Album Art Viewer Plugin v1.03 (17/12/2013)

[will]

Hey,

I use classic skin lots, so I made a plug-in which simply shows the album art of the currently playing track in a skinned window. It works in both modern and classic skins.

Screenshot:


Dead simple. Has a nice right click menu too.

Version 1.03
Download: Download and run the installer!
Info: link

See http://winampplugins.co.uk/gen_classicart/ for older versions of the plug-in (if required) or for more information about some features of the plug-in.

Requires Winamp 5.64 or better.

Post any problems or feature requests here, but as I made this more for my own personal use than anything else, I might not get around improving this.

Enjoy!

[will]

Just updated to version 0.2.
* Renamed to "Album Art Viewer", cause it's not just for classic skins
* New Auto-Hide option, to hide the art window when you're playing a track without album art
* Uses the standard not found image
* fixes!

[Juanus]

I was really confused till I realized that classic skins do not have an album art window.

Now I get it and I love the lock aspect Ratio functiuonality. Awesome. I also think it would be great if there was a way to have a native auto size. So that when the album art comes up, it comes up in the actual image size. I have some images that are 500x500 and it would be cool if they came up full size.

Will, also, I want to thank you for all of the great work that you do. Your skillz are swesome.

[Nunzio390]

Great job, Will! Really nice.

And now I think I'll head back to add to my reply in this thread and point forums member "cochese" to your new plugin in this thread.

Again, good job!

[JonnyMac]

Yup, nice one. Very good!

I was going to reply to the thread that Nunzio talked about to suggest to suggest your plug-in. However, by the time I had a chance to do so, Nunzio had already reposted there.

[shayx]

very nice plugin, i like it.

but here some requests:

Can you make the window free to adjust, it's now free only for the height, can you make it free for width?
now about the backround color, if you can make an option to choose a custom color would be great.

thank you

[Nunzio390]

Originally posted by shayx
Can you make the window free to adjust, it's now free only for the height, can you make it free for width?
now about the backround color, if you can make an option to choose a custom color would be great.

What??

1. You can adjust both height and width with no problems.
2. The color matches whatever skin you use it with.

I know both the above for a fact to be true, since I'm using the plugin myself.

So... either you are dreaming or something is seriously borked. If the latter, remove the plugin and then reinstall it. If that doesn't help then something else you've added to your Winamp installation is seriously interfering with the plugin's functionality, in which case, perform a completely clean install of Winamp, following these clean install instructions exactly. Then, reinstall the plugin and all should be well.

[JonnyMac]

@shayx

Are you using any modern skins? Some modern skins, including Winamp Modern and (Big) Bento, have album art support built in. Depending on the skin you are using it can be too easy to confuse the plug's art window with the skin's art Window.

[pjn123]

How to include the Winamp AlbumArt window in all ModernSkins.

Open this file:
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\freeform\xml\winamp\cover\cover.xml

Then replace the text with this (open with Notepad)

code:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<WinampAbstractionLayer version="0.7">

<elements>

  <bitmap id="winamp.cover.notfound" file="notfound.png"/> <!-- 120x120 px -->

  <bitmap id="winamp.cover.notfound.60" file="notfound60.png"/> <!-- 60x60 px -->

  <bitmap id="winamp.cover.notfound.90" file="notfound90.png"/> <!-- 90x90 px -->

</elements>



<groupdef id="albumart.hack" name="Album Art" register_autopopup="1">

	<AlbumArt fitparent="1" move="1"/>

</groupdef>



</WinampAbstractionLayer>

All your skins will now have the Winamp AlbumArt window
No need for extra plugins.

[Nunzio390]

The above XML hack indeed works very well for modern skins, so KUDOS to you, pjn123, for supplying the hack.

But Will's Album Art Viewer Plugin (this thread) supplies album art for every skin, including both modern and classic, which IMHO is preferable.

Also take note of the fact that with Will's plugin, if Album Art is ticked/checked in the right-click menu list options, that when you change skins (modern or classic), it remains that way, and the album art window "remembers" that it needs to be shown. With your XML hack for modern skins, it becomes UNchecked/UNticked when you change skins and then needs to be selected again.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
Commonly requested features taken from all of the 5.5 beta/final threads. Feedback is welcome, though there's no need to keep making requests for any of these:

• Album Art window for classic skins (if possible?)

I guess it is possible!

I was just told about your plugin will. This addition snuck by me.
Thank you from another Classic Skin user!

... recommending your plugin via my signature.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by Nunzio390
1. You can adjust both height and width with no problems.

I know both the above for a fact to be true,
since I'm using the plugin myself.

shayx might be hitting the horizontal constraint of the Album Art window, and thus
it seems to him that he can't adjust the width. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you
can't make the window any narrower than the width of the main Winamp window.

[jph6t]

So like will, I too use the Classic Skin.
As such, I have added the Album Art window to Winamp as pictured below:



I open/close the ML (on the left) when I need Winamp to take up less real estate
… thus leaving those windows most important to playback (the main player,
the Playlist, and now Album Art) still visible (on the right).

