Meowmoo, I downloaded the latest GIT build and I really like your Alternate Music Vis Layout! One small bug I've noticed is that after <songinfoduration> ends, the shading in the back fades out, but the album cover and info stay onscreen. I've learned a little over the years editing XBMC/KODI .xml files, but I'm no coder and don't know how to fix that.
I spent the morning making some edits to MusicVisualisation.xml that I thought you might be interested in.
I noticed that some of the longer artist and album titles didn't fit on the handwritten cdART, so I replaced all instances of
with
Next, I prefer the cleaner look of no overlays on the album cover, so I discovered I was able to remove them by deleting all instances of
Code:
<texture diffuse="thumbs/cdcover_mask2.png">thumbs/cdcover_glass_noreflect.png</texture>
and
Code:
diffuse="thumbs/cdcover_mask2.png"
I also prefer for the aspect ratio of the album cover to be kept, so I changed the width from 400 to 500 (to give the wider covers more room) and added <aspectratio> with "left" alignment. I replaced
Code:
<control type="group">
<animation effect="fade" time="750">VisibleChange</animation>
<!--visible>Skin.HasSetting(vinylart)</visible-->
<posx>40</posx>
<posy>13</posy>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>-270</posy>
<height>400</height>
<width>400</width>
<texture fallback="DefaultAlbumCover.png">$INFO[MusicPlayer.Cover]</texture>
<bordertexture border="-90">thumbs/cd_shadow2.png</bordertexture>
</control>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>-270</posy>
<height>400</height>
<width>400</width>
<aspectratio scalediffuse="false" align="right">scale</aspectratio>
</control>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>132</posy>
<animation effect="fade" start="100" end="10" time="0" condition="true">Conditional</animation>
<height>400</height>
<width>400</width>
<texture flipy="true" fallback="DefaultAlbumCover.png">$INFO[MusicPlayer.Cover]</texture>
<bordertexture border="-90">thumbs/cd_shadow2.png</bordertexture>
</control>
</control>
with
Code:
<control type="group">
<animation effect="fade" time="750">VisibleChange</animation>
<!--visible>Skin.HasSetting(vinylart)</visible-->
<posx>40</posx>
<posy>13</posy>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>-270</posy>
<height>400</height>
<width>500</width>
<texture fallback="DefaultAlbumCover.png">$INFO[MusicPlayer.Cover]</texture>
<aspectratio align="left">keep</aspectratio>
<bordertexture border="-90">thumbs/cd_shadow2.png</bordertexture>
</control>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>-270</posy>
<height>400</height>
<width>500</width>
<aspectratio scalediffuse="false" align="left">keep</aspectratio>
</control>
<control type="image">
<posx>42</posx>
<posy>132</posy>
<animation effect="fade" start="100" end="10" time="0" condition="true">Conditional</animation>
<height>400</height>
<width>500</width>
<texture flipy="true" fallback="DefaultAlbumCover.png">$INFO[MusicPlayer.Cover]</texture>
<aspectratio align="left">keep</aspectratio>
<bordertexture border="-90">thumbs/cd_shadow2.png</bordertexture>
</control>
</control>
I wanted the artist text to be smaller (the same size as the song titles) and to match the color of the year, so I changed FONT_MAINCLASSIC to FONT_MAINCLASSIC2 and added TitleColorVar. I had to lower <posy> from -200 to -170. I also felt that the logo.png sat a little high, so I changed that from -300 to -280. I replaced
Code:
<control type="label">
<posx>1828</posx>
<posy>-200</posy>
<width>1180</width>
<height>38</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<font>Font_MainClassic</font>
<visible>Substring(Control.GetLabel(8318),empty.png) | IsEmpty(Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath))</visible>
<label>$INFO[MusicPlayer.Artist]</label>
<textcolor>white</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
</control>
<control type="image" id="8318">
<posx>1330</posx>
<posy>-300</posy>
<width>500</width>
<height>193</height>
<fadetime>400</fadetime>
<animation effect="fade" start="100" end="0" time="0" condition="Substring(Control.GetLabel(8318),empty.png)">Conditional</animation>
<texture background="true" fallback="empty.png">$INFO[Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath)]$INFO[MusicPlayer.Artist,,/logo.png]</texture>
<visible>!IsEmpty(Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath))</visible>
</control>
with
Code:
<control type="label">
<posx>1828</posx>
<posy>-170</posy>
<width>1180</width>
<height>38</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<font>Font_MainClassic2</font>
<visible>Substring(Control.GetLabel(8318),empty.png) | IsEmpty(Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath))</visible>
<label>$INFO[MusicPlayer.Artist]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
</control>
<control type="image" id="8318">
<posx>1330</posx>
<posy>-280</posy>
