Question on customising x & y spacing between Album covers

[chablis97]

Hi,
In Album view, I want to cusomise the x & y spacing between 12 Album covers (4 x 3 array) and artist/album text to fit a new skin I'm developing.   

The last time I created skins I did all this by manually editing the .cov file (very painful!), but I seem to rememebr something on the old forum from Barry saying he had added tools to allow this to be done more automatically.  For the life of me I cant see how to do this in the current skin tool.  Can anyone point me in the right direction please.

(PS  There are 'Space X' and 'Space Y' buttons on the skin tools form, but I cant work out what these do).

Cheers

[Barcrest]

You can alter the number of covers displayed in the skintool. On the album view screen you will see the covers displayed and you cna move them around on here.. You can also use the file window to load .COV files into the skintool to edit them. You have to save the cov file seperatly using it's own button in the file window.

[chablis97]

Thanks Barry.  I dont know how possible it is to add, but what would extermely useful in the skin tool is for it to display the top left pixel co-ordinate dynamically as you drag elements around in the skin tool.  This would make lining up and spacing elements (including album covers) much, much easier. 

[Barcrest]

It is easy to do as i can make it display in the TITLE BAR of that window.... However adding it for every button, label etc will take time.. I will add it to the album covers screen first for you. I was also thinking of adding some specific album cover tools like...

Tile.
Rows (3) Columns (2) X Spacing (10) Y Spacing (20)

You enter those values in txt boxes and it moves the stuff around and makes that tiled layout for you. This would help make it far easier too...

Also the SHIFT X and SHIFT Y buttons... You put a value in this can also be a negative value and then click the button and it will chift that group of objects that many pixels. Click a cover on the album cover screen of the skin tool. Make sure you have a noticible value in the Shift X box and click Shift X and you will see all the covers shift on the X plane by that value. You can use these buttons on most of the lists like the track list etc as moving large groups like that manually and keeping them lined up was a pain.

Hope some of that helps you out. This stuff needs to be added to the manual really.... Whish we had the old Skin Tutorial by FINK that was on the other forum as a starting point for a skin tool manual.

[chablis97]

Co-ordinates for Album cover, plus the associated text and background image would be great. The Album Cover Tool you describe would be fantastic!
Cheers

[Barcrest]

If i can update the skintool tonight i will release that seperately to the main freebox release to help you with your skin. At least you will have the co-ors displayed....