When we are talking about Aqua3. It would be good that someone that can host it change Wiki link to My old Fan site that is down?

the skins are not able to be locked in size to keep the proper ratio's that you want.

look at the esthetic hi fi skin that is just what you want.
but the skin has trouble since as rusty and petr put it. the skinning engine does not yet support locked size skins.

you can as i thought i said in my reply to paulmt . i believe i said it elsewhere also. but you can use the locked size skins.
with some trickery to get the main player to show in full player skin mode.
there is something wrong with the now playing playlist and the main theme player and the floating player to a point.
it messes up each in a different mannor.

but you can use that esthetic hi fi skin or any locked size player will the mm 3 is still not fulling supporting locked size skins.

do
[list]1. start media monkey 3.
2. load the locked size skin in media monkey.
3. turn off the now playing playlist.
4. change the player to the Mini Player.
5. right click the tray icon for mm 3 and exit mm 3.
6. restart mm 3. you now have the full image skin of the locked
size skin you loaded the last time. [/list]
that is the only way to get it working until they get the skinning engine working with them.

8)

Remember MarineBrat that Winamp-player skins still are possible to implement into the new MediaMonkey --> In addition you can have a miniplayer and microplayer as well.

I am only happy that the team made this decision.

[quote="monkey hi fi"]give us an idea of how big to make the player for your screen i don't have the ablity to go that size of res. so i need to know what size you want them.[/quote]

I think he, and myself, want the player to be as small and unobtrusive as is practical, while still allowing access to the progress bar and other controlls. It should be able to be docked on top of, and the same width as, the tree view, just like in MM2.

The MM2 default player was near perfect except that its width was locked, and so when you docked it above the tree view you also locked the tree view width. I'd like to see a player just like the one in MM2 with the addition of the ability to stretch it wider (and more narrow even) when you have it docked to the top of the tree view. If any "addition" were to be made on top of the MM2 player then perhaps it would be nice to have the current song graphic displayed in a thumbnail, but not at the expense of controls or of the ability to reduce the width to a standard tree view width.

I'm currently using Aqua3 with MM3 and it's beautiful, except that the player buttons only have a miniscule clicking area. But that's better than wasting an entire swath of usable screen area on the default MM3 player which insists on stretching nearly the entire width of the program. Don't get me wrong, the default skin is beautiful. But it's more for people who want a media player program, which is perfectly understandable, as that's what MM just happens to be. But it is not for people who are more inclined towards a strictly database program that just happens to also play the contents of the database, but which maximizes the database nature of the contents.

I want something like MS Access. Give me maximum information with minimal glitz. :)

[quote="paulmt"][quote="rovingcowboy"]paulmt. i been reading your post over and over [/quote]

Thanks for giving this some thought, though you have complicated what I really wanted.

Your right you can undock the player, but it can't be resized and redocked - or from what I have seen it can't.
I only have the one screen - 23" 16:9 @ 1920x1280 resolution and so have a lot of real estate to show data etc, so I would like to be able to tuck the player away wherever I want and in a size that ties in to whatever else I have on the screen or what look I am trying to achieve.

I imagine this is not a big thing and will come as MM3 develops.[/quote]

you are talking about the mm 3 default one morten made arn't you?

i just tried that skin and it can't be moved from the bottom dock area it is locked.

if you want to move the skin player around there are at least 3 places to dock the player at on a skin that the player is unlocked.

dock bay one on the bottom where it is default.
dock bay two in the bottom of the directory tree like the old mm 2 skin was. and maybe on top of the directory tree.
three is on top of the list view.
i think there is a fourth place on the right side of the screen but that can be hazzardous as in having the dock window go behind the list view window, then needing to get it moved back would be the hassle.
there might be a fifth place at the bottom of the list view.

but you can only dock and move the skin if it is unlocked from any docking bay area and unlocked for stretching.

morten's default does not allow that.
some of mine don't allow stretching on the float player.
3 of mine allow moving the player but they are locked from stretching. and that is causing trouble with the main player being locked that way.

i think blake's is unlocked both ways. and tomm88's might be unlocked.

but you have such a huge screen the only ones that would work for you are mine called nohitter151, and trucking monkey.

but those are two that have to doe extra steps to see the whole main player. but the float player shows no trouble.

of course the new one i made will fit your screen but it is rather hard to do any playlist stuff and not watch the concert lights. i sat there for 6 hours the other day forgot i was doing stuff and just watched the lights.

it is moveable though and it will stretch for larger screens but it wont shrink for small screens.

if you have never looked at their screenshots you might want too. on the wiki site for my screen shots. i put the recommended screen sizes on my screen shots. the two i said are said not to be for your size of screen but they will work better then any of the others except concert.

it seems the others are not making large player skins.

give us an idea of how big to make the player for your screen i don't have the ablity to go that size of res. so i need to know
what size you want them. maybe the others can't go that high of res, either. maybe post a screen shot of what the skin looks like on your system at that size. or is that one you did already the size you have?.
:o

roving cowboy / keith hall / monkey hi fi

[quote="rovingcowboy"]paulmt. i been reading your post over and over [/quote]

Thanks for giving this some thought, though you have complicated what I really wanted.