<width>500</width>
<height>193</height>
<fadetime>400</fadetime>
<animation effect="fade" start="100" end="0" time="0" condition="Substring(Control.GetLabel(8318),empty.png)">Conditional</animation>
<texture background="true" fallback="empty.png">$INFO[Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath)]$INFO[MusicPlayer.Artist,,/logo.png]</texture>
<visible>!IsEmpty(Skin.String(ArtistsLogosPath))</visible>
</control>
Next, I like to see song titles in quotes and don't need to see track numbers, so I replaced
Code:
$INFO[MusicPlayer.TrackNumber,,: ][COLOR=white]$INFO[MusicPlayer.Title][/COLOR]
with
Code:
[COLOR=white]$INFO[MusicPlayer.Title,“,”][/COLOR]
I also changed this in the Next: area as well. If Party Mode is on, it now also displays that with the number of tracks played in parentheses before Next: and changed both to gray text. I also swapped artist and song title to match it above and changed the color of the artist font to match TitleColorVar. I replaced
Code:
<control type="label">
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>50</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>Next:</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
<control type="label">
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>80</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>$INFO[MusicPlayer.offset(1).TrackNumber,,: ][COLOR=white]$INFO[MusicPlayer.offset(1).Title][/COLOR]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
<control type="label">
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>110</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>[COLOR white] $INFO[MusicPlayer.offset(1).Artist][/COLOR]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
with
Code:
<control type="label">
<visible>!MusicPartyMode.Enabled</visible>
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>50</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>[COLOR gray]Next:[/COLOR]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
<control type="label">
<visible>MusicPartyMode.Enabled</visible>
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>50</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>[COLOR gray]Party Mode$INFO[MusicPartyMode.SongsPlayed, (,) · ]Next:[/COLOR]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
<control type="label">
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>80</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>$INFO[MusicPlayer.offset(1).Artist]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
<control type="label">
<posx>1658</posx>
<posy>110</posy>
<width>800</width>
<height>36</height>
<aligny>-</aligny>
<align>right</align>
<font>Font_Reg19_Caps</font>
<label>[COLOR=white]$INFO[MusicPlayer.offset(1).Title,“,”][/COLOR]</label>
<textcolor>$VAR[TitleColorVar]</textcolor>
<shadowcolor>black</shadowcolor>
<scroll>true</scroll>
<include>Animation_VisibleChange400</include>
</control>
Finally, it's a little thing, but I prefer parentheses to brackets for album year, so I replaced
Code:
$INFO[MusicPlayer.Year, [,] ]
with
Code:
$INFO[MusicPlayer.Year, (,) ]
Here's what it looks like in Party Mode with a logo.png for the artist:
Here's regular playback, no logo.png, and wide album cover:
You can see that I also prefer normal case to uppercase for the Now Playing info. I think it looks nicer and you can fit more characters before it starts to scroll. The only way I could figure out to change this was to edit font.xml. In the first section labeled
Code:
<fontset id="Default" idloc="31390">
I removed uppercase by replacing
Code:
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic4</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold uppercase</style>
<size>52</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic3</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold uppercase</style>
<size>65</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic2</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold uppercase</style>
<size>80</size>
</font>
with
Code:
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic4</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold</style>
<size>52</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic3</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold</style>
<size>65</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>Font_MainClassic2</name>
<filename>MC360.ttf</filename>
<aspect>0.67</aspect>
<style>bold</style>
<size>80</size>
</font>
For anyone interested, here's my complete MusicVisualisation.xml, which I edited with RJ TextEd:
http://ul.to/2g8s6t8t
As I said, I'm certainly not a coder! If I made any mistakes, please let me know. Also, any suggestions are appreciated!
yeah sure... i can teach you young padavan if you take a small break 
its recache all my tvshow images right now... ~25minutes left... when i still have my images left i will send you a pm XD
