FofR: PanelsUI - The next step in Foobar aesthetics

PanelsUI - The next step in Foobar aesthetics
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Terrestrial has done it again, this time it is his third component, PanelsUI . Until now, all foobar menus, toolbars and panels were arranged using ColumnsUI in any desired grid format - these panels were distinguished by irremovable borders that were defined by Window's visual style, much to the distate of budding user interface designers everywhere. PanelsUI offers a clean new approach - using scripts (in the familiar trackinfo mod format) panels themselves can be absolutely positioned and played with. New "persisting variables" or PVARS allow these scripts to store and edit variables in memory using buttons (see function: $button). In combination a slew of exciting new opportunities are possible; tabbed panels without the need for tabs_ui, clickable pop-ups, scripted interaction between trackinfo's, SCPL and PanelsUI, amongst others. To explain in words the potential is proving difficult, so I will show you some early design animations:

Tabbed panels, changed by clicking the buttons on the bottom menu

Pop-up playlist, this appears beneath when thin (as below) and to the side when wide.
The image

A pop-up menu, buttons and control panel
The image

Im sure I will think of some much more advanced uses of this integration in the near future. But for now I think this is exciting enough. For those interested, to get going, the code for tabbed panels in PanelsUI is:

$select($add($getpvar(display.mode),1),
$panel(Option1,Track Display,0,20,%_width%,140,)
,
$panel(Option2,Album list,0,20,%_width%,140,)
,
$panel(Option3,Console,0,20,%_width%,140,)
)
$button2(0,160,0,0,14,14,button text,button text,'PVAR:SET:display.mode:0',)
$button2(14,160,0,0,14,14,button text, button text,'PVAR:SET:display.mode:1',)
$button2(28,160,0,0,14,14, button text,button text ,'PVAR:SET:display.mode:2',)

This simple example (that needs the button text replaced with a $font()text code) is the basis for tabs, clicking the first button shows the track display, the second an album list, third a console.

Labels: Foobar, Technical

Posted by FofR | Permalink | Comments (5) |

5 Comments:

By Anonymous, at February 15, 2007

why don't you give complete codes with images etc... to make something similar to yours and maybe change some things after having the same as yours? i will appreciate and probably many people too. cheers =)

excuse my english i'm french =P

By FofR, at February 15, 2007

I shall be making a release in the near future.

By oneofboth, at February 17, 2007

I think the new panels ui is amazing to see, although I can't figure out how to use it, or it's broken for me. I too would appreciate a full release of the code for this look so I could enjoy it. Thanks!

By Anonymous, at February 24, 2007

For all of you cats out there having issues you need to change the config settings before you load the layout. Hit the Edit Layout button when you are at the Panels UI screen and edit at the minimum the following lines:

// **************************************************************************
// *** GLOBAL CONFIGURATION ***
// **************************************************************************
// Directory that contains the style images
$setpvar(dir,C:/foobarimages)
// Text on track display when no song is playing
$setpvar(notrack,Using FofR Config Version 0.3)
// Set your screen resolution
$setpvar(screenresolution,1600)

This sets where the images are grabbed from, the default screen when nothings playing, and your default screen resolution.

Thanks so much for the plugin, I have never skinned or configged foobar using ColumnsUI or PanelsUI but I used this and it looks great. Thanks for your work. Cheers, Pete

By Anonymous, at March 27, 2007

Hi,

I like your configs for Foobar2000 very much. Only issue I cannot resolve is how to change the colour of the menu so it shows on the black background. I get the menu items shown briefly if the mouse hovers over but even changing desktop colours seems to have no effect.

Thanks!

Steve