all my titles are in UPPERCASE. How to change that?

[boarderparadise]

Hi everyone.
All my titles displayed in winamp are in UPPERCASE.
How can I tell winamp to use mixed case ?

Interestingly enough, there is no thread dealing with this exact problem.

I found a couple of options in Prefs > Skins > Modern Skins > Font Rendering
but too complicated ...

Thank you.

[JonnyMac]

Do you mean on the playlist editor and title scroll /crawl show all CAPS?

1. Winamp > Ctlr+P (for Preferences)

2. General Preferences > Titles

4. change the Advanced Title Formatting string to the following...

$caps([%artist% - ]$if2(%title%,$filepart(%filename%)))

5. Close out of prefs > click Yes when prompted to Refresh Playlist Title

[boarderparadise]

many thanks for your help.

I don't manage to get a screenshot, sorry. The playlist editor is fine (mixed case), my media library too. Only the title scroll is affected by this all-uppercase-problem.

My advanced title formatting reads as follows:
$if2(%title%,$filepart(%filename%) )[ '('%artist%')' ]$if([%album%,%tracknumber%,%year%],- ,)[$num(%tracknumber%,2)# ][album:['('%year%')' ]%album%]

And I don't want to lose this formatting in principle. I just don't understand where this uppercase problem is coming from.

I think, it should be adjusted in Prefs > Skins > Modern Skins > Font Rendering
but I have no clue what the different options there would do.

PS: why should I write $caps anyway if I want mixed case, not uppercase ?

[JonnyMac]

Font Rendering allows you to override/change the fonts in modern skins in the title scroll/crawl and time display in the player window, (etc.). It is sort-of like the Appearance settings in Windows, to which you can change which font is used for title bars, dialog boxes etc. Font Rendering does not specifically relate case usage.

The String Operation $caps in ATF is a bit misleading. It looks like you are telling Winamp to use all caps, but it actually used to convert the titles to mixed case (Title Case).

If it is just the titles (not the other data like artist) that are in caps then replace your ATF string with

$if2($caps(%title%),$filepart(%filename%) )[ '('%artist%')' ]$if([%album%,%tracknumber%,%year%],- ,)[$num(%tracknumber%,2)# ][album:['('%year%')' ]%album%]

If the all of the data is also upper case the put your string in the $caps function call

$caps($if2(%title%,$filepart(%filename%) )[ '('%artist%')' ]$if([%album%,%tracknumber%,%year%],- ,)[$num(%tracknumber%,2)# ][album:['('%year%')' ]%album%])

Copy and paste your original ATF string to something in-case you want to revert back to it. For more information on ATF click here

I don't know what could have changed titles to all caps. The only thing that I can thing of if you used a external tagger and that may have changed the tag info to caps.

[boarderparadise]

many thanks for your continued support.

my problem is that everything displayed in the title scroll is in uppercase, not just the song title. And NO, the problem is on winamp's side, not my tags or my file names, because none of them are in uppercase-only!

$caps(a1) returns lower case of a1, with first letter of each word in upper case. That's NOT what I want, because it changes the case, whereas I want to leave it as is.

For example, If the song is named "eXtasy" I want it displayed as such, not "EXTASY" (status quo) nor "Extasy" (with $caps).

Besides - as I almost expected - $caps does not work, my title scroll is still in UPPERCASE only. So something is responsible for uppercasing all my letters, but what?

As I already told you (#1 and #3), I have read in similar threads, that Prefs > Skins > Modern Skins > Font Rendering does indeed play a role here. Just for kicks I tried to uncheck "allow use of bitmap fonts that have not been mapped", and voila ...

now the all-uppercase-problem is gone ... for some songs. Others are still in all uppercase.

Now I remember that years ago (on a older winamp version), I managed to reach this same point and abandoned it, because I couldn't sort it out. Out of my 4 test songs, 3 are still in all-uppercase now, and the one in mixed case has a really tiny awful font, and while I can adjust the size, I cannot change the font (although a drop-down list with dozens of fonts is available).

