foobar2000 - UI Configuration Primer

[PJPro]

foobar2000 can be a little tricky to setup the UI. So I've produced a short primer to get you going.

So, you've downloaded and installed foobar2000. For the configuration I'm going to show you, you also need to download some other UI components. These are:

Columns UI
Album Art
Chronflow

Download each in turn and place the dlls in the foobar2000 component folder. There's also a couple of imnages which comes with chronflow. Stick those in as well. Note: my foobar2000 components folder can be found at C😛rogram Filesfoobar2000components.

Now start foobar2000. A dialog should appear asking which UI you'd like to use. Go for Columns Ui. If this dialog does not appear, do the following.

File | Preferences. The preferences dialog appears. Click the Display node. Select Columns UI as the User Interface Module.

We now needto begin configuring the layout of the UI. So click the Columns UI node and click the Layout tab. You'll see something like this.

We able able to create a number of Presets, so that you can switch between configuration if you wish. For this exercise, we'll create a new one, so click the New button, enter a name and click OK. I've called mine "PrimerUI".

Now we have our preset, we can start configuring it. The goal here is to subdivide the window into a number of panels and panels within tabs. To subdivide the window we use splitter panels. Let's start carving up the window and bung in some tabs....right click the Columns Playlist | Change base | Splitters | Horizontal Splitter

Right click the Horizontal splitter | Insert panel | Splitters | Vertical splitter

Right click the Vertical splitter | Insert panel | Splitters | Tab stack

Add two horizontal splitters, one after the other, to the Tab stack. These will be the tabs on your UI.

Then add two vertical splitters to each of the horizontal splitters. These will divide up each tab sheet into panels.

Click the Apply button. Let's have a look at what we've got. Click the Close button.

As we did not update the panel captions, we can relate the screen to the layout configuration in the preferences dialog. The horizontal splitter (which is not visible) holds a vertical splitter. This contains two tabs (the tab stack). Each tab contains a horizontal splitter which is, in turn, divided by two vertical splitters.

Let's start populating these panels with something a bit more interesting. Open up the preferences dialog and navigate to the layout tab. I want to add a some panels to the first vertical splitter within the first horizontal splitter within the tab stack.

So, right click the vertical splitter | Insert panel | Panels | Playlist switcher.

Right click the vertical splitter | Insert panel | Panels | Item properties.

The item properties panel displays data about the track being played/selected. If you want to configure the information displayed, select the Item properties panel you just added and then click the Configure button. The configuration dialog is displayed.

I'll just leave mine as it is for now but you can play with this bit if you wish. To the second vertical splitter within this horizontal splitter I'm going to add a further two panels.

So, right click the vertical splitter | Insert panel | Panels | Chronflow.

So, right click the vertical splitter | Insert panel | Playlist Views | NG Playlist.

Click the Apply button. Let's have a look at what we've got. Click the Close button.

If you haven't set up your media libray yet, you'll see something like the image above (make use you have the first tab selected). So, let's configure the library at this point.

Click Library | Configure. The Preferences dialog appears with the Media Library node selected.

Add the path to your library. Click the Add button and browse to your library.

Click the Select Folder button. Then click the Close button on the Preferences dialog to return to foobar2000 main window. This won't have changed. So reopen the Preferences dialog and under the Display node, click the Chronflow node and then click the Album Source tab.

This is where it gets a bit tricky! For Chronflow to find your tracks it needs to understand your library structure and know where to find the album covers. Mine looks like this.

For the tracks, the generalised scheme is

<drive>PublicMusic Library<artist><year> <album title><artist> - <album title> - <track number> - <track name>.flac

The images are similar

<drive>PublicMusic Library<artist><year> <album title><album title>.jpg

So the instruction to Chronflow, using tags, is

E😛ublicMusic Library%artist%%date% %album%%album%.jpg

Depending on your file structure, you will need to enter different instructions/tags. I'll enter mine. They need to go into the Sources textbox, with one source per line.

Now set the "No Cover Image" and "'Cover is loading' Image" paths. If you remember, we dropped these images into the foobar2000 components folder right at the start of this primer. Use the browse buttons to set the paths.

Now click the Reload Sources button and then click Close.

