C.1. OverviewC.1. OverviewPrev Appendix C. MPlayer skin format NextC.1. Overview
It does not really have anything to do with the skin format, but you should
know that MPlayer has
no builtin skin, so
at least one skin must be installed in order to be able
to use the GUI.
C.1.1. Directories
The directories searched for skins are (in order):

$(DATADIR)/skins/

$(PREFIX)/share/mplayer/skins/

~/.mplayer/skins/


Note that the first path may vary according to the way
MPlayer was configured (see the
--prefix and --datadir
arguments of the configure script).

Every skin is installed into its own directory under one of the directories
listed above, for example:
$(PREFIX)/share/mplayer/skins/default/
C.1.2. Image formatsImages must be truecolor (24 or 32 bpp) PNGs.
In the main window and in the playbar (see below) you can use images with
`transparency': Regions filled with the color #FF00FF (magenta) are fully
transparent when viewed by MPlayer. This means
that you can even have shaped windows if your X server has the XShape extension.
C.1.3. Skin components
Skins are quite free-format (unlike the fixed-format skins of
Winamp/XMMS,
for example), so it is up to you to create something great.

Currently there are four windows to be decorated: the
main window, the
subwindow, the
playbar, and the
skin menu (which can be activated
by a right click).


The main window and/or the
playbar is where you can control
MPlayer. The background of the window is an image.
Various items can (and must) be placed in the window:
buttons, potmeters (sliders) and
labels.
For every item, you must specify its position and size.

A button has three states (pressed, released,
disabled), thus its image must be divided into three parts vertically. See the
button item for details.

A potmeter (mainly used for the seek bar and
volume/balance control) can have any number of phases by dividing its image
into different parts below each other. See
hpotmeter and
potmeter for details.

Labels are a bit special: The characters
needed to draw them are taken from an image file, and the characters in the
image are described by a
font description file.
The latter is a plain text file which specifies the x,y position and size of
each character in the image (the image file and its font description file
form a font together).
See dlabel
and slabel for details.
Note
All images can have full transparency as described in the section about
image formats. If the X server
doesn't support the XShape extension, the parts marked transparent will be
black. If you'd like to use this feature, the width of the main window's
background image must be dividable by 8.

The subwindow is where the movie appears. It
can display a specified image if there is no movie loaded (it is quite boring
to have an empty window :-)) Note:
transparency is not allowed here.

The skin menu is just a way to control
MPlayer by means of menu entries. Two images
are required for the menu: one of them is the base image that shows the
menu in its normal state, the other one is used to display the selected
entries. When you pop up the menu, the first image is shown. If you move
the mouse over the menu entries, the currently selected entry is copied
from the second image over the menu entry below the mouse pointer
(the second image is never shown as a whole).

A menu entry is defined by its position and size in the image (see the
section about the skin menu for
details).


There is an important thing not mentioned yet: For buttons, potmeters and
menu entries to work, MPlayer must know what to
do if they are clicked. This is done by messages
(events). For these items you must define the messages to be generated when
they are clicked.
C.1.4. Files
You need the following files to build a skin:

The configuration file named skin tells
MPlayer how to put different parts of the skin
together and what to do if you click somewhere in the window.

The background image for the main window.

Images for the items in the main window (including one or more font
description files needed to draw labels).

The image to be displayed in the subwindow (optional).

Two images for the skin menu (they are needed only if you want to create
a menu).

With the exception of the skin configuration file, you can name the other
files whatever you want (but note that font description files must have
a .fnt extension).
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