MediaMonkey forum

I know its pretty early to expect to see multiple themes seeing as how you all are working so hard to iron out the last kinks in functionality. However, I am a little curious as to if/when you will be introducing the ability to write skins for the app. Obviously skins are quite popular in the MMW community, so there would be no shortage of people interested in taking a crack at it for MMA. I already have seen threads where people want to move buttons around or want the artwork in another place. Obviously the solution to this is to let us play with the layout and image files so everyone wins.

My questions are these:
Are you coding the app with future ability for skins in mind?
Do you have an idea of when this ability might be introduced?
When this happens, will we be able to rearrange and reshape the layout?
What are the chances we will be able to have the album art take up the full height the screen (landscape) and not have the media monkey header bar?

Thanks!

its harder to do skins when the screens of the devices using mma are so various in size.

That has not stopped almost every other music player app from offering them. It also did not keep me from making my own version of a skin for player pro. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty excited the app even works. But it has a long way to go aesthetically to be competitive in the current android marketplace.

rovingcowboy wrote:its harder to do skins when the screens of the devices using mma are so various in size.

Not really, changes in screen size doesn't stop MediaMonkey for Windows skinning.

I am under the impression mma has to be hard coded for a skin which to me is one fixed in the exe for the op system. To make all the adjustments, which is not like mmw does skins,
so if that is not how mma does them what is the way they are done for mma?

A skin is simply a group of 2 types of images and a set of variables determining their locations within the confines of the screen. The first type of image is static, like buttons and icons. The second type is spannable meaning a single line of pixels which can be set to a single color or a gradient, which then is stretched across the screen horizontally or vertically to create a solid or gradient bar. Even the more complex skins with nice shadows and highlights rely on maybe 50 images tops. Ones for buttons, ones for bars, and ones to bookend those bars.

So, yes, right now MMAs simplistic screens are coded in, but there is no reason that those references cannot be made external rather than internal. Thus you would download a skin, which would install the images and the code telling the program where to locate those images. The main MMA program would then refer to those files as it builds what ultimately becomes what you see. The location of Clickable areas are determined in a similar way as the determination of the location of the images.

MM has already done the hard part of creating the guts and functionality. They just need to open up the canvas for us rabid enthusiasts to work on.

@creativconfusion
I would say that you work on MMA with answer like that Skinning and better interface is planned feature. We are not satisfied how MMA looks on HD tablets and have lots of space unused.

lets get out of Beta first and than we can talk more about features.

Sounds great.
I have a few ideas and would love to help when the time comes.

oh so it is just a few small pics. wouldnt be enough room for me to have my concert skin on mma or even enough memory on my phone to have it working. i'll just stick with the black and gold it is nice on my motorola phone.

Hi,

since there are more and more carradios with Android, it stands to reason that MMA in the car as a powerful player will be used.

Here are 2 photos:




Associated with this is my second request / proposal for MMA Interface:
Please add an Option, so that the user can Change the Color of colored elements.

So which one is a similar picture, receives as follows:


Many Thanx!

Are there any plans to add theming abilities for 3rd party devs?

I have depression, and after a visit with my doctor and counselor, they recommended that I should stop using dark themed elements in my tech devices (which I had everything set up to be dark themed) and switch to bright light colors to improve my mood. And by god it worked! Amazingly due to my long exposure to light and happy colors I began to feel better (I am a developer and do a LOT with computers and phones). However, one of my most used apps on my phone is MediaMonkey. I am yet to find a light theme for this app. I would love it if you would add this as an option.

Thanks for your time and all your hard work, you guys rock!

Wondering if there has been any thoughts or maybe even progress on adding screen color personalization or skins to MMA

We're still treating functional improvements with greater priority than the ability to add themes.

BUT for 2.0 a material design makeover is planned, and themes would probably make sense to at least be considered in the design.

-Rusty

Are there any plans to modernize the appearance of MMA.... The black screen is nice & works fine. But I'd like to see more colors in the various screens &/OR the option of changing colors.

there was a discussion on this topic and the potential of implementing something about a year ago, but I haven't seen anything since.