[Kde-announce-apps] Kirocker Music Display 2.2 with Full Screen

[Sébastien Laoût]

Name: Kirocker Music Display
Version: 2.2 with Full Screen
Type: 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.

To install:
- 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

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:
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:
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:
- 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:
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

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

PLANNED for 3.0:
- Crossfade animations for buttons
appearing/disappearing
- Horizontal sliding animations for song switching
(like iPod menus)

PLANNED for 4.0:
- 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)