ericzhang12111-cell/RhinE

A foobar2000 theme.

English · Installation Guide · ChangeLog (Or check out the Youtube Playlist)
安装指南 · 其他信息 · 更新信息 (或查看BILIBILI分P)

An archive terminal for listening: Swiss typography, a monochrome palette with one accent colour, and a sci-fi layer — your albums as rendered specimen cases on shelves, a Möbius signal ring that pulses with the music, synced lyrics (fetched online when your files have none), eleven case skins and eight colour schemes in light and dark. Windows, foobar2000 v2 with Columns UI and JSplitter.

Demo & Installation Guide & More

→ INSTALL.md (中文：安装指南.md). In short: download the portable bundle and double-click Setup 一键安装.cmd, or download the theme and double-click install.cmd.

This page is about everything else. 其他信息的中文版：其他信息.md。

What changed in each version: CHANGELOG.md.

Five views: Archive (every album, or every track, as a rendered specimen case on shelves, or a cover grid), Playlists (playlist manager, track rail, the native playlist in two presets, a profile card with the queue), Lyrics (synced lyrics from your files or fetched online, with a translation when they are in another language), Signal (a rendered ∞ ring, spectrum and the whole-track waveform, or a Classic player screen) and Style (eleven case skins and eight colour schemes, each in light and dark). A pre-rendered intro film, scan transitions, grain and a Reduce motion option. The interface is in English, Simplified Chinese or Japanese.

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
• foobar2000 v2, 64-bit (developed on v2.26 x64). The 32-bit build shows a black window, and the installer refuses it.
• Columns UI 3.7 or later
• JSplitter x64: tested with 3.9.4, 4.3.1 and 4.3.3. If the window stays black with Error setting panel config in the console, check that foobar2000 and JSplitter are both x64, then try JSplitter 3.9.4.

The installer installs the two components when they are missing (Columns UI 3.7.0 and JSplitter 3.9.4, from their official GitHub releases, each checked against its SHA-256).

install.cmd runs install.ps1 (Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell 7). Nothing in your foobar2000 changes until every check has passed. In order, it:

1. finds foobar2000: the standard install, or a portable one next to the theme folder. It asks when it finds several, and opens a folder picker when it finds none. -Foobar "<folder>" names it directly.
2. checks that this foobar2000 is v2 and 64-bit. If it is running, it offers to close it. If it has never run, it starts it once to create its configuration.
3. installs Columns UI and JSplitter if they are missing. It uses .fb2k-component files next to the installer or in -ComponentDir, and otherwise downloads them after asking. The x64 files go to <profile>\user-components-x64\<component>\.
4. backs up the configuration to <profile>\audio-archive-backup\<date-time>\;
5. copies the theme to <profile>\themes\audio-archive\;
6. installs the Geist Mono fonts for your Windows user only (no admin rights; -NoFonts skips this);
7. selects Columns UI as the user interface;
8. starts foobar2000 and imports the theme's layout (-NoStart skips this). If Columns UI has never run before, its one-time Quick setup dialog is closed so its presets do not replace the theme.

-Yes answers every question with yes. <profile> is %APPDATA%\foobar2000-v2 for a standard install and <foobar2000 folder>\profile for a portable one. The messages are in Chinese on a Chinese Windows.

The portable bundle. foobar2000's licence allows only its unmodified installer to be passed on. So the bundle carries that installer, not a ready-made foobar2000. Setup 一键安装.cmd runs setup\portable.ps1, which does three things:

1. It unpacks the installer's files into foobar2000\ with the bundled 7-Zip and marks the folder as portable. That is what the installer's own portable mode installs, with no registry entries, shortcuts or file associations, and no admin rights.
2. It runs install.ps1 on that folder. Columns UI comes from the bundle (LGPL-3.0). JSplitter is downloaded from its GitHub release, because it comes with no licence that allows passing it on.
3. It adds the RhinE (foobar2000) shortcut.

Running it again keeps the foobar2000 folder and installs the theme again.

By hand instead:

1. Copy js, tokens, columns and assets to <profile>\themes\audio-archive\.
2. Install the fonts in assets\fonts.
3. Switch to Columns UI (Preferences › Display › User interface module).
4. Open Preferences › Display › Columns UI › Import configuration… and pick columns\audio-archive.fcl.

The theme starts dark, with the ARCHIVE colour scheme and the WHITE case skin, in Windows' display language. Its settings are kept in <profile>\audio-archive-settings.json as well as in the layout, so running a newer install.cmd keeps them (from 1.2 on). Keys reach the theme when one of its scripted panels has keyboard focus (click an empty spot in it first); the native playlist keeps foobar2000's own keys.

Light and dark are Columns UI's mode (View › Mode). The theme runs that command by its place in the menu, so it also works in translated builds of foobar2000. If the colours still do not change, a message says where to switch the mode. When the mode is Use system setting, Windows' own light / dark setting decides until you switch it in the theme.

