Shoutbox

Hi there. I'm Erik Schierboom and I've created a plugin for MSG Plus!. A friend was regularly changing his nickname to update the song he was playing at the moment and I thought: "Maybe I could help him and create something to do it for him?". Thus said (eh, thought) I started to look for ways to do such a thing and I ended up with writing a plugin for MSG Plus!. Surprisingly, it was relatively easy to create a plugin and in no-time I had an early version changing my nickname. Over time I came up with additional demands and finally it grew to what it is today.

The plugin is aimed only at Winamp, as that's the media player to me and I want everyone to be able to see the beauty of it. It (the plugin) is written in C++ and uses no libraries (no MFC or STL); therefore, it should be small and fast.

A short list of functions the plugin incorporates:

• Automatically update your nickname.
  
  • Control the nickname by specifying a mask in which Winamp information can be used.
• Set the interval at which the nickname is (if necessary) changed.
  
• Display a notification when the nickname is changed.
  
• Storage of settings in the registry, to enable multi-user support.
  
• Control some functions of Winamp through new commands, such as skip to the next- or previous song, play, plause or stop the playback etc.
  
• Easy installer (using NSIS), with dynamic loading of the plugin.
  
• Open-source, released under the GPL license.

The project is registered at sourceforge, for those unfamiliar with sourceforge it's essentially a huge open-source software deposit. Therefore, it is also possible to download the source. Yes, the plugin is open-source and any comments will be greatly appreciated. The plugin itself, the installer and the source code can be found at the following location:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=121315

Well, I hope any of you guys (or girls) likes my plugin. Please post any bugs you find in this thread and I will do my best to correct them.

Oh, and big kudos to Patchou!

edit: the plugin has undergone many changes, therefore I have attached the changelog.

I'll add your plugin to the "Show played songs plugins"-list:
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=23...d=227028#pid227028

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
I'll add your plugin to the "Show played songs plugins"-list:
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=23...d=227028#pid227028

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Okay thanks.

sounds great this has already been done a couple of times though i think, but that's no problem. im gonna give this one a try

since you can make plugins, can you have a look at my Auto Responder thread please?

[edit] crap.. "We're Sorry.
The SourceForge.net Website is currently down for maintenance.
We will be back shortly"

Hmmm, strange coincidence that they decide to take down the site for maintenance just when someone finally wants to download my plugin.

Your plug-in request sounds interesting, I'll give it some thought. I'll let you know if I'll be making it.

Yeah, hehe, but I'll still download it

One question: Can you choose to put only the title of the song in your name, instead of "Singer - Title"? If you know what i mean

Thanks for giving my idea some thought I hope that thought becomes action hehe

Its a nice plugin, there don't seem to be any noticeable bugs from where i'm standing, but the only real annoying thing is that you have to configure the mask before you can use the nickname, imo there should be a check box or something rather than having to type in '%3' or whatever, as some users might not understand this.

I can't see any noticeable bugs in the program and it looks alright, well done, not a lot of programmers would make their first release this good, I like it, and will probably use it quite a bit now.

* very small note about the installer: When finished it presents a msgbox with a "Yes/No" dialog, it seems a bit unlogic though; a "OK" button will do

* small note about the variable use in nicknames: "%3" seems a bit useless as the user can make this with "%1 - %2"

* Thumbs up for the simplicity of the config panel/plugin:
   - no bloated skin used (which almost always looks ugly in most Windows skins for other users)
   - simple config options, yet very versatile...

quote:

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Originally posted by Jaguar
One question: Can you choose to put only the title of the song in your name, instead of "Singer - Title"? If you know what i mean

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Did you run the plugin and looked at the config panel?

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
but the only real annoying thing is that you have to configure the mask before you can use the nickname, imo there should be a check box or something rather than having to type in '%3' or whatever, as some users might not understand this.

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There is nothing annoying about that. And actually, his approach is very user friendly as the user can make up his own layout for the nickname.

Working with variables like that is the standard and most decent way in doing such a thing. Every good piece of software, were the user can make up his own texts, uses this method instead of using checkboxes to define fixed layouts. As that will be very limiting to the user and doesn't provide decent UI...

With the approach he has used, you can do everything what another program can without the need of hundreds of checkboxes. Even Plus! uses the same approach; "Plus! tags" work exactly the same...

If you add the characters which make text white using plus behind the %3, then it gets confused, and to change the track which it says in your name, you have to type in /xwinampnick again.

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
If you add the characters which make text white using plus behind the %3, then it gets confused

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You make it yourself as much "confusing" as you like.

If you find this confusing then you also find the use of the Plus! tags confusing, and the use of variables in mIRC confusing, and programming an application confusing, ...

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
and to change the track which it says in your name, you have to type in /xwinampnick again.

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Or you set the refresh rate to X seconds...