An Album Browser...kinda like Coverflow, but not as cool. It works though... - Page 3

lbridges · 02-19-2008, 10:27 PM

I downloaded and looked at your file, but before I get to far into this, do I also need to get the MMI skin? I ask because there are things defined in the audio_album_browser.skin that I don't see referenced anywhere (although I'm pretty dense sometimes so...). That would include such as:
INC,STANDARDCMDS.skin
INC,STANDARDCMDS2.skin
INC,STANDARDCMDS3.skin
INC,THEME_LLIND.skin
and in the labels L19 to L34 there are fonts, etc defined.

So I'm asking if they track back out to your whole skin product, or are they somehow defined that I haven't yet deciphered?

gold28 · 02-20-2008, 02:16 AM

Sal, your a champion and El Camino, I guess you deserve the credit too. The new revision works a treat. It took a little playing with to get it working properly but it is working almost perfectly now.

Just a note or possible bug that may be easily overcome, I had a few extra jpegs in my directory (other than folder.jpg) and these caused roadrunner to lock up. After deleting these so that there was only the folder.jpg it all ran smoothly. It looks like the skin is picking up every jpg in the directory.

I like being able to select the adjacent albums too, great addition.

I have one problem though. If I select the center position albumart, roadrunner freezes up. Looking at your ExecTBL.ini additions, this calls up the popup skin. I have commented out this entry in the ExecTBL.ini and the problem has gone away but this extra popup sounds like a great addition. It doesn´t load the popup skin so I assume it is a problem with the first command in that entry. Any ideas?

Thanks again Sal. This is a great addition and perfect for my "meagre" 1.5Ghz car pc that won´t run coverflow.........

Sal R. · 02-20-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by lbridges

I downloaded and looked at your file, but before I get to far into this, do I also need to get the MMI skin? I ask because there are things defined in the audio_album_browser.skin that I don't see referenced anywhere (although I'm pretty dense sometimes so...). That would include such as:
INC,STANDARDCMDS.skin
INC,STANDARDCMDS2.skin
INC,STANDARDCMDS3.skin
INC,THEME_LLIND.skin
and in the labels L19 to L34 there are fonts, etc defined.

So I'm asking if they track back out to your whole skin product, or are they somehow defined that I haven't yet deciphered?

Not really. Granted, you'll be missing a few commands at the bottom (NEXT, PLAY, PREV, etc.) a pair of labels at the top (DATE & TIME) and an IMG file for looks, but it doesn't detract from the skin's functionality. Font definitions are included in the "INC,FONTCOLORDEFINITIONS.txt" & "INC,FONTSYTLEDEFINITIONS.txt"

The important things really are the AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin, ExecTBL.ini, & the optional AUDIO_ALBUM_POPUP.skin.

Sal R. · 02-20-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by gold28

Sal, your a champion and El Camino, I guess you deserve the credit too. The new revision works a treat. It took a little playing with to get it working properly but it is working almost perfectly now.

Just a note or possible bug that may be easily overcome, I had a few extra jpegs in my directory (other than folder.jpg) and these caused roadrunner to lock up. After deleting these so that there was only the folder.jpg it all ran smoothly. It looks like the skin is picking up every jpg in the directory.

I like being able to select the adjacent albums too, great addition.

I have one problem though. If I select the center position albumart, roadrunner freezes up. Looking at your ExecTBL.ini additions, this calls up the popup skin. I have commented out this entry in the ExecTBL.ini and the problem has gone away but this extra popup sounds like a great addition. It doesn´t load the popup skin so I assume it is a problem with the first command in that entry. Any ideas?

Thanks again Sal. This is a great addition and perfect for my "meagre" 1.5Ghz car pc that won´t run coverflow.........

Okay, I see what you mean about the extra .jpgs. My rr.ini entry for $coverfile$ is "folder.jpg"

If I change it to "*.jpg" and re-run the database builder, it'll pick up the "hidden" folder art .jpgs, as well. On occasion, it will lockup. Other times, it runs, but I'd have extra copies of the same album referenced. I'll see about working around that. Thanks for the heads up.

As for the popup, the "POPUP" skin is needed if you WANT to view the contents of the album outside the AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin. There is a "hidden" DL (S) line in the AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin that is displaying the same album details. If you so choose, you can have BOTH the album art browser AND details of the album contents in the same skin. Just have to adjust the parameters of the DL (S) line to be viewable. I did it both ways to give it some flexibility.