You’ll notice that with the Album Art window sized small like I have it there is a lot
of unused real estate in the window. (Note that the “Lock Aspect Ratio” option is selected to prevent the picture from getting all distorted). Now granted, I could increase the height of the Album Art window until the picture fills the window completely. But this by consequence would severely reduce the height of the Playlist, and in turn limit it’s ability to serve its purpose in arranging/viewing upcoming tracks.

So here is my suggestion …

Please provide an option to display the Album Art in a manner similar
to the ML SmartView’s “Small Details” Pane Option for the Album pane.

I photoshoped the following image to show what I was envisioning:



Not only would such an option be useful and make use of the current empty space
... I think it would make for a more visually appealing presentation.

Note that such an option could force the Album Art window as a whole to its smallest possible size ... so as to reduce the design challenges that would arise if adding the text to a window (and art) that were variable in size. Thus the only way a user could vary the size of the Album Art window (and display larger Album Art pictures), would be to uncheck this newly proposed option.

Thank you for your consideration!

[jph6t]

Originally posted by jph6t
Please provide an option to display the Album Art in a manner similar
to the ML SmartView’s “Small Details” Pane Option for the Album pane.

Huh, I thought I had come up with a pretty good idea (technical feasibility aside).
I'm surprised it didn't generate any comments or support.

[heribert]

Great plugin and very useful. Just what i was looking for.

[heribert]

I just noticed that there is a delay when you choose a title in the playlist when the cover file has big filesize (bigger than 500kb). Can you fix this?

[Benski]

Originally posted by heribert
I just noticed that there is a delay when you choose a title in the playlist when the cover file has big filesize (bigger than 500kb). Can you fix this?

This is because of the high-quality image resize. When Will Fisher and I were developing the album art features for Winamp, we discovered that the fast (but low-quality) resizing algorithms cause the thin lines of the text written on most cover art images to become distorted. The algorithm used by Winamp requires every pixel in the source image to be used in the calculation which can be very slow on huge images like yours.

two solutions
1) use a smaller image and keep the high-res version as a separate filename that winamp won't pick up
2) bug us to add some sort of caching

[heribert]

Originally posted by Benski
2) bug us to add some sort of caching [/B]

Please add this. It seems that the plugin is loading the cover everytime i click on a title in the playlist.

[tpspoons]

Thanks Very useful.

I agree with jph6t, that would be a great feature.

Moreso than that though, something like being able to drag and drop images onto the window to add an album cover would be great (if thats possible, I have no idea :P).

Anyway thanks again!

[HungryBear22]

good plugin, but i too would appreciate if it could show more info in the window about the song.

[ujay]

Originally posted by tpspoons
... Moreso than that though, something like being able to drag and drop images onto the window to add an album cover would be great (if thats possible, I have no idea :P).

If it's any help :

You can double click the Album Art window to open the containing folder(or right click > Open folder), and drag and drop there.

UJ

[jph6t]

Originally posted by tpspoons
I agree with jph6t, that would be a great feature.

Originally posted by HungryBear22
i too would appreciate if it could show more info in the window about the song.

[zackbuffo]

I'm not quite sure, if I downloaded the file properly. Will, ist the setup.exe still available (I downloaded a file with about 20KB)?

After executing the file, the command-box just pops up for less than a second, that's it. Is this the expected behaviour?

If I got all that right, I wonder where to find the album art window in the classic theme? How can I open it?

Unfortunately this doesn't work for me, so far... Can anyone help?

[HungryBear22]

if, you have installed it correctly, you should be able to see it when you right click the player, and you can put a check next to it to have the window show up. Hope that was clear enough, I don't really know how to describe it better.

[kuhak]

@zackbuffo: i had the same problem, dunno why. however, on googling it, i found hxxp://victorbustos.com/other/blog/wp-content/uploads/Custom_Uploads/winamp/album_art_viewer_setup.exe, which works fine. the download size now is 96 kb instead of the 20.1 kb on the link listed here. hth.

i had to troll the net for like 3 hrs before I found this plugin, perfect for what I wanted it to do, ie display album art for the now playing track on winamp classic with minimum fuss. imho this should be a standard feature on winamp, given that most modern skins (i can think of ebonite-fix, great skin) can do this by default, and all the other plugins for doing this on winamp classic (albumview, coverview, cover&tag etc)are either bug-ridden, or hang winamp, and are nowhere near as good as this plugin, which just rocks. salut & peace.

[Strayer]

Originally posted by will
Hey,

I use classic skin lots, so I made a plugin which simply shows the album art of the currently playing track in a skinned window. It works in both modern and classic skins.

Thanks a lot for this plugin, exactly what I need! Found it over googly, by the way...

Though... I also like jph6t's idea. It would be nice to see some more informations there.

[LeadFoot]

I'm with you too, jph6t. I started using this and got rid of CD Art Display (The startup/shutdown time was getting annoying), and your suggestion would be perfect. I wouldn't mind some basic controls like in the playlist, but that is just getting greedy.

