Quinto Black CT - New Winamp Modern skin

[PeterK.]

BPM stands for beats per minute. It is an indication of tempo...

And what would be the format for such BPM display? Three digits? "999"?

Will you increase the number of LEDs per channel (I offered a minimum of 12 pieces per channel,

Nope.
I am not going to increase the amount of LEDs on the digital VU Meter. They correspond with the amount of the digits on the analog VU Meter and I do not think making more would mean more accurate values.

[libero]

10 pieces - very little. It turns out that the lower zone is very truncated. And no matter how many digits on the analogue VU, if we are talking about a more accurate indication. Often there are no digits on the analog display, or 2-3 digits, indicating the range of the signal. So, the digital indicator will be only of 3 LEDs? Please pay attention to those skins that I wrote about. There, visualization of the signal level is realized above all praise, especially the RECTANGULAR skin.

[Aminifu]

And what would be the format for such BPM display? Three digits? "999"?

The BPM tag accepts mixed numbers (i.e. from xx to xxx.xxxx). I've seen these values displayed in various ways. Winamp's default skins just display the 2 or 3 digit whole number and ignore the decimal part (i.e. with no rounding and no leading zero). I've seen players that display a rounded whole number with no leading zero. Others will display a whole number and 2 or 3 of the decimal digits, with rounding and no leading zero.

If you choose to display the BPM tag (%BPM%) value, however you decide to do it is ok with me. The ATF string I currently use for the main player displays whatever is in the BPM tag; that could be up to 8 characters and I don't think there is enough room to do that in the place I suggested.

I also use a plug-in that displays a different ATF string above the Winamp icon on the taskbar, when I point to it. It displays additional metadata related to the song that's playing. The string in the main player scrolls back and forth. The string above the taskbar icon scrolls in one direction and repeats until I move the mouse pointer away or let Windows stop displaying it after several seconds.

[PeterK.]

Winamp's default skins just display the 2 or 3 digit whole number and ignore the decimal part ...

1) Well, since Winamp does not show more than 3 digits in the BMP tag field I think we do not have to worry about other existing BMP formats here, do we Aminifu? So you may have an additional tag in the display of the MainPlayer but with one small limitation. I am not convinced that the majority of Quinto fans finds it useful and desperately needs that information to be shown on a permanent basis on the main display, so I added a new context menu entry to Quinto's own options. It is called "Beats per Minute (BPM)". Choosing this option will show/hide the BPM tag on the display. Okie dokie?

P.S. For a minute I was thinking about replacing the entry COMMENT in the FILE INFO area on the PlaylistEditor window with BPM string and BPM data, which would contain as many decimals as you wish. But knowing about Winamp's limitation in that tag it would be pointless to have two BPM displays with only three digits. Agreed?

2) Clicking on the LED button on the external digital VU Meter no longer changes the LEDs color on that particular VU Meter alone but from now on also on the MainPlayer. So meanwhile, those both digital VU Meters not only work according to the same algorithm but have also the same colors.



3) I also added a new section to the OPTIONS part of the context menu. It is called "Spectrum Analyzer" and contains four submenus:

- Show Peaks
- Peak Falloff Speed
- Analyzer Color
- Analyzer Falloff Speed



The first one will show/hide peaks which are always red. I think we should keep the red color pattern for such components. (Please look at the PEAK area on the analog VU Meter for example.)
The second entry will give you the possibility to change the falloff speed of those peaks.
The third one has four different colors for the Analyzer segments/rectangles: Gray (default), Blue, Green and Red.
And the last one determines the falloff speed of Analyzer segments/rectangles.

[libero]

Excellent, thank you so much. It is a pity that there are only 10 segments ...

[Aminifu]

1. Thank you for accepting my suggestion to display the BPM metadata. Displaying it on the main player in the same way that it can be displayed in the media library makes sense. Good idea to make it an option.

2. It was only logical to sync the digital VU meters colors, since their response is now synced.

3. I'm really glad you brought back most of the options for the spectrum analyzer. You only left out the option for thick or thin bars. I'm not asking that you also return the oscilloscope, but have you tried it's options in the default Winamp skins. They allow for a more interesting effect than the default setup.

I'm eagerly waiting to use this version!!!

[PeterK.]

You only left out the option for thick or thin bars.

Yes, but this is combined with thick or thin background bars. Adding this option would mean adding a new background bitmap with thin bars. We shall see.

There is a new entry in the section Spectrum Analyzer of the context menu though. It is called Show Grid and allows you to show/hide the grid layer. Therefore you will have either "plain lines/bars" (Winamp standard) or "segments" (which has been the default Spectrum Analyzer in Quinto Black CT).

[PeterK.]

For all Classic Skin fans I created a new Spectrum Analyzer color pattern that contains exactly the same color scheme as the Classic Skin does. So now we have: Blue, Classic, Gray (default), Green and Red.



Above that there is a new option which shows/hides the Spectrum Analyzer bars as thin lines. The background bitmap for that particular option will be plain dark gray. And since it was possible to show/hide the grid even while having the thin lines enabled (in the first draft of the new context menu), I decided to move this feature to the "Analyzer Bandwidth" entry. Therefore you will have to choose between "Wide (show Grid)" and "Wide (hide Grid"). And if I am not mistaken the proper term for that option is "wide" and not "thick". So there will be wide and thin lines.

