How ?

[parisienne17]

Obviously not as disabling everything but background/seekers/ and visholder doesn't do a better job.
Visualisation is called by

        <windowholder id="visholder" hold="guid:AVS" x="54" y="69" w="390" h="195" autoavailable="1" autoopen="1" autoclose="1" visible="1" move="1"/>
​ 

[parisienne17]

More & more weird...
Disabling all but mode/song buttons :
- Background swapped for a plain black rectangle ==> buttons show up, visualisation too.
- previous background Checked for no outside translucent parts ==> no song buttons.

And skin refresh F5 doesn't work in visualisation mode.

[parisienne17]

Much better...
I make a selection from the background picture, then I fill that with a black to white gradient ==> buttons won't show up.
I fill the same selection with black ==> buttons show up.

I'd better go fishing.

[parisienne17]

Ok, this is sooooo a pile of polecat s h i t..

The skin has an asymetric shape


so it has parts with no data, right upmost 2/3 & 1/3 down left viewed as alpha thing... So... For visualisation to work, the window shape must be plain square, rectangle. Meaning that NO round/elliptic shape or asymetric in this case can house visualisation.

So so SO lame ! So frustrating !!!

[parisienne17]

You once said that opening a component window at a given/relative position to main player is possible. IS it possible to open one on top of main player ?

In my case I can design matching component windows border to main player and open visualisation window on top of it, no ?

[ariszlo]

[What I offered as a likely solution here did not work.]

[parisienne17]

What I meant about asymetrical shapes, therefore transparent parts is this :



the initial selection is a bit larger than the real background, filled with black here (but irrelevant as a matter of fact), it "houses" the upper part of the song control buttons : everything else is blank.

The main player background can't have any empty parts, thus alpha, for a mode housing visualisation or what's in these parts will be discarded.

After completing this skin I was thinking porting the old "Cell" sonique skin



the above caveat will prevent any attempt to display visualisation inside the player.
(Edit) it is possible if there isn't anything outside the player of course. I was a bit ahead of myself here. ;.)

[ariszlo]

You once said that opening a component window at a given/relative position to main player is possible.

The albumartvis trick only works with single-layout player windows.

So... For visualisation to work, the window shape must be plain square, rectangle. Meaning that NO round/elliptic shape or asymetric in this case can house visualisation.

So so SO lame ! So frustrating !!!

Actually it can be done with regions. The comment at the beginning of player-compact-viz-group.xml of my latest Study Layouts skin explains how it works:

To use funky-shaped transparent regions in a layout with embedded visualization you cannot simply use a png with transparent regions. For such layouts, you cut out regions from an opaque background image with a *trimmer*. A trimmer is a layer with a sysregion="-2" parameter using a png image with black an[d] transparent areas. The black areas of the regions image show which regions of the window layout should be cut out and the transparent areas show which regions should be kept.

For a layout whose shape does not change, it is enough to use a single trimmer as in player-compact-viz-group.xml:

<layer id="trimmer" x="0" y="0" image="compact.regions" sysregion="-2"/> 

The compact.regions bitmap referenced in the trimmer layer is defined in player-elements.xml like this:

<bitmap id="compact.regions" file="png/player-compact-regions.png"/> 

Have a look at player-compact-regions.png in the png folder.

And watch the compactviz layout in action!

For the layouts of containers like the playlist editor or the media library which can be stretched both horizontally and vertically, you may need as many is eight trimmers, one for the top-left corner, one for the top-right corner, one for the stretchable top middle window border, etc. The standardframe.xml in my Study Layouts skin uses two trimmers: region.top.left and region.top.right.

Screenshot of Compact Viz layout with MilkDrop:

[ariszlo]

And now The How Skin with ideas raised by you and realized by me.

• alpha background with embedded visualization
• toggle cover art and visualization
• switch between normal, compact and stick layouts

Update: added nocover.png because this skin really needs it.

[parisienne17]

Waooo... I have to peruse (stargate SG1 memory) thru these news !

In the meantime here is ASREC look & modes



I think that I can cut the 2 modes (covert Art & visualisation) in both Normal mode & Compact using the toggle cover/viz.

I'm working on a drawer, housing equalizer settings, maybe also for stick mode housing visualisation that I'm still to display it in a rounded corners frame.

Next step : colors & frame for ML/PL windows.

[parisienne17]

On a second thought I don't know if using toggle cover/viz toggle switch is the right way as the areas for both 'windows' are different when nocover is fixed size, don't you think ?
And about my previous comment for rounded corners visualisation area, the trick would be the region thing, right ?

[ariszlo]

On a second thought I don't know if using toggle cover/viz toggle switch is the right way as the areas for both 'windows' are different when nocover is fixed size, don't you think ?

No, it isn't. The right way for you is to define 7 different layouts.

And about my previous comment for rounded corners visualisation area, the trick would be the region thing, right ?

Yes. Make the transparent areas opaque for the layouts with visualization and let Winamp cut out the transparent regions with the trimmer. The trimmer should be an indexed png with only fully opaque black pixels and fully transparent transparent pixels. No gradual transitions between the two extremes.

The pictures below show the alpha background for the compact layout (1), the opaque background for the compact viz layout (2), and the trimmer for the compact viz layout (3) from my Study Layouts skin:

[parisienne17]

That's what I thought so I've made 7 layouts.
One disturbing outcome is that each layout/mode opensat the same x,y coordinates.
I thought that everyone of them would act like component windows, saving their own screen position : stick mode being larger than the others is either out of screen for some part or I have to not place the others near the screen right border.

[ariszlo]

...stick mode being larger than the others is either out of screen for some part or I have to not place the others near the screen right border.

Add this to the layout tag of your stick layout:

unlinked="1" 

[PeterK.]

Add this to the layout tag of your stick layout:

unlinked="1" 

Where did you find this layout tag ariszlo?