HeaBside - a tribute to Foobar2000 and its 'once-you-try-it-you'll-never-forget-it' foo_looks component :)
Preface
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This is the first skin look I ever made. I tried to reach many goals through it :
- clickable shortcuts to every function I often use ;
- constant visibility over all infos I often need ;
- visually pleasant yet discreet ;
- easily customizable ;
I hope you'll think these objectives are achieved once you try this look.
Meeting your own needs is very important so don't hesitate to mess within the .ski files. And read carefully tk32's great tutorial : it's very well written, crystal clear if you follow every step.
And if you miss a feature, and have consequently modified this look code/graphics, feel free to submit me your mods, I will happily publish them on this site ! |
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News
12.04.2004 Mod and pages by Hamallainen. :))
21.03.2004 First public release.
Download
Last version : 1.0
Last version updated :
File : HeaBside1.0.rar (505 ko)
Mod !!!
Hammod by Hamallainen. Improves 'cover art ' management, and informations display. Try it !!!
How to install
Please read the foo_looks v2 guide from tk32 here (section Installing the plugin & skins) to install foo_looks 2.
HeaBside files should be extracted into your folder look (like "C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components\foo_looks\"). You have to activate it in Foobar looks panel (preferences > components > looks)
Features
This look follows a 2-button (sometimes 3 ?) policy : every button can be clicked with either the left or the right button of your mouse, triggering differents functions. Sometimes you will need to use the mousewheel to reach some functions. If you don't have a mousewheel ... Well, a 2-button + wheel mouse is not really expensive nowadays ;) but you can try using the up and down arrows instead.
Detailed
features and inputs are avalaible on this map.
Some functions I added after I finished paiting this map are described above
Thanks
To you, as I hope you'll enjoy this look as much as I enjoyed designing it.
Many many many respectful thanks goes to :
DanZ, for programming this great component, and for his help.
tk32, for his great tech support and the wonderful scripts & looks he designed / ported (Graviton !!! Woaa... If you had to try only one look, this one is THE one !).
upNorth, for his ideas, concepts and scripts.
Ludo, for his intensive beta-testing ;)
Hmmm... Why 'HeaBside' ? Well... I was a bit reluctant to design a look for Foobar, as I appreciate its light-weighted textual interface. I first thought a look will obviously make Foobar swichting to the 'Heavy Side' of media-players (like winamp3 did). Then I tried to do it : not so big at last. But I didn't want to name it HeavySide because I owe respect to Oliver Heaviside works (at least the step function). So I switched to the B from Foobar :B
How can I contact you ? Leave a post on this HA topic (I often read it) or send my a private message on my HA account. I have a lot of exams so forgive my (inner :p) slowliness...
Where can I find infos about foo_looks ? There's also a good topic around script, design, ideas about foo_looks here. Obvisouly you can take a look at tk32 site.
Foobar crashes when I try to close it with the X right-clic ? Well... On my computer it doesn't. It's a known issue with foo_looks v2. tk32 and DanZ are working on this, wait fo the new version and don't use this function until this :)
My cpu gets very busy when I use this look : is this expected ?? If the spectrum is activated : yes. If you the periodicaly & quickly set the mouse over/outside the look : yes. I have the same problems on my computer. If you know how to solve them, let me know : I'll be very grateful. Forever. Really.
How much cpu time costs this soooo big multi-layer alphablended thing ? When I leave it alone while playing music (I often do that) it costs me around 10%-15% cpu time on my old athlon@600Mhz. You probably have a better cpu, so this might not be a problem for you :)
How does the color panel works (it appears when I right-click the Display Mode button used for 'Always on Top') ? Try to use the mousewheel on the 4 columns... And be careful, when the column on the left has its border red, it changes on the whole look (everything could become transparent). If the border is gray, it changes only the font (and the progres bar if you left-click this column once).
How can I keep my colors preferences at startup ? There's no easy way for the moment, like clicking on a button ;) ... But you can copy & paste the following codes into the "Overrides" section in the look panel :
section presetsimages
string BackgroundSolidStart "Orange"
string BorderBcolorStart "Blue"
section globals
list fontcolor color.Black
section colorbar
list bordercolor color.Black
list fillcolor color.Black
You can change the color to any of the following (be careful, typo mistakes aren't allowed) : "Blue", "Orange", "Green", "Red", "Cyan", "Magenta", "Yellow", "Black".
If you don't want any color at startup, just leave it blank. Ex : just replace "Blue" to "" to have a transparent Border B at startup.
The sections globals and colorbar set the colors used for the font and the progress bar.
If you are familiar with scripting and arvb settings, you can replace color.Black with int { a r v b } ; for example int { 128 255 0 168 } to get half-transparent pink instead of black
Can I use the scripts you wrote / modified for HeaBside ? Yes, of course ! I'd be pleased to see they're useful to you. Concerning the scripts I modified, if any of the authors don't want to see them distributed, please respect their will (but I doubt that they don't want, as they're really friendly :))
Can I use the graphics you painted for HeaBside ? Yes, of course !
The 'always on top' button doesn't work ! It's a foo_looks version issue. I designed HeaBside on version 2.0 but since version 2.1 (cf HA thread) the triggers have changed... I'll include the fix in the next HeaBside release, but you can fix it by yourself. Just open HeaBside\HeaBside_scripts.ski and search & change :
fb2k_menuCommand('Components/Look/Always on Top')
to :
fb2k_menuCommand('Components/Look/ Show/Always on Top')
Thanks to Hamallainen for his help :)