Any luck and you'll see the album covers being displayed. If not, you've got a problem with your instructions to Chronflow. If you double click an album cover, the tracks will be displayed in the Playlist. If you click a track, the track details are displayed in the Item Properties panel and will start playing.

Now let's add some album art to the NG Playlist.

File | Preferences. The preferences dialog appears. Expand the Display | Columns UI. Select the Playlist view and click the General tab.

You'll notice at the bottom there is a section for artwork for NG Playlist. Tick the "Display artwork in groups" checkbox.

Playlist General tab - displaying artwork in groups.

OK. So the NG Playlist will now add a column to display the album art, but it needs to know where to get the images.

Select the Columns UI node and click the Artwork tab. This is where you specify the location of your images. My images are held with the tracks and the path reflects the structure of my library. Yours may/will be different.

Columns UI Artwork tab - the path to your images.

Click the close button and admire the progress so far!

NG Playlist with album art

I'll leave it there for now. If people want more, I'll try and do something later.

 

[PJPro]

Apologies for the poor image quality.

 

[Anonymous]

PJ - please help, Chronflow seems like is no longer available?

 

[PJPro]

I've updated the original link above (towards the top of the posting).

For your convenience, I have provided it here.

 

[Anonymous]

You can help me, I have a problem with "chronflow" of foobar, I made
the point to your description to read the cover of my folder "music"
but I do not work, I do not understand 🙁





I made the change only on "Chronflow" because I use panelsUI.

 

[PJPro]

The only way I (or anyone else) will be able to help is if we understand the structure of your media library.

I suggest that you either post an image of Explorer showing an expanded tree all the way down to the album art or provide a filepath (include filename) to one of your images. Alternatively, do both.

I'll talk a look and if you're lucky either myself or someone else will be able to help you out.

 

[Andrew Everard]

... alternatively, open CD drawer, place disc in drawer, press 'play' button...

 

[manicm]

Andrew Everard:... alternatively, open CD drawer, place disc in drawer, press 'play' button...

...And any wonder why my iPod Classic has gone bust only after hooking up with my rDock after 2 days?? No jokes - and I've been pushing it with 14gbs worth of music and cover art.

Had the iPod for about 2 months, my rDock only a few days - either the pod couldn't handle it or the rDock corrupted it. In either case I'm sort of glad cos I don't like the Classic's sound - if Apple can't repair it I'm hoping to upgrade to Touch.

So for now as you succinctly put it - open drawer, place disc in drawer, leave requisite fingerprint on disc, then press Play.

 

[Andrew Everard]

How do you manage to get fingerprints on your discs? Thumb in the centre hole, first finger on the outside edge - or indeed vice versa - and where's the problem...?

 

[Anonymous]

PJPro:

I suggest that you either post an image of Explorer showing an expanded tree all the way down to the album art or provide a filepath (include filename) to one of your images.

Here the tracing of the directory of where my folder of my songs is
found " Music2" , but also with the following string it does not work:

c:userslauradocumentsmusic2%artist% %date% %album% %album%.jpg

I do not understand where it is the problem. 🙁 thanks for the help, I have to find a solution to this ..

 

[PJPro]

Andrew Everard:... alternatively, open CD drawer, place disc in drawer, press 'play' button...

Playback isn't the issue here....it's eye candy we're talking about here.

 

[PJPro]

Andrew Everard:How do you manage to get fingerprints on your discs? Thumb in the centre hole, first finger on the outside edge - or indeed vice versa - and where's the problem...?

Sounds like a lot of messing about to me....

Click button, hear music. No finger gymnastics required.

 

[PJPro]

Aquilegia, I need to know where your images are kept, not your music files......and I need to be able to see the complete file path and file name, including file extension.

Incidently, you folder structure looks to be in a language other than english, whereas foobar2000/Chronflow is looking for a folder structure in english.

 

[Anonymous]

PJPro images I put the .jpg with the ITunes program (see attached
image) and then the images .Jpg file are in mp3, I tried to see to
find the image file with an extension into the mp3 file but not is no
way, I do not know how ...

sorry if you do not grab you, I translate everything online, I am Italian.

