How ?

[parisienne17]

Am I supposed to replace (player-normal-group)

<groupdef id="albumartgroup">    
    <button id="albumartbutton" x="10" y="25" w="9" h="21" image="ShowHideCover" HoverImage="ShowHideCover-Hover" tooltip="albumart on/off"/>
   <AlbumArt id="albumart" x="40" y="60" w="100" h="100" notfoundImage="nocover" ghost="1" transitiontime="6"/>
   <script id="albumartshowhide" file="scripts/albumartshowhide.maki" />
</groupdef> 

by

<groupdef id="albumartgroup">    
     <windowholder id="avsholder" x="40" y="60" w="100" h="100" autoclose="1" autoopen="0" autoavailable="0" visible="1" hold="guid:AVS" move="1"/>
     <AlbumArt id="albumart" x="40" y="60" w="100" h="100" notfoundImage="nocover"/>
     <togglebutton id="artavs" action="TOGGLE" param="guid:AVS" x="10" y="25" image="ShowHideCover" HoverImage="ShowHideCover-Hover" tooltip="AlbumArt/AVS"/> 
</groupdef> 

because when I click the button the player window disappears.

Same result if I put it in player-normal between <layout> tags after commenting the albumart group in player-normal-group

[ariszlo]

Yes, if you want to toggle albumart with visualization. If you do then you will no longer need albumartshowhide.maki.

[ariszlo]

because when I click the button the player window disappears.

Oh no! The player background of Beautiful Simplicity is translucent. Translucent backgrounds are only displayed if desktopalpha is turned on. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, both AVS and Milkdrop2 turn off desktopalpha off and the translucent background disappears. You cannot have both translucency and AVS/Milkdrop2 within the same window.

So you either do not add AVS/Milkdrop2 visualization to your translucent player or you add an additional background with an opaque area to it.

If you choose the latter then create a png with the filename BS-Background-opaque.png and add an opaque background color to it matching the background color of your desktop.

Then add this tag to player-elements.xml:

<bitmap id="BS-Background-opaque" file="player/BS-Background-opaque.png"/> 

And replace this tag in player-normal.xml:

<layout id="normal" background="BS-Background" w="384" h="134" desktopalpha="1"> 

with this:

<layout id="normal" background="BS-Background-opaque" alphabackground="BS-Background" w="384" h="134"> 

[ariszlo]

If your skin still looks like this then your opaque background could be something like the one attached below. The point is that the areas which are almost completely transparent should be completely transparent and the areas which are only slightly translucent should be completely opaque.

Without desktop alpha, there is only complete opacity and complete transparency. Gradual opacity is only possible with desktop alpha turned on.

You only need an opaque background if you want to add Milkdrop2 visualization to the main window.

[parisienne17]

Unfortunately it prevents me to use any subtle drop shadow on background (maybe I could trick it out...)

But I have an issue : when switching to AVS, only Advances Visualisation Studio works, for some frames (I have to click in the window to refresh/update).
Milkdrop2 doesn't show a pixel.

[ariszlo]

But I have an issue : when switching to AVS, only Advances Visualisation Studio works, for some frames (I have to click in the window to refresh/update).
Milkdrop2 doesn't show a pixel.

Do you only have these issues when running AVS/Milkdrop2 in a windowholder inside the main window? What happens if you remove the windowholder tag along with the artavs togglebutton and run AVS or Milkdrop2 in its own window?

Unfortunately it prevents me to use any subtle drop shadow on background (maybe I could trick it out...)

You can keep translucency with the subtle drop shadow if AVS or Milkdrop2 is not inside the main window but in its own window. It is possible to make it look as if it was inside the main window by making the area where you want to display AVS/Milkdrop2 in the main window fully transparent and placing the AVS/Milkdrop2 window exactly behind that area.

But it would only be worth working on this solution if either AVS or Milkdrop2 worked fine for you. Now it is Milkdrop2 that does not work for you and earlier you had an issue with AVS.

Yes I'm using milkdrop. I've tried AVS, there're some nice displays but I find them cpu consuming (even for my I7 4th : they use up to 30% of cpu time).

[parisienne17]

For some unknown reason to me, today visualisations show fine... Computing mysteries I guess or winamp state after multiple errors when dealing with

<layout id="normal" background="Normal-Background-Opaque" w="361" h="194" alphabackground="Normal-Background8"> 

Does the 'alphabackground="(whatever)" mean that upon closing the windowholder area this parameter for background should be applied (meaning another background with, for exemple, drop shadow) ?

Does your insight with the fully transparent area above the visualisation windows mean that it is possible to :
- display a drop shadowed background with a hole in it
- cover this hole with a layer
- upon clicking the toggle butto : uncover this area
- display the window holder beneath it
- go back to previous state when toggled
?

[ariszlo]

Does your insight with the fully transparent area above the visualisation windows mean that it is possible to :
- display a drop shadowed background with a hole in it

Yes.

- cover this hole with a layer

No, you don't cover it. It is the other way round. Your main window will cover the AlbumArt/Visualization window which you will be able to see through the hole.

- upon clicking the toggle butto : uncover this area

Since you do not cover the hole, you do not need to uncover it. What happens is this:

1. The AlbumArt/Visualization window shows the album art at the first start up.
2. You click the button to change the album art to visualization.
3. You click the button again to change it back to album art.

Does the 'alphabackground="(whatever)" mean that upon closing the windowholder area this parameter for background should be applied (meaning another background with, for exemple, drop shadow) ?

No, unfortunately, it does not automatically change back to the background with the dropshadow. Buf you do not need to bother about this if you are going to use what I am describing below.

