Supacon
Late last year I released CONDENSED, and it was well received. I was very proud of how I well was able to apply techniques to make a skin that could be resized to any resolution with no quality loss, and still make it look really beautiful.
I figured that it is about time that I respond to some user feedback and use new skills and techniques to make CONDENSED even better, and give it a bump up to version 1.5.
For reference, here is the original condensed at its smallest size, 800 pixels wide.
This skin can be downloaded form VirtualDJ here:
http://www.virtualdj.com/addons/9801/CONDENSED.html
One request I had that I did not take seriously at first was to add an EQ to it. The thing is that the philosophy behind this skin was to provide a skin that provided most functionality in a very small space without sacrificing looks or usability. In order to achieve this, I had to depart from my history of creating extremely feature packed skins that completely used every pixel.
I believe I have found a solution that does allow for EQ and gain controls, despite there being so little space left in the skin.
I present my new micro-mixer interface concept!
Another enhancement that I will be integrating is a single pannel button for Rythm (waveform graph) that allows toggling between three mode - Overlay, Separate, and Static (which is a large songpos graph that does not move).
I am curious to hear feedback and thoughts on the skin. If there are users of CONDENSED out there who are interested in seeing improvements or enhancements to suit their workflow, now is the time to be heard! I always love getting feedback directly from users and other experienced skinners.
I figured that it is about time that I respond to some user feedback and use new skills and techniques to make CONDENSED even better, and give it a bump up to version 1.5.
For reference, here is the original condensed at its smallest size, 800 pixels wide.
This skin can be downloaded form VirtualDJ here:
http://www.virtualdj.com/addons/9801/CONDENSED.html
One request I had that I did not take seriously at first was to add an EQ to it. The thing is that the philosophy behind this skin was to provide a skin that provided most functionality in a very small space without sacrificing looks or usability. In order to achieve this, I had to depart from my history of creating extremely feature packed skins that completely used every pixel.
I believe I have found a solution that does allow for EQ and gain controls, despite there being so little space left in the skin.
I present my new micro-mixer interface concept!
Another enhancement that I will be integrating is a single pannel button for Rythm (waveform graph) that allows toggling between three mode - Overlay, Separate, and Static (which is a large songpos graph that does not move).
I am curious to hear feedback and thoughts on the skin. If there are users of CONDENSED out there who are interested in seeing improvements or enhancements to suit their workflow, now is the time to be heard! I always love getting feedback directly from users and other experienced skinners.
Posted Tue 04 May 10 @ 5:29 pm
thetracker510
Very nice J.D. wonder how my video plugins will look on that? Go to my Blog !!
Posted Fri 07 May 10 @ 9:19 am
Supacon
CONDENSED 1.5 released
Today I have released a substantial update to CONDENSED that is the product of considerable design and testing time, and is sure to provide an excellent interface for using VirtualDJ on a wide range of display sizes for which there currently are not many native skins.
This update brings the following new features:
And this was all done without removing previously existing features or increasing the amount of screen real-estate used for controls.
As always, CONDENSED continues to offer:
CONDENSED is available for download here:
http://www.virtualdj.com/addons/9801/CONDENSED.html
I am very proud of this skin, and think that it represents an excellent example of what can be done with VirtualDJ's incredible customization abilities. I am excited to hear your feedback and comments below!
Today I have released a substantial update to CONDENSED that is the product of considerable design and testing time, and is sure to provide an excellent interface for using VirtualDJ on a wide range of display sizes for which there currently are not many native skins.
This update brings the following new features:
- Miniature 3-band EQ for each deck
- Gain control for each deck complete with level display
- Scratch mode showing spinning records and scratchwaves for each deck
- A zoom knob to control the rhythm waveform view
- Tooltips to label right-click actions and other less-obvious features
- Several other tweaks to clean up graphics and improve usability
And this was all done without removing previously existing features or increasing the amount of screen real-estate used for controls.
