Xion Community

WARNING:
This is a Beta Build. That means it has fixes and features that are NEW. It is also possible it has bugs that are NEW! If you are looking for stability, please don't expect this build to be perfectly stable. It may have issues. If on the other hand you are happy to try this build out and post any bugs back in this thread, then please do!

Download Installer Version:
r2 Studios Server -> http://www.r2.com.au/downloads/files/beta/qa-xion_v1.0b102.exe
OR
Xion Server -> http://xion.r2.com.au/download/beta/qa-xion_v1.0b102.exe

Changelist:

• Major internal refactoring of the Skin classes to better generalize it and place it within a library (This took ages!)
  
• Make it so that if you launch Xion with command line options and there is a previous instance, it doesn't take focus - Thanks zeroone!
  
• Fix compilation of SDK Examples
  
• Don't force the output volume to max for the device
  
• Update Bass to 2.4.1.1
  
• Add options for Integration into Windows Explorer, AutoPlay Menu and Native Media Players into the File Types tab
  
• More work towards a skinnable playlist. Large chunk of work now complete and functions 100%. Now just needs extra buttons/features to support it back up to the original Playlist level.
  
• Several changes to internal string handling
  
• Cleaned up some Stare Viz code
  
• Fixed some compile errors in VS2005 while preparing for migration
  
• Used a new version of the Menu system for the playlist on right click
  
• Fixed up some more String/XionName/XionPath references
  
• Modified Playlist to allow loading from an archive as well as file on disk
  
• Updated BASS to 2.4.2
  
• Cleaned up the Shimmer/Playlist Window architecture. More to come
  
• Updated BassVis to 2.4.1.2
  
• Remove obsolte BassVis
  
• Added drag and drop support for loading the Playlist Interfaces
  
• Fixed Bug when you save the Tag info for the currently playing song, it doesn't remember the position it was playing up to - Thanks pickle!
  
• Modified State Saving so that it also saves the direction of the animation as well as if it was playing or not. Increased the version number from 2 to 3
  
• Fixed bug where tags weren't being properly updated when a new file was loaded that had no tags
  
• Modified the Shimmer Window to display the track name for its caption
  
• Added a text dialog for displaying the Track Title Format, instead of using a Message Box
  
• Fixed CD Audio tracks not properly progressing. (Any track that was unable to be pre-cached was causing it to get stuck)
  
• Fixed the track names inheriting the name of the action text that was currently active when adding them. I.e. Volume 56%
  
• Updated the way that the playlist adds files, now that its skinnable. Will now display progress in a text 'pl_info' box
  
• Will now display an error if Xion was unable to play a specified file, instead of sitting there apparently stuck
  
• All VU meters used for skinning are now scaled by the current volume
  
• Modified Playlist window's minimum size to be limited to the size of the source playlist skin
  
• Allowed the playlist font to be customized using normal font tags from the skin
  
• Modified XionWindowSkinned to block Cancel and Ok defaults commands which were causing the skin windows to disapear if you pressed escape
  
• Added the ability for the playlist search box to use a custom font
  
• Made the playlist or the search box hide if they haven't been specified in the skin
  
• Added support for pl_menu button
  
• Fixed GUIAnimation objects not moving correctly when within the playlist
  
• Fixed Interfaces not loading correctly when run from the installer

If you find bugs specifically related to this build, please post them here instead of the Bug reporting forum. Any feedback positive or negative should also go in here, no new threads. This way all feedback, etc related to this build will be in the one place.


ABOUT THIS BUILD:

Skinnable Playlist for the win! WARNING: This is a Preview build for the Playlist. I need feedback and any other bugs you find! PLEASE NOTE: Do not release any skins with Playlists in them yet as no one can use them properly! ALSO, things may change before release, so be prepared for that!

Also note that currently the Playlist won't remember which .psd you last had loaded, it will always reload the default.zip's, playlist.psd. This is intentional for this build as I haven't nailed down a bunch of things yet.

The main thing I'm looking for feedback on, is any problems creating the playlist skins themselves. There is no documentation yet, other than the playlist.psd file itself, within the Default.zip, so please skinners take a look at this.

Any questions or bugs related to the skinnable playlist should be posted here only!

Enjoy!

Cliff

N1 Cliff, with all these fixes you are spoiling us, congrats on getting these changes out

right couple of things I can see with the New skinned playlist

Top bar is not draggable, also possibly needs dbl click feature to either toggle minimise/restore
it is also possible to select the playlist in the select skin window but it doesnt show properly, only the parts

the scrollbar is using windows scrollbar, you just know that skinners are gonna want to be able to skin this too

Needs Add/Rem/List buttons inside the pl window - not sure if these have been thought of yet (not looked at anything yet)

is it possible to create a skin with just the playlist? ie have no main skin window but have a playlist with skin controls? ie to create SUI skins

Sorry Cliff, the new playlist doesn't display properly on my laptop (Vista Home Premium SP1, 32bit). I've done a clean install, and rebooted.

