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Topic: Columns UI (Read 4560423 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Columns UI

Reply #7400
Any chance of increasing the area of 'Use title formatting for playlist titles' textbox? Having only 2 lines makes it fairly hard to edit anything more complex inside the window itself. There's plenty of whitespace left that is currently unused.
I think the simplest thing to do would be to put the Playlist switcher and Playlist tabs options on separate tabs. They aren't related to each other, anyway.

Additionally, the edit does not go live until you either switch to another tab or check and uncheck the corresponding checkbox. The 'Apply' button doesn't seem to be aware that a change has been made.
The main apply button has been discussed before, but perhaps I could make that setting auto-apply with a short delay (the equivalent setting for the main window title applies automatically without any delay, actually).
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Re: Columns UI

Reply #7401
Separate tabs sounds good to me.

As I recall the discussion you are referring to was about CUI immediately applying settings vs DUI always requiring a manual 'apply' button press to update settings?

If so, I'm fine with whichever requires less rework/fundamental design changes. I mostly pointed it out because like you mention, other parts of the UI either auto-apply after a short delay or would detect that a change has been made and require user input in the form of the apply button. In the case of that textbox, neither was there.

Thanks for the changes.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7402
I installed 1.4. today with ColumnsUI 1.0 and noticed this little cosmetic 'improvement' I wished wasn't improved...

In the columns tab, everything (Options,Display,Style,Sort) is now together in top level tabs. instead of the latter three grouped in a subtab. On first glance it seems logical, but on second glance it causes (at least for me) a minor annoyance...

pre 1.4 you could see at a glance if custom style or sort scripts were activated. in 1.4 you need to walk the tabs to see this... which requires a bit of additional clicking... Now I don't expect this to go back to pre 1.4 layout, because it actually looks cleaner, however... could these checkboxes possibly instead be placed on the 'Options' tab? Apart from the fact they are actually indeed 'options', it also would make it easier to go through a new (e.g. downloaded or otherwise acquired) layout to quickly check if there's a content in these tabs that needs reviewing (there still may be script in there but if the checkbox is not ticked, it's of far less importance to review)

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7403
I agree, there are still usability problems on that page (although I'd hope the removal of the third level of tabs improved things overall).

Perhaps the status of those two settings could be displayed read-only on the Options tab (rather than having them toggle-able in two places).
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Re: Columns UI

Reply #7404
I think showing the same information in two places would be redundant and potentially confusing for newbies (especially if one of those would be either on or off without a way to directly interact with it - greyed out).

A more elegant solution would be to just move the custom sorting and style checkboxes next to the 'show column' one.

I guess one could argue that this will make testing sortings/styles more complicated by forcing the user to flip between tabs to turn these on or off. But that is already how the display tab works and if you are just testing I have found it easier to just temporarily delete the contents of the sorting/style tab or put a ')' in front of it all to invalidate the entire thing. That way I don't even have to bother with the checkbox.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7405
Perhaps the status of those two settings could be displayed read-only on the Options tab (rather than having them toggle-able in two places).
Or just have them _only_ shown on the Options tab? Which would fit in nicely with Dearon's suggestion (and they actually form a logical trio there) and would also alleviate the problem of having to switch to each tab to invalidate them if you want to test things...

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7406
I think showing the same information in two places would be redundant and potentially confusing for newbies (especially if one of those would be either on or off without a way to directly interact with it - greyed out).
I was just thinking a bit of text (e.g. 'A custom style script is active'), rather than anything greyed out.

A more elegant solution would be to just move the custom sorting and style checkboxes next to the 'show column' one.
The problem then is that you might be editing something and wondering why it's not working. The connection between the two things would probably also be less obvious. Whether a custom style script is active is also a combination of whether it is turned on and whether there is any text in the box (as in, it wouldn't be doing anything if it is blank). So you would still need to look in multiple places really.
.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7407
Is there any chance to have artwork sources title formatting support the usage of %_playlist_name%?

I already differentiate grouping schemes according to their playlist filters, so having similar control over displayed artwork would be really helpful.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7408
Can Filters and Playlist switcher do padding for the sides? I've long wondered if it can be done, and have tried a bunch of ways, which mostly are me clumsily coping with the fact that you can't. I'd like it so that I can expand the selected/inactive statuses (blue for selection in the example) into the sides.

