Freebox Jukebox

I am trying to put together something to help others play with the skintool.

Here is my first attempt at something, please give feedback and based on this I will see if it's worth doing any more.

Download:

Dude, well done this is much better than I would have done it.

Ok, i will carry on in this style. So expect part 2 tomorrow... Once i cover the basics of things i will go into the more indepth things like the hard coded images etc.

Quotemore indepth things like the hard coded images etc.

Wow, can't you start there. ???
Believe it or not, I'll be following your tutorial. ;D

Well expect a few more parts tomorrow... Also if anyone has any ammendments to the skintool tutorials then let me know and i'll change things around. Also if anyone want's something cover specifically i will do that.

Coffee - I will make sure i cover some of the indepth stuff for you in a tutorial tomorrow.

Once they are all done I will probably combine them into one skintool documentation file or something.

QuoteAlso if anyone want's something cover specifically i will do that.

Well yes, I would like to know how to move a button from one page to another? Let's say I would to move a menu button or 2 onto the null.jpg(album) page/section of the main screen.
Also, I want to do a skin where you can always view the queue at the side of the main screen. So it must always be visible. I have tried this in the passed but it always disapear after using other menu items and you have to select the queue button again to get it to show. How can I do this?

Quote from: coffee on February 17, 2010, 07:49:45 PM

QuoteAlso if anyone want's something cover specifically i will do that.

Well yes, I would like to know how to move a button from one page to another? Let's say I would to move a menu button or 2 onto the null.jpg(album) page/section of the main screen.
Also, I want to do a skin where you can always view the queue at the side of the main screen. So it must always be visible. I have tried this in the passed but it always disapear after using other menu items and you have to select the queue button again to get it to show. How can I do this?

You can't is the quick answer

Documentation updated to include hard coded filenames and more. I am looking for feedback on this seeing as so many have asked for it.

QuoteExtended Menu Images
00menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when history button is clicked
01menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when top 10 button is clicked
02menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when search button is clicked
03menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when queue button is clicked
04menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when options button is clicked.
05menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when decades button is clicked
06menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when playlist button is clicked
07menu.bmp   -   Menu Background when filter button is clicked

Can you please explain this? I just don't get what this is about. The other stuff in Section 4 is straight forward.

When you click the button mentioned the menu background will change to the filename mentioned. So if you click history it will load 00menu.bmp to be the background graphic for the menu.

page_black.jpg

That is hard coded and has to be the same size as the resolution of the form. It is displayed when searching.

Wow, I will try this. I hope I understand this correctly but I think I have it.

if 00menu.bmp doesn't work try adding a space so it's 00 menu.bmp

If it still doesn't work report back and i will take a look.

Oh yeah...

search choice.gif

Fanart Hard Coded...
195x.jpg
196x.jpg
197x.jpg
198x.jpg
199x.jpg
200x.jpg
201x.jpg

Displays those as a back drop for the decades/charts screens  ;D You need them in your fanart folder.

EDIT: Broken in the current release i just checked. I fixed it for the next release. It will show if you are using PRE files in the current release but not otherwise.

This is turning out to be one of the most customisable jukebox programs! All the new stuff will get new members in their drones! Nice one BB!

Updated the skintool doc some more, I will probably get more done on it this week due to the internet being down at work while I await a new CISCO switch. I think we have someone else working on a doc for the app fingers crossed  ;)

Think I will need to work on this a little more to bring it upto date with the latest features.

Skin tool manual update 2015

I will say that this the skinning on this is literally a no brainer. I am not a graphic person I am not a skinner either but I will say that anyone can skin this once they have the basics, and I mean any one.

I will give you a few pointers and tips here

1) If you have brought a commercial screen or cabinet then you do not want to create a skin that is so close to the edges of your monitor. I will give you an example, I have a Hewlett Packard 20 inch dedicated 20 inch monitor, I can touch that within one millimetre and I can play a track. I also have a converted monitor where you need to go to another Country to play that track, ok so I am maybe going overboard here, but if you have a commercial touchscreen then moving to the next county,state might help.

2) If you are skinning then do it for yourself as some people not like it but others do, I am creating a skin for me and my touchscreen I do not like it but I know that others will I spent most of the day on one page and I done 7 attempts of it. I am trying to mix what I want and what commercial owners might like so that I earn a bit of money for myself. Gods honest truth on that as well.

3) I go back to point 2 if I had my way a lot of features such as bios, email track, volume controls would not be included. The volume controls yes would be better for a home user but then you can turn the volume down on your speakers, and as a commercial user then you adjust volume to suit the room, and more so you would not want someone adjusting the volume at a party and muting the sound.

I will say that the scraper from audiodb wil scrape ok, but the formatting will be wrong such as & this needs to be addressed as a lot of sogs now are Artist A & B so that comes to a programming error that really should have been been though of a long time ago.

4) If you find a bug then you need to report it, I thought that I could get past an error but I couldn't so I spent time trying it and then getting nowhee, Barry done a quick update so it worked a bit more, but still bugs.

