This file contains an explanation for most commands in mp3blaster. Please note that mp3blaster features 2 modes: Normal Mode and File Mode. In Normal Mode you control the playlist displayed in the main window. In File Mode, you can browse and add files using a file manager in the main window. You can switch between these two modes using F1 (this is the default keybinding, you can alter it in the config file, see the mp3blaster manpage). To see which command is mapped to which key, check the help window on top of the screen in mp3blaster; you can browse through this window using '-' and '+'. For most commands the keybinding can be configured - read the mp3blaster manpage. Commands specific to Normal Mode: ================================= SELECT FILES (F1) Enters File Mode. ADD GROUP Add a group to the playlist. A group can be thought of as an album, or a music category. Groups can be nested indefinitely. SET GROUP TITLE Changes the name of the group that's currently highlighted. You will be prompted to enter a name. CLEAR PLAYLIST Whipes your entire playlist (without asking!). This will only work when no song is being played at invocation time. MOVE FILES AFTER This will move songs that you have selected (using the spacebar) after the currently highlighted song in the playlist. You can't move songs from one group to another this way. Songs will be added after the song in the order in which you selected them. MOVE FILES BEFORE As in MOVE FILES AFTER, only now songs will be added before the currently highlighted song. SELECT FILE This will select the currently highlighted file. Selected items are displayed in bold (on terminals that support this). Selections are useful in combination with MOVE FILES BEFORE / AFTER, DELETE (AND MARK). ENTER Depending on what your selection bar in the main window is highlighting, this will do: -If a song is highlighted: It will immediately play this song. If a playlist was being played at the time you pressed enter, it will continue with the next song after the selected song is finished. -If a group is highlighted: It will dive into the group. The special group '..' will take you up one group (its parent group). The 'root' group (the empty one at startup) has no parent group. PREVIOUS PAGE and NEXT PAGE Scrolls the content of the main window resp. up or down. MOVE SCROLLBAR UP and MOVE SCROLLBAR DOWN Moves the selection bar (the inverted row in the main window) resp. up or down one item. Commands specific to File Mode: =============================== ADD FILES TO LIST: This will exit File Mode and enter Normal Mode. All selected songs will be added to the playlist. Please note that you can select songs from multiple directories without having to switch back and forth between File Mode and Normal Mode; simply select the songs you want, change directories, select more songs etc. All songs will be added in the order in which you selected them. Songs will be added to the group you were in before entering File Mode. INVERT SELECTION: All files that are selected will be unselected, and vice versa. Use this if you want all songs from one directory except for a few, by selecting the unwanted songs and then use this command. RECURS. SELECT ALL This will search for songs in the current directory and in all its subdirectories, and add them to the playlist. After all songs have been added, mp3blaster will switch to Normal Mode. Please be careful when using this command, because it might take a long time if there are many subdirs (e.g. when the current directory is the root-directory, "/"). ADD DIRS AS GROUPS This is the most powerful command in mp3blaster; It works similar to RECURS. SELECT ALL, only in this case songs will be put into a group in the playlist with the same name as the directory they are in. Groups will not be nested though; all dirs that contain songs are added as a group in the one group you were in before entering File Mode. (Perhaps this might change in a future release) ENTER NEW PATH This command will prompt you to enter a new directory, to which it will then change. CONVERT MP3 TO WAV This will convert the currently highlighted mp3, or all selected mp3's, to *.wav files in the directory that you will be prompted for. The *.wav files are not zero-padded to be a multiple of 2352 bytes (sector-size on a cd). If you want to burn them to an audio-cd using cdrecord, add the option '-pad' (most other recording programs supply similar options). ADD URL (SHOUTCAST) Add an URL to the playlist. This URL should be an url to a shoutcast server. Currently, it must point to the mp3 stream itself, *NOT* to a .pls file. Look inside the .pls file to find out what the stream is. START SEARCH Starts search mode: In this mode, the scrollbar in the main window will jump to the first song it finds starting with the characters that you enter after starting file search. File search ends when you don't type any characters for a few seconds, or when enter is pressed. Please note that this search is case-sensitive. GO UP ONE DIR For the lazy people amongst us: This command will simply go up one dir (same as hitting enter over the '..' dir). SELECT FILE This will select the file under the scrollbar in the main window. This can be used in combination with INVERT SELECTION, ADD FILES TO LIST, CONVERT MP3 TO WAV. Commands that work in any mode: =============================== LOAD/ADD PLAYLIST This will put mp3blaster in File Mode (if it isn't already), and change to the directory where your playlists are stored. Playlists (*.lst by default) can