

[Victhor]

Originally Posted by PeterK.

Hey, you really want me to add those shadows, do you not Vic?

Totally!

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Victhor

Totally!

I knew it!

[PeterK.]

I still have another candidate, who did not make it into my skin: Playlist Directory.



I found it handy and "faster accessible" than Media Library. Too bad that this thingy is awfully buggy:

1) you cannot change the font size (same problem as in Color Themes container)

2) you cannot determine the background color - it is just black

3) the columns are constantly in wrong places which means you have to resize the window in order to have them properly aligned (by the way - clicking on a button on the Color Themes window would also make those columns jump into the right positions!! I am not kidding - now THIS is magic!

4) and the last bug is: clicking on a line changes the background color of that particular line (from black to standard background color of my skin - dark gray).

In the end it was definitely too much for me and I jut removed it from the skin.

[Victhor]

Yeah it's not a very cool window, although the info it contains it's actually good and useful.

There are 2 other implementations you can look at, both are on my Komodo X skin (PL+ page). The simplest one is a button that will open a menu to choose the playlist, and the more complicated extracts that info and presents it as buttons, although I suspect it can be turned into a more simplistic list).

[PeterK.]

I did manage to get the snap points to work properly but we still have the issue of having the shadow (which is red in this screenshot for better visibility) cover the other component docked to the Main Player, which "has focus" and is topmost:

[Victhor]

Yep, that can't be changed. The focused window goes to forefront by design. It's not a bad outcome though.. If the other window gets the focused then the shadow hides accordingly.

[Aminifu]

Hi PeterK.,

I like that you have decided to provide a frequency response graph plot and I hate being late to the discussion, but I have some questions about the bass and treble controls in that window. What affect do they have on the sound output? Which range of frequencies do they control? Do these controls override the equalizer settings or work separately from them?

The screenshot in post #273 shows a response plot that appears to correspond to the equalizer frequencies settings shown in the equalizer window in that post. However, there is nothing shown in this plot (that I can see) to indicate the effects of the bass (+22%) and treble (+31%) controls settings. If both the equalizer and bass and treble controls are applied separately and simultaneously to the sound output, then the response plot should show the combined effects, imo. If the bass and treble controls override the equalizer, then the response plot should show that.

Also, will the equalizer preamp setting have an effect on the response plot? Will the entire plot relatively shift above or below the 0 db line in response to a positive or negative preamp setting?

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

...

Hello Aminifu,

I do apologize in advance for not being able to answer your questions in a "scientific" way because there seems to be not much of a science regarding the additional bass and treble knobs.

So let us start from the top.

Those two knobs (plus the balance knob which I added) are implemented using the scripts from the MMD3 skin. And the biggest limitation while doing so is the fact that I could not understand what many parts of the script and especially those equations are exactly doing. This has the side affect that increasing or decreasing the size of those knobs or amount of the animated layer frames used for the knob movement would lead to chaos. Hence I had to keep most stuff exactly the same. I also never understood the default positions of the equalizer bands while turning the knobs to the left or right. I googled it in order to find the default positions of those equalizer sliders when bass is set to -50 % (for example) but never found anything useful.

(And in case you move the preamp slider to the top, you will notice that the corresponding line (the blue horizontal one) will go to the bottom. - compare to Classic Skin)

You have to understand that the most decisive aspect in this "plot-knobs-sliders"-triangle are the slider values and that sliders/frequency line/knobs are linked to each other. You cannot move the knobs without seeing any changes in the slider values and vice versa: moving the sliders will change the positions of the knobs indicators accordingly. If I grab the first slider thumb (70Hz) and drag it to the bottom you will notice that the frequency line goes all the way down to -12 dB while the bass knob moves automatically to -18 %:



Moving the same slider to the top (+12 dB) will move the frequency line to the top and the bass knob to the max of 50%:



Choosing an equalizer preset will change the slider position, which will change the frequency line and in the end also the position of the knob indicator on both knobs:



Now you can increase or decrease the "amount" of bass or treble by moving (or clicking on) the knobs. This movement will change the positions of the "bass-sliders" (first five) and/or the positions of the "treble-sliders" (last five).

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by PeterK.

...

(And in case you move the preamp slider to the top, you will notice that the corresponding line (the blue horizontal one) will go to the bottom. - compare to Classic Skin)

You have to understand that the most decisive aspect in this "plot-knobs-sliders"-triangle are the slider values and that sliders/frequency line/knobs are linked to each other. You cannot move the knobs without seeing any changes in the slider values and vice versa: moving the sliders will change the positions of the knobs indicators accordingly.
...

