Artwork of Now Playing track embedded in player

[Onweerwolf]

This is a question for the skinning community. First of all, I think as a collective you guys have put out a fair number of cool skins over the years and i'm happy to see things being continued with the imminent release of MM4. So thanks!

Now this is my 'issue': There are a number of skins that I would love to use because they look great but they don't have the artwork of the currently playing track embedded in the player. This is a must-have for me personally, which means I cannot use those skins.

I have two questions really:

1) Why do a lot of skins (small majority I'm guessing?) lack this? Do skinners have a reason to opt out on this function? For all I know, I may be the only one wanting this.

2) Is it easy or hard to edit a skin to put the artwork into the player? As a clarification, I have never tried skinning myself and i'm certainly not a programmer, but I can learn to understand how things like that work, provided I have a decent tutorial. So if someone tells me "read this and that, then grab a skin and test it out and you'll be able to do that in an hour or two" I will probably try it out sometime. If on the other hand this requires to learn everything there is about skinning, having to rewrite most of an existing skin, and put a huge amount of time into it, I might decide that it's not worth it.

Finally, I'd like to know what other users prefer and why, artwork in player or not?

Thnx!

[CoachUK]

1) Why do a lot of skins (small majority I'm guessing?) lack this? Do skinners have a reason to opt out on this function? For all I know, I may be the only one wanting this.

Two reasons really....firstly, a lack of space in the payer skin. People seem to want smaller players (especially with netbooks, etc.) so space is at a premium...secondly, you have the ability to show the artwork panel in the main library panes and this can be switched between 'now playing' and 'selected' with a right-mouse click. Then there's the artwork displayed in MonkeyRok if you use that. Could possibly be a question of how many images do you really want showing?

2) Is it easy or hard to edit a skin to put the artwork into the player?

It's not that difficult to add/include artwork into a player skin per se, however, you may have to move many other elements around to make space to put it. That's where it could get complicated.

but I can learn to understand how things like that work, provided I have a decent tutorial. So if someone tells me "read this and that, then grab a skin and test it out and you'll be able to do that in an hour or two" I will probably try it out sometime.

Whether you're successful or cock it up, it's well worth the time to have ago (IMO). Have a look at "Fast Newbie's Skinning Walkthrough for MM 3" here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... h_for_MM_3 and a more definition oriented guide "How to skin MediaMonkey v3.0 and higher" here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... and_higher.

Alternatively....if there's a skin you particularly like that doesn't have artwork in the player, why not contact the skin author and ask them if there's any chance they could modify the player as a one-off for you. You never know your luck.....

Hope this helps

[Onweerwolf]

Coach, thank you for your reply.

Some remarks..

As for showing the artwork in the main window; I use that to show the selected track permanently, whereas I use the player to show the now playing track. that way I have all the visual info I need all the time and never have to switch. Imo, that's the best possible setup.

(too bad the MM4 artwork & detail panel is screwing things up by displaying tabs currently, but that's another issue)

Also, my screen is not big enough for MonkeyRok unfortunately. It's a great script, but it takes too much space.

As for asking the skin author; sure, I could do that and I'm not above it or anything but I prefer to see if I can fix things myself before I ask for help, hence this thread.

Thanks for the pointers on how to skin.

Just one question, would it be possible to embed the selected track's artwork into a player? If so, would it be possible to add both selected and now playing?

[nohitter151]

Just one question, would it be possible to embed the selected track's artwork into a player? If so, would it be possible to add both selected and now playing?

No, the art in player can only show now playing art.

[Onweerwolf]

Ok, thnx!

Too bad, no workaround for the tabs problem then. I guess I have no choice but to wait for MM 4.1 before I migrate.

[DreadM]

Greetings

well CoachUK piont you to the right things,
The only way to show AArt for us skinners , is in the player,
and it can be a bit difficult because of the player background and other elements you have to move ,
but technically not so difficult

I also don't like the Tabs from the Art view,
I think the best would be to ask one of the Script wizards
to create a simple dockable panel that just shows AArt with a hideable panel caption.

[Onweerwolf]

I also don't like the Tabs from the Art view,
I think the best would be to ask one of the Script wizards
to create a simple dockable panel that just shows AArt with a hideable panel caption.

Right, but from what I've gathered in Mantis, the option to hide the tabs in the art & details panel is planned for MM 4.1, so i'm not asking a scripter to do something that will eventually be solved anyway. They are busy enough as it is.