As always, CONDENSED continues to offer:
- Video controls allowing you to preview, mix, and set transitions and video fx
- A slimline mixer featuring levels, and headphone, master volume, and cue-mix control
- A waveform display that allows you to choose regular or separate rhythm view
- Full control of four hotcues that let you set and show custom cuepoint names
- Loop controls for full adjustment of loops, with presets from 1/8 to 64 beats
- Clear display of all useful song information and metadata
CONDENSED is available for download here:
http://www.virtualdj.com/addons/9801/CONDENSED.html
I am very proud of this skin, and think that it represents an excellent example of what can be done with VirtualDJ's incredible customization abilities. I am excited to hear your feedback and comments below!
Posted Sat 19 Jun 10 @ 9:57 pm
elmodoesit
Wow bro this looks amazing, can not wait to get home today and try this skin out!
Posted Fri 25 Jun 10 @ 1:21 pm
Supacon
Thanks! I am eager to hear your feedback.
If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, or notices any bugs or glitches, please let me know by posting to this thread!
If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, or notices any bugs or glitches, please let me know by posting to this thread!
Posted Fri 25 Jun 10 @ 2:45 pm
ewitles
See the thread in Skins that you replied to.
In a nutshell...
Effects bug vs what is actually in use.
Ability to display Sampler.
Possibly a Day version.
:)
oh, and I am using 1.5 1680x1050
In a nutshell...
Effects bug vs what is actually in use.
Ability to display Sampler.
Possibly a Day version.
:)
oh, and I am using 1.5 1680x1050
Posted Sat 26 Jun 10 @ 12:31 pm
Supacon
ewitles wrote :
Effects bug vs what is actually in use.
Effects bug vs what is actually in use.
Hey, I had a look at CONDENSED and can not find any sort of problem with the effects button... I looked at both the Deck 1 and Deck 2 effect selector, and also the video effect button.
Can you perhaps explain the problem in a different way? If there's a simple bug like that, I can probably fix it quickly and get a new version up.
ewitles wrote :
Ability to display Sampler.
Ability to display Sampler.
Hmm... when I created CONDENSED, I wanted to implement fairly minimal functionality so that I could keep the browser big on smaller screens. Do you have any ideas for where I could put controls for that? Perhaps I could make a pannel to switch out the video previews in lieu of a sampler. Personally I don't use the sampler much, so I didn't put it in, since you can always use the samplers pannel in the browser, or just hit the F1-F12 keys to triggers samples (by default).
My VideoVision6 skin is 1440 pixels wide and has sampler controls, but it is intended for more video-centric DJing.
ewitles wrote :
Possibly a Day version.
Possibly a Day version.
A day version is a possibility - I could change the background color fairly easily, but it would take some work to do another release.
ewitles wrote :
What button 'unloads' a track?
What button 'unloads' a track?
You can unload a track by right-holding the stop/pause button for a second. There's a tooltip explaining that if you hover over it. You're not the first to ask about that... perhaps I should consider finding a way to label that somehow, but that's a challenge to do while fitting in my strict design rules for this skin.
Posted Sat 26 Jun 10 @ 1:14 pm
Supacon
I've been playing around with Condensed and comparing it to the Stock VDJ V6 Skin, looking at how the effect controls work.
I've found a subtle difference between how my selector is implemented vs. the stock implementation:
When I reference an effect, I reference the specific effect:
<button action="deck 1 effect 1 select">
The stock skin references only the current effect:
<button action="deck 1 effect select">
The difference is subtle - in the implementation that I used, you can control more than one effect at a time. This means that you can have multiple effect controls in a skin at once.
In Condensed, when you trigger an effect, then switch the effect, the effect stays active until you explictly go back and turn that effect off. In the stock skin, the effect turns off when you switch to a new effect.
The approach that I used seems more powerful and flexible, but requires a slight bit more "management" of effects - and i think that I would prefer it the way that it is. Do others have an opinion on this matter? How are we "supposed" to implement this?
It's really a very tiny change to switch this behavior, but I am unsure as to weather I should or not.
Ewitles, if you want to disable this behavour, just open the skin xml in a text editor and do a find/replace for "effect 1 " and replace it with "effect " and that should fix it up.
I've found a subtle difference between how my selector is implemented vs. the stock implementation:
When I reference an effect, I reference the specific effect:
<button action="deck 1 effect 1 select">
The stock skin references only the current effect:
<button action="deck 1 effect select">
The difference is subtle - in the implementation that I used, you can control more than one effect at a time. This means that you can have multiple effect controls in a skin at once.
