Installing components into Foobar2000

We have two kinds of components in Foobar2000 (FB): manual install (MI) and automatic install (AI). The manual install are usually placed inside a zip file and are named like foo_something.dll and other component are component_name.component. Although AI can be installed automatically that stands only for the installed FB and not for the portable version. My preferred way is that I always make install manually.

We install MI components by adding them into Foobar2000/components folder (.dll file, not the zip file). And AI components by installing through the FB program. I will show it how, it's not difficult but it's a different process.

Installing .dll components into Foobar (MI)

Components preference page after full install is selected during the installation process looks like this:

I have downloaded components and extracted them from the zip file.
I will add ColumnsUI panel and dockable panel .dll files into Foobar2000/components folder

The components I will add:

Into this folder:

After adding components our folder looks like this:

And our components panel in the Foobar looks like this:

Since we installed the ColumnsUI panel we need to choose user interface on the first Foobar run

And we can pick any layout from the following menu or hit cancel

Installing .components into Foobar (AI)

When we open the Foobar and press Ctrl+P we will get Preferences panel. I clicked on components sections and got a window like this one:

We only see greyed out components because we have only MI components. When the AI component is installed it will have normal black colour. For this purpose I will install Masstagger component for which I will make blog post later.

We can skip this step by double clicking on the component, but it will install only to the installed Foobar instance, not to the portable instance. So if you are using portable Foobar don't skip this step.

After installing we need to hit Apply button to finish installation and we need to restart the program. This is done instantaneously and will go to our components panel again:

Soon I will cover Masstagger component. :D

If you would like to try the program you can download it and install it
from the official page: http://www.foobar2000.org/
or you can download and extract customized Foobar2000 from these links:
       Foobar2000 @ ZippyShare or
       Foobar2000 @ Google Drive

Song playing info in Foobar2000

I will try to explain how set up a detachable panel with song info.

Level: intermediate

What you need:
Foobar2000 1.3.6
ColumnsUI 0.3.8.8
Dockable panels 1.0.7

There is a Popup panels component in Foobar2000 component repository, but you cannot customize letters.

You can customize Foobar2000 with various extensions. There are official extensions repository (repo) at: http://www.foobar2000.org/components and other components can be found online.

For this tutorial we need ColumnsUI from the official repo (http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_ui_columns) and dockable panels (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Plugins/foo-dockable-panels.shtml)

Extract files if necessary (you need to have foo_dockable_panels.dll and foo_ui_colums.dll). We install the components by copying them into foobar2000/components directory. They work with installed and portable versions of foobar.

After we copy components we need to restart Foobar, on the startup we need to choose ColumnsUI.

Now we have new user interface.

If we accidentally choose "default user interface", we can change layout  in the preference view (Ctrl+P)

After we select Columns UI, we need to choose our view layout. Just choose any with "Item Details" e.g.

Your new Foobar layout should be like this:

When I drag and drop any song into playlist section I will get this:

Now we have set up foobar with ColumnsUI. Now we need to configure Dockable panel.

We need to create a new Dockable panel:

After we create there will be a new small panel, I will skip a step (expand a panel and right click inside panel). There will be popup and I will select "Item details".

Now I will have "item details" in a separate panel, and I can move it around.

If right click inside the panel and select "Options" you can customize the letters. For background you need to customize whole Foobar2000 skin (need to be experimented). Item details options done in preferences does not apply for this panel.

And now your Dockable panel can look like this:

You can customize panel title so you change "Item details" and you can remove borders. You can play a bit with that.

But maybe you want to put a playlist in a dockable panel and have a result like this:

There is different customization behaviour. When you want to customize your detached playlist you need to customize your primary playlist, while if you want to customize item details you customize it in a dockable panel.

What is also important to note that when playlist reaches the end the slider automatically shifted i.e. the playlist is at the end. The bluish mark is for the active playing song. Whatever you do on active playlist (selection) it will be shown on the dockable playlist.

If you would like to try the program you can download it and install it
from the official page: http://www.foobar2000.org/
or you can download and extract customized Foobar2000 from these links:
       Foobar2000 @ ZippyShare or
       Foobar2000 @ Google Drive