Change songbird's background with an image or a color and other changes to UI elements
This is for rubberducky based feathers. You will need to have this extension with Background: http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1277
This extenstion is my thoughts from an earlier blog post at http://www.songbirdnest.com/node/1838.
I added a couple of things in the mix. Those are the ability to see through the middle faceplate and the services section where bookmarks and pages are located. I also have an option where you can do a background color instead of a photo.
Please note any bugs or features you'd like to see added here: http://code.google.com/p/songbird-background/
released on Dec-2-08
© 2005-2009 Pioneers of the Inevitable
This is a cool add on.
Songbird 0.4 states this add-on is not compatible. Installation failed.
winXP>sb clean install, clean profile, please update. Thanks for your efforts.
I think this a very cool addon. It very much reminds me of Personas (http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/12/personas-for-firefox/). Both are very cool ideas; adjusting the whole feather/skin to your taste by simply changing the background. Unfortunately both also have the problem that the feather simply was designed to be used with a certain background. When changing the background to something very light, it will look weird… I hope you can find some sort of solution for that (like setting transparency, as done with the faceplate, maybe)
Great app man, thanx for the update :), great implication of an idea,
Thanks for the complements!!
Pino: could you provide me a little more detail on what you see when the background is something light. A screen shot would be great!
Well done!
Yay! NeoAlchemy, you’ve answered my call! Look for your Songbird t-shirt in the mail soon :)
Ok, for bonus love: how about a browser context menu item like “Set as Songbird Background”? Then you could just go to a website and right click on an image.
Oh, that’s an awesome idea. That I can do.
Wonderful, thanks!
Can you update your extension compatibility up to SB 0.5pre ?
Need to set maxVersion to 0.7pre
thanks ;)
Some backgrounds :
Flora (by jkoshi) : http://antoineturmel.free.fr/img/background.png
Bubbles : http://antoineturmel.free.fr/img/bg_test3.png
Hardware : http://antoineturmel.free.fr/img/hardware2.png
Here is a cool background I’m now using:
http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machine…
Here is a page with a bunch more:
http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machine…
Nice 4ster !
Great work Neo. Maybe you could make this work more like Personas:
http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/personas/
Steve Lau, our Developer Evangelist can help you work out the details. Maybe even start w/ the Personas code and adapt for Songbird?
Best, Rob
i dno if its possible but, maybe having a option where you can give the main page (library/playlists/web bowser, etc.) the ability to become transparent as well, i have a background photo where alot of stuff is happening in the middle of the pic which is blocked by the main window.
but other than that i love this add on, THANKS
There a couple of things that I am going to be working on for the next release. Those are the ability to control options on other display panes. The big focus on the main pane. The other idea is to add a context menu for images to auto add as background.
I do agree with you, roblord. There is a lot of other customizing i'd like to provide and a popup window is getting to small and limiting in usability. I like the ability to save and switch between different saved "personas". I think it would be awesome to save these images locally. These ideas and others align with what personas is doing so taking a look at personas code fits along with my plans.
WOW, this is an AMAZING add-on. I was using another feather and tried this out and, instead of changing the previous one completely as I expected, it improved the other one!
Brilliant work.
If the user were able to change the color of the elements in the library (selected songs and so on, I don't know if you know what I mean) it would be even better.
Here are two animated gif that I use as backgrounds. I've quite enjoyed having them on songbird.
http://neoalchemy.org/images/static.gif
http://neoalchemy.org/images/eye.gif
That's doesn't work on my 0.7 release on vista... sniff sniff
sorry that's work, but only with the rubberducky and the gonzo alternate...
Background does only work with rubberducky. There will be another extension. "Personas for Songbird" which will for gonzo the permanent feather for songbird.
ahh, this is exactly what i'm looking for, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me. i have rubberducky installed and it doesn't work with that either, nothing happens when i apply the changes in any feather. i'm on a mac osx10.4.11.
any chance you will be updating this, neo, or is there anything i can tweak to make it function for me?
thanks!!
ok, scratch that. i'm sorry neo. i restarted songbird and now it seems to be working!
Unable to install on 0.8pre (Build 735) :(
I can't figure out how to get this to work, i'm using the most updated version?
I don't really understand what I am supposed to do.
Brant,
Background extension is meant for the rubberducky theme. With the latest version of Songbird gonzo is the theme for songbird. You will need to switch feathers to rubberducky. You can try the extension out by getting the old feather: http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1277. I am writing another extension which will be for gonzo that is going to be parallel like firefox's personas extension. That should be coming pretty soon. I am about to release an initial version.
I'm using 0.7 on Vista, with the Rubberducky theme, and I still can't get this to work. It installed right, but the Options menu is unavailable for some reason. Any ideas?