In Condensed, when you trigger an effect, then switch the effect, the effect stays active until you explictly go back and turn that effect off. In the stock skin, the effect turns off when you switch to a new effect.
The approach that I used seems more powerful and flexible, but requires a slight bit more "management" of effects - and i think that I would prefer it the way that it is. Do others have an opinion on this matter? How are we "supposed" to implement this?
It's really a very tiny change to switch this behavior, but I am unsure as to weather I should or not.
Ewitles, if you want to disable this behavour, just open the skin xml in a text editor and do a find/replace for "effect 1 " and replace it with "effect " and that should fix it up.
Posted Sat 26 Jun 10 @ 6:40 pm
ewitles
Thanks!
How does one change from 'pioneer to numark' behavior on your skin?
That can throw off how the play/pause buttons behave.
Now swapping the video for a sampler pannel? That's fine - as I would not use sampling w/ video.
I like to record loops and etc and that part is important to me - visual mainly.
But I will say this... it looks very sweet on a 20" 1680x1050 display via DVI.
If I wanted smaller browser text to take advantage of the larger resolution, what do I do?
How does one change from 'pioneer to numark' behavior on your skin?
That can throw off how the play/pause buttons behave.
Now swapping the video for a sampler pannel? That's fine - as I would not use sampling w/ video.
I like to record loops and etc and that part is important to me - visual mainly.
But I will say this... it looks very sweet on a 20" 1680x1050 display via DVI.
If I wanted smaller browser text to take advantage of the larger resolution, what do I do?
Posted Sat 26 Jun 10 @ 9:04 pm
Supacon
ewitles wrote :
How does one change from 'pioneer to numark' behavior on your skin?
That can throw off how the play/pause buttons behave.
That can throw off how the play/pause buttons behave.
I'm afraid I don't have controls for this, but you can always bind a key combo to they play_mode commands, since it's probably not something you're going to be switching more than once in a gig.
play_mode 'numark'
and
play_mode 'pioneer'
ewitles wrote :
If I wanted smaller browser text to take advantage of the larger resolution, what do I do?
It's never easy to nail down the perfect font size in skins, because everyone's got different DPIs on their monitors, and different levels of vision. Fortunately this is easy to change in the XML yourself. In Condensed, the browser area is right near the top of the skin - just look for the line:
<browser>
<text font="Segoe" size="22" color="#FFFFFF" selected="#678930" stripes="#171717" active="#008800"/>
And change the size="XX" to whatever size you want, and save it. I suggest anywhere from 10 at a tiny extreme, to 25 for chunky, large fonts.
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 3:06 am
thetracker510
multiple effects? simply pure genious jd!!! Im surprised everybody is not JUMPING at this !! how to to control or manage all the effects well good question.all i can think of its another plugin. a effects manager of some sorts.probably not fisable but i had imagined a panel more like the sampler controls with at least 4 channels to control 4 effects? Great work JD !!
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 4:41 am
Supacon
When I implemented this, I was thinking of extensibility - in other words, the ability to use more than one effect at a time (which VDJ 6 supports now). CONDENSED, however, is supposed to be more of a minimalist skin, so it will probably not ever have more than one effect slot right in the skin.
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 4:43 am
thetracker510
got ya. so how so how can you implement this? other than using a external multi controller? like a nano kontrol?
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 4:59 am
Supacon
In short - make a new skin. Condensed doesn't have a lot of screen space available.
For DJs who don't need the video functionality, it's conceivable to rework the video preview screens to allow for more effects, samples, and a few other goodies, but then the layout of things would not be ideal or intuitive anymore...
Perhaps in the next skin. It's good to know what people are looking for.
To be honest, CONDENSED has come a long way, and a lot further than I ever expected. The only reason I made it originally was because I had a new netbook that I wanted a skin for, but no other skin gave me the functionality I actually needed in a form factor that was practical. Other skins didn't fit the very short screen height properly to allow for sufficient browser space.