Thank you for clearing that up for me. Sometimes, I think PHDs in math and music are needed to really understand this stuff. I was hoping that your bass and treble controls would not affect the equalizer's sliders. Skins with bass and treble controls, that I have tried in the past, worked pretty much the same as these you have borrowed from the MMD3 skin.

I think the Winamp equalizer does let a song be made to sound differently in an overall sense, but it doesn't let things be fine tuned enough to bring out a single instrument or vocalist. I have tried the Constant-Q and 4Front modes and the ISO standard frequency bands, but none of these options let me achieve what I'm looking for.

I've been experimenting with equalizers with more than 10 frequency bands and more steps in increasing and decreasing the dB levels between +/- 12 dB. Some of them let me get closer to the results I'm looking for (depending on the song), but I'm starting to believe that what I want to do is not possible.

[PeterK.]

I have a confession to make: I must have some kind of a blue period because I cannot stop giving all components of my skin a subtle blueish touch.

But look for yourself:



And? How is it coming along? Can we keep it?

[ariszlo]

I am not a fan of blue myself – GUI designers tend to put blue on everything – but this is fine.

[DJ-Garybaldy]

Blue is supposed to be a calming colour isn't it?

[ariszlo]

Might be but it is very boring seeing it everywhere, isn't it?

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by DJ-Garybaldy

Blue is supposed to be a calming colour isn't it?

Being honest I was not aware of it. I chose this color following more or less a gut feeling. But I am glad to hear that my work is "relaxing" - sort of - kind of ...

Originally Posted by ariszlo

Might be but it is very boring seeing it everywhere, isn't it?

Which hue value would you prefer to see in here. Huh? Pick one, add Saturation and Luminance and show me ...
(P.S. Please do not tell you also would love to see these color combinations in my skin ...)

[ariszlo]

But as I said before, Quinto Blue CT is all right. It is far from being boring.

[PeterK.]

Some weeks ago I was going to publish a special edition of my skin called Skylight:



It was a mixture of gray background (from the very first Quinto release) and this bright blue/cyan. In the end this color constellation did not completely convince me and I quickly abandoned the project and went back to the standard look.

[libero]

The color solution is good. The arrow again with the shadow? If yes, then in vain - it is difficult to read. Again, please, please make the LED indicator in more detail - this is the main element of any cover. Especially since she already claims to be a Hi-Fi. I would still arrange the size of the windows. They are of different sizes and they are inconvenient to dock with each other.

[Creator]

Great work! A few years down the road and this is still one of the best skins out there.

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Creator

Great work!

Happy to hear that ...

I have been playing with Visual Studio lately and cannot stop regretting that I am not able to create my own plug-ins!

I just made my first AcrylicWindow which looks so cool:



Just imagine having the About Quinto window with such blurry background. Or the Playlist Editor, Color Themes window ... you name it!

[Hubu Iglesias]

I dig the look of this, however, I would be amazed if there was a white version!

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Hubu Iglesias

... a white version!

A white version of what Hubu? My skin or this Acrylic Window?

[PeterK.]

Some weeks ago I was trying to add tooltips to my skin but failed because I could not find out how to overwrite Winamp's own "tooltip engine". Grabbing the xml and script files from the freeform folder and implementing into my skin was a piece of cake. Too bad Winamp kept refusing to use "my" font and "my" font size which were placed within the new files. I constantly saw this tiny and ugly text and did not know why.

The other day, while enjoying Victor's Big Bento Modern skin I noticed those nice tooltips with this beautiful font while moving my mouse pointer over the main window. I had to try it again and got it done! I have absolutely no idea what I was doing wrong, but tonight I see the first tooltip on Quinto's Main Player in bigger fontsize, so I will be adding a bunch of them in the coming days.

I have a question: Would it be a good idea if users could change the text of a tooltip into something more sophisticated/elegant or even into their own native language? And what about changing the context menu entries from English into another language. (as we all know, 90% of context menu lines within Quinto Options are not translated and hence only in English).

What do you think?

[Victhor]

Originally Posted by PeterK.

..I had to try it again and got it done! I have absolutely no idea what I was doing wrong, but tonight I see the first tooltip on Quinto's Main Player in bigger fontsize, so I will be adding a bunch of them in the coming days.

Glad you find it useful, I modded the tooltip script from KameleonDUI skin, Leechbite is a genius. Default Winamp tooltips are way too small to be useful, so giving it more size brings to the table a new way to help the user understand what's the functions of some buttons.

Bonus: Check here if you want to achieve 2 lines tooltips (!!): http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=228081

Originally Posted by PeterK.

I have a question: Would it be a good idea if users could change the text of a tooltip into something more sophisticated/elegant or even into their own native language?

Yeah, I'm all in for this, which is basically what I've done on Big Bento Modern. It's quite easy in fact and makes your skin even more useful.

