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Topic: Simplest way to skin foobar2000? (Read 13643 times) previous topic - next topic
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Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

22April2010

Greetings.

I (re-)discovered foobar this week.
foobar now joins AutoHotKey & Audacity
as freeware I originally rejected and then later
tried again & found I should have been using all along ...

I still have my original laptop/PC from 1998 -
a Toshiba 4005cds with a 233mHz PII & maxed out at 160mb RAM ...
I put a 250gb HDD in it & XPPro on it.
This "dinosaur" has become my multimedia machine
(for everything except PCTV ...)
I play audio/video files on it while I do stuff / work on my other two XP laptops.

At the end of 2008 (after I had tried & rejectd foobar), I discovered SpecLab.
http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf
I use SpecLab as a spectrum analyzer & dual oscilloscope while I play mp3 files.
SpecLab is amazing (as is foobar) in that my 4005 can run the software
without maxing out and locking up at 100% CPU usage.
I don't need/use the foobar visualizations.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like a simple matter to skin foobar.
I use the foobar ColumnsUI component.
My foobar has only TitleBar, one (the now playing) line of the playlist & the StatusBar.
The TitleBar scrolls the song title(s) when longer than the TitleBar is wide.
The playlist shows the artist & album.
I've customized the StatusBar display.

Could/Would someone reply/advise regarding the simplest foobar skin to use?
Customize.org has fooobar skins as does deviantart.com,
but I haven't been able to download any skins from deviantart -
even though I am registered there ...
I just want to change the colors of the TitleBar & StatusBar ...

Any helpful replies/insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #1
The simplest way to "skin" foobar2000 is to alter colours and fonts of the Default UI through the means provided in the Quick Setup or the Preferences dialog. If this is not sufficient skinning, I strongly suggest you use a different audio player.


Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #3
Furthermore there are several gallery threads in here (for DUI as well as CUI) and also heavily customized packs like Kameleon by Br3tt are available; just browse the forum!

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #4
23April2010

Greetings.

Then better find out how to use custom themes for your operating system, not foobar because it just uses the default title and status bar appearance provided for every window.

Yes, I know foobar uses the OS theme colors, but in all my other skinning experience
(CoolPlayer, JetAudio, VLC, WinAmp ...), the skin overrides the OS theme formatting.
Is that not the case with foobar UI skinning?

My initial impression is that skinning is not a strong point of foobar (nor for VLC).
The VLC forum, however, seems to have better moderation ...
Foobar colors/fonts do not change Title/Status/bar colors as far as I could tell ...

Might I also ask»
What does Tone/sweep sample rate do? Does foobar resample what it plays?

Any helpful replies/insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

 

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #5
My initial impression is that skinning is not a strong point of foobar (nor for VLC)

That depends on how much time you are willing to spend. The default UI is not made for skinning, but for customizing (you can create your own custom UI by arranging the UI elements how you want them). Columns UI with Panel Splitter offers much more flexibility to repaint all parts of the window yourself, but that comes with the price of a "do-it-yourself" approach with lots of messing with codes in various places. So it is possible to completely possible to replace all parts of the main window contents, but that takes a lot of time and practice. Br3tt's foobar configuration give you an impression of what is possible.


Quote
Might I also ask» What does Tone/sweep sample rate do? Does foobar resample what it plays?

Please keep the forum clean: one topic per thread.

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #6
What's wrong with the moderators here? It seems quite polite that they haven't informed you that the forum places the date and time above posts automatically, and can format posts quite well without users overusing carriage returns.

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #7
My initial impression is that skinning is not a strong point of foobar (nor for VLC).
The VLC forum, however, seems to have better moderation ...
Foobar colors/fonts do not change Title/Status/bar colors as far as I could tell ...



I believe one of the best things of foobar is it's amazing customization possibilities which to my knowledge is absolutely unmatched by any player I have encountered.
Perhaps you'd need do to some more research before comparing foobar to VLC. Like ojdo suggested you could check out one of Br3tt's configurations, they are all amazing.

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #8
My initial impression is that skinning is not a strong point of foobar (nor for VLC).
The VLC forum, however, seems to have better moderation ...
Foobar colors/fonts do not change Title/Status/bar colors as far as I could tell ...


