Code Monkey - A customizable dark skin inspired by Visual Studio

[IanRTaylorUK]

2416 installed and looking much better for Code Monkey and other Skins. Thanks.

[TIV73]

I just merged all changes to main, get the latest version from github or (once it's approved) from the addons section on the mediamonkey homepage.

[Peke]

Hi,
Approved.

[IanRTaylorUK]

Updated using Tools / Addons / Find Updates.

However, immediately after update it showed 1.0.53 installed but 1.0.53 update available!

Coming out of MMW5 and back in cleared this anomaly.

Also noted that the Add-Ons web page for "Latest" does not order the add-ons by update date.

https://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/browse/latest.

So Code Monkey 1.0.53 - being that latest update - in out of view. A minor point but it would be nice to have this page sorted by update date.

Hope this is useful feedback.

[Barry4679]

Interesting. Looks good.
Could somebody post an image in this situation.

ie. Column Browser active. ... The official dark skin is a mess from a Selection perspective IMO. See points 1,2,3,4,5 in the above diagram. Which control holds focus? Also I find the colour|brighness differences in the Column Filter rows difficult to detect easily.

I have reported this, but the forum has become a Black Hole lately re usability feedback. I guess that they must be up to their in alligators atm.

[IanRTaylorUK]

Hi Barry,

Entire Library / Albums / Column View / Psychedelic / The Doors ....

https://octoberclub-my.sharepoint.com/: ... g?e=R2saKp

Left Playlist and Selected on. Seems to still exhibit the issue noted in your second link.

[Barry4679]

Thanks Ian. I had not noticed that its install was now more straight forward, ie. has moved from GitHub to the normal MM ecosystem.

I installed it.

Visual Studio has never been my tool of choice, so the theme gives me no warm fuzzies, but I like the skin. I find it easier to read overall, especially the tones in the "selected" Column Filter rows.

Some feedback to TIV73, using the Material Design (Dark) skin as a point of reference:

• my main issue is the heading lines (red arrows in the above illustration ... in Code Monkey they disappear into the background, making the whole thing a bit of a muddle from my POV ... ie. no longer bolded, white on black ... I would really like that issue to be improved somehow

• I found the blue letters on a black background hard to read in the Selected tab of the Preview panel, which I had configured to Smaller font ... it is top right, so at the far edge of the screen, away from eyes ... I worked around the issue by turning off the panel's Editable option, which makes the text white on black ... generally I found orange on black easier to read than blue on black ... I have impaired eyesight so YMMV on this issue .

• I strongly disliked the font at first ... it seems antiseptic, and is unattractive IMO ... but I grew to like it better after a while because it has more white space between the letters ... the skin reclaims some space by allowing less spacing between elements, which I am OK with ... but the overall downside is that contains less info per horizontal inch (see green boxes in my first image) ... I think that the readability gain is worth the loss of info and the ugly appearance for me ... not yet come to a final decision about this

• the bold Collection name in the menu bar (orange arrow) is a bit of an eyesore IMO ... I don't think that there is any meaningful gain from the extra prominence given

So my general early impression is that it is a thumbs up, although I wouldn't continue to use it if there was no way to improve the issue in my top bullet point.

Thanks for making the skin.

[TIV73]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, appreciate it!

I can see how some elements could be considered to blend too much. That's actually kind of what I was going for, understated and uniform with a little splash of color thrown in. No question that tastes, needs and use cases differ from person to person, though, so while I like the current look of the skin I'm currently waiting to see how the requested skin customization feature works out. I'd love for people to be able to customize the skin they are using to fit their preference, code monkey or otherwise.

Also, the active tab definitely stands out. That element was probably one of the things in the skin I thought the longest about, specifically because of that reason. I'm still not 100% sure if I like it or not. The reason why I ultimately kept it like that is because the bright blue active tab is one of the most striking visual features in visual studio and I wanted to give a nod to that.
For the time being I think I'll keep the highlight like that, but maybe I'll change it at some point in the future if I get sick of it.

[Barry4679]

I can see how some elements could be considered to blend too much. That's actually kind of what I was going for, understated and uniform with a little splash of color thrown in.

Now that I have spent some more time with it, I appreciate the understated and uniform nature of it better.

• in Grid mode it looks really great ... just enough information, without detracting from the album covers

• in List By Album mode it is very good also. The album covers give good demarcation, and the blue links fields are attractive and emphasise key info amongst the lessor text

• List mode is OK ... headings are in their expected top-most position, so everything is intelligible

• I don't like List view + Column Filter at all ... it looks like a prototype, desperately needing a stylesheet ... IMO the column heading for the main data rows needs to be bolded, or shaded or something ... hopefully you will get more feed back like this

There is one thing that is definitely wrong; Context Filters. I filtered the above display by the "brothers" ... the filter criteria is invisible ... it affects all displays.

I remain unconvinced by the blue highlight at the top of the above image. It fails your "understated" aim, Imo. ... It is like a big ugly notch at the top on high-end Android phone. ... My favourite view of the skin is with my mouse cursor resting on it, to turn it off. Am tempted to "fix" it with a bit of black sticky tape, as Zukerberg did with his laptop's camera some years ago

The thing is that it supplies zero new information. The active Collection is clear via the the breadcrumps, and is also highlighted should the user have the left hand panel open.

Also, the active tab definitely stands out. That element was probably one of the things in the skin I thought the longest about, specifically because of that reason. I'm still not 100% sure if I like it or not. The reason why I ultimately kept it like that is because the bright blue active tab is one of the most striking visual features in visual studio and I wanted to give a nod to that.
For the time being I think I'll keep the highlight like that, but maybe I'll change it at some point in the future if I get sick of it.

My vote is that you don't change it. I think that it is a definite plus.

[TIV73]

There is one thing that is definitely wrong; Context Filters. I filtered the above display by the "brothers" ... the filter criteria is invisible ... it affects all displays.

Yeah, that field is hard to read. I'll have a look at it, thanks for noticing!

[Barry4679]

There is one thing that is definitely wrong; Context Filters. I filtered the above display by the "brothers" ... the filter criteria is invisible ... it affects all displays.

Yeah, that field is hard to read. I'll have a look at it, thanks for noticing!

This is still my favourite MM5 skin but a large margin. Thanks
But I do find that the active Context Filter criteria box issue a PIA. Any update on that?

[TIV73]

Are you still seeing that somewhere? Should have been fixed in version 1.0.55 of the addon.

[Barry4679]

Are you still seeing that somewhere? Should have been fixed in version 1.0.55 of the addon.

Is all good. Sorry my error.
I looked in this thread, and did the the MM5 Find Updates procedure a few times.
I (falsely) assumed that the procedure applied updates, rather than just found them.

Skin is perfect now. Thanks

[zombiefly]

this skin is amazing
Q: changing font. is it as simple as unpacking it and changing the font name like the old days? I want to try with the win11 system font.

[drakinite]

Yup! You can use a web safe font (https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_websafe_fonts.asp) or do what TIV73 did and put your font file inside the skin and define its URL in skin_base_add.less (lines 37 and 38)