Kirocker Music Display 3.4 with Alerts

[Sébastien Laoût]

Name: Kirocker Music Display
Version: 3.4 with Alerts
Type: KDE Sound Application
Depend: KDE 3.x
License: GPL
More Info:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=52869

Description:
 Make your Kicker (the KDE main panel) rock with
your music.

It is a Kicker applet that displays what you
listen to in Amarok.

With this panel applet, you always know what you
are listening to, and can watch its cover and star
rating: it is always visible.
It allows you to rate your music with one click:
you can quickly change the number of stars of your
musics from anywhere on your desktop.
Finally, it let you remotely control Amarok with
one click from anywhere on your desktop: play next
or previous track, pause, play, and seek to
another position in the current track.

You also have the possibility to show your
currently playing music in a beautiful full screen
mode. Ideal for parties or to listen to music
while doing something else away from the computer.
The full screen mode can be triggered
independently of the panel applet. You can start
it from the KMenu or from Amarok itself.

To install:
- You need to have automake 1.9 installed for the
compilation to work. It should be Ok on modern
Linux distributions. You also need Python for the
Amarok script to work (optional). This should also
be Ok.
- Extract the archive
- Open a konsole in the extracted folder (in
Konqueror, go to the extracted folder and press
F4)
- Run this set of command: ./configure
--prefix=$(kde-config --prefix) && make && sudo
make install
- It will asks your root password to install the
applet on your system
- Right click the Kicker, choose "Add an Applet to
the Panel..." (once the panel is unlocked)
- Double-click "Kirocker Music Display"
- Start playing a music. The applet is empty when
Amarok is stopped or paused, to not annoy you with
useless information when you are working
- If you do not want the panel applet, the full
screen mode can be trigerred from the KMenu or
frmo Amarok itself (restart Amarok, enable the
"Kirocker Music Display" script, and then
right-click the playlist to see the action to show
full screen)

- After an upgrade from a previous version, press
Alt+F2 and type the command "killall -sTERM kicker
; kicker" to restart the Panel with the new
installed version.

Also included in the package: the Kicker
translucent white vertical background.

How to make the Kicker translucent:
- Your screen resolution need to be 1280*800. If
not, you will need some artistic skills and a Gimp
experience to modify the given background
- Extract the image "Kicker Right Translucent
Background.png" located in the Kirocker Music
Display archive
- Open your desktop background image with The Gimp
- Drag and drop "Kicker Right Translucent
Background.png" to the Gimp window of your
background image
- Save the image and set it as your desktop
background image
- Right click the Kicker and choose "Configure the
Panel..." (once the panel is unlocked)
- Place the panel on the right (click the button
on the right)
- Set the size to "Personalized" and enter "96
pixels"
- In the "Appearance" tab, check "Enable
transparency"
- Click "Ok" and you're done: ENJOY!

Changelog:
 1.0:
- Initial release

1.2 with Clickable Progressbar:
New Features:
- Clickable length progressbar to change the
position in the track
- Scroll wheel to change the position in the track
- Added progress time and time left in the tooltip
Bugs & Crashs:
- Do not crash if the panel use no background
image (only a flat background color)
- Good looking shadow if the background image is
very small (was buggy with the KUbuntu background
image)
- Do not freeze the panel while Amarok is starting
(and Amarok take 20 seconds to start, so it was a
long freeze)

1.4 with Controls:
New features:
- One-click player controls: previous track /
play&pause / next track
- Display album year, when available
- Change volume with horizontal scrolling or
Alt+scrolling
- Light up progressbar when moving mouse over it,
to show it's clickable
Bug fixes:
- Light up stars when the Amarok goes from paused
to playing state and the mouse was already over a
star
- Do not distorse non-square covers (like the
no-cover image)

2.0 with Full Screen:
- Full screen view with:
    * Pretty yet sober background image (it is the
excelent work of Christian Nickel:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=51917)
    * Keyboard navigation to switch track and
play/pause
    * Disappearing control buttons & mouse pointer
    * Resized down font size for long track
information
    * Disabled screensaver & OSD
- Bigger look with horizontal Kicker: buttons are
bigger and take all horizontal space (on top of
text too), there is less margin, and progressbar
is less tall if there is not that much place
- Start Amarok when clicking Play and Amarok is
not running
- No more flicker when clicking the play/pause
button
- No more random "display paused for no reason"
for 1 second bug
- Get fullsize cover better than 2.0 Beta 2 (and
thus, a lot better than 2.0 Beta 1)

