Let the Functionality Revolution begin!

[Dulce]

The winds of change are blowing ever more forcefully, as the time of revolution nears. For too long advanced users have been bombarded by "pretty" skins that sacrifice functionality for beauty. We have had little choice but to accept these baubles, since the majority of available functional skins were a pain on the eyes. Necessities that will soon begin to surface, once the revolution takes place, are the following:
- an easily readable, resizable playlist
- a complete equalizer with readily visible presets (via a combobox)
- a search bar at the bottom of the playlist
- a fluid song progress bar
- a regular line-drag volume bar (none of that circular crapola)
- simple scrolling for large music collections
- a resizable visualization screen with internal and external options
- quick access to QCD preferences and options
- an initial size that shall not exceed a fourth of the screen
(should sit nicely in the upper right corner of the desktop)
- all wrapped up in a visually pleasing package

The diligent skin developers for QCD, you, my friends, hold the future in your hands. It is upon your shoulders that the revolution must be hoisted. Heed the call, take up arms, and set forth upon this creative endeavor!

[Todd The Kiwi]

:chinese:as far as i know every single request you have made exists already :evolved:

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Sounds awe-inspiring. R u sure this was posted on 31-01-2004 and not a year earlier? :silly: ;) :calm:

[Dulce]

Most of these features are available, as stated by Todd, but they do not all coexist in one skin. The point of the revolution is to produce a variety of skins that have all have the "necessities" from which the user can take his pick. A year ago the seeds were planted for the revolution of today. Quite a few QCD skins were developed, in that age, that incorporated many of the features that are elementary to the power user. The resizable playlist, however, was an impossibility due to QCD's structure. The equalizer as well has always been lacking in terms of precision and the presets could only be chosen by either clicking through each one or bringing up the ugly and time-consuming preset window. The other necessities, as I've mentioned earlier, were scattered among the different skins. The time is now to bring to life the tree whose seeds were sown a year ago. It is essential that we weld all the branches into a single organism, that we integrate all the features into a single skin, that we devote all the effort we can spare to the revolution.

[Todd The Kiwi]

:apple:you could always make this amazing skin yourself man:apple:

[Young Twig]

I'm sorry.

[chicubs]

- quick access to QCD preferences and options


you dont know how to right click? :bandit:

[Heigar]

I don't know about a lot of other skinners ,but when i design a skin it is usually for what my preferences are and if somone wants more things added or taking out they are more than welcome to to get ahold of the author and ask for requests.I don't use the encoder so i won't put it in any of my skins,but if a user wants it all they would have to do is contact me.

[Dulce]

Originally posted by chicubs

you dont know how to right click?

What do you think I've been doing up until this point? :sleeping:

[drewkeller]

i'm with dulce. a lot of skins are rather lacking in functionality. most of the creative juice gets spent on the graphic part of it at the sacrifice of function. heck, chicubs says he's not going to make skins any more because he's tired of doing buttons and so forth. i think a lot of skinners get this feeling in the middle of doing a skin and basically "give up" on the rest of it. at least that's the way it looks to me.

i put in as much functionality as i can pack into my skins. or maybe i should say "skin" since i've only released one. and maybe it's one of the eyesores dulce referred to. oh well. i know a bit more about skinning for the next one if i ever get around to it.

[Dulce]

Drewkeller, my man, it is coincidentally your Arizona skin that is set as my default! Keep up the good work and thanks for the support.

[Jencatd]

I don't know about a lot of other skinners ,but when i design a skin it is usually for what my preferences are and if somone wants more things added or taking out they are more than welcome to to get ahold of the author and ask for requests.I don't use the encoder so i won't put it in any of my skins,but if a user wants it all they would have to do is contact me.

I agree, I leave the CDDB out of my skins because I don't use it. I leave the other stuff in, because it has its uses. The Encoder's been handy while I've been trying to find a good replacement for CDex.

[hedge]

I think you should give lich's silicon karma 2 a try, it meets quite a few of your requirements...
Find it here http://www.quinnware.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=126

:evolved:

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Still, why a revolution??? No one is revolting...Anyway, if there is one complete skin out there, then its the default one ;)

have a :beer: :foureyes:

[drewkeller]

Drewkeller, my man, it is coincidentally your Arizona skin that is set as my default! Keep up the good work and thanks for the support.
maybe it's not much of a coincidence, seeing our similar viewpoints
i fully intend on updating Arizona for some of the new features... one of these days... probably not until after the next full QCD release, though

[Young Twig]

heck, chicubs says he's not going to make skins any more because he's tired of doing buttons and so forth. i think a lot of skinners get this feeling in the middle of doing a skin and basically "give up" on the rest of it. at least that's the way it looks to me.


Yup. I plan ahead a little. I know I don't use the EQ stuff, so, I generally don't add it because I'm lazy. Snow was my least lazy skin yet. It has an encoder, eq (but not all the buttons), etc.

[chicubs]

The problem is with having such a functional skin, it cannot be original shape in order to have a nice layout for the hundreds of buttons you want. Its just going to be a square :robot:

[Young Twig]

The problem is with having such a functional skin, it cannot be original shape in order to have a nice layout for the hundreds of buttons you want. Its just going to be a square :robot:

My next skin (see the sig) is intended to be a simple skin. So, I don't really want buttons all over ESPECIALLY if I'm not going to even use them.

[Scarebear]

One of the things that drew me to QCD was that it is a truely freeform skinnable application. It is this same reason that I rarely used Winamp v2. I started on Sonique (v1) which was freeform but still basically meant I had to skin all elements for the skin to function correctly. The fact that I can make a QCD skin that has nothing but a couple of buttons is cool!

My next skin will hopefully have plenty more functions than my first QCD attempts because I want to see how much I can fit into a QCD skin and still have it look decent. But like many people, I rarely use ALL of the available elements. So I generally won't skin them all. It has nothing to do with laziness, it's just skinning what I want to skin.

QCD = Options.

[Heigar]

When designing a skin I look at useability,and does it fit my specific needs ,i don't think people exclude things from skins out of pure laziness(some maybe do)the more functionality you incorporate into a skin without the right layout design the more cluttered and unfriendly interface you end up with.In which might confuse the user.If a skin has all the functionality what good is that for someone who just wants a basic design for doing just the basic stuff and vice versa,there really isn't a happy medium for everyone so i design for myself and any other users that might have the same specific needs.