My Filter and Playlist switcher are at the very beginning of the screen, so if I remove the grey padding the text would start at the very left, since the text itself barely renders with 1px padding on the left. This would look very wrong - just take a look at this post on the forum and see the decent padding you have on the left before the post begins.

This post from 2006 has a script that can be modified to achieve it on Playlist switcher, but it breaks the functionality to search by writing, and also isn't supported on Filter - which has a vertical padding setting (so almost).

Anyone has an idea if it can be done? The post I linked gives me some hope that some foobar magic can be done with some other component, that appends a space at both sides of all playlists and artist names, and lets me search by their first letter still... if not is there any chance it could be added someday as a feature?

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7409
Sorry, there is not currently a way to control that padding. It should be marginally increased in the next version if you are using a display scaling factor (DPI) greater than 100%, though.
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Re: Columns UI

Reply #7410
I'm somewhat confused here.

Do you want to expand the blue highlight to the edges? If so, that's weird, because for me it uses 100% of the available horizontal space by default (it does not get cut off on the sides). Maybe a PSS thing, not sure.

Do you want to increase spacing on the left and right of the text, so it's more centered? Should be doable by adding spaces to the display settings of playlist switcher. Will break search by typing.

Do you want to just increase the separation between different UI elements? You can set the divider length for CUI or there are padding settings when using the Panel Stack Splitter component.

You could also try the Playlist Organizer component, maybe it'll be more to your liking.


Re: Columns UI

Reply #7411
Further to my comments in the thread here:  https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,117731.0.html would it be possible to have CUI not add any text to the status bar (or indeed the title bar) that the user has not specifically put into in the respective script box for each item? I am specifically talking about what is displayed when the player is fully stopped (i.e. not just paused).

It appears that the CUI status bar text and title bar program name are hard-coded.

I often flip back and forth between CUI and DUI using a hotkey, and it's kind of jarring to have changes in the status bar and title bar (especially for a program that is otherwise so configurable in every other respect).

I have a addon (I think it's foo_ui_hacks.dll ) that lets you change the title bar icon and text that displays when the player is stopped. It works great in DUI (which is what it was designed for), but CUI does not retain the DUI user-specified title bar text (somewhat understandably given that it's a totally different interface) but neither does it display what the user has put into CUI's own script boxes for the status bar and title bar (unless a track is playing).

However, thankfully CUI does retain any custom title bar icon that the user has assigned to the title bar (even though it was assigned in DUI) so at least you don't get icon changes as well as text changes. But it would be great to have consistency between UIs and give the user control over what to display when the player is stopped.

Thanks.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7412
Now that Columns UI is in steady development: How does this compare with Facets? I ask this again because Facets has not been in development for quite some time.
EDIT: With Facets, the left pane or column has a list of artists. The middle is albums - 2 across with album covers. And, the right is a list of songs that displays whenever an album is selected.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7413
You are comparing apples and oranges here considering CUI is entire framework while Facets is a library viewer. But I'm guessing you are interested in CUI Filter panels specifically.

In my experience Facets is still richer in features (statistics, showing multiple columns in the same pane, cover art support, alternating backgrounds) and generally more efficient/faster with a large number of items. CUI Filter panels is somewhat barebones in comparison but still fulfills the basic design principle that each component is going for (a bunch of lists interconnected).

One thing I like about CUI Filter panels favor is that since they are individual UI elements, you can place them anywhere in your layout, while Facets can only spawn more panes to the left/right of existing ones. Since not every list will contain the same amount of items (5 star ratings vs a list of artists), this can end up a pretty inefficient use of the available space.

Basically Facets on its own is still the better product, but if you want CUI features you'll be forced to use CUI Filter panels anyway (apart from running Facets in a window), which is a sufficient replacement albeit not as flashy.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7414
^ Nicely summarized. If curious though, why not try it for yourself and see? (Can do a portable install in a different folder to not interfere with your main install). It really depends on your usage and needs.

For me, the greatness of Facets is in the multiple columns (+statistics!) per each pane, and the ability to pipe several fields into one column with the '|' character and have their values intermingle. (Like %<artist>%|%<performer>% - extremely useful). While the greatness of CUI is obviously the advanced customization and layouts you can achieve.