While creating all the Spectrum Analyzer options I noticed that the band number 16 never shows up. Normally there are 16 "colorband" lines. But when I set the color of the last (highest) band to pink I never see it. Could it be that there are only 15 bands plus peak segment?

And since we have some new stuff, which was not on the plan, I am afraid I will have to postpone the release of the upcoming version 1.6 for the end of November. That stuff definitely needs some testing.

[libero]

Probably, you will scold me, but I'm again talking about the number of LEDs ... In the old version of the main window indicator there were 16 segments (I calculated). And you reduced them to 10 pieces. It would be logical to make 16 segments in both LED indicators. No matter what the numbers indicate these segments, you can generally leave 3-4 figures on the scale of a large separate indicator, for example -20, -3, +/- 0, +3 and all. Make half the scale green, 1/4 - yellow and 1/4 - red. Place the LEDs themselves closer to each other, blinking will become smoother. Test this option.

[Aminifu]

Great work with the additional Spectrum Analyzer options! The reasons for the 16th band and why it doesn't appear to be used have probably been lost in the mists of time.

Having to wait till the end of the month to try these options is np for me. It'll be like a free Black Friday gift.

To spread things out a little you could remove (or line up, as they were originally) the play, pause, and stop mode indicators on the left. They are kind of redundant imo, since it's now easy to see which playback control button is active. I also take back my suggestion for different colors to indicate the active repeat mode on the LED next to it's control button, since the active mode is spelled out in words.

[PeterK.]

To spread things out a little you could remove (or line up, as they were originally) the play, pause, and stop mode indicators on the left. They are kind of redundant imo ...

Are you trying to make more room on the display so you can make another suggestion, which this time would demand 5 digits and 10 decimals, Aminifu?
One of the reason why these status bitmaps are still there is they are "place holder" in case you have a huge playlist (or movie) and click on the timer. Something like -999:10 could appear and needs space.

I also take back my suggestion for different colors to indicate the active repeat mode on the LED next to it's control button, since the active mode is spelled out in words.

It would be logical to make 16 segments in both LED indicators.

What kind of logic are you trying to apply here libero? Why are 16 segments logical and 10 are not? Huh?
At the beginning there were 16 because I copied and pasted some lines from the Modern Skin. The amount of the LEDs had absolutely nothing to do with any mathematical nor technical aspects. This tiny VU Meter was just a "Nice-To-Have" feature. Nothing more, nothing less. And since there are no standards or templets for digital Meters (at least I had not found any) I have taken the freedom to synchronize the amount of LEDs with the digits on the analog Meter.

No comment regarding the following screenshot though ...

[Aminifu]

Are you trying to make more room on the display so you can make another suggestion, which this time would demand 5 digits and 10 decimals, Aminifu?

...

Oh no, I'm done with asking you to add stuff (at least for the time being). I don't want to press my luck.

But seriously, there are many Winamp users who don't use the media library and keep everything they play in the playlist editor. Their listings grow quite large over time (several thousand items). Search for posts from people talking about huge playlists (or maximum playlist length) for some examples. There have been several plug-ins developed to help people manage huge playlists.

Are you saying that these mode indicators will automatically move over (or disappear) if the timer needs more room?

Did you change your mind about the oscilloscope, or are you pulling libero's leg? If you keep adding stuff, it'll be Christmas before we get to use the next version.

[libero]

Great, then let's stop on the sound indicator in more detail. But first of all I wanted to thank you for the excellent work. Skin gets better and better. Now the VU. So. Let's look at the indicators of hifi-devices. What do we see? First, the scale of such indicators starts often from -40dB. You have a scale of -20 conventional units (I realized that this is not dB). You decided so. Good. But then make sure that when playing the track, the indication does not disappear at low sound levels. I propose by default to set 2 start (one per channel) LED, which will always light when the program is turned on. Then, both your LED indicators should be done not by 10, but by 15-16 segments per channel (here you need to experiment with the number). Number of digits can leave 10 (those that already exist). But the number of LEDs should be increased for a more smooth indication of the signal. The distances between the LEDs do less, then they all fit. Next, the color perception. Half of the 16 segments I propose to make green, 1/4 part (from -3 to +/- 0) - yellow and the last (upper from +/- 0 to +3) - red.

[PeterK.]

Are you saying that these mode indicators will automatically move over (or disappear) if the timer needs more room?

No, they are still there. Removing them entirely would leave a huge hole in there and I do not want it.

If you keep adding stuff, it'll be Christmas before we get to use the next version.

Great! Best time of the year for gifts. Don't you think?

I have two questions:

1) Why do we need 5 color lines for the oscilloscope in the <vis> section? There is only one oscilloscope and three styles.



2) Could it be that I can assign max 3 states to the so called <nstatebutton>? I tried to expand the number of states of such button and the Compiler crashed every time I double clicked the script file. I even did not see any proper error message, the compiling process just got stopped in the middle of nowhere.

[libero]

For the function of the oscilloscope (if I understood correctly, you want to do this function) a separate thank you.