Hey all,
I'm new here. I've been using foobar for a couple months now and its a great program. BUT: All those strings commandos that u have to write to edit the layout for Colums UI (want to make it look somewhat better than the default look) are completely Chinese for me.
Two questions:
How do you enter background and text colors? Dont like the default colums UI white bacground with black text.
Numbering of the playlist: which command is to be used for this???
THX!
Hey all,
I'm new here. I've been using foobar for a couple months now and its a great program. BUT: All those strings commandos that u have to write to edit the layout for Colums UI (want to make it look somewhat better than the default look) are completely Chinese for me.
Two questions:
How do you enter background and text colors? Dont like the default colums UI white bacground with black text.
Numbering of the playlist: which command is to be used for this???
THX!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272870"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
First of all, take a look at titleformat_help.html in your foobar folder. That will tell you all the tagz codes you need to know for writing strings.
As for colors, when you create a column, click the "Colour" tab. There is a "Tools" button near the bottom. Click "String Help." That will tell you the format in which colors need to be entered for custom color specs. The six-digit number flanked by blocky characters is what a color code looks like. Click the "..." button to get color codes using the color pallette.
If you want every column to use the same color specs, put your color codes in the "Colour" section of the "Globals" tab.
I also recommend downloading some of the configs people have uploaded and studying their code.
Thank You topdownjimmy, this helped me too.
I think for those of us that don't have some sort of background or experience in programming, the titleformat_help.html is not that helpful. I know there are a lot of examples of how the various tagz work, but some of us need examples to explain the examples. It's probably taken me almost 2 years of (sporadic) use of foobar to get to the point where I have a somewhat rudimentary ability to write my own formatting strings.
My suggestion would be to install and use the trackinfo panel with columns ui. It has been very useful in helping me understand how tagz formatting works. Since the panel updates instantly as you type in the configuration window, you can see what effects the various tagz/strings have and how they work. Start by copying someone else's trackinfo string and then customize it to suit your taste/needs.
The other option is to just copy strings created by othe people. The problem with this is that a lot of the various strings floating around these forums are dependent on using various custom metadata tags for them to work correctly.
Rob
My suggestion would be to install and use the trackinfo panel with columns ui. It has been very useful in helping me understand how tagz formatting works. Since the panel updates instantly as you type in the configuration window, you can see what effects the various tagz/strings have and how they work.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272934"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That is a very good point, trackinfo is really helpful in seeing LIVE what strings do as you type them.
I think I'm going to take on the task of writing a beginner's guide. Over the past three months I've gone from total newbie to an intermediate user, so I think I'm at a good point to take a look back and write some kind of beginner's guide, which doesn't exist, and that's totally regrettable.
I'll be sure to include that tip about trackinfo.
Thx for the replys. I got was able to ad some colours. However, for the more advanced stuff, such a newbie introduction guide would be a very good idea. Not everyone is a programmer. I think the developers should take this more into account. It's awesome to be able to do almost anything with foobar, but for some users, this can make it user unfriendly!
Thx for the replys. I got was able to ad some colours. However, for the more advanced stuff, such a newbie introduction guide would be a very good idea. Not everyone is a programmer. I think the developers should take this more into account. It's awesome to be able to do almost anything with foobar, but for some users, this can make it user unfriendly!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272972"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I think it's a newbie hostile program. I am totally lost, and I am not a new compter user. I've used computers of one sort or another for about 20 years (since I was 7), but i'm no programmer...hence I run into problems when I want Foobar to look and perform like I want it to.
I've been using foobar2000 about 1 year. First a half I was very interested in title formatting, so I started from some configs others made, read the code, and I learned to customize by myself.
I think trying is important. From copying other's config and modifying a bit, it can be a good start.
I personally think that we all need a tagz tester app of somekind, where we can test out tagz and strings before applying them to our configs. Im sure allot of people would find this handy in more ways than one.
I personally think that we all need a tagz tester app of somekind, where we can test out tagz and strings before applying them to our configs. Im sure allot of people would find this handy in more ways than one.
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Try the [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=29363]trackinfo[/url] panel...it shows what your TAGZ code looks like in real-time.
Thx for the replys. I got was able to ad some colours. However, for the more advanced stuff, such a newbie introduction guide would be a very good idea. Not everyone is a programmer. I think the developers should take this more into account. It's awesome to be able to do almost anything with foobar, but for some users, this can make it user unfriendly![a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272972"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Better remove most of the customizability then...
If you want something simple, use iTunes or similar. There are already a lot of players that are aimed at the userbase you seem to think every player should be made for.
I think it's a newbie hostile program. I am totally lost, and I am not a new compter user. I've used computers of one sort or another for about 20 years (since I was 7), but i'm no programmer...hence I run into problems when I want Foobar to look and perform like I want it to.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272982"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I struggle when I try to develop plugins for foobar2000, but I don't expect the C++ programming language to be simplified because of it. I just have to read more, and that's what I do. IMHO, that's what all you whiners should do too. For example learning TAGZ isn't all that difficult. Even though I stuggled alot at first, it's just a matter of being willing to spend some time reading and coding. Everything you need is probably covered in the first few chapters of "any" book about programming. Read that (you can find such things online), and give it a try. Pretty soon, I'm sure you will get the hang of it. I've been considering making a small tutorial, but there are just so many ways to do the same thing, and I haven't really decided on what style I think would be the best for beginners. The latter problem, has also made me consider making a tutorial covering the different ways you can achieve essensially the same thing, using TAGZ.
