MediaMonkey forum

Hello guys,

I'm trying to finish up my first skin and I've compiled a list of issues I haven't been able to find solutions for in any of the wiki information. I was hoping someone could point me to the right spot in the theme editor for these changes.

Here is a screenshot of the first set of problems: ( the forum seems to crop the right side of the image so save it locally or maybe right click > view image )


Problems:

1: When I try to change font color of the sorted header it will only let me use a system value like clRed ( which is shown currently ). The object is at Header/SectionSorted/Font/Color and I wanted it to be $00ED3607 and when I enter that it some how defaults to Blue and disregards the hex color which I don't understand since it will let me use hex values for other font colors in different objects.

7: I know it's out of order but already uploaded the picture an this issue is relavent to number 1. I can't get the ListItem/ItemAdv/Font /Color to take hex values either. currently it's set at clRed which seems to work fine. Is this a limitation of mediamonkey or have I missed something?

2: There is an ugly dotted border around the selected item in the track list and main tree which ruin the look. can I turn this off in some settings or .ini file?

3: This is the song currently playing. As you can see it is in bold text. I want to also control the color of this text. I assume since we can set the bold attribute we should also be able to set it's color. Where can I do this? I've looked all over the VirtualTree an ListBox and didn't find anything...

4: This number i listed twice on the screen because I assumed the issue is caused by the same container object. It seems tehre is a margin somewhere that is making keeping the lists from going all the way to the edge of the container and the black border is ugly. I would like to lower the margins to 1 pixel but can't seem to find which object is controlling this. I thought it would be a panel but those margins didn't seem to have an effect.

5: Notice how the main tree image, and i assume containing object overlaps the status bar by 1 pixel. I would like to remove this. so that is stops just before the status bar as the track lists does. The Album Art section also over laps by 1 pixel but for some reason in the screen shot it is not shown. ( I started with base of VitreousNew if that helps you understand why the margins are like this in the first place )

6: This is probably the one that annoys me the most. I can't figure out how to change the background color of the album art panel. I've changed the client of the panel to black but nothing seems to change it.

I'll update with the next set of problems soon if I don't figure them out myself in the next few days.

Also, comments about the skin are welcome, I know i'm going to change the Edit ( Search ) box at the top bar but let me know how it looks to you. I was going for a very flat, easy on the eyes, low contrast look while preserving the red/orange from Glided.

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: I forgot a problem. Can I change the icon in the top left corner of the program? i don't like the white corners. I assume this icon is in the mediamonkey install directory somewhere?

Hi again,

1) Enter the Hex value in ThemeEditor as BGR value, instead of RGB value. Switch first and last two-digits values. So enter $0736ED instead of $ED3607. You can also double-click the value in the box, and use the color picker or enter HSL/RGB values.

2) No, it can't be turned off. It's Windows's default selection object.

3) Bold text is set by MediaMonkey, not the skin. Unfortunetely, color can't be changed.

4) This is margins to 2 pixel width (or height) for each panel. Objects\Panel\Frame->Bitmap (TSeBitmapObject), or Frame->Color (TSeSkinObject).

5) I think it's the Frame issue (4), because it has the same color as background.

6) Background color of the album art panel = Colors\Window

mdmb54 wrote:Can I change the icon in the top left corner of the program?

No. But you can hide it by moving it out of Form's Caption. (Objects\Form\SysMenu)

Nice colors, I like it.

Eyal :~)

First, thanks Eyal for the help.

I didn't have much luck fixing numbers 4 or 5 though. I messed around with widths, heights, margins in both the Object/Panel/* and Frame but nothing seems to help. Oddly enough taking the 1 pixel margin off of the VirtualTree/MainTreeBackground did something. Anyways, I changed the colors to make them stand out and took another screen shot so you can better see what is going on. It is weird because in the Object/Panel Everything is lined up nicely but on the screen there is that extra 2 pixels between what seems to be the Frame/Client and it's right border for the VirtualTree and the left border for the NowPlaying list and the Album Art. I'm less worried about the overhang of number 5 and more concerned about the larger borders created by problem 4. Here's the screenshots:

Everything looks good here. In the original VitreousBlue the frame was one pixel of the panel and was about 189 if i remember, i squeezed everything together hoping to shave some pixels but nothing seems to change.


Here's a a screenshot of the highcontrast colors:
Red is Frame/Client
Yellow is Frame/Left
Lime is Frame/Right
Aqua is Frame/Top
The gray line that appears to be part of the status bar is Frame/Bottom


If I had to guess I might say there is some alignment being done with scripts maybe. I don't know anything about modifying scripts or even how to in the theme editor but it just seems that the MainTree, NowPlayingList, and the AlbumArt are all Object/Panel types yet the MainTree puts the extra 2 pixels on the right of itself even though all margins are 0, while the Now Playing and Album Art put the extra pixels on the left of itself when the depending on if you put the objects on the left or right side of the screen. It's as if something is looking at the position of the box and overriding the Object/Panel parameters.

Also, here's a few more easier problems I hope to solve:

#8 - How to disable tooltips? I find them distracting and since most of the time they don't offer any additional information that you can't find out by reading the element it pionts to it's uneccesary. If I can't get rid of them can I at least skin them?

#9 - How to customize the Splitter or whatever object separates PopupMenu/Items

Notice the white bar that separates "Select All" and "Cut", etc. I was hoping to skin that but I don't know what element it is.

the frames in the theme engine are mostly set to the transparent color, or to the color of the client image.

that way they are not seen when used in the real world.
but they can be used if the skinner decides they want a frame seen there.

if you want to put the transparent color back on just pick the border section then go to the code on the right
and click its bmp to get its selection panel up the go to the themeimage map and use the crosshair targeting lines
to make a square in the transparent color then click okay.

now that frame section is transparent again.