When I started designing it, I was able to employ some new techniques I had learned in Photoshop to make everything scalable, and then I found the magic width of 5120 pixels, which scales down really nicely to many common screen resolutions and looks perfect when resized. This made it almost trivial to make a skin that looks amazing at any resolution, and I never expected that I could do that.
At 1920 pixels or even moreso, 2560 pixels, CONDENSED looks gorgeous, but it gets a bit obvious that it wasn't designed for screens that were really large - some of the buttons are huge!
Because I could never flatten a layer in the photoshop document, and had to preserve the full fidelity and complexity of every single layer, the working photoshop document has grown to hundreds of layers, and is becoming exceedingly complex to work with! I almost want to get a more powerful computer with 16GB of ram just to be able to work on this file more efficiently.
What I am getting at is that I think that the potential is there for Condensed to become... well... less condensed. It'd entirely conceivable that I could rework this skin for bigger monitors and make it more in line with the kind of capabilities that my prior skin Video Vision has.
In other words, think:
It would be an upgrade comparable to back when I went from videovision 4 to 5, increasing the width from 1280 to 1440.
Such a new version would end up having smaller controls, but would be intended for screens that were 1280 pixels or larger. In Condensed, although the skin actually gets rendered at 5120 pixels width, I work with the Photoshop document at 1024 pixels to ensure that the skin looks optimized at that resolution as well as at anything bigger. For a wider version of Videovision I would probably increase the working width to 1280 pixels and then rearrange all the controls as necessary in order to add requested functionality.
Not that this is going to happen any time soon - I am such a perfectionist that it takes me a LOT of time to do such a project... but if I were to do this, what kinds of things would people want in a wider version of condensed?
For DJs who don't need the video functionality, it's conceivable to rework the video preview screens to allow for more effects, samples, and a few other goodies, but then the layout of things would not be ideal or intuitive anymore...
Perhaps in the next skin. It's good to know what people are looking for.
To be honest, CONDENSED has come a long way, and a lot further than I ever expected. The only reason I made it originally was because I had a new netbook that I wanted a skin for, but no other skin gave me the functionality I actually needed in a form factor that was practical. Other skins didn't fit the very short screen height properly to allow for sufficient browser space.
When I started designing it, I was able to employ some new techniques I had learned in Photoshop to make everything scalable, and then I found the magic width of 5120 pixels, which scales down really nicely to many common screen resolutions and looks perfect when resized. This made it almost trivial to make a skin that looks amazing at any resolution, and I never expected that I could do that.
At 1920 pixels or even moreso, 2560 pixels, CONDENSED looks gorgeous, but it gets a bit obvious that it wasn't designed for screens that were really large - some of the buttons are huge!
Because I could never flatten a layer in the photoshop document, and had to preserve the full fidelity and complexity of every single layer, the working photoshop document has grown to hundreds of layers, and is becoming exceedingly complex to work with! I almost want to get a more powerful computer with 16GB of ram just to be able to work on this file more efficiently.
What I am getting at is that I think that the potential is there for Condensed to become... well... less condensed. It'd entirely conceivable that I could rework this skin for bigger monitors and make it more in line with the kind of capabilities that my prior skin Video Vision has.
In other words, think:
- Multiple effects
- TimeCode controls
- Larger and easier-to-use key controls
- Sampler
- A more conventionally laid out mixer
- Bigger video previews
It would be an upgrade comparable to back when I went from videovision 4 to 5, increasing the width from 1280 to 1440.
Such a new version would end up having smaller controls, but would be intended for screens that were 1280 pixels or larger. In Condensed, although the skin actually gets rendered at 5120 pixels width, I work with the Photoshop document at 1024 pixels to ensure that the skin looks optimized at that resolution as well as at anything bigger. For a wider version of Videovision I would probably increase the working width to 1280 pixels and then rearrange all the controls as necessary in order to add requested functionality.
Not that this is going to happen any time soon - I am such a perfectionist that it takes me a LOT of time to do such a project... but if I were to do this, what kinds of things would people want in a wider version of condensed?
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 5:14 am
ewitles
Thanks bro!
The TCMania has a small 'dot' that one could select between P & N as well as Vinyl & CD modes.
Not sure how that would play into your skin. Not sure if one needs to switch during a gig so I will try your suggestion.
