Xion Community

Hello I have a request, can you do so one can skin the playlist to, or atleast change the width on it?

Hi Nicholass,

nicholass Wrote:Hello I have a request, can you do so one can skin the playlist to, or atleast change the width on it?

What do you mean by 'Change the width on it' ? You should be able to resize the playlist quite large? Or do you mean that you want to be able to make it very small?

I am currently looking at allowing skinning of the playlist, or at least integrating a playlist in the main interface.

At the moment, I'm unsure how I will handle this as all skins are just assumed to be for the main xion player. I may have to add a new extension for playlist skins or maybe if there is a playlist.psd in a .zip or .xsf it will load that for a playlist. I'm not sure yet (Has anyone got any ideas?) I'm also trying to think of ways to allow it to be skinnable. I.e. how would you allow it to be resizable if it was a PSD file and how would you specify which bits would stretch/tile when resizing, etc.

Cliff

Sorry for not being so clear, what I meant was that I want to be able to make it very small

integrating a playlist in the main interface sounds like a really cool idea

I dont know how to solve the resizable part

Another player, QCD, allows for resizing by allowing the skin creator to define part of the skin as repeatable. You could add another keyword to a layer & that layer would be repeated (either on the x or y axis) to accomodate the required size.

If we were holding a vote, I'd vote for having the playist remain it's own entity - not integrated into the main interface. I personally like to move & resize the playlist seperately from the controls.

Maybe you could choose between a integrated playlist or a standalone playlist?

Thank you both for your replies,

I will have to look into the ability to skin the playlist at some point in the future. I will however give you the ability to shrink the playlist smaller than it currently allows.

Nicholass, what is the smallest size you are trying to shrink it to? If its smaller than the size of the title bar, then I may have to look at other options, such as removing the titlebar completely.

If you could, let me know via pixel sizes (i.e. 320x240) or something.

Cliff

Hmm.. around 250x250 pixels would be really nice

nicholass Wrote:Hmm.. around 250x250 pixels would be really nice

Ok, currently the smallest you can make the playlist is 329x182. The problem might be that the Load List and Save List buttons will start to overlap the other buttons.

I wonder if I should remove the buttons completely and put them instead in a menu at the top?

I guess the other option might be to compress the Save list and Load list buttons into one button when the window gets too small?

What do you think? Have you got any other ideas?

Cliff

If you put Load and Save List in a menu at the top then you could shrink it some, or maybe put them next to the search? But then they might overlap the search so the menu at the top sounds like the best idea

This is my first post, so I'd like to start by saying Xion sounds awesome, and Cliff your revolutionary take on skinning is perhaps the smartest thing I've witnessed in a very long time.

It would be great if a skinner could make the playlist/EQ skin that is part of the main window by creating Playlist/EQ layer sets within the main PSD containing all the playlist/EQ components, or if the skinner instead prefered a separate playlist/EQ then they could create separate Playlist/EQ PSDs for each. This seems to be the most flexable system to me. You could then have Xion look for either a Layer set or PSD named Playlist or EQ.

I understand that this might be more work initially, but it would enable the skinning format to be more flexible in the long run, and keep everyone happy.

As for resizing (of playlist skins) you could make it that for the playlist.PSD that the main include 4 side layers, 4 corner layers, and a main (center) layer besides all the buttons. Then it could be resized by tiling or stretching the 4 side layers and the center layer. Create a default resize method (like tile for example) but if the skinner wanted a side, or center layer stretched instead they could name the layer "Whateverside-S"

I'm not sure yet how you would place the buttons for the playlist unless a skinner were to make one of the side layers a layer set that included the button components.

You may want to make it so that Playlist.PSD be named Playlist-xxx-yyy.PSD to define a minimum Playlist size. This would prevent playlist skins from being resized to a point that they don't look right for the skin.

As you can see it's not a complete idea yet, but maybe some of my ideas might be helpful.

Great work.

Hi frugus,

Thanks for your great comments!

Wow, to imagine I might be starting a revolution!

Thanks for your ideas. It is definately going to be a hard slog to figure out what will be the best, both for now and for the future.

It's always hard to please everyone, since everyone wants something different, so I will do my best to create the best user experience possible.

I'll keep brainstorming on the ideas and If i come up with a prototype, I'll be sure to ask you all what you think

Cliff

I was thinking more about the playlist buttons, and docking them within a resizable playlist. It might be easier (for the skinner at least) if they could just have the button layers linked to one of the corner layers, then when the playlist was resized the buttons would move with whatever particular corner they were linked to in the PSD.