HoverDesk Tutorial - The WinAmp Plugin

The WinAmp Plugin.

The WinAmp plugin is my favourite part of HVD. It's probably the handiest plugin too!!

Again this is slightly more complicated to skin than the eyedropper or command line.
But unlike the Eyedropper and Command Line, the WinAmp is almost freeform skinning at it's best.
There are still some aspects to skinning which are very restricted, but this is being worked on as you read this ;-)

For example:

The control buttons (play, pause, stop etc. buttons are limited to a horizontal bar placement.
The volume slider cannot be skinned at all

Requirements

You must have WinAmp (v2.5 and above) installed or at least the two DLL's that come
with Winamp: in_mp3dll and out_wave.dll

Winamp does NOT need to be launched to use the plug-in.

The First Configuration

Before using this plugin, you must configure it a bit (just for the first time).
Right-click on the plugin to display its context menu and choose Select Input option.
Browse to your Winamp Plugin folder (for ex : c:\program files\winamp\plugins) and select IN_MP3.DLL
Right-click again on the plugin and choose in the popup menu Select Output
Browse to your Winamp Plugin folder (for ex : c:\program files\winamp\plugins) and select OUT_WAVE.DLL

As you can see from the picture, although there are limitations to the plugin there are still some great examples of what can be achieved with a little thought.

Loading the Plugin

OK, so first right click the main tile and from the pop up menu select plugins then HoverAMP (HDAmp.dll)
The WinAmp plugin will appear on the desktop in position 0,0 (top left corner) in it's default state.

Right click the main tile again and from the pop up menu select plugins then HoverAMP (HDAmp.dll) again.
This will unload the plugin and write the necessary information to the modules.ini file.

Once more right click the main tile and from the pop up menu select plugins then HoverAMP (HDAmp.dll)
The WinAmp plugin will appear on the desktop in position 0,0 (top left corner) in it's default state again.

Configuring the modules.ini File

Shift and drag the Amp plug to an area we can work with it.

We're going to configure this plug using the modules.ini file, so if it's not already open browse to the Pixel Perfect theme folder and open the modules.ini file.

output = path to the .dll file mentioned above (My path is C:\Program Files\WINAMP\PLUGINS\Out_wave.dll
texture = The name of the .bmp to be used as the background for the plugin.
prevbmp = The name of the .bmp to be used as the previous button.
playbmp = The name of the .bmp to be used as the play button.
pausebmp = The name of the .bmp to be used as the pause button.
stopbmp = The name of the .bmp to be used as the stop button.
nextbmp = The name of the .bmp to be used as the next button.
volume = The volume the plugin will start at when loaded (i.e. 88 will be LOUD!)
barX = Offsets the control buttons horizontally
barY = Offsets the control buttons vertically
volX = Offsets the volume slider horizontally
volY = Offsets the volume slider vertically
VolColor = The RGB color to be used for the volume slider
InfoX = Offsets the scrolling song title horizontally
InfoY = Offsets the scrolling song title vertically
InfoMaxPix = Maximum pixels scrolling song title will use
InfoFntName = Name of the font to be used to display the scrolling song title
InfoFntSize = Select size of font to display the scrolling song title
InfoFntColor = The RGB color of the font for the scrolling song title
input = path to the .dll file mentioned above (My path is C:\Program Files\WINAMP\PLUGINS\In_mp3.dll

*Tip: You can type 'Tahoma Bold' for the name of the font and the song title will be displayed in bold font.

It's simply a matter of filling and adjusting the modules.ini file to make the plugin fit the texture.
Please use the settings in the screenshot.
Unload the plugin, save the file then reload the plugin and the new settings will be applied. DO NOT SAVE FILE BEFORE UNLOADING PLUGIN!!

As you can see, all we have done is told hvd which .bmp to use as the background. You can see that we still have a lot of configuring to do.
So, enter the settings again (using the ss below) and repeat the process. Remember, unload plug, save .ini then reload plug!

So now we've got the background texture and we've got the buttons (they're not aligned properly yet, but we've got them applied)
We still need to move the buttons slightly, move the volume slider, adjust the volume color, adjust the font (for the scrolling song title) Also we need to get rid of the pink bits.
So, enter the settings again (using the ss below) and repeat the process. Remember, unload plug, save .ini then reload plug!

And that's it!! Simply shift and drag your Amp plug to the right edge of the screen and test it out!!

Tip: You can make the WinAmp plugin 'popup' by attaching it to a predefined tile. Either attach it directly to the tile or use theme debug mode to make the plugin popup anywhere on the desktop.

Tip: When I have my plugin configured correctly I exit HVD then reopen it.
This ensures the settings are saved.