Here is my options window after unchecking "allow use of bitmap fonts that have not been mapped"

[boarderparadise]

That's so complicated. I don't understand why there isn't just a single option in winamp, saying "use font X", "size Y" ....
... but NO, there is a whole page full of gibberish and hundreds of options no mere mortal can possibly decipher

[JonnyMac]

Sorry for the confusion here, I forgot about that option. Also try unchecking 'Keep bitmap fonts that contain 7-bit characters'

Basically, unchecking "use bitmap" options tells Winamp not to use the bitmap font from the skin. It is the bitmap font that does not have lower case.

Hopefully that should do it.

[boarderparadise]

okay, don't worry. and thanks for sticking around!

I followed your advice and unchecked "keep bitmap font ... 7-bit chars".
My options are now as follows:




Indeed, this solves the UPPERCASE problem completely. All my songs are now displayed in mixed case. Great, thank you.

However the uppercase font was crystal clear and - as outlined above - this new mixed case font is barely readable because it's very tiny and blurry. It's a pitty that I can't take any screenshots due to winamp's rendering (directX?), I would have loved to show you. All the descenders (j,y,g,J,q, etc.) are cut off, and this does not change even if I decrease/increase the size ... and the font stays as blurry, no matter what size I use.

The font in my playlist editor doesn't suffer from any of these problems though: it is a crystal clear Arial font, you can see all the descenders, etc. By the way, the playlist editor font was not affected by any of the changes I made in this thread: it was fine before and it looks still exactly the same now.

Isn't there any way to have the same font in my title scroller as in the playlist editor?
I tried different fonts from the 3 drop-down lists in the screenshot above, but unlike the decrease/increase size option, the font drop-down lists don't seem to have any immediate effect.

Thank you.

[boarderparadise]

OK, "increase/decrease size" has an immediate visible effect on the font. But if you change the font, you have to restart winamp, before you can see the new font.

The problem is, no matter what font I use and regardless of the font size
(1) the descenders are always cut off
(2) the fonts are always blurry


ad 2: it seems as if the title scroller uses some sort of "ClearType(tm)" rendering. Ironically, ClearType is exactly the opposite of clear, namely blurry. I wish I could get the same font as in my Playlist Editor, which is perfect
Heck, even the ALL-UPPERCASE-FONT (WHICH IS ANNOYING TO READ AS YOU CAN SEE IN THIS EXAMPLE) was crystal clear, even in the title scroll.

Why did they make this so complicated? I have never seen such a jungle of settings.
Is any of this documented somewhere?

And why are "bitmap fonts" available in UPPERCASE-ONLY ?
questions upon questions upon questions ...

[JonnyMac]

Which skin are you using?

[boarderparadise]

"Winamp Modern" (the one that is always shipped with winamp)
Do you use all-uppercase-letters in the title scroll as well? If not, what are your settings and do you have a neat, clear font in the title scroll?

PS: I have added a bit to post #9 before you replied, sorry

[JonnyMac]

And why are "bitmap fonts" available in UPPERCASE-ONLY ?
questions upon questions upon questions ...

It that the bit you are talking about? I think it is a limitation in skinning process.

Anyways, I am out of ideas. Sorry You just may have go to back to upper case letters in the title scroll. Unless someone else has an idea.

Otherwise, you may want to try a different skin.

Anyways, I am getting a headache over this and there are some dishes that need cleaning (OH housework).

[boarderparadise]

okay, thanks anyway, you solved 50% of the problem LOL :-)

Is all this documented somewhere? Program Help? FAQ? Forum sticky? Wiki? .... ?

And how about you ... Do you use all-uppercase-letters in the title scroll as well?
If not, what are your settings and do you have a neat, clear font in the title scroll?

[JonnyMac]

The regular font for the scroll in the main window is LED dot font which is also just has capital letters. I like the LED style for the scroll, so it is kept as is.

For extra info on the Font Rendering see Skins Preferences from Winamp Help.

[boarderparadise]

okay, many thanks. I will read into your links.

I leave you with your dishes now
And I hope someone else (or you) will show up another day with an idea how to solve the descenders-cutoff-blurry-font-problem ...