Playlists view. The manager lists every playlist with a rail line as long as the log of its track count; the active one is inverted, the playing one has an orange tab. The track rail beside the list shows one line per track (a long playlist is spread over the lines, each standing for an equal share), and the hover card names the track under the mouse. The head shows the playlist's number, name, size and state, switches the layout, and carries the column titles. The profile card ends with what plays next: the playback queue, or the next tracks of the playlist.

Lyrics view. Lyrics come from an .lrc file next to the track (same name) or from a LYRICS / SYNCEDLYRICS tag with time stamps; two lines with the same time stamp are shown as original and translation. When a track has neither, the theme looks it up on LRCLIB, an open database of synced lyrics: it sends the track's artist, title, album and length to lrclib.net and keeps what comes back in <profile>\audio-archive-cache\lyrics\ (it never writes next to your music or into its tags; a miss is not looked up again for a week). Turn it off with MENU › Audio Archive › Fetch lyrics online. For more sources, the OpenLyrics component can save .lrc files or tags, which the theme reads. Tracks without lyrics show a NO LYRICS pop-up. The read-outs and a live spectrum sit on the left, the profile card with the queue on the right (the two columns mirror each other), and the line index beside the lyrics shows where you are in the text. Long lines shrink to fit instead of being cut short.

Translated lyrics. When a track's lyrics are in one language and it is not yours, a translation can be shown under each line (MENU › Audio Archive › Translate lyrics; the language follows Windows' display language until you pick one):

• Chinese: community translations, on by default when Windows is in Chinese. The theme finds the song on NetEase Cloud Music (it sends the track's artist, title and length) and shows the translation its listeners wrote and timed. When a track has no lyrics on LRCLIB either, NetEase's lyrics are used. This uses NetEase's public web endpoints, not an official API, so it can stop working without notice.
• Machine translation, off by default, for when there is no community translation: MyMemory (free, no key, a daily quota), Baidu Translate (your own free APP ID and key; reachable from mainland China) or DeepL (your own key). Only the lyric lines are sent, only to the service you chose. Keys are kept in <profile>\audio-archive-settings.json on your computer.

Translations are kept in <profile>\audio-archive-cache\lyrics\ too, so a song is looked up once. Chinese and other CJK text uses Windows' own UI font (Geist Mono has no CJK).

Signal view. CLASSIC (beside the model switch) shows a familiar player screen instead, set out like a specimen plate: the cover inside a dial of progress and segmented spectrum, the title and time under it, the current lyric on a caption plate (else what plays next), the file's data and the up-next list in the margins, the frosted cover behind. Otherwise graphics only: the ring, whose light pulses spawn on bass onsets and run faster with the music's energy (they freeze while paused), a spectrum strip and the whole-track signal trace, which is decoded once per track and cached in <profile>\audio-archive-cache\waveform\. VISUALIZATIONS opens foobar2000's own visualizations, and those of components you installed, in windows of their own.

Archive view. Every album of the media library is one case (or, with SHOW TRACKS, every track, with its album's cover). An album is the tracks with the same album tag in the same folder (a CD2 / Disc 1 folder counts as its parent), so tracks with guest artists stay together. The cases stand on shelves of 20: the groups (genre, decade, artist initial or none) follow one another, so every shelf is full; SORT orders them by artist, title, year or date added. Each shelf keeps its own selection. The file on the right lists the album's tracks: click one to play the album from there. LAYOUT GRID shows the same albums as a cover grid. The library is read on a background thread and cached in <profile>\audio-archive-cache\library.db, so the view appears at once on the next start and follows library changes by itself; cover thumbnails are extracted once in the background and cached in <profile>\audio-archive-cache\covers\. Without media library folders the Archive shows the contents of all playlists instead (it says so under the buttons). PLAY ALBUM and OPEN ALBUM fill one playlist, Archive · Album, which they reuse. Case skins change the look of the specimen cases (Archive and profile cards): the theme ships eleven (the 05 STYLE view shows them all). The Archive keys work when the Archive has keyboard focus (click it once).

Search updates an autoplaylist called Search 300 ms after you stop typing: every word must appear in the title, artist, album artist, album, genre or date. It searches foobar2000's media library (Preferences › Media Library), so folders must be added there first. Esc clears the field and returns to the playlist you were on.

Playlist presets. Album groups tracks by album, with one group line (ARTIST — ALBUM · DISC n on the left, year, format and track count on the right), disc track numbers and a running position. Index is a flat table with the playlist position, artist, album and year on every row, for mixed playlists and search results. The playing track is marked orange in both.