(What I would love the most though is an SMP version of Facets, the like WilB has done with his Library Tree script. There could be so many improvements / customizations :D ).

Cheers


Re: Columns UI

Reply #7416
CUI: What does this mean?


Re: Columns UI

Reply #7418
DPI scaling improvements are good stuff, thanks!

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7419
1.1.0 beta 1

Wierd, after the update now playing track is not in the centre as it used to be with the odd number of visible tracks in the playlist but one below.

Tested on clean portable. Windows 7, custom DPI 105% if that's important.

When having a very long COMMENT tag, it is shown only as a . (dot)

Reply #7420
Hello musicmusic,

(v1.1.0 with f2k 1.5b7, but this shows up since a long time)

when having a very long COMMENT tag, it is shown only as a dot (.)

How can we see the actual comment ?

Example for very long COMMENT here: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,117997.0.html

or directly
Code: [Select]
Comment : FSB-7; 0;  000004C7 000002C6 00004F84 00002624 00020B29 00020678 00007E87 00007E87 0000296D 00002E1F;  00000000 00000210 00000A1C 0000000000BA4354 00000000 00A8DC93 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000FSB-7; 0;  000004C7 000002C6 00004F84 00002624 00020B29 00020678 00007E87 00007E87 0000296D 00002E1F;  00000000 00000210 00000A1C 0000000000BA4354 00000000 00A8DC93 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000FSB-7; 0;  000004C7 000002C6 00004F84 00002624 00020B29 00020678 00007E87 00007E87 0000296D 00002E1F;  00000000 00000210 00000A1C 0000000000BA4354 00000000 00A8DC93 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000FSB-7; 0;  000004C7 000002C6 00004F84 00002624 00020B29 00020678 00007E87 00007E87 0000296D 00002E1F;  00000000 00000210 00000A1C 0000000000BA4354 00000000 00A8DC93 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000FSB-7; 0;  000004C7 000002C6 00004F84 00002624 00020B29 00020678 00007E87 00007E87 0000296D 00002E1F;  00000000 00000210 00000A1C 0000000000BA4354 00000000 00A8DC93 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000FSB-7; 0;

I can attach a sample mp3 file if nobody can reproduce.


Re: Columns UI

Reply #7422
Wierd, after the update now playing track is not in the centre as it used to be with the odd number of visible tracks in the playlist but one below.
Thanks, I can reproduce that. It'll be fixed for the next version.

Hello musicmusic,

(v1.1.0 with f2k 1.5b7, but this shows up since a long time)

when having a very long COMMENT tag, it is shown only as a dot (.)
foobar2000 suppresses large field values by default. They'll only be displayed for playing tracks, or in e.g. the Item details panel. You can control the behaviour by editing the LargeFieldsConfig.txt field in your foobar2000 configuration folder (Shift + File/Browse configuration folder).

1.1.0 (final) has been released on July 27 2019
https://github.com/reupen/columns_ui/releases
Indeed. If you'd like to be notified of new releases, you can subscribe to notifications on GitHub:

.

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7423
(v1.1.0 with f2k 1.5b7, but this shows up since a long time)

when having a very long COMMENT tag, it is shown only as a dot (.)
foobar2000 suppresses large field values by default. They'll only be displayed for playing tracks, or in e.g. the Item details panel. You can control the behaviour by editing the LargeFieldsConfig.txt field in your foobar2000 configuration folder (Shift + File/Browse configuration folder).
Thank you! I only have this with COMMENT tags, did not know, all fields are affected. I wondered, what this file is all about but never understood its purpose....I will look into this file and try to understand and change it to my needs :-)

1.1.0 (final) has been released on July 27 2019
https://github.com/reupen/columns_ui/releases
Indeed. If you'd like to be notified of new releases, you can subscribe to notifications on GitHub:

Aren't new versions announced via f2k->help->check for updated components anymore?
(I remember a time (long long ago), where I was sure, I had the latest version, but it turned out, on the components homepage, there was a newer one)

Re: Columns UI

Reply #7424
Aren't new versions announced via f2k->help->check for updated components anymore?
If the component file is not uploaded to the foobar2000 official repository, your check for updates won't find it either. Don't think CUI was ever available there and its not the only component either in that regard.