All up to you.

gold28 · 02-20-2008, 02:14 PM

OK, did a little more more investigating and it seems that the "SETPATH;$pluspath$" command that is causing RR to crash. If I delete this command the popup skin works but without filling the list in.

I'll do some more investigating but I don't suppose you have any ideas?

I have been using this skin all day at work. I love it.

Sal R. · 02-20-2008, 02:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by gold28

OK, did a little more more investigating and it seems that the "SETPATH;$pluspath$" command that is causing RR to crash. If I delete this command the popup skin works but without filling the list in.

I'll do some more investigating but I don't suppose you have any ideas?

I have been using this skin all day at work. I love it.

That's wierd. Shouldn't be doing that.

What version of RR are you using?

The only time I've ever seen "SETPATH" crash RR was on older versions of RR (pre-GDI+) and that was due to paths being invalid.

EDIT: I've tried everything I can think of that might cause RR to lock up, but I can't produce that problem.

Can you post a debug file so I can see what's going on?

lbridges · 02-20-2008, 06:13 PM

Is the slider mechanism built into the browsecovers application?

I would like to use this on a 1024X768 skin, but I'm having trouble trying to resize & relocate.

Sal R. · 02-20-2008, 11:08 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by lbridges

Is the slider mechanism built into the browsecovers application?

I would like to use this on a 1024X768 skin, but I'm having trouble trying to resize & relocate.

The slider itself just sends the raw slider value to the script. It is defined like any RR built in sliders.

Just have the clickable areas match the slider location.

Code:

SXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,XXX,H,01,"SLIDER3\POINTER.gif",XXX,CODE,""

The above tag creates a slider view within the given boundaries (x,y,w,h).
x1,y1,w1,h1 define the area in which to display the Slider Styles (Images) -- This area is also the area
where clicking with the mouse will change the slider value.
O is the oriantation (H=Horizontal, V=Vertical).
The Slider Style is the number of the style (Y Tag below) with the path to the images to use.
Pointer is the path to the image to use as the pointer/tick in the slider.
h2 is the is the thickness or height of the pointer image.
CODE is a valid SLIDER CODE defined below.

GizmoQ · 02-21-2008, 12:34 AM

Been playing all day with this. One of the things that frustrated me about Coverflow was it couldn't be centrally located for multiple skins. This one can so I put albumviewer and all its files into a subdirectory of RR and edited the paths of the images and Autoit commands to that directory.

Some problems I noticed are:
1. day vs night skins require different "empty" images behind the coverflow buttons (created IMG,134,360,532,46,"line.jpg",empty using a grey line as background for the buttons in my darker skins)

2. Arrows, bars, slider backgrounds, etc are part of the screen graphic file
(created labels, lines, pngs, etc to replicate and saved in $RRPath$albumviewer)

3. Converting INC variables to other skin formats was a pain till I remembered I have WildEdit. I only kept FONTCOLORDEFINITIONS.txt and FONTSYTLEDEFINITIONS.txt

4. The readme file never mentioned adding anything to the SKIN.INI file so I didn't and it didn't seem to hurt anything, yet.

And I've only converted the AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin half; will work on the AUDIO_ALBUM_POPUP.skin tomorrow. But this works great!!!!

I know it has small files and easily works with any skin, but for those of us that use multiple skins it just makes sense (like with plug-ins) this be added under the RR directory and all skins use the same files. It provides a central location for COVER.TXT and the RR.INI variable remembers where I left off regardless of which skin I was last using.

Keep up the great work.

More tomorrow...

gold28 · 02-21-2008, 01:02 AM

Thanks for your patience Sal,

I am using the latest version of RR, 13/12/2007

here is the section from the debug file where I was using the album browser.

Quote:

