Stations V3-2

[raybeau528]

For those of you using mmStations, is anyone using the horizontal layout mode or the station editing feature? Nyn has asked if I could increase the number of stations and I think I could increase it to 15 by eliminating those options and keeping the options panel to one form. It wouldn't seem feasible to have any more than 10 in the horizontal layout mode. The first release of mmStations used only the horizontal layout but I liked Nyn's suggestion for a vertical layout and now use that exclusively myself. Let me know your thoughts about this and any other requests for me to consider in a next version.

Ray

[nynaevelan]

I have the stations editing enabled but I never use it... so I would not mind losing the ability.

Nyn

[MM3 monkey]

I agree that the station editing is definitely not necessary.

I use the horizontal layout. I'm not sure why you have to remove that layout in order to meet the request for more stations?

I'm not clear also why it's not "feasible to have any more than 10 in the horizontal layout mode". If I have Monkey Rok or something open over on the right, then any more than 10 will be hidden behind it, but when I close MRok I have lots of blank space just waiting for about 5 more stations.

Maybe you could add an invisible scroll left and right function (i.e. with the mouse wheel when you hover over the stations) for smaller screens (the above was talking about my 19 inch wide screen monitor but I sometimes us my 13" laptop too) and for when more panels are open covering the stations?

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On another note - I REALLY want to get rid of the titlebar. I don't want them on any of my panels. I understand the point about symmetry but I'm surprised that this request was implemented - I bet there's more people who DON'T want the titlebar.

And it makes me wonder. How do you so easily add and remove the titlebar? Does this mean I could get rid of the unsightly titlebars on the embedded viz, embedded minilyrics, monkeyrok etc?

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I would also like to change the font (to Calibri or Segoe UI), reduce it a point or two, and to make the stations as small as humanly possible. Their height could come down even further, and their width could be reduced quite a bit too. I could live with having to have short names for the stations. Thinking about it, they could even be the same size as normal icons and have a different icon for each and have their name pop up when you hover over them. Then we could have loads of stations and they wouldn't need to look clunky.

[raybeau528]

MM3 Monkey,

You bring up some interesting points. Perhaps a dockable, customizable toolbar with just icons, could accomodate many stations and perhaps also not limited to playlists - ie, a megadj node, or even an individual album or artist. It would be nice to be able to assign to a station by just right clicking on a playlist, node, album, artist, etc. That would eliminate the entire options panel as well. Definitely something to consider. Sounds like another learning opportunity!

Ray

PS regarding the title bars for minilyrics and monkeyrok etc. you'd have to check with the individual developers of those apps. Some of the native panels allow enabling/disabling the titlebars via right click and/or options.

[nynaevelan]

MM3 Monkey,

You bring up some interesting points. Perhaps a dockable, customizable toolbar with just icons, could accomodate many stations and perhaps also not limited to playlists - ie, a megadj node, or even an individual album or artist. It would be nice to be able to assign to a station by just right clicking on a playlist, node, album, artist, etc. That would eliminate the entire options panel as well. Definitely something to consider. Sounds like another learning opportunity!

Ray

That sounds an awful lot like Onenonymous' Right Click for Scripts/Reports/Web scripts. Personally I prefer the way it is, I do not want or have room for any more icons. Also, in 3.1 it is already possible to create a customizable toolbar, the only thing it lacks is the ability to add custom nodes from scripts. But do not stop the development based on my opinion, I will always have v2.5 even if it only has 10 stations.

Nyn

[raybeau528]

I haven't used Right Click for Scripts/Reports/Web scripts and wouldn't want to duplicate something that already exists.

Another idea for the current implementation is to have any a/b/c type button, similar to a car stereo that has 3 sets of 6 presets - with 10 visible you could toggle through 20 or 30 total.

Ray

[nynaevelan]

Another idea for the current implementation is to have any a/b/c type button, similar to a car stereo that has 3 sets of 6 presets - with 10 visible you could toggle through 20 or 30 total.

Ray

I like this idea, it would add the ability to add more stations without taking up too much real estate. Would this also incorporate MM3Monkey's idea of the icons or will it be like the stations are now?

Nyn

[raybeau528]

I would consider it for the current (2.x) version. If I went the icon route, it would be a v3.x effort.

Ray

[nynaevelan]

Cool, I eagerly await your update.

Nyn

[nynaevelan]

Ray:

Something in mmStations is preventing the toolbar customizations of 3.1.1207 from saving to the mediamonkey.ini file. When you get a moment can you look at it to see why?

Nyn

[raybeau528]

Nyn,

Tell me more. Please ensure it's not a problem with .1207 that's fixed in .1208 ! I'm not too keen on investing a lot of time on issues with a beta version that are really problems with mm such as the SDB.IniFile issue.

Ray

[nynaevelan]

Ray:

You can see here for the full rundown. I don't think this is like the ini problem and I don't know if the devs will be changing anything since this feature works without scripts.

Nyn

[nynaevelan]

This new script, Stations, is similar in functionality to mmStations but has been rewritten to implement two major changes.
1. Stations supports 30 Buttons to which you can assign playlists. The top button, in vertical layout, or left button in horizontal layout, allows you to toggle between A,B, and C sets of 10 buttons each.
2. The method to assign playlists has completely changed from the options panel method in mmStations. With Stations, you right-click on a playlist and select "Set Station", then select one of A,B,C, then the individual station. The button name is automatically assigned the playlist name.

Oh Ray:

This is FANTASTIC, now I have 30 stations. How will I ever limit myself. Thank you for the present.

Nyn

[MM3 monkey]

Ray, just so you know: in the first post, the two Mediafire links for Stations and the "mmStations V2.6" are both the same.

[nynaevelan]

Nyn,

Tell me more. Please ensure it's not a problem with .1207 that's fixed in .1208 ! I'm not too keen on investing a lot of time on issues with a beta version that are really problems with mm such as the SDB.IniFile issue.

Ray

Ray:

One of the devs found a solution to the problem, you will not need to make any changes to the script.

Nyn