What most people here is trying to say as politely as possible (couse youre newcomer) is that foobar2000 is a music player. its not wyswig painbrush bloat clusterf*ck on wheels which accidentally play music also.

There are two options to modify fb2k UI:
1) customize DUI layout
this method does not require to much of a knowhow as its quite easily grasped by intermediate users.
here is what you can achieve with it: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=58574

2) skin CUI
with this method you can do LOT more to gui. But there is one big BUT with. You will not be able to change tiniest thing without scripting knowledge (if skin does not allow you change it of the bat via configuration screen)

as your question about changing "title bar" goes. Answer is: "no fb2k does not hacks win API to achieve window decoration change"... there are some ways but they are all nasty.

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #9
10Septebmer2010
This summer I found Trout (portable) -
a nice cross between CoolPlayer and foobar.
Trout runs at about 4% CPU usage on my PII.
Anyway, I would now like to ask/know how I can have
(in normal NOT ColumnsUI mode) the foobar playlist CURRENTLY PLAYING LINEITEM
display with GREEN text on a BLACK background?
I set those colors for the playlist; however,
the currently playing item does NOT display in those colors ...
Any helpful replies/insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #10
Now that I have Trout to use with SpecLab

and don't need to find a way to configure
foobar to play with SpecLab, I've started finding ways to use foobar without SpecLab
for when I want/need a change from Trout&SpecLab

As stated previously/elsewhere, it has been a challenge configuring my PII to be my multimedia machine;
(but has been a resounding success! )
The foobar Oscilloscope and/or Spectrum use/require too much CPU usage for the PII;
but that's OK because
1) I use SpecLab as a dual channel Spectrum+Oscilloscope;
2) The foobar Spectrogram, Peak & VU meters work just fine;.
3) I can also run a slideshow with transition effects while foobar+viz runs ...

The Spectrogram allows changing the colors.
That seems not possible with the meters. Might that be possible now or in the future?
The greens & blues are very nice but other (green»yellow»red) meter colors would also be nice.

The Peak Meter (PM) seems to use the most CPU usage of the three, but that's OK because the VU meter is a low CPU usage viz & almost the same as the Peak Meter. What is the technical difference between the VU & Peak meters?

When I run foobar with the PM I have the same problem I posted previously/elsewhere about running foobar with SpecLab. foobar+PM/SL will be running fine at around 50%±10% for a while; then for some unknown reason at some unknown time, CPU usage will spike to 100% - and I'll have to kill foobar+ ... I still would like to find out why that happens.

My question in the previous post about the defaultGUI layout playlist display colors remains ...

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #11
Now that I have Trout to use with SpecLab and don't need to find a way to configure foobar to play with SpecLab
I never thought I'd see the day when I could post and say that
I seem to have found the /a configuration to run foobar+SpecLab on my PII ... without
the same problem I posted previously/elsewhere about running foobar with SpecLab. foobar+PM/SL will be running fine at around 50%±10% for a while; then for some unknown reason at some unknown time, CPU usage will spike to 100% - and I'll have to kill foobar+ ... I still would like to find out why that happens.
but I seem to have found how to kill off the CPU usage spike to 100% ...
not only that but I can use the Peak Meter with foobar+SpecLab.
The Peak Meter (PM) seems to use the most CPU usage of the three
The VU meter seem to use less CPU usage than the Peak Meter when NOT running SpecLab,
but the Peak Meter seems to use less CPU usage than the VU meter when running WITH SpecLab.
What is the technical difference between the VU & Peak meters?


Not only that - I have found a way to nicely configure WinAmp to play multimedia playlists (with avi & mp3 files) on my PIII find that it is better to use WinAmp with the Classic Spectrum Analyzer for low bitrate mp3s (less than 96/32) because there just isn't enough frequencies for a nice display in SpecLab ... I can also run a slideshow while WA plays audio ...

All of a sudden I have multiple very nice options for audio/video/multimedia playback on the PII ...

Simplest way to skin foobar2000?

Reply #12
A good, sharp hunting knife.
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.