From 1.3 on the theme updates itself:

• Check. The theme reads the latest version from this repository (theme/update/latest.json, from GitHub, else through jsDelivr, which mirrors GitHub and is usually reachable from mainland China). It checks at most once a day, a few seconds after foobar2000 starts. Nothing about you or your music is sent. Switch it off with MENU › Audio Archive › Check for updates daily; Check for updates… beside it checks at once.
• Offer. A newer version shows an orange UPDATE chip in the bottom bar. Its menu lists what is new and offers Update now, the release page, or Skip this version.
• Update. Update now runs tools\update.ps1 in a console window:
  1. It reads the release's file list (theme/update/files.json at the release's tag): every file with its SHA-256.
  2. It copies the files that did not change from the installed theme and downloads the others from the repository at that tag (GitHub, else jsDelivr). Most updates change a few scripts, so a few hundred KB are downloaded. When most of the theme changed, or a download fails, it downloads the release zip instead.
  3. It checks every file against its SHA-256, then runs the new version's install.ps1. That closes foobar2000, backs up its configuration, replaces the theme and starts it again; your settings are kept.

The updater can also be run by hand: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File update.ps1 -Foobar "<folder>" (-Full downloads the whole zip). Versions before 1.3 have no updater: install 1.3 once by hand.

uninstall.cmd runs uninstall.ps1. It finds the foobar2000 that has the theme (or takes -Foobar "<folder>") and asks you to confirm. It then restores the configuration from before the theme was first installed, so settings changed since then are reverted too. The current configuration is kept in the backup folder first. Finally it removes the theme folder, its settings file and the fonts. -KeepConfig removes only the files; -KeepFonts leaves Geist Mono installed. Columns UI and JSplitter stay installed.

• Black window, or one empty panel: check that foobar2000 and JSplitter are both 64-bit; if it persists, switch to JSplitter 3.9.4. Then run install.cmd again so it imports the layout again.
• PowerShell says scripts are blocked: install.cmd runs the script with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass. If it is still blocked, run Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Unblock-File in the folder first.
• The Archive is empty, or shows "all playlists": no media library folder yet; click + ADD MUSIC FOLDER.
• Changed an album's cover but the theme still shows the old one: delete <profile>\audio-archive-cache\covers\ and restart; the covers are made again.
• foobar2000 uses about 5 – 8 % of one CPU core while idle: that is JSplitter's own cost of about 1 % per panel; the theme does not redraw while nothing moves.
• Animations are not smooth: turn on JSplitter's Use high-resolution timers in Preferences › Advanced (optional).

• The column titles in the playlist head follow the preset's column widths. If you resize columns by hand in Columns UI's settings, re-import the theme layout (or switch the preset twice) to line them up again.
• The window title bar is the system one.
• The text size applies to the theme's own panels. The native playlist keeps Columns UI's fonts (Preferences › Display › Columns UI › Colours and fonts).
• Archive cover thumbnails are not refreshed when you change an album's artwork; delete <profile>\audio-archive-cache\covers\ to rebuild them. The first start with a large library extracts every album's cover once in the background (≈ 30 s for 600 albums).
• Online lyrics come from LRCLIB, and from NetEase Cloud Music when that is on (Chinese users by default). Community translations exist only in Chinese; for other languages there is machine translation. Lyrics a lookup missed are not looked up again for a week (delete <profile>\audio-archive-cache\lyrics\ to retry at once).
• The seek line shows only the START marker; chapter and cue markers are not read yet.
• The Lyrics view's warning panel appears for local files that are missing; other decode errors are not reported to scripts by foobar2000.
• Animations run at up to ≈ 64 fps with foobar2000's default timer. For steadier motion turn on JSplitter's Use high-resolution timers (Preferences › Advanced, JSplitter's Performance section; optional).
• JSplitter itself uses about 1 % of one CPU core per child panel while idle (measured with empty panels; the theme's own scripts add nothing while nothing moves but the clock). The theme has 8 child panels (Archive, Lyrics, Signal and Style share one; the playlist manager and the track rail share one), so foobar2000 idles at ≈ 5–8 % of a core.

The theme is MIT-licensed (LICENSE). Geist Mono is under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (assets/fonts/OFL.txt). Built on foobar2000, Columns UI and JSplitter; online lyrics from LRCLIB. The portable bundle carries foobar2000's unmodified installer, Columns UI (LGPL-3.0, its licence alongside) and 7-Zip (LGPL, its licence alongside). The 3D art was rendered in Blender, partly with materials from third-party material libraries used under their licences.

• 路北路陈 (LuBeiLuChen) https://space.bilibili.com/40238601 | RhineLabUI project: https://github.com/LBEILC/RhineLabUI
• Ronald没有魔杖 (Ronald Has No Wand) https://space.bilibili.com/171289190 | RhineLabUI-Music-Demo project: https://github.com/RonaldDeng/Rhine-Music-Demo
• Original Arknights PV: 《明日方舟》特别映像 [莱茵生命：访问]: bilibili.com/video/BV1rr4y1b7sz/