Here comes what allows you to have both your translucent background and visualizaton

1. Don't bother with alphabackground. It is enough to define your layout like this:

<layout id="normal" background="Normal-Background8" w="361" h="194"
desktopalpha="1"> 

2. Add the following two lines to skin.xml before the </WinampAbstractionLayer> line:

<include file="xml/artvis.xml"/>
<script id="albumartvis" file="scripts/albumartvis.maki"/> 

The above script can only be called from skin.xml. Do not put the above tag anywhere else.

3. In player-normal.xml, or where ever else you have it, replace your albumartgroup definition with this:

<groupdef id="albumartgroup">    
   <layer id="seethrough" x="40" y="60" w="100" h="100" visible="0"/>
   <button
      id="visbutton"
      x="10" y="25"
      image="ShowHideCover"
      hoverImage="ShowHideCover-Hover"
      tooltip="AlbumArt/Visualization"
   />
</groupdef> 

The x, y, w, and h values of the seethrough layer should match the position and dimensions of the hole in the main window background.

As you can see, you do not call any maki here. Remove all references to albumartshowhide.maki if you still have them.

4. Copy artvis.xml into the xml folder of your skin. You might want to edit the x, y, w, and h values to match the values of your seethrough layer. Do not touch the x and y values of the windowholder and albumart tags.

5. Copy albumartvis.maki into the scripts folder of your skin.

Do not change the id's of the tags shown above. You will break albumartvis.maki if you do. It is okay to change the coordinates and dimensions but not the id's.

[parisienne17]

woaaa.. I"ll try it tommorrow !

There's another thing that puzzles me :
- I've stripped down spirit black ( https://www.deviantart.com/stefanka/art/Spirit-10310941 ) to the seek bar because I'm unable to implement Maki2 animated seekbar and this one is smoother.
(I'm useless I know)

So I'd copied/pasted everything from one to another, put it in the same place..And it doesn't work. I don't get it.
It's the same for maki2 animated seek, I use one single horizontal frame as size and it doesn't work.

Would you mind looking at it ?
Here are the 2 skins
https://we.tl/t-tRzu4RyHY0

[parisienne17]

To be more thorough, importing maki2 animated seeker works fine but when attempting to switch to my picts and passing one frame (inverse w/H, as mine is horizontal) mesurements doesn't.

[ariszlo]

Would you mind looking at it ?

Spirit uses custom.maki but it is not really needed. You can get a seeker similar to Spirit's if you do this:

1. Remove this line from skin.xml:

<include file="xml/scripts.xml"/> 

2. Add these lines to player-elements.xml and copy the attached png's into the player folder.

<bitmap id="player.progressbar.center" file="player/elapsed.png"/>
<bitmap id="player.seek.slider" file="player/seek-slider.png"/> 

3. Remove these lines from player-normal.xml:

<!--Crap dont delete-->
<layer id="vislayer" x="600" y="600" image="player.main.vis.layer"/>
<layer id="vol" x="130" y="120" image="player.main.volume" move="0"/>
<layer id="volfull" x="29" y="56" image="player.main.volume.full" move="0" ghost="1" /> 

<layer id="seek" x="150" y="100" image="player.main.seek" move="0"/>
<layer id="seekfull" x="150" y="100" image="player.main.seek.full" move="0" ghost="1" /> 

4. In player-normal-group.xml, replace these lines:

<groupdef id="seeker">
<layer id="BS-Seeker" image="BS-SlideBack" x="80" y="120" w="140" h="2" ghost="1"/>
<ProgressGrid x="9" y="0" w="140" h="2" ghost="1"/>
<slider id="seeker" action="SEEK" orientation="H" x="80" y="110" w="140" h="20" thumb="BS-Seek"/>
</groupdef> 

with these:

<groupdef id="seeker">
  <layer id="seekbg" x="80" y="115" image="player.main.seek" ghost="1"/>
  <ProgressGrid
    x="81" y="115" w="128" h="9" orientation="right"
    middle="player.progressbar.center"
  />
  <slider id="seeker"
    action="SEEK"
    orientation="right" x="81" y="115" w="128" h="9"
    thumb="player.seek.slider"
  />
</groupdef> 

[ariszlo]

albumartvis.maki v1.1

• Added canclose="no" to artvis container
• Removed unused code from albumartvis.m

[ariszlo]

Would you mind looking at it ?
Here are the 2 skins

Check this out: Beautiful_Spirit.zip with drop shadow and AVS/Milkdrop2 in the main window.

In addition to implementing all the additions/changes detailed in #53 and #56, I fixed nocover.png and the reference to it in player-elements.xml.

The container holding the AVS/Milkdrop2 visualization is invisible if its background image is transparent, so I replaced your nocover.png with an opaque background image.

The reference to nocover.png in player-elements.xml did not include the name of the folder containing the file, which I added.

[parisienne17]

That's just awsome !

I got away from computer for a week then I began cleaning things and tweaking then...

I can't expand the albumart/vis : whatever the sizes I set in artvis.xml/

[IMG][/IMG]

Moving the area in player-normal-group works fine tho.

Edit: I've also added a move="0" at

      <windowholder
         id="visholder"
         hold="guid:AVS"
         x="0" y="0" w="100" h="100"
         autoavailable="1" autoopen="1" autoclose="1" visible="1" move="0" /> 

when the album art got detached when trying to move the player

[ariszlo]

That's just awsome !

Thanks.

I can't expand the albumart/vis : whatever the sizes I set in artvis.xml/

This is how you can do it:

1. Set the x and y of the seethrough layer in player-normal-group.xml to the top left corner of the hole in the main window.
2. Set the w's and h's (3 times) of albumart/vis in artvis.xml
3. Scale up nocover.png or whatever other background image you use for albumart/vis to the size of the hole in the main window.

The seethrough layer is where you hook the albumart/vis window to the main window.