 

[Anonymous]

Ciao Laura, I'm not sure we have understood you very well. You are using Foobar to playback your music, but you used iTunes to import the pictures, is that correct?

 

[PJPro]

I've had a read through the developer's thread on Hydrogenaudio.

The bad news is that it appears that Chronflow does not extract embedded images from MP3s. So, you're not going to be able to get it to work unless you provide a separate image file for each of your albums.

The next bit of bad news is that Panels UI uses deprecated APIs and won't work with the latest versions of foobar2000. Moreover, development of Panels UI appears to have ceased. I'd recommend that you bin Panels UI and use Columns UI instead.

The final bit of bad news is that the organisation of your media library is, errr, suboptimal. In the long run it is better to have some logical structure to your library rather than just dumping all of your files into a single folder. Sorry if that comes across as me being harsh.

My suggestion would be to use (takes deep breath) iTunes. This is the easy option.

So what's the difficult option?

First, impose a little structure on your library. See this thread I started some time ago to dicuss this very issue. Anyone who wants to build a large library really needs to consider file organisation before they start ripping.

Second, download the latest version of foobar2000 and use Columns UI (as suggested above and detailed in the primer).

Third, use Album Art Downloader XUI to download the images for each of your albums.

The really bad news, however, is that you still may not be able to get Chronflow working....as it depends on the video card you are using and the manufacturer's implementation of the openGL. The vast majority are OK but not all.

Unless you are a nerd (like me), do yourself a favour and go with the easy option.

 

[Anonymous]

Use Itunes in order to apply the images to the songs and in order only
to transfer they on mine ipod, but use foobar (optimal program) in
order to listen to music from my PC. I wanted to add that if tax foobar in ' default' or in 'ColumnsUI' the
cover they are looked at, is alone in 'PanelsUI' that I have the
problem. So if I create a folder inside "MUSIC2" putting ourselves only images I could solve? otherwise leave it so, so much the music works and the patience x cover. Thank you to everyone for the help.

 

[Anonymous]

Aquilegia:So if I create a folder inside "MUSIC2" putting ourselves only images I could solve?

Do you mean importing all the images again? Yes, I think that would work. If not, the best solution is using ColumnsUI, not Panels.

As you say though, the main thing is that the music works!

 

[Anonymous]

tractorboy:
Aquilegia:So if I create a folder inside "MUSIC2" putting ourselves only images I could solve?

Do you mean importing all the images again? Yes, I think that would work. If not, the best solution is using ColumnsUI, not Panels.

As you say though, the main thing is that the music works!

I try to do as I think and see.
However if I use ColumnsUI I can
not have the graphic that I use foobar now that I really like and is
the only way that I understood how to make a skin with a fast
executable PanlesUI, if I use ColumnsUI to have beautiful skin I am
making a cumbersome work for change, is a ball!

the head my English translated online?

 

[Anonymous]

LOL! More or less, but then again I know enough Italian to understand what you mean by "is a ball"

 

[Anonymous]

tractorboy:LOL! More or less, but then again I know enough Italian to understand what you mean by "is a ball"

But the Italian and you? 🙂 Or italiamerican? if I write in Italian, then I understand?

However, thanks to the explanation presented by PJPro I understand how it works 'Chronflow'

 

[Anonymous]

Non, io sono un inglese, communque anni fa ho lavorato a Palermo. Beh, dovremmo scrivere in inglese per non fare una brutta figura, visto que probabilemente la maggiorparte della gente qui non parlarano italiano. In bocca al lupo con Foobar

(Translation for the sake of politeness: Nope, I'm English, but years ago I used to work in Palermo. Anyway, we ought to stick to English, as it's bad form to write in Italian when most people around here probably don' speak Italian. Good luck with Foobar)

 

[Anonymous]

You are right, is a forum in English, thanks friend

Then if I have solved my way I will know.cerca

 

[Anonymous]

Guys know how I solved the problem of the cover? I created a folder for each mp3 files inside this folder the files of the cover image, the image files renamed to "folder.jpg" then Preferencesmedia library and to 'add' and add any of the music folder and then scan!

 

[PJPro]

This post, which covered adding Album Art to the NG Playlist, has been moved into the OP for a more seamless approach.