But, it's not like it's a human right to be able to use every player. If it was, then all players would be pretty much the same, with hardly any options at all. Different people have different needs and taste. This happens to be an advanced one.
IMHO
Increased customizability => increased complexity
Simple as that.
Yes, I'm a little tired of all the people that has started to flood this forum lately. If you can't handle the fact that info is scattered and that nearly everything can be customized, then use another player if you don't want to spend some time learning. After all, someone has to write all the tutorials and documentation you want. Or should I say demand?
Btw: I don't mind people asking questions and I'm happy to help out whenever I can, but lately it's been quite obivous that some won't even try to find the answer, or try for themselves. That makes me less motivated to spend my time trying to help.
Thx for the replys. I got was able to ad some colours. However, for the more advanced stuff, such a newbie introduction guide would be a very good idea. Not everyone is a programmer. I think the developers should take this more into account. It's awesome to be able to do almost anything with foobar, but for some users, this can make it user unfriendly!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272972"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I think it's a newbie hostile program. I am totally lost, and I am not a new compter user. I've used computers of one sort or another for about 20 years (since I was 7), but i'm no programmer...hence I run into problems when I want Foobar to look and perform like I want it to.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272982"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Take a look at the Beginner's Guide in my sig. I'm still making some modifications and working on an advanced section, but I think the beginner's section is exactly what a newbie needs to get started.
Other folks: please help me with the Advanced Use section of the wiki if you can, where the real nuts and bolts of fb2k can be documented.
TAGZ really isn't that difficult to learn - and the fact that there are playlist designs out there made by people who get a heck of magick out of tagz, should be a pro for you, not a con just because of envy.
Do you propose, that the fact that the possibility is there that SOME people can get more out of tagz than you and the majority of people, is a reason to remove this possibility? Thats a strange way to argument. I agree that foobar could be made easier without sacrificing features (polishing) but thats a completely different issue than the one you're bringing up, ryeosborne. Your reasoning is "others can do more with it than i can do, so those features should be disabled", which imho is just FUD.
upNorth already said everything else there is to say.
However, i do agree that its very annoying that when writing formatting strings, then fb2k will only tell you IF there is an error, but not what kind of error, not even where it happened.
- Lyx
TAGZ really isn't that difficult to learn - and the fact that there are playlist designs out there made by people who get a heck of magick out of tagz, should be a pro for you, not a con just because of envy.
Do you propose, that the fact that the possibility is there that SOME people can get more out of tagz than you and the majority of people, is a reason to remove this possibility? Thats a strange way to argument. I agree that foobar could be made easier without sacrificing features (polishing) but thats a completely different issue than the one you're bringing up, ryeosborne. Your reasoning is "others can do more with it than i can do, so those features should be disabled", which imho is just FUD.
upNorth already said everything else there is to say.
However, i do agree that its very annoying that when writing formatting strings, then fb2k will only tell you IF there is an error, but not what kind of error, not even where it happened.
- Lyx
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=273404"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes. I've been also annoyed many time when displayed [INVALID SYNTAX ERROR]. But when function succeeded and appeared what I wanted, even now I got excited.
Format editor component (http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uzbs/fb2k/misc/foo_formatedit.zip)
Be aware that this is a prototype that I was never quite finished, which is exactly the reason why it hasn't been officially released (though I've given it to some people on IRC).
Features and limitations:
- It has syntax-highlighting and syntax-checking for classical Tagz, but not for the newer #script 1 (C style) syntax.
- Some errors are reported multiple times, just focus on fixing the first one.
- I forgot some functions, so it will complain about two or three functions as being unknown (including $and). Unfortunately I lost the source for this particular version, and newer versions have even less working features (stuck in the middle of some clean-up), so fixing this is currently not easy.
- Find and replace is not implemented.
- There is no preview.
- The component can open global titleformatting scripts (playlist, statusbar, main window title, ...) and formatting scripts for foo_history and foo_dbsearch. It can load and save text files. It cannot directly access formatting scripts in foo_ui_columns and it has no support for the special features in foo_ui_columns (like "global variables").
- The speedtest functions are designed to compare the performance of the parser in foo_formatedit to that of the interpreter in fb2k; it is not that useful for benchmarking a particular script.
Installation and usage:
Put foo_formatedit.dll in your components directory and scilexer.dll in your foobar2000 directory. Do not put scilexer.dll in your components directory, it will not work. I just had to stress this, as misplaced auxilliary DLLs have quite often been a problem.
You can then open the format editor through "Components/Format editor" in the main menu.
Note that it is currently rather useless to ask for new features, however I will let you know, if I find time to improve the component.
PS: Though I made the components icon myself, I'm not sure what kind of creature that really is. It has been suggested that it could be an alien sheep or bull.
Wow very ambitious component you got there =)
Looking good so far, some kind of preview panel could help (just a thought)