OfficerMike07 Wrote:Sorry Cliff, the new playlist doesn't display properly on my laptop (Vista Home Premium SP1, 32bit). I've done a clean install, and rebooted.

That looks like you loaded the playlist.psd file into the main window. You shouldn't do this, just load any normal skin for the main window, and show the playlist window. It will automatically load the playlist.psd for now.

There will be checks for this kind of thing later

SLoB Wrote:Top bar is not draggable

Should be, its just the large borders I have on that skin that aren't draggable as they resize the skin.

SLoB Wrote:it is also possible to select the playlist in the select skin window but it doesnt show properly, only the parts

Yes, currently you can't select a playlist skin from the skin menu. You can see the default one, it just won't load for the playlist, it'll load for the main skin window (which isn't the playlist). If you want to make your own playlist psd and want to test it, drag and drop the .psd you want to test, onto the playlist window instead of the main window.

SLoB Wrote:the scrollbar is using windows scrollbar, you just know that skinners are gonna want to be able to skin this too

Yes I realise that, but I'm still finding a way to do this. Windows makes it very difficult to customize the scrollbar in a list box.

SLoB Wrote:is it possible to create a skin with just the playlist? ie have no main skin window but have a playlist with skin controls? ie to create SUI skins

Yes, instead of using the main skin window, use the playlist window instead. The playlist window supports all controls that main window does.

Please note everyone: THIS IS A PREVIEW. ITS NOT COMPLETE. MORE WORK WILL BE DONE. ITS WON'T BE RELEASED LIKE IT IS. TRY MAKING YOUR OWN PLAYLIST SKIN AND GIVE ME FEEDBACK ON THE PROCESS.

Cliff

Awesome stuff. I'm pretty sure alot of people have been waiting for this.

A few things about the playlist:

It has a pretty ugly taskbar, that will be removed i'm guessing?

The playlist itself should be movable by dragging the top bar. the default skin is a bit confusing on that part and constantly teases me by misleading me to attempt to move it around by grabbing the top of the border.

I find the search box very useful, good thinking Cliff. One thing though, when trying to make the playlist as small as possible to fit it away somewhere to the side, the word 'Search' gets overlapped by the playlist time on the left time

Speaking of playlist time, it's always 00:00.

Another thing i just noticed, the playlist doesn't always get all the ID data from the files when using the 'Play in Xion' shell option on a folder.

And something is wrong with the close button, but that might be the skin's fault.

I'll do some skin and VU tests later. Currently testing stability to see if the updated bass.dll has stopped trying to kill Xion.

EDIT: Found new stuff already.

Track Title Format Help automatically selects all the text inside the popup window.

Also, the whole shell integration options. You didn't include any removal options, and that's something that generally goes hand in hand. Currently i'm guessing the only way to remove shell extension is to uninstall the player.

EDIT 2:

When selecting a new song to play after creating a playlist, it asks if i want to save changes to Xion.m3u?

EDIT 3: VU test shows that Low/Mid/High are still not showing any real activity, except for low, which works as proper in things like bass tests, where use of low frequencies is insanely high.

EDIT 3: Oh now i get it, Xion.m3u is the default playlist, i encounter this message every time i start Xion by means of using the shell extensions, which means that when it starts up with the default playlist, it's immediately changed, and then after that it attempts to throw it away to make a new one.

Oh and, i just ran into a Visual C++ Runtime Error. Xion is still playing the current song as i'm typing this, i haven't hit the OK box on the error window. I expect it will fuck up once it attempts to change track. Error occured when trying to switch the song manually from a freshly created playlist.

...hahahah what? It's still playing! The runtime error is nonlethal to the program itself, even though it says 'abnormal program termination.' Shutting the error box will kill it, but it doesn't stop if left unhandled.

This error also occurs when i load my entire music folder into the player when it's not running. Error box exclusively disallows use of the playlist, while the player itself continues to be usable, and can use data from the playlist.

Looks to me like a false positive.

Fix compilation of SDK Examples
Fixed some compile errors in VS2005 while preparing for migration

where it can be downloaded?

Cliff Cawley Wrote:That looks like you loaded the playlist.psd file into the main window. You shouldn't do this, just load any normal skin for the main window, and show the playlist window. It will automatically load the playlist.psd for now.

There will be checks for this kind of thing later

Ah, silly me.

