skin.ini positioning / sizing

Only me again :slight_smile: Couple of questions about the layout that im stuggling with now. Ive had a play and had a look at some other posts but im not having much luck! :frowning:

  1. In a playlist stack id just like the columns shown in the screenshot with the title & artist fill auto expanding to the available space. Currently the code in the skin.ini file is:

ColWidths=45,95,*,70,80,35,0,0
ColumnOrder=1,8,2,3,4,5,6,7

  1. As you can also see in the screenshot im having a bit of problems with the sizing on the auto play/stop buttons! Have you any suggestions on how i can size these buttons/boxes so there all available? Theres no more space left on the layout even over the two screens!! :slight_smile:

Question 1:

You could try altering the Playlist fonts (see sample below from my own skin.ini), then changing the column widths to suit. Looks like even your icon column is ‘cut off.’

[Playlist]FontName=Tahoma FontSize=8 FontStyle=1 FontColor=#000000 PlayerNameFontName=Verdana PlayerNameFontSize=9 PlayerNameFontStyle=1 PlayerNameFontColor=#0000FF

Question 2:

I thought there was a way to specify button size for the Playlist control bar, but there isn’t as such: you have to do it indirectly by changing the toolbar font, size and style (yes, that changes the font used for the buttons, AND the Event and Playlist duration boxes as well!), like this:

[Playlist] ToolbarFontName=Arial Narrow ToolbarFontSize=15 ToolbarFontStyle=1
Style 1 is bold, 2 is italic, and 3 is bold italic, in case you didn’t already know. Be careful to choose a font, size and style which works well in ALL the Playlist toolbar objects. Difficult to go wrong with Arial Narrow Bold, IMHO.

Do you NEED separate AUTO and ASSIST buttons? If not, that’s at least another 100px or so saved if you switch them to a single ‘toggle’ button in Config (Playlists, Playlist n, Control Bar tab, then clear the Separate ASSIST/AUTO buttons checkbox).

BFN
CAD

I had to explain a similar situation to a user recently - so this may assist Scott with his skin.ini settings… Remember that the values for the columns are based upon your screen resolution just like the object sizes/position in the LayoutDesigner - they are all relative to your defined screen resolution, so if your Playlist object is 250 wide then your Columns can add-up to 250 (or less). Therefore, if the sum of your defined Columns is 150, the * for Artist/Title will auto-size to 100 (to make it up to 250).

Looking at your example - I think you’re pushing your luck with a playlist that narrow and with that number of columns and font size.

Thanks for the replies! :slight_smile: Ive managed to get the auto/assit button sorted now thanks. Changed the sizes a bit and changed it to a toggle. Didnt see that config option hiding! :slight_smile:

With regards to the columns. I only wanted the 1st for columns you see in the screenshot. Time/Status, Icon, Artist & Title, Time Remaining.

Im now using:

ColWidths=45,105,*,70
ColumnOrder=1,8,2,3

But not having much luck. (See screenshot) The size of the playlist is 401! :confused:

The values in ColWidths corresponds to the original column order. You need to specify all 7 values, and set a particular value to 0 in order to hide the column.

Please note that Artist and Title share a column, so it’s only 7 columns and not 8.

After you have done so, you can rearrange the columns using ColumnOrder.

EDIT: By the way, the column indices are zero based, so its column 0 (Icon) through column 6 (Link)

To ‘translate’ what Torben said:

  1. You must specify all seven column widths (not just the widths of the ones you want to display); and you must specify the widths in their ‘normal’ 0–7 order, as copied from here (thanks, Serge!): http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,4337.msg30756.html#msg30756
    Icon (0), Time (1), Title/Artist (2), Duration (3), Ramp (4), End (5), Link (6)

You can specify any column width as zero to ‘hide’ it; and you can specify one width as * to make it the ‘auto-sized’ column, which means that column is the one which will shrink or grow to fit the available width.

So the skin.ini statement:
ColWidths=45,105,*,70,0,0,0
means:
Icon:45px, Time:105px, Title/Artist:auto-size, Duration:70px, Ramp:‘hidden’, End:‘hidden’, Link:‘hidden’

Note that using ColumnWidths turns off automatic sizing of all columns except the one you specify as width *: you must supply a width—even if it’s a zero—for all other columns.

  1. After setting up column widths, you can change the order using ColumnOrder. Columns are displayed by mAirList in the order they are listed in the statement, using the same index numbers for columns as shown above.

So the skin.ini statement:
ColumnOrder=1,6,2,3
means the column order, from left to right, will be:
Time (1), Link (6), Title/Artist (2), Duration (3)

  1. Finally, you can also (optionally) use HideColumns, which simply ‘turns off’ a column without affecting the width of the other columns.

So the skin.ini statement:
HideColumns=0,5,6
means these columns will be hidden:
Icon (0), End (5), Link (6)

I think you can specify those in any order, but don’t quote me on it. It’s certainly neater to put them in ascending order IMHO.

Does that help?

BFN
CAD