Does anyone use Bento/Big Bento skin?

[siavash119]

I don't know about you all, but I wouldn't give my Modern Skin away for the world.

With separate windows for Main Window, Playlist, and Media Library, including keyboard shortcuts to open close all of them. And having my player always on top of the screen, I've got the whole package.

I've even edited the skin's xml so the windows can't be moved and so the repeat and shuffle options are next to the play options.

[net-cruizer]

The separate windows idea lasted many many years then people wanted an all in one gui.
Although I miss skinning back in the day, I actually prefer Bento.

[siavash119]

it is in all in one GUI; winkey + c for media library, winkey + v for playlist; i don't always need media library and/or playlist, and I like the size of modern's mini player. There are probably some nice Bento skins out there, though.

I'm sure there is a hotkey for bento's mini player to full, but it still seems clunky to me. We all have our preferences; I could never use bento.

[osmosis]

I loved the tabbed look of Big Bento with the XP Noir theme, but in the end I missed having large album art so I'm also back on Winamp Modern. I have the main window shaded like you but then divide up the width of it nearly equally between the album art window and the playlist window; I just can't beat having it so compact yet with album art so large. I bring up the ML free-floating when I need it. Almost perfect.

I could be convinced to go back to Big Bento if something could be done to make album art more prominent. For awhile there I was using a plugin that displayed the album art behind the Playlist background/text, and that was brilliant, since that's pretty much always empty space.. but unfortunately that plugin was written for ATI cards only (I'm now on NVidia) and was overall quite buggy anyway.

[net-cruizer]

II think you kind of missed what I was saying.
I wasn't saying that there was something wrong with having Winamp as separate windowed components, I'm saying us long time Winamp users kind of grew out of that. I guess from wanting some change.
Even after Bento came cPRO and now cPRO 2, which are single GUIs and seem to be what people want.
I used to make Winamp skins a very long time ago, so I'm pretty sure I know the difference between separate components and full gui, etc. etc.
But yeah, like you say, people have different preferences, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Sabine Klare]

Only Bento and no other skin.
All the other skins are so confusing and hard to handle.
Winamp Modern looks very ugly for me. Winamp Classic looks much better for me than Winamp Modern, the colors are very nice. But I really need Bento (the default Bento) and its single-user-interface. I use all 4 tabs of Bento. With Bento I can do, what I need.
And I have currently 3880 Winamp-Screenshots on my harddrive. I have uploaded only a few of them:
http://sternenmaschinebine.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://s1225.photobucket.com/user/St...?sort=3&page=1
Greetings from Sabine Klare Aka Sternenmaschinebine

[Batter Pudding]

Some of us are just old school. I still use the Classic Skin - Nucleo_nlog_v102 (Ignore my Forum join date - I have been using Winamp since the 1990s)

I have tried others. cPRO, Bento, random pretties from the dozens available. And always I keep coming back to my old favourite.

I like my player to be small and out of the way. While also having that classic HiFi look sitting in the corner of my second monitor of my work PC. Usually only the player, album art view and playlist on screen.

I only bring the Media Library up when I want to change the tracks. I then turn it off again after selecting music so I get my monitor real estate back.

I don't use big "full screen" skins as this PC is used for so many different things at the same time, so music is background.

Even on the media PCs I am building I am still using that same classic skin. In those cases the screen is taken over by a full screen Milkdrop.


Winamp is great for this customisability. We are all unique individuals and have different needs. And we can fit it all in to the same program. Whereas Apple forces their skin on the users, including their forced redesign. Apple is about conformity. Winamp is about freedom.

[siavash119]

net-cruizer: I didn't miss what you said, I tried to show that nothing is missing in the GUI of the modern skin, but I understand people would want a single window without the option to hide some items.

Batter Pudding: I feel you; Winamp has been in my startup folder since '98, and I really enjoy screen real estate. The classic/modern skins are just way more compact. For me and all my hotkeys, they become much more efficient and manageable.

Also my favorite visualizer is definitely G-Force.

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by siavash119

Batter Pudding: I feel you; Winamp has been in my startup folder since '98, and I really enjoy screen real estate. The classic/modern skins are just way more compact. For me and all my hotkeys, they become much more efficient and manageable.

I was running NT 4.0 when I first started using Winamp. 32-bit goodness!! I think I had a 1024x768 resolution on my monitor. So needed to squeeze Winamp out of the way when pretending to work.

Now I run two 24" monitors @ 1920x1200 each. (i.e. 3840x1200) Which means I have to bump the Winamp GUI to "Double Size" otherwise I can't read it.

Ah... what a way we have come in those few years... First time I saw Winamp was on a 14" monitor. Last weekend I set it up on a 50" HD Plasma.

I'll check out G-Force on the Plasma.


Bento is just too ridged for me. I will be experimenting with skins again on the Big Screen, but Bento feels like it closes in on me. The Classic skin feels less dominating. But I am going to be looking at a SmartView to get some kind of funky cover choice up on screen.