be loaded simply by highlighting and selecting one (using enter). The location where your playlists are stored is the homedir of the user running it. It can be overridden using the keyword 'PlaylistDir' in the config file (man mp3blaster). Playlists are *added* to the current playlist, instead of replacing it. Clear the playlist first if you do not want this. WRITE PLAYLIST This will save your current playlist to a file. You will be prompted to enter a filename. Read the description for LOAD/ADD PLAYLIST to see where playlists are stored. TOGGLE REPEAT Toggles between repeat and no-repeat mode. In repeat mode, the playlist will be played again after it has been finished. TOGGLE GROUPSHUFFLE Toggles shuffling on and off for the current group. Please note that this will only toggle the shuffle mode for the current group, and not for all groups in your playlist! Using this function, you can create very flexible playlists where some groups are always played in the order in which you added songs to it (e.g. albums from one artist), while others are shuffled (e.g. compilation albums where you don't want to hear the same sequence over and over again). If there are groups in the group for which you enabled shuffle mode, the order in which these groups are played is shuffled as well! TOGGLE PLAY MODE This toggles the global playback mode, which is shown directly underneath the help window with the commands. Possible modes are: -Play current group, including subgroups This will play all groups and songs contained in the group you are in when you start the playlist. They will be played in the order that they are shown, top to bottom. Each group's shuffle setting can be set independant of the others! -Play current group, but not its subgroups. Only play the songs that are in the group you are in when you start the playlist. All subgroups will be ignored. They will be played in the order in which they are shown (top-to-bottom), unless shuffling is enabled for this group. -Play all songs from all groups in random order: This mode ignores all shuffle settings for all groups, and will randomly shuffle all the songs from all the groups. Putting all songs in one group and enable shuffle mode for that group would have the same effect. SELECT SOME ITEMS Selects items in the current directory, based on an expression given by the user. The type of expression and case-insensitiveness can be set with "SelectItems.SearchRegex" and "SelectItems.SearchCaseInsensitive" in the config file. With "SelectItems.UnselectFirst" enabled, previously selected items will be unselected first. By default, case-insensitive global matching (fnmatch-style, like shell patterns) will be used. UNSELECT ALL Unselects all selected items in the current directory / group CHANGE #THREADS Increases the number of threads used for playback. Threads are used as a buffer, e.g. sound playback will be less likely interrupted when your machine is temporarily busy. The used buffering method is far from perfect though, so you dont' want to hog your machine much during playback.. TOGGLE MIXER DEVICE If your system supports the OSS mixer (or NAS mixer), it will be displayed on the bottom-right of the mp3blaster screen. This command will cycle between all the available mixer devices on your primary sound device. You can back-cycle using capital-T (these keybindings are currently hardcoded..) MIXERVOLUME DOWN Turns down the currently selected mixer device. MIXERVOLUME UP Turns up the currently selected mixed device. QUIT MP3BLASTER Quits mp3blaster (Caught you by surprise, didn't it?) SHOW HELP Shows this text. DELETE Deletes currently highlighted or selected song(s) (or group) from the playlist. If you try to delete a group in which a song is currently being played, it will silently fail. Please note that this command will not try to delete the file, only its reference in the playlist. It will not save your playlist either, you have to do this yourself. DELETE AND MARK This is similar to DELETE, only it will also (try to) mark the associated file(s) as bad, by moving them into a subdirectory 'baditems', located in the same directory as the song. The rest of the description for this comment is not yet finished in the code: **********=========== BEWARE =============************* In contrast to the DELETE command, this command *will* save your playlist using as playlist file the last loaded playlist in this mp3blaster session. REFRESH SCREEN Tries to refresh mp3blaster's layout. It likely won't always work for 100%, YMMV. PREVIOUS SONG If playing a playlist, this will play the previous song (CURRENTLY NOT IMPLEMENTED!) PLAY SONG If the playlist has not been started, it will start the playlist. If the playlist has been started, it will pause the current song. NEXT SONG If playing in a playlist, this will stop the current song and move to the next song. REWIND SONG If a song is being played, this command will jump back one step in the song. The size of this step can be configured in the config file using the keyword 'SkipFrames'. FORWARD SONG Same as for REWIND SONG, only now you will jump ahead in the song. STOP SONG This will stop the playlist, forgetting which songs have already been played. If you wish to just pause playback, press play instead. NEXT GROUP / PREVIOUS GROUP Jump to next or previous group in the playlist, similar to a cd changer that switches to the next or previous cd. SCROLL UP / DOWN HELPTEXT Scroll the help window in the top of the screen (containing the keyboard shortcuts for all commands) up or down.