21/02/2008 7:52:57 AM: Executing: LOAD;AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Enter Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, , False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "RUN;$skinpath$browsecovers.exe", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: RUN;C:\Program Files\Road Runner\skins\Mmiv2\browsecovers.exe
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Shell: "C:\Program Files\Road Runner\skins\Mmiv2\browsecovers.exe"
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Leave Exec: False, audio_album_browser.skin, RUN;C:\Program Files\Road Runner\skins\Mmiv2\browsecovers.exe, False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Enter Exec: False, audio_album_browser.skin, , False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;ALBUM_TNUM;144", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;ALBUM_TNUM;144
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;prevalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Matchbox Twenty - More Than You Think You Are\Folder.jpg", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;prevalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Matchbox Twenty - More Than You Think You Are\Folder.jpg
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;pre2albumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane\Folder.jpg", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;pre2albumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane\Folder.jpg
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;nex2albumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Jazz\Michael Camilo & Tomatito - spain\Folder.jpg", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;nex2albumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Jazz\Michael Camilo & Tomatito - spain\Folder.jpg
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;nextalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Jazz\Michael Brecker\Folder.jpg", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;nextalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Jazz\Michael Brecker\Folder.jpg
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;crrtalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell\Folder.jpg", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;crrtalbumcover;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell\Folder.jpg
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETPATH;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell\", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETPATH;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell\
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "setvar;coverflow;36408", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: setvar;coverflow;36408
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;ALBUM_NAME;Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell||SETVAR;ALBUM_NUM;81", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;ALBUM_NAME;Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "SETVAR;ALBUM_NUM;81", False
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Executing: SETVAR;ALBUM_NUM;81
21/02/2008 7:52:58 AM: Leave Exec: False, audio_album_browser.skin, SETVAR;ALBUM_NUM;81, False
21/02/2008 7:53:02 AM: Enter Exec: False, audio_album_browser.skin, "PLUSALBUMARTMENU", False
21/02/2008 7:53:02 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "PLUSALBUMARTMENU", False
21/02/2008 7:53:02 AM: Executing: SETVARBYCODE;pluspath;DLPATH
21/02/2008 7:53:02 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_browser.skin, "LOAD;AUDIO_ALBUM_POPUP.skin||SETLIST;1||SETPATH;$ pluspath$", False
21/02/2008 7:53:02 AM: Executing: LOAD;AUDIO_ALBUM_POPUP.skin
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Error on InitDX: -2005532109 Automation error
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Enter Exec: True, audio_album_popup.skin, , False
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_popup.skin, "SETLIST;1||SETPATH;$pluspath$", False
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Executing: SETLIST;1
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Que Exec: True, audio_album_popup.skin, "SETPATH;$pluspath$", False
21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Executing: SETPATH;C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\Rock\Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell\

I hope that means something to you guys because it is all gobbly gook to me......

Sal R. · 02-21-2008, 09:24 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by GizmoQ

Been playing all day with this. One of the things that frustrated me about Coverflow was it couldn't be centrally located for multiple skins. This one can so I put albumviewer and all its files into a subdirectory of RR and edited the paths of the images and Autoit commands to that directory.

Some problems I noticed are:
1. day vs night skins require different "empty" images behind the coverflow buttons (created IMG,134,360,532,46,"line.jpg",empty using a grey line as background for the buttons in my darker skins)

2. Arrows, bars, slider backgrounds, etc are part of the screen graphic file
(created labels, lines, pngs, etc to replicate and saved in $RRPath$albumviewer)

3. Converting INC variables to other skin formats was a pain till I remembered I have WildEdit. I only kept FONTCOLORDEFINITIONS.txt and FONTSYTLEDEFINITIONS.txt

4. The readme file never mentioned adding anything to the SKIN.INI file so I didn't and it didn't seem to hurt anything, yet.

And I've only converted the AUDIO_ALBUM_BROWSER.skin half; will work on the AUDIO_ALBUM_POPUP.skin tomorrow. But this works great!!!!

I know it has small files and easily works with any skin, but for those of us that use multiple skins it just makes sense (like with plug-ins) this be added under the RR directory and all skins use the same files. It provides a central location for COVER.TXT and the RR.INI variable remembers where I left off regardless of which skin I was last using.

Keep up the great work.

More tomorrow...

I left it open-ended so that it can essentially run anywhere you want. Just have to adjust the paths for it.

This thread probably should be moved over to the plug-ins section.

The skin.ini entries that I previously used to define paths are not necessary anymore. I tried to keep everything "self-contained" and used only rr.ini since it'll be common to all users.

Sal R. · 02-21-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by gold28

Thanks for your patience Sal,

I am using the latest version of RR, 13/12/2007

here is the section from the debug file where I was using the album browser.

I hope that means something to you guys because it is all gobbly gook to me......

Are you still using MMIv2? Is the iList option turned on?

This caught my eye:

Code:

21/02/2008 7:53:03 AM: Error on InitDX: -2005532109 Automation error


.

gold28 · 02-21-2008, 11:22 AM

Sal your a genius.

Thanks again for your time and patience.

EL CAMINO · 02-21-2008, 12:51 PM

good job sal, glad to see you add some more features. and, i agree this has to be move to the plugins section!

Sal R. · 02-21-2008, 01:25 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by EL CAMINO

good job sal, glad to see you add some more features. and, i agree this has to be move to the plugins section!

My hats off to you buddy!

Thanks again for all your help.