atreiu's dashboard

LOL, yeah, i love you too, guys... :>

Hey LIB53, I see you are using GEdit, I used this in the beginning, too, but now I found Komodo Edit much better, and only use this now. You should take a look at it. I love the auto-complete for like every code (JS, XUL, CSS...), the project management and the powerful search & replace functions. And it's very easy and intuitive to use. – atreiu, on June 30, 2009 01:17

@Murphy: Yeah, that's basically the way it will be done with Firefox, imho. I think that's the way, Ubiquity was meant from the beginning: to merge with the awesomebar/locationbar/searchbar to create a single and more powerful bar. But this may take another 1-2 years to work out well.
However, to bring the ubiquity functionality to the awesomebar really seems to me the only thing that makes sense. An "awesome Library Bar" (ALB), as a "standalone-addon" will not work, imho. See: you guys are discussing a lot, what feature should be implemented in the ALB, which way the results should be displayed, if a websearch should be possible, or history, or how the results should be prioritized etc... All these questions wouldn't matter in a Ubiquity-Based Awesomebar (a.k.a.Taskfox), because all these features could be done as adjustable user-scripts, that the user can subscribe to or not. And these scripts can be done very easily, much easier & faster than creating an songbird-addon. Also Ubiquity has a powerful & improving linguistic backend, songbird- or songbird-addon-developers probably won't be able to code such things on their own, because of the lack of time.
And you don't have to wait with the development of such user-scripts till Taskfox arrives, you can start right know using the Ubiquity.

I just renew my 50Cent here: creating Ubiquity-Scripts for your features is the way to go, and when the time has come, integrate these scripts into Taskfox. Imho this is the only good way to realize your ideas. – atreiu, on June 29, 2009 16:40

I don't see the "implemented label" here. It probably just was mis-tagged for a short time. There have been problems with these labels before, but they always got fixed after while. Nothing to worry about... – atreiu, on June 29, 2009 15:56

Have you tried a new songbird-profile, too? I would say, that would be your best shot.

Hi Lib, I'm answering here, I think that makes sense ;)

warning! long post! :>

I can't help coding on this project (too busy with keeping all the other stuff up to date and still have a playlist for pure player to code), but maybe I can give you some advice on how to change the Layout.

Basically, there are 3 ways to change the Layout:

1.) XUL Overlays
2.) Dynamical modifications via Javascript.
3.) Using a complete new XUL-Layout.

I have worked with all these: Pane Buttons are using 1), Q4 uses 2) and Pure Player uses 3). Here is my advice, but I discovered all this only by myself, though, I might wrong here and there. Anyway, what I found out:

No 1.) Is best & easiest for adding things to Layout, but it was a mess, when I tried to move existing elements with it, especially the once that are "binded" (these have red children in the DOM-Inspector). If I tried to move the tab-bar for Q4 that way, it basically stopped working, I think because all the Listeners are broke by the movement. Also it is difficult to apply the Overlay only to a specific feather.

No 2.) Is good for moving/changing & adding things to the Layout. One big benefit is, that you have more control over how and when things are moved, than with Overlays. But it's a lot more work than Overlays, so I wouldn't use it for just adding things. Also there might be modifications, that can't be done that way. Another reason i prefer this over No. 3 was, that I think it won't have to adept the skin very much, to get it to work with future Songbird-Version (if they add some buttons here and there, I don't have to repeat these changes. I would have, if I used No. 3)

No 3.) Gives you full control over the look. Pure Player wouldn't be possible otherwise. However, it is very much work. Only the few elements I have in PP took quite a while for me, to understand them and get them to work. But this is the cleanest and most professional way, because Songbird doesn't have to change anything (that might go wrong), it just takes the new Layout-file and uses that one. You can do like everything with that.

If I see your Mockups, No. 1) is not the best choice. I guess your changes might be possible with No. 2), but I think they are a little bit too complicated (status-bar under the progressbar, f.e.). So I think the way to do this right, would be No. 3. As I said, it's a lot of work, you might even have to change override some Bindings here and there. But it's possible.

If I were you, I would take a really close look on the More Gonzo-Addon: It's "Alternate" view does pretty much exactly the ground-work you need: implementing a new Layout-XUL, that is basically the default XUL file, only with some small changes.
That's what you should try to get to work in the first place: Create an extension that loads your own copy of Songbirds default XUL as a different layout. If you did this, start changing your layout-XUL slowly and try to adjust it step for step to your needs.
For how to get a working AlbumArt into the Media-Pane, take a look at Pure Player or Medium Player (it requires some JS-Work, too).

Besides the mdc (extremely useful!!!), what I found really helpful is the Search through Songbird source. It helped me a lot, to see how they do some things, and it helps with songbirds own functions & feature (that are not documented in mdc, and only a little bit on the SB-Wiki).

Sorry for the long post, but it still would be nice, if a professional dev could comment it, to tell us if my post is completely nuts, or if I'm correct, at least here and there ;)

That behavior is very usual for applications based on Mozilla (like Firefox or Thunderbird).

The reason is: all your data is stored in a Songbird-Profile, completely separated from the Application-Files. That's why reinstalling Songbird usually doesn't fix problems, but creating a new profile without reinstalling does.

To do a complete uninstall of Songbird, that deletes the Profiles, too, check out this link:
http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Develope...

To create a new profile (to fix problems), check out this link:
http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Getting_...

This behavior is a little bit strange in the beginning, but if you get used to it, you will see that it has many advantages.

If you have any further question, feel free to ask :-)

Thanks for this info, andrew!
I always appreciate your up to date news. :-) – atreiu, on June 27, 2009 05:49

Please let me know: did you have the YABS-Feather or Q4-Feather active?

Because Saebekassebil had this problem with the last update of Q4, too, and I have a terrible apprehension... :>

(I fear it might have something todo with my switch to jar-packaging)

I guess you are referring to the cute black birdies, and not the orange goldfish? ;)
Yeah, these picture are sweeeet.

You should contact Jonathan Koshi directly, afaik he did all the illustrations.

If anyone wants to work on the realization of this great idea:

Probably the fastes & best way to implement it, is to write a user script for the Ubiquity-Addon (about:ubiquity). I can think only of Pros:

1.) You don't have to worry much about interface implementation & add-on management stuff. You only need Javascript.
2.) It would be available right now through Ubiquity.
3.) Some time after Taskfox hits Firefox final, it probably will be available in Songbird, too. Ubiquity & Taskfox are very similar, so the script probably don't need many adjustments => voilà, we have our tuned awesomebar.

Pimp your Pony, Season 1:

You can show it in the Bottom-Pane (and hopefully in the AlbumArt-Pane in the servicepane, soon, too):
http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/...

And you can pimp it with Presets, too (if you didn't already know that):
http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/...

Also spec the Pane Buttons - Addon, in the next version it will give you a Button to show/hide the Equalizer-Window. The update is probably coming out in the next few days...
http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/...

Isn't that just in Help -> About SongBird ?

When I do that, at the top of the popup I get it says:
Version: Songbird 1.2.0, Build 1146 (20090616030043)

Is that what you're looking for?

(FYI, I just downloaded Soungbird about an hour ago)