[siavash119]

Originally Posted by Batter Pudding

Bento feels like it closes in on me.

You have the words to exactly express my feelings towards Bento.

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by siavash119

You have the words to exactly express my feelings towards Bento.

I do like your Purple work on it. Much more friendly look. Feels friendly and less dominant in your screen shot. The default black is too dark for me.

[MrSinatra]

Bento, sometimes with "City Night 2" color scheme.

[siavash119]

Originally Posted by Batter Pudding

I do like your Purple work on it. Much more friendly look. Feels friendly and less dominant in your screen shot. The default black is too dark for me.

Oh, that's just Amethyst color theme; the main changes I made were to add "move="0"" to the layout of main_shade, playlist, and media library xml files in Winamp Modern skin folder. Sometimes I misclick and the windows would drag. Now they can't move. Also I moved the repeat and shuffle toggles for when I click on those.

This post might explain it a little more: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=240130&page=3

[siavash119]

Originally Posted by siavash119

Oh, that's just Amethyst color theme; the main changes I made were to add "move="0"" to the layout of main_shade, playlist, and media library xml files in Winamp Modern skin folder. Sometimes I misclick and the windows would drag. Now they can't move. Also I moved the repeat and shuffle toggles for when I click on those.

This post might explain it a little more: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=240130&page=3

The main thing I'm sad about is how careless I got w/ genres. I used to have 10 that made click navigation so fast, but now I have 69 with so much redundancy, so I went back to 2 columns in Media Library. I think I might take care of that right now hehe

[MarkRH]

I use the Bento Skin mostly with the default color scheme. I also use the Pimeer Modern v2 skin. I used to have many more skins but after getting this Windows 7 system I really haven't installed much else for Winamp other than what I just really wanted/needed. Most of the time I'm not really looking at the player anyway. I usually have the Library portion closed and have the main window sitting at the top-right of the monitor.

[Aminifu]

Hi siavash119,

There is another user (link below) who shares your fondness for the Winamp modern skin.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=359228

I used it for years and now use cPro skins. They combine the classic and modern skin features in one overall skin. Unlike the Bento skins, there is better control of the major sub-windows and there are additional features that enhance the UI.

[lostinsound]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Hi siavash119,

There is another user (link below) who shares your fondness for the Winamp modern skin.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=359228

I used it for years and now use cPro skins. They combine the classic and modern skin features in one overall skin. Unlike the Bento skins, there is better control of the major sub-windows and there are additional features that enhance the UI.

I'm trying out the Ayon Port skin and it just seems like a SUI like Bento with not a lot flexibility with moving sub-windows around. Am I missing something, or is that not what you meant?

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by lostinsound

I'm trying out the Ayon Port skin and it just seems like a SUI like Bento with not a lot flexibility with moving sub-windows around. Am I missing something, or is that not what you meant?

cPro skins are all-in-one skins. So you can't move sub-windows around. I meant that you can more easily control which sub-windows are visible and some cPro skins have sub-window arrangements that are different from Bento.

If you are trying the cPro 2.01 engine, you can double click on a sub-window tab heading to make the overall skin toggle between full screen and back. I find that useful when viewing the media library or browser. The now playing sub-window is nice for displaying the artwork of the currently selected or playing song. There are many other additional usability features. Explore, point at stuff for tool tips and right click on things for context menus.

[lostinsound]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

cPro skins are all-in-one skins. So you can't move sub-windows around. I meant that you can more easily control which sub-windows are visible and some cPro skins have sub-window arrangements that are different from Bento.

If you are trying the cPro 2.01 engine, you can double click on a sub-window tab heading to make the overall skin toggle between full screen and back. I find that useful when viewing the media library or browser. The now playing sub-window is nice for displaying the artwork of the currently selected or playing song. There are many other additional usability features. Explore, point at stuff for tool tips and right click on things for context menus.

Thanks, I guess I misunderstood. They are pretty interesting skins. I'm not sure if this is a bug, but for quite a few skins I've tried, when I try to use Alt+L to collapse the Media Library it switches to the Video tab instead. Are you seeing this too?

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by lostinsound

Thanks, I guess I misunderstood. They are pretty interesting skins. I'm not sure if this is a bug, but for quite a few skins I've tried, when I try to use Alt+L to collapse the Media Library it switches to the Video tab instead. Are you seeing this too?

I had not noticed that. I'm much more of a mouse guy (hard for me to remember keyboard hotkeys with all the apps I use), so I just click or doubleclick the sub-window tab or use the main context menu to access sub-window tabs that I have hidden. I will check the other hotkeys and report that bug and any others I find.

Thanks.

EDIT:
Alt+W does not seem to work. Alt+G works as expected (collapses the equalizer window). All the rest (E, Q, V and X) switch back to the media library, except for Alt+L which works as you stated (switches to video before back to media library).

Maybe this is intended. I will ask the dev.

Alt+V and Alt+X work the same way in both Winamp Bento and cPro. Since the cPro sub-windows do not collapse, I think these responses are intended. But having the Alt+L switch to video is a surprise.