@rovingcowboy
Um, I'm not quite sure what to make of your post.

Is there a specific "frame" you are referring too because as you can see in the picture my Object/Panel/Frame has non transparent colors. Regardless, the point isn't that they're transparent or not it's that I can't seem to control them. I am aware of how to change colors of objects, it's knowing which objects which is difficult. Coloring them these crazy colors was just so people could see more clearly what was going on and with this information be better informed about how to help my situation.

If you're suggesting that there is a specific frame in an object that is controlling the position of my MainTree, NowPlaying List, and Album Art but they are transparent so I can't see them then please let me know which objects they are. I was assuming that they were Object/Panels since I can see the caption element when I show the title bar and they would be on the top most level of the UI.

Greetings

8 & 9 can not be controlled by skinners

Panel /frame:
try to use a Bitmap object ,that's the way i do , maybe a 40X40 image with 1pix border 1pix inside

in your image above the red frame client. that is the border you should make the same color as the frame client.

look at the other image with the crazy border around the list area. you will see 3 colors showing in the border red on either side of the orange looking color.

it looks to me like you have the red color on a border or on two differnt clients. if you can't see the transparent border on the tool window then you got to look at another skin morten might not have used that object? i don't know if he did i have not took his skin apart for some time now.?

the splitter is only used on the themeimage in the mskn file. it is small mostly one or two dots but you can make it any image you want and change its size in the engine.
and it is only a spliter for the different tool bars you can grab it and slide them around.
the one on the menu is handled by windows and i think is only changed able by the users desktop theme.

you could also go over to the right code area of the client and turn the border size to 0 and not worry about it anymore.

Tooltips can be disabled in the MM options (Options > General).

I couldn't make any sense of the first part of your post. The red is the frame/client and changing this to match the main tree would make the other sides look horrible. I want to basically get minimize the visible amount of "red" by editing margins and widths.

What did you mean when you said:

rovingcowboy wrote:you could also go over to the right code area of the client and turn the border size to 0 and not worry about it anymore.

I would very much like to do this but I do not know how. I don't know where to edit code without the theme editor. Can we just open up files in notepad?

From my knowledge, I didn't see any "border" attributes. There were only widths, heights, and margins. What is the difference between margins and borders for media monkey and how do I edit these borders?

DreadM wrote:Panel /frame:
try to use a Bitmap object ,that's the way i do , maybe a 40X40 image with 1pix border 1pix inside

Could you explain a little more about how this would help eliminate the extra spacing? To me it seems that adding a bitmap would just cover the area up and not get rid of it. As you can see in the picture above of my skin in the themeeditor, I do not have a bitmap object in my Panel/Frame and am not quite sure how to add this correctly. I know there are buttons on the top right of th theme editor to add elements but which one do I pick?

nohitter151 wrote:Tooltips can be disabled in the MM options (Options > General).

Thanks! I've been stuck in the mindset that I have to skin everything and forgot about the basic program options. At least it's an easy fix.

just set the color for that object that is showing up in the border to the same as the background in the theme engine.

most the time its black.

then use a bitmap to show as the listview area.

in order to get the background to show an image in mortens skin i believe you have to edit the virtual tree object's sections
there should be 4 of them the same size. when you look at them in mortens theme mskn in the engine.

• the two on the right should be set to use the transparent color of the themeimage. which is pink on my system but magenta on some others. so just change those squares to transparet and then use the background image for the color
  you want. the background image is not in the mskn file but it is in the msz file when you first unzip it you get folders and images one is for the tree background one is for the listview's and one is for the now playing background.

the above way is the update of how to add a full image in mm 3 backgrounds. that i added in the wiki lesson for converting mm 2 skins to mm 3 skins so you can go there and look at it and see if you can understand it a little better.

if morten did not include them in his msz file then you have too. this is why i say to use another skin to learn on he might not have used all the images or put in the code because he knows how to program it in a different way.

i know he at first did not even include a vertical micro player skin. so it did not match his colors when that was used.
but he might have put one in now, i don't know?

and nohitter151 is not far behind morten in programming skills i don't know how he did his vitreous blue skin he could have added in some programming to it.

the coding area on the right is in the theme engine, you say there is no border section there? then i presume the border you are seeing is infact the transparet one for the frame or caption object and the color is some thing showing through the border from another object with that color.

Greetings

mdmb54 wrote:Could you explain a little more about how this would help eliminate the extra spacing? To me it seems that adding a bitmap would just cover the area up and not get rid of it. As you can see in the picture above of my skin in the themeeditor, I do not have a bitmap object in my Panel/Frame and am not quite sure how to add this correctly. I know there are buttons on the top right of th theme editor to add elements but which one do I pick?

around the windows there is a 2pix border around (left and right side windows have borders on top,bottom and to the middle.Center window have top,bottom,left and right .this borders can't be delete ,
you can use a image that have the same color than the rest from your skin background,

Just delete the frame object and create a new one and rename it "Frame",use the second button from theme editor (Bitmap object)and select a matching image ,if you want to show a 1pix border in your skin than the image that you use have to be a 1pix border around.

It's difficult to explained how to do,the best is you open one of my skins and look inside how it is made .I#m not sure ,but i think i use a bitmape objects in the most of them.