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Old 29th April 2007, 12:33   #81  |  Link
B.Slisk
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While the idea of skinning sounds great at first it does introduce un needed complexity to the code.

For those who desperately need their media player with a My little Pony theme there's loads of alternatives. VLC, WinAMP, WMP11 (the horror! (sorry)), Zoom Player, and about a gazillion others will allow you to reconfigure the UI and apply what ever kind of skin you can dream up.

If it was up for a vote I'd be in the KISS! (Keep It Simple Stupid!) camp. Imho there's quite enough fluff in the WMP UI as is. (XP-theming on the player controls? *shuder*)
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Old 29th April 2007, 16:53   #82  |  Link
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I don't have a problem with a simple UI. There's no need for a fancy skin, but I do wish the buttons and slider were bigger. Espdcially in 1920x1080, the small slider gives me a really small target to hit. I would not object to making the sliders and buttons larger and more attractice.


I also agree re the branding problem (I originally thought it was a hack of MS's old mplayer2.exe). But the most serious problem is active development. This is not a crticism of celtic_druid and others who are providing valuable patches, but I'd really like to see active development and improvement. For example, I'd love to see hddvd and bluray support -- navigation and playback of DECRYPTED content. I say decrypted b/c I understand the process for getting approval from the governing bodies is pretty onerous and expensive. also, some simple UI improvement like how about when you mouse over the slider or drag it, you get a pop up of the time position, like this

1:02:20
V

I'd love to do it except I'm just a dumb java/database programmer and don't know squat about graphics and stuff. Plus I assume MPC is written in C and man writing windows code in C is really painful.
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Old 29th April 2007, 18:18   #83  |  Link
joseph5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hdboy View Post
I originally thought it was a hack of MS's old mplayer2.exe
So did I.
I think that a skin interface could be optional to the user, like in VLC. Or maybe the developers could make a poll to see how many people want skins and how many don't.
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Old 29th April 2007, 19:27   #84  |  Link
madshi
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Please don't add skinning support. Don't want such useless stuff. It can only slow things down. MPC's interface is simple and clean and it should stay that way. Let other players become bloatware, but please not MPC.
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Old 30th April 2007, 00:24   #85  |  Link
Atak_Snajpera
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I agree with madshi! MPC must stay clean and simple. BTW It looks very nice on vista
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Old 30th April 2007, 01:26   #86  |  Link
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My problem with the current design is that gabest willfully limited himself to MS's bad original design and hamstrung the ability to make a somewhat better UI. Not that I particularly think later WMPs were any better, most were worse, but being less ugly than the leading competition shouldn't be the end of the line. There are both major and minor things I've never liked about the old-fashioned interface, but none are really enough to get me working on it, so I guess they can't be that bad.

You can make a great looking player without compromising the simplicity and light weight of MPC - I would point to GOM player as an example. (Unless you really hate orange, but don't tell Andrei Herasimchuk that.)
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Old 30th April 2007, 05:11   #87  |  Link
burfadel
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I didn't mean a skinnable player! That would take away from the simplicity of the programme, which is one of its strengths. I just meant a single, more attractive interface with say a nice shaded blue instead of beige, much bigger buttons (yes rounded, lol), and buttons that change colour when the mouse moves over it. Similar to wmp, but say red for stop, green for play, yellow for pause, and orange for previous/next. This will attract many people to use it along with the name and version change. It doesn't matter if the core of the programme remains the same. At the moment its like having a Lamborghini engine and drivetrain in a pimped out Hyundai Excel (hypothetically). It still goes like a shower of s..t but most people would still go for the Lamborghini.
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Old 30th April 2007, 06:21   #88  |  Link
foxyshadis
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That sounds more like a Super Famicom controller. =p

Btw, for anyone who hasn't seen the basic Gom Player interface:

The orange is.... quite orange, yes, (you can swap in your own image) and I don't care as much for the "standard" skins, but I love this basic skin. I don't know whether any of the internals are derived out of MPC, though some is definitely ffmpeg; it's certainly quite feature-similar, in a much nicer package.

Last edited by foxyshadis; 30th April 2007 at 06:30.
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Old 30th April 2007, 06:35   #89  |  Link
Delerue
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Originally Posted by clsid View Post
Imho the simple interface is one of the things that makes MPC so great.
Yeah! I agree.

