Using skins in SoundPlay

In version 2.6, SoundPlay gained an additional interface. When this interface is activated, SoundPlay will take on the look of the popular Windows mp3-player WinAmp, provided you have one or more so called skins installed.

### What are skins?

A WinAmp skin is a collection of image files that determine how the interface will look. On Windows, skins are always BMP files, but SoundPlay lets you use any image format for which you have a translator installed (although the files must have a .bmp extension, otherwise SoundPlay can't find them).

### Installing skins

First you have to get one or more skins. If you don't have any, you can download some off the Internet. Each skin consists of a folder with 10 image files. All skin-folders should be placed in a single folder, and then you have to tell SoundPlay where this folder is located (in SoundPlay's preferences window).
Since version 4.0, you no longer need to unzip the skin-archives (.zip or .wsz) if they do not contain any folders.

For example, if the skin-folder you have set in the preferences is /boot/home/config/settings/skins, then the image files for a skin named CoolAmp will be located in the folder /boot/home/config/settings/skins/CoolAmp.

If you have a Windows installation with WinAmp and skins installed, you can mount the Windows partition and point SoundPlay at the folder where the skins are installed. That way you can use the same skins on both BeOS and Windows. When you download skins off the net, take care to create the correct directory hierarchy when unpacking the archives. Some skin-creators have "helpfully" prefixed every file with the path "program files\winamp\skins", while others don't use any path prefix at all.

Note that some skins do not include all required files, relying on WinAmp's built-in skin to provide default pictures. Since SoundPlay does not have a built-in skin, you will need to copy the missing files from another skin.

### Selecting skins

Once you have installed the skins, you can switch SoundPlay into "WinAmp mode" by opening the preference window and selecting "WinAmp" as the main window look. You should now see a WinAmp-like window. If it is a simple plain grey interface instead of the skin you selected, then SoundPlay was unable to find any skins; make sure you have set the skin-path correctly.
You can select a different skin by right-clicking in the WinAmp-window, or selecting one from the "Skins" menu in the default Be-look window, and selecting a skin from the popup that will appear.

### What's not there

SoundPlay is not WinAmp, and WinAmp is not SoundPlay. When in WinAmp mode, you cannot change the pitch, since WinAmp does not have a pitchcontrol slider, and you cannot play backwards, because WinAmp does not have a backwards-button. Since SoundPlay does not yet have an equalizer, spectral analyzer or balance control, these functions are not present in the WinAmp interface either. Also, the shuffle and repeat buttons don't do anything at this moment.