Barloggg Wrote:

Fix compilation of SDK Examples
Fixed some compile errors in VS2005 while preparing for migration

where it can be downloaded?

I haven't made a new SDK build yet, it will be available in the "Beta Component SDK Builds" forum when I have updated it

Cliff

logokas Wrote:The playlist itself should be movable by dragging the top bar. the default skin is a bit confusing on that part and constantly teases me by misleading me to attempt to move it around by grabbing the top of the border.

That's because it has a massive border, and the entire border is resizeable. I'll need to come up with a way to have a border section that isn't resizeable, but still tiles.

logokas Wrote:I find the search box very useful, good thinking Cliff.

Hah I find this funny as the search box has been in Xion for ages now, its just no one seems to have seen it for some reason!

logokas Wrote:One thing though, when trying to make the playlist as small as possible to fit it away somewhere to the side, the word 'Search' gets overlapped by the playlist time on the left time

Ah yup, I just need to change the size of the PSD to change the min size, was going to do that later

logokas Wrote:Speaking of playlist time, it's always 00:00.

Which time? The time in the playlist is as its always been. It shows Total Selected Items Time / Total Time for the entire playlist. You probably didn't have anything selected.

logokas Wrote:Another thing i just noticed, the playlist doesn't always get all the ID data from the files when using the 'Play in Xion' shell option on a folder.

Ok thanks, I'll need to look into this one.

logokas Wrote:And something is wrong with the close button, but that might be the skin's fault.

Not sure what you mean by something is wrong with it? Visually its wrong or functionally?

logokas Wrote:Track Title Format Help automatically selects all the text inside the popup window.

Yes I had problems getting it to stop selected, however then I thought oh wait it allows you to easily press Ctrl+C and paste it somewhere

logokas Wrote:Also, the whole shell integration options. You didn't include any removal options, and that's something that generally goes hand in hand. Currently i'm guessing the only way to remove shell extension is to uninstall the player.

Really? Have you seen the File Types Tab in Xion Configuration? There are 3 checksboxes there with all the options. Untick to remove

logokas Wrote:When selecting a new song to play after creating a playlist, it asks if i want to save changes to Xion.m3u?

How do you mean selecting? Double clicking it in the playlist? Or do you mean double clicking in Windows Explorer?

logokas Wrote:VU test shows that Low/Mid/High are still not showing any real activity, except for low, which works as proper in things like bass tests, where use of low frequencies is insanely high.

The VUs are now scaled by the volume. Are you sure you haven't got the Xion volume set lower than full? (I believe it was you that requested this )

logokas Wrote:Oh now i get it, Xion.m3u is the default playlist, i encounter this message every time i start Xion by means of using the shell extensions, which means that when it starts up with the default playlist, it's immediately changed, and then after that it attempts to throw it away to make a new one.

Try using Enqueue instead of Play when you right click it in Explorer

logokas Wrote:Oh and, i just ran into a Visual C++ Runtime Error. Xion is still playing the current song as i'm typing this, i haven't hit the OK box on the error window. I expect it will fuck up once it attempts to change track. Error occured when trying to switch the song manually from a freshly created playlist.

...hahahah what? It's still playing! The runtime error is nonlethal to the program itself, even though it says 'abnormal program termination.' Shutting the error box will kill it, but it doesn't stop if left unhandled.

This error also occurs when i load my entire music folder into the player when it's not running. Error box exclusively disallows use of the playlist, while the player itself continues to be usable, and can use data from the playlist.

Looks to me like a false positive.

Yes its all multithreaded so it'll continue to work. Looks like I may need to turn on the error reporting so that when it crashes, it creates a report to send to me so I can see what's causing this. Will do for next build, 103

Cliff

Cliff Cawley Wrote:Which time? The time in the playlist is as its always been. It shows Total Selected Items Time / Total Time for the entire playlist. You probably didn't have anything selected.

Oh i get it then. I just assumed it should have shown the current 'playtime', so to speak. As in how far through the list the program is. I think that's how it worked in Winamp, can't be arsed to check though.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:And something is wrong with the close button, but that might be the skin's fault.

Not sure what you mean by something is wrong with it? Visually its wrong or functionally?

I meant visually, yes. The _over image does't seem to do anything other than a strange noise at the edge.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:Track Title Format Help automatically selects all the text inside the popup window.

Yes I had problems getting it to stop selected, however then I thought oh wait it allows you to easily press Ctrl+C and paste it somewhere :P

Um, i don't quite see the point of that. Why would i want to read about it from a text file somewhere else? I doubt there's that many people who'd do that.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:Also, the whole shell integration options. You didn't include any removal options, and that's something that generally goes hand in hand. Currently i'm guessing the only way to remove shell extension is to uninstall the player.

