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{UPDATE} GrooveMonkey Mock-up

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:12 am
by Aethereal
Based on you comments I modified it a bit, in my opinion it´s looking much better than before.
I will make two opposing contrasts —one dark and one light— and four or fives color schemes per contrast, so the black player on the bottom is not going to be there in the next update.

Image (lulzimg):
http://i.lulzimg.com/a09a8abddf.jpg



Thanks :D

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:40 am
by nohitter151
It looks great!

If you'd be willing to provide me with the graphics, I'd be happy to package it into a skin for you. But keep in mind I'll need not only what you've shown so far, but images for buttons/scrollbars/etc. that are being pressed, hovered over with the mouse, also hopefully images provided are png (or packaged all into one PSD or PDN file), transparent background, antialiased, etc.

And just some early notes about what you've shown so far:
1. The search bar size is only configurable lengthwise, not by height. So it would look a little smaller than in your mockup.

2. Changing fonts in skins can be very buggy, that's why you don't see too many skins where the whole interface uses a different font. It results in issues where message dialogs, fields in the track list, checkbox/radio options can be cut off without any way to read the hidden text

3. In the track list you have tracks listed very close to one another, that size can't be controlled by skin. It's only controlled by your font setting at Options > Skin, but it can't go smaller than 17 pixels per line

4. Your borders (between track list/tree/column browser) are very neat, and there would be some issues with getting them exactly like that using the theme editor

5. You haven't made any borders (meaning titlebar, close/minimize/restore buttons, left/right/bottom borders) for the program, that would be needed also for anyone who wants to use the skin on Win XP

6. Unfortunately we can't disable the "Underline" for any text in the summary field (art + details view). There's also not such fine-grained control over the font size/color there

7. Can't put that nice icon in the status bar (you could, but there would be text on top of it)

That being said, it could still be a nice skin! I love the look of the player also and that's very do-able. Let me know if you're interested.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 10:46 am
by heartofhate
in general your skin looks pretty cool. it looks really neat and simple (but in a good way of course). it reminds me somehow a bit of ubuntu :P

keep up the good work :D

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 5:12 pm
by Aethereal
@ nohitter151:
Once I'm done designing the skin (Details Pop-up, MiniPlayer, MaximizedPlayer, etc...) I'll gladly provide you with the .psd file so that you can transpose my design to a fully functional skin.

@ heartofhate:
Thank you for your feedback, it's greatly appreciated. I used Ubuntu for a long time so It might have influenced a bit.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 1:59 pm
by tirim4
I allso love this consept, looks like something I'd download as soon as it comes out. One problem I have is that the text in the progress bar is a bit jerky, probably beacuse what seems like a white outline. I have nothing against the out line but right now it strains my eye. Other then that it seems just sexy. I suppose if I got to ask for something it would be a dark variant with dark grey background and white text in the track browser etc.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 4:04 pm
by windcrest77
Aethereal wrote:Since I downloaded MediaMonkey , about 5 days ago, I haven't been able to find a skin that actually suits my taste. Therefore I took on the challenge of "building" (actually designing since I barely have programming experience) my own MM4 skin.

Based on 2 of my favorite music players, iTunes & Grooveshark, I came up with a pretty decent concept. Although it's long from being an actual & usable skin I decided to upload and share my current progress with the MM Community in order to receive some constructive criticism or ideas so that this mock-up, in a not so distant future, can become a fully fledged skin.

Image (lulzimg):
http://i.lulzimg.com/e04e90c2c5.jpg
Image

Thanks :D
I like it and will probably check it out. I also really like vitreous, except for one thing, and that is that there is not enough contrast for me to see the song position or use the position slider. It looks like you kept the vitreous slider which shows both time expired and time remaining (very cool idea) but you have increased the contrast between the two colors of the position slider. For that one reason alone I would be tempted to use your skin. I like the position slider to be very "in your face" contrast-wise for DJ work, light blue over gray is literally invisible to me, I cant tell what position the song is at. Maybe its my room lighting or monitor, but the vitreous slider is pretty hard to see.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:07 pm
by tinana
I love your work, it's beautiful. Congratulations!

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:51 pm
by theta_wave
I really like the player/scroll bar. It looks sleek and professional, very well done. However, the use of pure white as the background strains my eyes too easily. Anyone else have this problem?

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:16 am
by DreadM
Greetings

@ Aethereal

very nice ,I really like your design draft,
but to sad ,like nohitter says ,some of your ideas will not work with the current skin engine . :(
Border style should be no problem ( i think )

It's odd, I'm working on a similar skin.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:49 am
by heartofhate
theta_wave wrote:I really like the player/scroll bar. It looks sleek and professional, very well done. However, the use of pure white as the background strains my eyes too easily. Anyone else have this problem?
i know what you mean. for a media player it should be okay though because you won't look at it for 10mins or so.
in my view the whitish-style looks more sleek as if there would be a shade of grey.

and just an idea: if the top bar has the same colouring as the playcontrol bar (bar at the bottom) then it would be a nice contrast.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:46 pm
by theta_wave
heartofhate wrote:i know what you mean. for a media player it should be okay though because you won't look at it for 10mins or so.
in my view the whitish-style looks more sleek as if there would be a shade of grey.

and just an idea: if the top bar has the same colouring as the playcontrol bar (bar at the bottom) then it would be a nice contrast.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of gray either, but extra contrast (subtle and not too much) along the panel borders or the top bar would be helpful.

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 3:04 pm
by Aethereal
Thanks to everyone for your constructive criticism. I'll most likely be posting some updates (based on your feedback) until January the third cause I'm on vacation and I forgot my laptop back home :-?

Re: GrooveMonkey Mock-up (Unfinished)

Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:43 pm
by mmfan
@Aethereal, can you also make a dark/grey version? I love the look so far, but that brightness will blaze my eyeballs at night. I'm currently using the Spotify skin because it is very easy on the eyes.

Re: {UPDATE} GrooveMonkey Mock-up

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 1:49 pm
by Aethereal
UPDATED! :D

Re: {UPDATE} GrooveMonkey Mock-up

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 2:19 pm
by gpzbc
Let us know when we can give it a whirl!