As mush as I like the colorful eye candy skins, I am a functional person. And I like simple - reason I strayed w/ PCDJ 5.2 for so long.
The TCMania has a small 'dot' that one could select between P & N as well as Vinyl & CD modes.
Not sure how that would play into your skin. Not sure if one needs to switch during a gig so I will try your suggestion.
As mush as I like the colorful eye candy skins, I am a functional person. And I like simple - reason I strayed w/ PCDJ 5.2 for so long.
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 1:55 pm
the SOUND INSURGENT
What does the button for 'pioneer to numark' even do?? I've seen it on a few skins but since I use timecoded vinyl I dont think that option applies to me.........Not trying to hijack just want a little more on what they do.
Thanks for your time
Huey
Thanks for your time
Huey
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 2:12 pm
Supacon
beatbreaker1 wrote :
What does the button for 'pioneer to numark' even do??
It switches the behavior of the Cue, Stop, and Play buttons. (respectively the specific actions: cue_button, stop_button, and play_button -- if skins use different but similar actions for these buttons, then the pioneer/numark switch has no effect).
This is done so that people can easily change between their preferred preference, and it adopts behaviours similar to what is implemented in either Numark CD players, or Pioneer CD players.
Specifically:
Pioneer mode:
cue_button:
When paused, sets the active cuepoint at the current position.
When playing, returns to the cuepoint and resumes playing immediately (sometimes known as CuePlay, or stutter).
If the cuepoint is already set, the deck is paused, and the play position is on the cuepoint, then holding down CUE will start playing from the cuepoint until the button is released, at which point the track position will return to the cuepoint, in a paused state.
stop_button:
When paused, stop_button will cycle through active cuepoints and the beginning of the track.
When playing, the track is paused and positioned on the active cuepoint.
play_button:
Switch between a playing state and a paused state, leaving the song at the last playing point. (like a normal pause button on nearly every consumer media player)
Numark mode:
cue_button:
When paused, sets the active cuepoint at the current position.
When playing, returns to the cuepoint and PAUSES playback.
If the cuepoint is already set, the deck is paused, and the play position is on the cuepoint, then holding down CUE will start playing from the cuepoint until the button is released, at which point the track position will return to the cuepoint, in a paused state.
stop_button:
When paused, stop_button will cycle through active cuepoints and the beginning of the track.
When playing, the track is paused in its current position.
play_button:
When paused, starts playback.
When playing, playback is restarted from the active cuepoint (i.e. this works only as stutter and never pauses the playback)
In summary, Pioneer uses one button for play/pause, Numark does a pause and stutter with separate buttons; also, in Pioneer cue works more like cueplay, and in Numark it always stops playback.
I hope this helps! if this was confusing, download VideoVision 6, and you can play with the options pannel there to switch the modes, because the button labels actually change to reflect which mode is active.
http://www.virtualdj.com/addons/9207/VideoVision.html
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 3:23 pm
the SOUND INSURGENT
I got it, thanks bro!!
Huey
Huey
Posted Sun 27 Jun 10 @ 3:32 pm
ewitles
I was playing w/ the 1028x764 version and was completely impressed - vs the stock screen.
I actually like the video as it is.
Is it possible to swap via click the effects section w/ sampler?
Might be easier work for you.
Oh, is there a 'zero' or reset to the mini eq on top?
I actually like the video as it is.
Is it possible to swap via click the effects section w/ sampler?
Might be easier work for you.
Oh, is there a 'zero' or reset to the mini eq on top?
Posted Mon 28 Jun 10 @ 9:00 am
Supacon
ewitles wrote :
Is it possible to swap via click the effects section w/ sampler?
Hmm... that might be doable, although I think more people would miss the effects section than the sampler. Different strokes for different folks though. The nice part is that I wouldn't even have to make major graphical changes, really.
ewitles wrote :
Oh, is there a 'zero' or reset to the mini eq on top?
Well, sort of. You have to double click each knob, and it resets that band. I considered implementing a way to just reset them all with one button but wasn't sure how to implement it without taking up more (nonexistent) space for another button.
Posted Mon 28 Jun 10 @ 10:10 am