Please, DEVs, don't change the interface to something like WMP >=10.
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Old 30th April 2007, 07:54   #90  |  Link
burfadel
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Yeah the GOM interface looks quite good. Something like that would be ideal! But I do like the idea of the button changing colour!

I don't mean WMP11 etc interface, just something non-win 3.11/95 like the above example!
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Old 30th April 2007, 13:58   #91  |  Link
GrofLuigi
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Since there are many ppl with oposite opinions, maybe the solution would be to build an addon - to be used only by ones who want it? Something like mplayer/mpui... Wow, at the end it'll turn out THAT's the best route

GL
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Old 30th April 2007, 14:20   #92  |  Link
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Has anybody seen KMPlayer "Leaf Vista" skin?
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Old 30th April 2007, 14:25   #93  |  Link
clsid
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At this moment there are no developers working on MPC. So it is pretty much pointless to philosophize about all kinds of (major) changes.
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Old 5th May 2007, 04:52   #94  |  Link
Rash
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Ah, might I add a suggestion? Could Drevil update his first post when releasing new builds? Thank you, Drevil.
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Old 5th May 2007, 06:14   #95  |  Link
burfadel
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I know people have been saying one thing that makes MPC great is its simple interface, and I would have to agree with that! The problem is its very old look is putting off new people using this great player, and without new people using it the player will die off, which is already happening. There aren't people actively working on it much because there aren't many people using it! I think if its interface and name was modernised (even MPC player), and a new numbering system like I suggested earlier, and 'free advertising' (that is, make sure every download site has it) then its use will pick up significantly.

People should type 'media player' in the search engine or in a download site and MPC player should come up. People will go 'WOW that looks good, it has good reviews, I'll try that'! At the moment if it does come up they go 'bleh, why would anyone want to use that'.

Another example of this is the image view Irfanview, its great but with an old interface it puts new people off using it.

In short:
PEOPLE ARE SUPERFICIAL!

They will go for the best looking player, not the best player! - athough they will tend to skip bloatware unless they're quicktime etc lovers!
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Old 5th May 2007, 08:03   #96  |  Link
MLS
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Any UI change that doesn't keep the time slider full screen is a no in my book.

I wouldn't mind a slightly different UI as long as it is just as responsive as the current one, and maybe cleans up the menus a bit. Everything else seems fine to me.

The fancy skinned crap with the giant glass buttons is not my style.

/MLS
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Old 5th May 2007, 11:09   #97  |  Link
amt
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Shouldn't we be more worried about core development. If and when AACS is defeated and we can play our highdef-discs with free software and if this isn't implemented in MPC we will be forced to use others players and MPC usage will definitely decline.
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Old 5th May 2007, 11:14   #98  |  Link
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MPC doesn't currently do DeCSS and you can play DVDs just fine. Just use an external filter for the decrypting like you already have to. Alternately, AnyDVD for HD.

Further user interface discussion is fairly pointless until someone decides to do something with the (good) suggestions, though.
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Old 5th May 2007, 13:39   #99  |  Link
Egh
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Apart from skinning, I dont' think MPC requires any core development at the moment. But patching bugs and issues as soon as they appear is needed.

IMO ffshow video/audio + haali splitter virtually transfered 80% of all features from mpc to those abovementioned DS filters.

If i was bovvered with any software development, I'd probably do MPC Uberlite, with all internal codecs, file splitters, audio switcher removed, and probably skin support added.

MPC powerful subtitles are though to remain, that is until Haali finally does his own sub renderer :XP
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Old 5th May 2007, 13:44   #100  |  Link
burfadel
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Quote:
Originally Posted by foxyshadis View Post
MPC doesn't currently do DeCSS and you can play DVDs just fine. Just use an external filter for the decrypting like you already have to. Alternately, AnyDVD for HD.

Further user interface discussion is fairly pointless until someone decides to do something with the (good) suggestions, though.
Too true!

You can have a modernised UI that still basic, my main point was something a bit more attractive, whilst still being simple to attract new people to using this great player. With more people using it (through a combination of number, name, and UI change) people who can programme would be more willing to input time in to developing it instead of just using VLC or something (which is also a great player but is a little more intensive).
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