[jph6t]

Originally posted by Strayer
Though... I also like jph6t's idea.

Originally posted by LeadFoot
I'm with you too, jph6t.

Thanks. Glad you both like my idea, but the only vote that really counts is that of the plugin's creator.

We are in your gracious hands will.

[LeadFoot]

Originally posted by jph6t
Thanks. Glad you both like my idea, but the only vote that really counts is that of the plugin's creator.

We are in your gracious hands will.

That was always understood. I know Will has a few other things to do, but I do hope he can find time to show this plugin a little more love.

[DrO]

Album Art Viewer v0.3

• Added Alt+A global shortcut to toggle the album art window
• Album art window is now included in Winamp's ctrl+tab feature (broken in some 5.5x builds)
• Double-click will now open the folder (like the native album art window does)
• Made background colour match the media library album art views (override with waBkClr=1 in the plugin's ini section)
• Made compatible to deal with Winamp being minimised on startup so the window won't appear briefly
• Implemented winampUninstallPlugin(..) support
• Minor code changes to better reflect some Winamp api usage

Main reason for this update is so i've got something which works more as i'd like (double-click and alt+a actions) plus stems from investigating compile issues with this as a sdk example. like Will said and so i will as well 'I might not get around improving this' any further from this (though having a view a bit like that in the media library would be nicer imho as well).

The updated source file and related files to allow for this to compile are availabe in this archive. Hopefully these updates will make it into future sdk's as well.

-daz

[LeadFoot]

DrO does it again! Thanks for the plugin update!

edit: Great. Company firewall blocked that...I'll check it at home.

[LeadFoot]

Finally got home to check it out (Business trip).

If (you are so inclined) to work on a v0.4, any chance of implementing jph6t's idea?



To me, it would make it just about perfect. (It's already pretty close...)

[vik09]

A fantastic plugin!

Album Art now appears with all skins ...

One less reason for me to go back to iTunes.

[DrO]

Originally posted by LeadFoot
If (you are so inclined) to work on a v0.4, any chance of implementing jph6t's idea?

"having a view a bit like that in the media library would be nicer imho as well" - the real problem is that i barely code nowadays as my priorities have changed so i may do something in the future but i'm not going to commit myself to that happening. just making it act like a properly integrated window is a good start i think (and reminded me that i need to port some changes from this into my jtfe plugin so it'll work nicely if Winamp was minimised on startup).

-daz

[LeadFoot]

OK, understood. I wasn't asking for it right away. Just a "yeah, maybe I might do that eventually." Which I think we may have just gotten, but I know you don't kill yourself for Winamp anymore. Any lovin' this plugin gets is good.

[tata668]

Thanks so much for this plug-in! It's really nice!

Two questions:

- Is it possible to configure it to automatically get the album art from the Internet, if not found in the files, instead of right-clicking and selecting "get album art"?

- If the above is not possible, for a reason or another, is there a way to make the double-click on the plug-in to get the album art instead of opening the current folder (which is not useful for me)?

Thanks a lot!

[retrolectro]

hello guys,

links for downloading the plugin are not working. could you please offer another one?

thanks a lot

retrolectro

[jph6t]

Originally posted by retrolectro
links for downloading the plugin are not working. could you please offer another one?

The link for Album Art Viewer v0.3 works fine for me retrolectro.

[DrO]

Album Art Viewer v0.4

• Added localisation support (with example en-us language file included in the installer)
• Adding an option to show the album art when clicking on an item in the playlist editor without having to play it
• Fixed the main menu item not working via the system menu
• Plug-in will now only work on 5.53+ clients to ensure the Alt+A global shortcut will work (bug-fix for v0.3)
• Fixed issue with api.h not containing all of the required headers (only affects compiling source code)

Is funny the things you think off when you start using a plug-in yourself hence the main reason for the updating being the option to show the album art when clicking on an item in the playlist editor (won't work when using the up/down arrows) which is useful when previewing files and seeing if they have album art. And of course a few minor bug fixes.

As for the information display request, i've still to look into it as the change i've made was quickly pulled from my Single Click 'n' Play plug-in (for the selection tracking) and the language exmaple code (for the localisation support). Hopefully i will get around to doing that for another release (but no promises, heh).


Source Files

The updated source files to allow a v0.4 compile are availabe in this archive. These are designed to replace the v0.2 source in the current sdk and hopefully these updates will make it into future sdk's as well.

To have it generate the language file & update the compiled plug-in at compile time, the following was used in the post-build project settings (working against VS2008) with the linker output path set to the Release folder:
lng_generator.exe "$(OutDir)\$(ProjectName).dll" /build
copy "$(OutDir)\$(ProjectName).dll" "$(ProgramFiles)\Winamp\Plugins\gen_classicart.dll" /y

-daz

[Pawel]

Originally posted by DrO
Album Art Viewer v0.4

Nice update. Thx. Works very well.
I already translated it to polish (it will be probably distributed with my langpack extended version).
-Pawel