Really? Have you seen the File Types Tab in Xion Configuration? There are 3 checksboxes there with all the options. Untick to remove :)

I'm afraid that doesn't work properly. Not for me, at least.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:When selecting a new song to play after creating a playlist, it asks if i want to save changes to Xion.m3u?

How do you mean selecting? Double clicking it in the playlist? Or do you mean double clicking in Windows Explorer?

Explorer.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:VU test shows that Low/Mid/High are still not showing any real activity, except for low, which works as proper in things like bass tests, where use of low frequencies is insanely high.

The VUs are now scaled by the volume. Are you sure you haven't got the Xion volume set lower than full? (I believe it was you that requested this ;))

I remember saying something about VU's, yeah.

At any rate, i know they are scaled by volume, and i happen to keep Xion's interal volume almost always at 100%. Left and Right speaker volume VUs work as supposed. It's the Low/Mid/High that show little to no activity. They should be emphasised, or recoded to properly reflect use of frequencies. I tried using music with many high frequency heavy songs and the high VU barely budged at all. Something definetly not right with that thing.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

logokas Wrote:Oh now i get it, Xion.m3u is the default playlist, i encounter this message every time i start Xion by means of using the shell extensions, which means that when it starts up with the default playlist, it's immediately changed, and then after that it attempts to throw it away to make a new one.

Try using Enqueue instead of Play when you right click it in Explorer :)

But start sounds so much better.. :<

Besides, when my player is off, i want to start it immediately with a fresh list, and that method works fine when doing that. Enqueue adds the files to the last playlist it had in use, and doesn't start the player itself. That's not the desired effect, really.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:Looks like I may need to turn on the error reporting so that when it crashes, it creates a report to send to me so I can see what's causing this. Will do for next build, 103 :)

Cliff :)

Awesome. Looking forward to it!

And on a lighter note: Build 102 has passed runtime stability test! The updated bass.dll no longer interferes when a playlist is left running for more then a few hours. Currently, Xion has been running nonstop for the past 12 hours. The previous build would crash after 2-3 hours.

Oh, and, i'm going to do a very thoroughal VU test when i have time tonight, by means of creating huge VUs, across the whole screen, to see if the low/mid/high are 'underpowered' but still work. Larger VUs mean more room to show activity, ne? :D

the text in the playlist flickers all the time. I´m using vista together with windowblinds, maybe that´s the problem.

Another question: Do you plan to keep it, that the default´s playlist skin is used when the current interface doesn´t support a playlist skin. For some cases (suites and older Xion skins without playlist) it would be better to let it skin by windows or windowblinds which supports alpha blending of borders...

for the layout of the playlist itself, I like it. Will it be possible for future versions to include the progress bar there again, something I really appreciated in the old version?

ALAS Wrote:Will it be possible for future versions to include the progress bar there again, something I really appreciated in the old version?

just saw there is a support for progress in the playlist psd

ALAS Wrote:the text in the playlist flickers all the time. I´m using vista together with windowblinds, maybe that´s the problem.

No flickering here, using XP with WB6. Try turning off WB for Xion, see if that helps.

ALAS Wrote:For some cases (suites and older Xion skins without playlist) it would be better to let it skin by windows or windowblinds which supports alpha blending of borders

Doesn't that quite defeat the purpose of skinned playlists?

I myself would prefer it to use the default instead of no skin at all. Not everyone use Windowblinds, in fact i think we're just about the only two around as of now. Besides the unskinned playlist just looks ugly, and i'm guessing that you can't have both a window and a skinned version together in the same build and working.

Vista, no WindowBlinds

I too get flickering in the playlist, but it's the dotted selection rectangle around the text, not the text itself.

logokas Wrote:

ALAS Wrote:For some cases (suites and older Xion skins without playlist) it would be better to let it skin by windows or windowblinds which supports alpha blending of borders

Doesn't that quite defeat the purpose of skinned playlists?

yes you are right, for some cases. When I wrote that I thought, fuck, now I am the party-pooper. I played around with the playlist psd and I think it´s really convenient to create a good design with it*.

Why I wrote that is again the missing alpha blending of borders which somehow ruins the whole impression of the PL in contrast to the smooth interface. Maybe I´m too pedantic. For stand-alone skins the skinned playlist is great, but for suites and older skins I would prefer a windows-skinned playlist so there are not three different designs on the desktop, maybe the skinner (or user) can decide...

*Yet, I don´t get the rule when and how the side parts (e.g. bordert) are stretched exactly (I get transparent areas in between) but that´s just some fine tuning. (btw if you put moveable behind the top parts you can drag the PL with the ´caption bar´).