Blackbar is an ultra-compact, full-featured skin for Windows Media Player. It is designed to be placed in an unused spot in the title bar area at the top of your screen, where it fades into the background until you need it. Just mouse over it to access all of the major features of Media Player.

Setup Tips

Installation is a snap; just click the Download button above, let Windows Media Player open the Blackbar.wmz file, and the skin will automatically be displayed. That's great, but to get the most out of the Blackbar skin, you'll want to check out the info in this section.

Where's the Window?

Blackbar is partly transparent until you move your mouse over it. This means that when it first loads, you may have trouble finding it on the screen! If you have this problem, try filling the screen with a plain white window, such as Notepad; that should help it to show up. If you still can't find it, use the Windows Taskbar to make sure Media Player is in front of your other windows.

Keep On Top!

Blackbar works best when it stays on top of all other windows. Windows Media Player 9 had an option called Keep on top when in skin mode, but Microsoft mysteriously dropped this option in WMP 10. They even more mysteriously restored it as a hidden setting in WMP 11. That is, the player once again supports the setting, but there is no way to set it through the user interface! Instead, you need to configure it via the Windows Registry.

Windows Media Player 11 Only: Close Media Player, then download and run the "keep on top when in skin mode" registry script. (Note: You should always be careful with a registry script. Open it in a text editor before running it, to make sure of its content.)

User's Guide

These are the controls available on the Blackbar user interface:

Full Mode: Switches from the Blackbar skin to the full Windows Media Player window. When Media Player is active, you can also use Ctrl+1 to quickly switch to Full Mode and Ctrl+2 to switch back to Skin Mode.

Volume: Adjusts the Windows Media Player volume level, from 0 to 100. The level is shown in a tooltip while you drag the slider.

Stop: Stops playback of the current playlist. When you press play, it will restart from the beginning of the playlist.

Previous Track: Skips to the previous track in the current playlist. If you're on the first track, skips to the last track in the playlist.

Play/Pause: Pauses the current track, or starts it playing again.

Next Track: Skips to the next track in the current playlist. If you're on the last track, skips to the first track in the playlist.

Show/Hide Playlist: Toggles the display of the Playlist slide-out window, which shows the current playlist with the current track highlighted (see Screenshots, above). You can drag and drop tracks to rearrange the playlist, and each track displays a context menu when right-clicked. The bottom of the Playlist window shows the track count and total playing time (if available).

Track Info: Displays the track title and artist. Move your mouse over this control to see a track information popup with all available track details and album art (see Screenshots, above).

Seek: Shows the current position in the playing track. Drag the bar with the mouse to seek to a new position. When the mouse is over this control, the current time and total track time appear in a tooltip.

Quick Tips:

• All of the controls display tooltips when you float the mouse over them.
• If you right-click anywhere on the Blackbar skin, you get a menu with many Windows Media Player commands.
• Although the controls appear very small, they actually extend all the way to the top and bottom of the Blackbar window, making them easy to target. If you position Blackbar so its top edge is exactly at the top of your screen, targeting will be even easier, because your mouse pointer will stop at the edge of the screen.
• Windows Media Player only lets you move a skin by dragging in a spot that has no controls. Because Blackbar is so compact and full of controls, it can be hard to find a free spot! If you're having trouble with this, try the spaces on either side of the Volume control.
• The scrolling Track Info control shows the track artist if it is available, otherwise the album artist is shown. For the Classical genre, if the composer is known, it will appear instead of the artist.
• While the Playlist slide-out window is visible, Blackbar will not fade into semi-transparency, nor will it show the track information popup.

Customizations

Text Too Large?

If you have a high-resolution monitor, you may have your Windows DPI setting set to 120 DPI. (This is found in the Windows Advanced Display Settings dialog, and is often referred to as "Large Fonts" mode.) If your system is set this way, the text in the Blackbar display will appear partially cut off.

To solve this problem, first download and run the default preferences registry script to create a registry entry with default Blackbar preferences. (Note: You should always be careful with a registry script. Open it in a text editor before running it, to make sure of its content.)

Second, run RegEdit and browse to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Skins\Blackbar.wmz
You'll see the string value named "Prefs" set to its default value: InactiveAlpha;90;WindowsLargeFonts;false
Change WindowsLargeFonts;false to WindowsLargeFonts;true and restart Media Player. The fonts will now be sized correctly in the Blackbar display.

Tweak the Transparency

If you don't like Blackbar's default transparency, you can change it...or turn it off entirely. First, download and run the default preferences registry script to create a registry entry with default Blackbar preferences. (Note: You should always be careful with a registry script. Open it in a text editor before running it, to make sure of its content.)

Second, run RegEdit and browse to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Skins\Blackbar.wmz
You'll see the string value named "Prefs" set to its default value: InactiveAlpha;90;WindowsLargeFonts;false
Change 90 to whatever value suits you; 0 is completely transparent (not recommended!) and 255 is completely opaque. You'll need to restart Media Player for your change to take effect.

Feedback

If you enjoy using Blackbar, or have any problems, questions, or suggested improvements, please take a moment to email the author!