2.2 with Flexible Appearance:
More modern look:
- Crystal-looking progressbar in full screen, and
with bigger inner light-border
- Oxygen "full screen" icon (also scale better for
big panels)
Smarter behaviors for better and bigger looking
applet, making configuration less needed:
- Extend width for horizontal panel to let display
long texts
- Automatically change text color and add text
shadow to be always visible on the panel, even
with dark background color
- Remove reflexion if there is not much place
(unoticable anyway)
- Move the progressbar on top of the text for
horizontal panel if there is enough place there
(making the album cover bigger)
- Move stars bellow the text information when
there is more space there in the horizontal Kicker
layout
- Two lines of text instead of 3 if there isn't
enough place: "Artist - Album (Year)" and "Track:
Title"
Solved bugs (most were hardly noticable bugs but
held up the fit & finish touch):
- Scroll wheel work when scrolling fast (it was a
pain to use, before)! It is so natural and fast
now...
- When quitting Amarok, the applet still tought it
was playing
- Do not draw the star reflection on top of the
text
- When mouse was hidden over a button, moving it a
little did not restored the hand cursor
- Always hide the mouse cursor 3 seconds after a
mouse release (not before, and not never)
- Solve a graphics glitch on the cover reflection
when the cover has transparency (eg.
"nocover.png") or (sometimes) higher than wide.
- Stars where not shown when moving the mouse
cursor over the very borders of the applet
- No anymore need to do "make -f Makefile.cvs" in
order to compile & install the applet

3.0 with Animations:
New features:
- Crossfade animations for buttons
appearing/disappearing
- Horizontal sliding animations for song switching
(like iPod menus)
- Allow half-first-star like recent versions of
Amarok now allow
- Better and more keyboard shortcuts (with an
information dialog):
* Space or Enter: Play/pause
* PageUp/PageDown or P/N: Change track
* Left/Right: Seek in track
* Up/Down: Change volume
* F1/F2/F3/F4/F5: Change star rating
* Escape or Q: Close full screen
- KDE 3.5 users will not be annoyed anymore by the
applet tooltip. For them, the tooltip is replaced
by the animated big tip, like on the KMenu or the
clock. This tip displays the time spend and left
in live.
Slicker features:
- If displaying text on two lines (small
horizontal panel) and artist and/or album are not
there, do not put the "-"
- If no track information, display the file name
(like in Amarok)
- Adapts to dynamic changes of the standard font
size
Fixed bugs:
- Work well with Xinerama or mergedFB dual-screen
- No more flicker when showing the full screen
mode
- No cover/progressbar/stars in full screen when
stopped
- Close full screen with mouse on
FullScreen-button: hand cursor is back
Additionnal changes compared to 3.0 Beta 2:
- Animate progressbar too
- Invert slide animation if moving to the previous
track (or resuming)
- Animate in full screen when going/coming from
stopped
- Buttons were sometimes fading out when showing
the full screen

3.2 with Standalone Full Screen:
New features:
- Display date & hour in full screen (to listen to
music without being late at work)
- Supports Last.fm radio (all informations, the
cover image, stop button instead of pause, no seek
allowed)
- Now available in standalone full screen mode,
available in the KMenu, without needing to use the
applet
- The full screen mode is also available in the
playlist context menu of Amarok by using an Amarok
script (relaunch Amarok after installation to see
the script and be able to enable it)
- Added a DCOP call to show full screen mode from
the applet. Use KHotKeys and this command to
associate a global keyboard shortcut: "dcop kicker
Kirocker showFullScreen" (or more simplier, add a
shortcut to the KMenu entry)
Fixed bugs:
- The cover was sometimes pixelised in full screen
mode
- Full Screen mode now resizes itself when screen
size changed
- Do not show the progressbar for tracks that
can't be seeked and that do not have a total
duration available (like for Magnatune preview
tracks)

3.4 with Alerts & Next Playing:
New features:
- Show blinking taskbar entries in full screen
mode, so you will not miss any MSN or Jabber
discussions when coming back near your computer
- Show "Next Playing" tracks in full screen mode
(except when using random playing or Last.fm
radio)
- Make the displayed times in full screen to
flicker when paused
- Now supports radio-streams track-title changes
- Use less horizontal margin (more space for text)
for 4/3 screens (not wide screens)
- Removed the icon in the panel "big tooltip",
because it leaded to confusion as it looked like a
no-cover image, and it was conveing no useful
information
Fixed bugs:
- Last.fm cover image is now shown for everybody
- Full screen album cover is displayed at full
size even if the artist of album name contains a
single-quote/apostroph (')
- Do not turn off screen in full screen mode
(disable energy economy during full screen)
- Screen saver is not re-enabled after full screen
if it was disabled before the full screen
- Amarok OSD is not re-enabled after full screen
if it was disabled before the full screen
- Libraries are now stored in KDE's lib path
- Moved "Kicker Right Translucent Background.png"
in the root folder of the archive, a more
expectable place, and this let packagers work
without problem

==========================

PLANNED for future 3.x versions:
- Display/change volume too
- Display/change tags too
- Try a "star number" instead of "star icons" for
small panels
- Advertise keyboard shortcuts (Left/Right/Space)!
- Include help on how to use stars with Amarok
- Translate

PLANNED for 4.0:
- Global Keyboard shortcut to enable full screen
- If user is inactive & is playing, show full
screen a few seconds before screensaver
- Lot of options:
* Remove some parts
(progress/cover/stars/information/buttons)
* Background color/image/opacity
* Text font/size/color
* Invert scroll & Alt+scroll
* Enable screensaver/OSD
* Enable animations
- Resize down the applet when nothing is playing
(need to be configurable, to avoid Kicker bugs,
even if I will try to minimize the number of
glitches)
- DEVELOPERS WANTED (I cannot test myself): option
to define on which screen the full-screen mode is
shown. Or better, be able to move it directly from
the full-screen mode itself.