Your right you can undock the player, but it can't be resized and redocked - or from what I have seen it can't.
I only have the one screen - 23" 16:9 @ 1920x1280 resolution and so have a lot of real estate to show data etc, so I would like to be able to tuck the player away wherever I want and in a size that ties in to whatever else I have on the screen or what look I am trying to achieve.

I imagine this is not a big thing and will come as MM3 develops.

paulmt. i been reading your post over and over and i am thinking what you are asking for is the skin to have
4 borders top and bottom split in half right on one montior and left on the other monitor?

and the player to beable to stretch and shrink between the two of them as it was just one monitor?

this is not possible now the skin is connected to the windows shell. if the windows shell was made to do that, then the skin would do it.

if you are talking about having the player theme and list view the same as it is now only on two monitors with the player able to move off one mointor to the other.

i think that too would be a issue of redoing the windows shell but i am not sure on that one.

:-?

I think this skins problems will be resolved overtime, as MM3 gets more and more popular with [i]normal[/i] users, not only beta-testing users (which, with exceptions, are more technically minded than artistically minded), get their hands on the new version. Let's remember that it is still a Beta!

when this "average" people come I am confident there will be more people willing to make skins, and to discuss this part of the monkey. I think the beta should come with a good, modern, user friendly skin, and I believe this is achieved with Glided, which I personally like, although I'd make some changes to it to exactly fit my needs. If someone doesn't really like Glided he can change to one of the other included skins...if nothing works there's always the forum full people willing to help on the making of a new skin.

I really think the discussion should revolve around whether the skinning engine is good enough in terms of options available AND ease of use. I can't really say much about it myself, but for those of you that have worked with it I think it would be of great health for the program. [/i]

yes paulmt you can move the player around to where you want it. now it is just that morten locked his in place on the bottom dock.

any of my skins for mm 3 the main player should be unlocked
except for the stretching part that should be locked on 3 of them. but you can move and dock the player now. mm 3 just has trouble with locked size or fixed size players. they can be used but need some trickery to get well maybe in mm 3 beta 3 they might work again i have not tried it but in beta 2 they did need to do extra steps to get them to show, the whole main player.

8)

I think all the skins done so far for MM3 are very good.
My only issue is that the current skins do not look as good to me, on a large widescreen monitor.

I would like to see a simple skin with a floating/dockable player as is cuurently available with MM2, but I'm not sure if the new skinning engine allows this yet?

[quote="agge (not logged in)"]I've also missed a clean looking skin.
Please give your thoughts on how you want a MM skin to look like!
[/quote]

Personally, I think Winamp's new theme is very clean and modern looking:
[img]http://www.last100.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/bento.png[/img]

I'm sure with time someone will port this one to MM3.

I've also missed a clean looking skin.
And if everything goes as it should, we will have (imo) a very clean and user friendly skin in not too long time.

We need to remove the plottery- and very-advanced-stamp i think MM has. With that I mean that everyone should be attracted to use MM, not only organize nerds like most of the users are today. If we could make an option(i.e. a skin) to make MM remind a little of the super easy userinterface that iTunes have, I think MM would attract a wider audience.

But the current skin engine lacks some features that would make it more user friendly. The dev team is well aware of this and hopefully we'll see it coming short after 3.0 is released.

Please give your thoughts on how you want a MM skin to look like!

Happy bananas //Agge

I like MM3 skin better than 2.5.X. In beta 1 we have a "square" miniplayer, which I prefer over the beta 2 skin, but the button for the 'now playing' windows was missing. Now we have it.

I believe we will be able to get a "consensus" someday. There are still things in the artwork department I would like differently. But I would better save them for later (have some bugs to report...).

Now it is where it belongs.

I changed topic to be more descriptive If Original poster wants it back I'l change it back. Also Shadow is left in Beta forum so it will be still visible there.

[quote="Anonymous"]I dont think he was criticizing you Morten... I think he's just looking for the simplistic look that MediaMonkey2 did so well -WHILE- looking nice. Take iTunes for example, it's a very 'basic' skin, but it looks nice, it's smooth and easy on the eyes. MM2 was like that (smooth and easy on the eyes) only it had two things (visually) that blew iTunes out of the water: 1). Skins 2). Movable objects. This allowed everyone to tailor it to their own taste while following the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle]K.I.S.S. principle[/url].[/quote]Great reply btw.

I realize now that he was wanting a more clean look, but then he should ask in either the Artwork forum for a skin (yes, it's still possible to make MM look like 2.5) or the Wishlist section.