Originally Posted by PeterK.

And what about changing the context menu entries from English into another language. (as we all know, 90% of context menu lines within Quinto Options are not translated and hence only in English).

It's all doable, the key is on the wasabi.xml file where you can add your own lines of text and place it on the Language pack file (a WLZ which is just a zipped folder placed on @Winamp-path@/Lang). Grab any language pack and you'll see what I mean =).

[PeterK.]

I have to apologize because, as it seems, I did not make myself perfectly clear. Asking whether a user should get the possibility of having his own tooltip and context menu lines I meant something entirely different. So please let me explain.

I found out that Winamp is capable of "reading" user's key strokes. In combination with an edit box we would have a small window and a text field, in which, no surprise here, user would type their own (translated?) text lines. A script file, on the other hand, would "grab" his keyboard strokes and create a string, which would replace the default tooltip line. For example: "Play this song" instead of just "Play".

Creating such a string made from characters should not be rocket science and, as Victor always says, doable. Exactly the same process could create new/translated context menu lines which would replace the default attribute names in the corresponding files.

My question, without going into details was, if such feature would be worth making, if it was useful and welcome.

[PeterK.]

Off topic:

I would like to say THANK YOU to Ben Cleary and Gyula Zsigri for updating posts on Winamp Enthusiasts Group site.

Much obliged guys...

[Victhor]

Originally Posted by PeterK.

I have to apologize because, as it seems, I did not make myself perfectly clear. Asking whether a user should get the possibility of having his own tooltip and context menu lines I meant something entirely different. So please let me explain.

I found out that Winamp is capable of "reading" user's key strokes. In combination with an edit box we would have a small window and a text field, in which, no surprise here, user would type their own (translated?) text lines. A script file, on the other hand, would "grab" his keyboard strokes and create a string, which would replace the default tooltip line. For example: "Play this song" instead of just "Play".

Creating such a string made from characters should not be rocket science and, as Victor always says, doable. Exactly the same process could create new/translated context menu lines which would replace the default attribute names in the corresponding files.

My question, without going into details was, if such feature would be worth making, if it was useful and welcome.

Actually I think you made yourself clear but it was I that choose to interpret things differently. I thought you were not suggesting that the user could add the tooltips text, that's inconceivable for me because I'm of the thinking that the skinner should define what a button does (and "explain" it on the tooltip). The styling /wording can be improved, sure, but I don't think too many people would use it and the load of work it would require from your part is not worth it in my opinion.

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Victhor

... The styling /wording can be improved, sure, but I don't think too many people would use it and the load of work it would require from your part is not worth it in my opinion.

Got it, thanks for your opinion.

On the other side I am adding a glow effect to some buttons:



and here:



It means that the hover status of those buttons will have a "fade out" effect, which will take 0.5 seconds to varnish. (alpha=0)

P.S What a pity we cannot upload animated gif files.

[ariszlo]

Originally Posted by PeterK.

On the other side I am adding a glow effect to some buttons...

Looks cool in glow.mp4

[PeterK.]

Multiple tooltip lines are coming ...

[Victhor]

Ha! I knew you would like that idea!! XD

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Victhor

Ha! I knew you would like that idea!! XD

... too bad the tooltip background is not as "flexible" as the notifier's: I cannot use png files with alpha channel, I even cannot set the grid's alpha value to anything less than 255.

So now I have to ask myself: do I prefer sharp 90° edges for the background grid or ugly (since without alpha channel) rounded ones (in combination with region bitmaps).

Sharp or not sharp?

[Victhor]

IF the tooltip looks like the last screenshot you uploaded.. I prefer that shape, it doesn't look that jagged. If it's noticeable more jagged then stick with a more traditional shape.

[PeterK.]

The other alternative would be such flat design:

[PeterK.]

I am wondering if it was a good idea to copy the context menu lines and use them as tooltips. For example here for the PLAY button:

[Victhor]

I like the last option much more than the first one, this way multi-line tooltip is more justified.

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Victhor

I like the last option much more than the first one...

It was not my intention to add questions into the tooltips. This particular screenshot you mention served a presentation purpose only.

[Renan.Spolon]

Is it possible to remove the side border?
Is it possible to remove the reflection in the panels?

Thank you, your skin is one of the best I've ever used.


É possível remover a borda lateral?
É possível remover o reflexo nos painéis?

Obrigado, sua skin é uma das melhores que já usei.

[PeterK.]

Originally Posted by Renan.Spolon

Is it possible to remove the side border?

What is side border? The panels?

Originally Posted by Renan.Spolon

Is it possible to remove the reflection in the panels?

Nope.

Originally Posted by Renan.Spolon

Thank you, your skin is one of the best I've ever used.

Happy to hear that!