Anyway Thursday evening and feels like the weekend night off noow I will be watching though ;)

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 10, 2015, 06:18:17 PM
Skin tool manual update 2015

I will say that this the skinning on this is literally a no brainer. I am not a graphic person I am not a skinner either but I will say that anyone can skin this once they have the basics, and I mean any one.

I will give you a few pointers and tips here

1) If you have brought a commercial screen or cabinet then you do not want to create a skin that is so close to the edges of your monitor. I will give you an example, I have a Hewlett Packard 20 inch dedicated 20 inch monitor, I can touch that within one millimetre and I can play a track. I also have a converted monitor where you need to go to another Country to play that track, ok so I am maybe going overboard here, but if you have a commercial touchscreen then moving to the next county,state might help.

This does depend on how well it will calibrate, i have converted JPM & Megatouch machines without an issue. But for screens that do not calibrate well this is an option.

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 10, 2015, 06:18:17 PM
2) If you are skinning then do it for yourself as some people not like it but others do, I am creating a skin for me and my touchscreen I do not like it but I know that others will I spent most of the day on one page and I done 7 attempts of it. I am trying to mix what I want and what commercial owners might like so that I earn a bit of money for myself. Gods honest truth on that as well.

I usually find it's best to make them for yourself and share, if anyone else likes it then happy days.

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 10, 2015, 06:18:17 PM
3) I go back to point 2 if I had my way a lot of features such as bios, email track, volume controls would not be included. The volume controls yes would be better for a home user but then you can turn the volume down on your speakers, and as a commercial user then you adjust volume to suit the room, and more so you would not want someone adjusting the volume at a party and muting the sound.

Just hide the buttons for the features you don't want. Most of it can be set up for a pin code anyway so members of the pulic are not going to be messing with a read only queue or accessing the volume controls.

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 10, 2015, 06:18:17 PM
I will say that the scraper from audiodb wil scrape ok, but the formatting will be wrong such as & this needs to be addressed as a lot of sogs now are Artist A & B so that comes to a programming error that really should have been been though of a long time ago.

4) If you find a bug then you need to report it, I thought that I could get past an error but I couldn't so I spent time trying it and then getting nowhee, Barry done a quick update so it worked a bit more, but still bugs.

Anyway Thursday evening and feels like the weekend night off noow I will be watching though ;)

I have no idea what is going wrong here can you let me know?

The problems/bugs are random I deleted the cvr files on my jukebox today I am using the same skin I done a fresh update to jukebox yet if I start playing a song, then going to years and then select a song it will not go to that album, yet on my skin/test computer it does not happen. I know the problem that you have as sometimes it is almost impossible to create the same errors on another system.

I will do an uninstall on the jukebox and a reinstall as that was the more stable system, it would work even when this one would not. I am not sure what has happened inn regards to the A-Ha album though for it to suddenly come up with random artists, but as you can see with the graphic it is saying A-Ha but it is not alphabetical which it should be on that screen grab.

I am on the razzle dazzle so I might be out of things till Monday but will type when I am soberish lol

If and album comes up as various it is because the artist tag for each track isn't matched across the whole album.

How dare you insult my tagging lol I just doubled checked and the tagging is spot on as always. If I do a search for cast it will say that it is A-Ha, if I go to that album it will say that it is A-Ha, display fanart, logo and banner but for some reason it shows 01 - A-Ha - Cast In Steel I know why that is as it does show various artists as that via an album being various artists.

I'm still getting drunk so I will try some other things when I am more sober. I have only had two albums that didn't like eTouch, one would freeze the whole scanning into system.

It just seems weird that for some reason when it was a new album it showed as A-Ha and never had a problem, as soon as it stopped being new it developed a problem.

If you are using tag and rename, also look under additional and album artist to make sure this is correct as well as the individual track artists.

Weird thing is I can find it in config 9 it has all the proper tags e.g A-Ha Album title genre just for some reason it does not show in album view yet if I do a search for it, it says the artist and album, has the fanart, the logo, banner all the stuff that it should have but just not where it should be.

What happens with the default skin touchgeni, do you see it there?

I just had a look and for some reason it is showing up after foot in the mountain so basically F then C but it is there. I just can't understand why it would not show on another skin.

I've sorted the problem out I just removed the database and started again, for some reason instead of having 61 pages for pop albums it was saying something like 698. It was weird though finding it on one skin but another but all sorted now, my hang over from the weekend is sort of going ;)

Are you running config with these boxes checked?

Yeah I did this time and most of the set up is fine. I do have a couple of genres now that seem to repeat the same albums if say there are only say for example 3 albums but on other genres it seems ok.

I also ran as administrator which I don't usually just to double make sure.

One bug that I have noticed though is I have put the genre label on each of the albums but for some reason it only shows the first two I will check to make sure that I haven't done something wrong, but I have got

Album Title
Artist Title
        Genre : Pop Music

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this before?

Another thing that I have found wrong is why you click more by artist it does not show any albums by that artist it will show genre and years though.

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 14, 2015, 11:30:25 PM
Another thing that I have found wrong is why you click more by artist it does not show any albums by that artist it will show genre and years though.

Had this issue some time ago and if I remember rightly it was a skin issue. Works fine in the last Genie skin but believe you are using BnB?

No I am skinning my own at the moment so testing it on that. I'm also having a look at other skins to correct the cover files so just play around time at the moment until I get back into it again. I'm not sure how it can be skin related though but I will have a look at genie as I am seeing things working on other skins which are not working on mine such as I want the artist name and album title on mine rather than a cover file, even though the tags are there in place I do not get the names only the covers, but I will check settings on that.

Out of curiosity, are you skinning from scratch or modifying and existing skin. Are you using the skin tool or just editing the ini files.

I'm starting from scratch using skin tool. I honestly find that a lot easier than actually trying to modify a skin, I had a look at black and blue but gave up after a bit but then I was going to be skinning at 1600 x 900 due to my old monitor.

If I got my act together the first skin would have been done by now and on to the second, as I have seen skins that I want to make clones from. I am not a skinner but I have to say that skinning on skintool is a no brainer it is more the graphics side that takes more of the time, although the skin that I am doing is basic but it is very functional.

Regards

Mark

This is what I keep saying, there seems to be an initial step that people cross then find the skintool pretty easy. It's just playing with it enough to get pas that initial step. Really you need to be good at making graphics that is where the skill comes in, laying everything out is pretty straight forward.

O.K. so how do you get the skin tool to start blank for a new skin as I can't.

When you click on skintool it has a pop up box which says do you want to load default skin or click cancel to create a new skin. When you do that it comes up with a box and there is nothing in that box, so you have to click at the top where would expect some text to be, then click on ok. A new skin will launch, it will create the files in your skin directory, so you have to create a folder call it test skinning or anything you want, drag those files into that folder, but you will need some extras such as a cover file so cover_08.cov for example, and you will need images as well, you just copy them from any directory you like but best to use something simple like Slxx skin.

Copy those into your directory so you have a covers file and images to start with. Load up the jukebox and then load and save the skin you are trying to create such as test skinning, then load up skintool again so you can start editing your new skin.

If you need any more help I can probably sort out screen grab and then do a youtube video, but it will be basic as I don't think I have a mic.

Regards

Mark

O.K. so I don't need any ini files. Just want to know so that I can customise the layout. I'll play later.

I'm just trying to download a screen grabber a second so I am doing to a video of the install on 9.0.16 then I will revert back to 9.0.15 and then do a quick video for you. If I had a mic it would be better but I will do a quick one.

Gaucho I just done a brief video for you it has no sound or anything special like that as I just done it quickly as a rough guide for you and who ever else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbYy7Ehi5E hope you can see it properly as I change the screen size to record but go at full screen mode.

I done some notes but I done them as subtitles so if you click turn subtitles on it will show the notes sorry I couldn't find the bubbles and crap until I had typed everything.

One tip I will give you is the first page you want to edit is the option screen when you load the new skin up because you have images in your graphic folder, I still right click on the appearance settings button and load that button again, it means that when you need to go to your options screen at least you can see where save settings, power off, led etc it doesn't have to be fancy to start with just basic so that you can access the admin section. The next screen I personally do then is album view.

Regards

Mark

Got it, if only someone had told me you can set graphics later and just click on the blank to start. Now I can start playing.

You might as well forget that video now Gaucho 9.0.16 has changed so totally back to square one again. I will beat this skinning system even if it kills me.

Quote from: Mark Norville on September 17, 2015, 08:34:58 AM
You might as well forget that video now Gaucho 9.0.16 has changed so totally back to square one again. I will beat this skinning system even if it kills me.

No it hasn't changed, it has worked this way for ages. For some reason it didn't show you the skin list when clicked cancel but it should have done. This was a bug reported ages ago that i couldn't replicated.

It will not allow you to create a new skin though, I done the following

1) Loaded skintool
2) press cancel to start a new skin
3) box with 2 skins listed, although the directory had about 8 skins
4) click on new skin nothing happens, type where it says text nothing happens
5) click on one of the two touchgenies and they load and allow you to edit.

I ended up created another skins directory so that I could start a new skin. Video has uploaded just processing now, so should be about 10 min.

Regards

Mark

Good day!  the link dosen't seem to work for the skin tool manual, it it still available?

It should be in your etouch directory. It is or was part of the install at one point.

Regards

Mark

got it, thanks!

If you want some advice, look at it, and then ignore it.

I done this video about three years ago now and bugs have been fixed, but there are still bugs in the skin program I don't think have been ironed out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbYy7Ehi5E

It took me a while before I figured things out, and it is best not to try and understand the manual, or learning from another skin. The best way to learn is starting from scratch and looking at what each section does. Save and then rinse and repeat.

A lot of skins were made using hacks in the code, rather than the program. I had quite a few hair tearing moments, which is why my forum motto is bug hunter and frustrated skinner, as I would start skinning and then find bugs.

You can create some great skins though once you get the hang of the basics.

Regards

Mark