XPlaycd (1)
X based audio cd player for cdrom drives
SYNOPSIS
xplaycd
[
-mixer
] [
-nomixer
] [
-v
] [
-display lt;displaygt;
] [
-fn lt;fontgt;
]
DESCRIPTION
XPlaycd
is a program to play audio cd's on a cdrom-drive.
It runs on plain X. You don't need OpenWindows, Motif or whatever.
XPlaycd
features a database which holds cd and track titles of cds. Titles are
displayed automagically as the cd plays. The program has its own editor
which eases adding of new discs. The database is
XMcd
compatible, but
XMcd
needs Motif.
THE EDITOR
To invoke the editor, press the right button anywhere inside the window and
select
edit
from the menu. A new editor window will pop up. Fill in the fields then
press
close
or
apply
to save your changes.
The editor saves the database in files which have an eight digit hexadecimal
number as filename, in a directory specified by the
*cddb
resource. The decimal number is the (hopefully) unique id of the cd and is
used to find the file next time the cd is used again.
THE PLAYLIST
You can program the order in which the tracks are played. The program
shows a small button for each track and a button for begin and end of
play respectively.
Pressing the
left
mouse button on a track icon will immediately start playing this track.
To change the playing order, press and hold the
left
mouse button on a track icon and drag the number to your preferred place.
To double a track, i.e. to play it more than once, press and hold the
middle
mouse button on a track icon and drag, you will get a new icon to place at
will while the old one stays in place.
To delete a doubled icon, click on it with the middle button without dragging
it.
To change the beginning and end of play respectively, drag around the
start/end icons. Using these icons, you can skip titles by moving them
after the end mark.
The top right button on the window can be used to endlessly repeat everything
between the start and end marks.
The button showing three question marks will shuffle the tracks inbetween
the start and end marks. A second press of the shuffle button will sort
the tracks back into order.
You can save the playlist by pressing the
right
mouse button anywhere in the window and selecting
save
from the menu. This will save the playlist in the database together
with the list of track titles.
MORE ABOUT INSERTING AND EJECTING CDS
Whenever there is no cd in the drive,
XPlaycd
displays a stippled pictogram in the eject button symbolising that it is not
able to close the disc tray itself (several drives aren't able to close
automagically, and the kernel driver doesn't support it anyway).
So if you put a new cd in the drive, you have to press the eject button to
make XPlaycd detect it.
There is an option however, which tells XPlaycd to detect a new disc
automagically as soon as the drive is closed. Since this led to problems
on most systems, the option is disabled by default since Version 2.0.
Use the
-emptypoll
option on the command line or set the
xplaycd*empyPoll: on
resource.
Please see the
RESOURCES
section for more information about resources.
Problems reported have been flooding of the syslog with
\'Please make sure there is a disc in the drive\'
messages and cdrom drives making strange noises.
OPTIONS
Options offered by
XPlaycd
are the following:
-display lt;displaygt;
Show the control window on the given display.
-fn lt;fontgt;
Use this font rather than the default. The given font should be about the
same size like the default font. If not, the window may look ugly.
-mixer
Use /dev/mixer to adjust the playback volume rather than controlling the
drive directly. Usually xplaycd will autodetect whether it should use this
option.
-nomixer
Adjust playback volume by controlling the drive directly. Usually xplaycd
will autodetect whether it should use this option.
-emptypoll
Continue polling the drive even if its empty. In that mode,
XPlaycd
will automagically detect when someone inserts a cd in the empty drive.
However, polling an empty drive will flood the syslog with nasty warning
messages on most systems, some drives will even make strange noises. For that
reason this is disabled by default since Version 2.0 and you have to press
eject after inserting a new disc.
-v
Print current version and exit.
RESOURCES
XPlaycd
understands a large number of
X11
resources which are listed below. These system wide resources usually sit in
a file called
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd.
Personal resources reside either in
~/.Xdefaults
or
~/.Xresources
depending on your installation. To put an
XPlaycd
resource into your personal resource file, prefix it with the word
xplaycd.
After editing your personal file, be sure to run
xrdb ~/.Xresources
or
xrdb ~/.Xdefaults
to make them work. There is no need for a prefix or an invocation of
xrdb
if you change the system wide file.
STANDARD RESOURCES
SPECIAL RESOURCES
Special
XPlaycd
resources are:
*brightBorder: gray94
*darkBorder: gray40
*hilightColor: gray72
These settings are responsible for the 3D-look-and-feel of the program.
Just play with the values to see what they do.
*emptyPoll: off
Please see -emptypoll commandline option above.
*useMixer: auto
This setting actually has three states:
on
use the mixerDevice to control the volume
This works only if your drive is connected to a soundcard.
auto
Works like 'on' if mixerDevice is available, works like off
if not. (This is the default)
off
Control the volume directly at the drive. Some drives do
not support this (e.g. Mediavision CDR-H93MV).
*mixerDevice: /dev/mixer
The mixer device, this is only needed if you define *useMixer to
on
\, but
auto
will not work if this is not set.
*cdromDevice: /dev/cdrom
This is the devicename of your cdrom.
Please use exactly the same devicename you use for mounting the drive. If you
chose another name for mounting than for playback,
XPlaycd
will not be able to detect when a CD is mounted and may crash. (For example,
don't use a symbolic link for mounting and the real device name for playback or
vice versa.)
*scsiDevice:
If you don't have a scsi cdrom, please ignore this resource.
Some scsi cdroms support tray loading under software control. With one of
those, you may load the tray by pressing eject when the tray is open.
To use this feature, enable generic scsi support in the linux kernel and set
this resource to the generic device name of the cdrom. For the first scsi
device, this is /dev/sga, the second is /dev/sgb and so on.
WARNING! GIVING WORLD ACCESS TO A GENERIC SCSI DEVICE MAY BE A SECURITY RISC.
For security reasons, your cdrom should have the highest scsi id of all your
scsi devices. Imagine what would happen if you have an id 0 cdrom and an id 1
harddisk. Should the cdrom break and not be detected during boot, suddenly
the harddisk becomes /dev/sga and thus prone to hacking.
*cddb: /usr/local/lib/cddb
The path where xplaycd expects the database. XPlaycd searches this
directory and all subdirectories of it.
You are encouraged to change this to some place where you have write access.
*systemCddb: /usr/local/lib/public-cddb
This is an additional read-only database, which may be maintained by someone
else. XPlaycd searches this directory and all subdirectories of it.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Q:
It quits with 'xplaycd: Can't open /dev/cdrom: No such file or directory'
A:
As root, create a symbolic link from /dev/cdrom to your cdrom device.
For a scsi cdrom, usually this works:
cd /dev
ln -s cdrom sr0
Q:
It starts up and says 'No disk' even if there is a disk in the drive.
A:
Hm, this may have many reasons, check if you have made the right link in /dev.
Q:
The volume control doesn't work, it is just an empty bar.
A:
You told XPlaycd to use the mixerdevice for volume control and you
don't have such a device or you used the wrong name for it.
To use the mixerdevice, you must have a soundcard.
Q:
I don't have the default font, so the program always tells me an annoying
message that it uses a fixed font, how can i get rid of this?
A:
Call it as 'xplaycd -fn fixed' or change the font name in the default file.
The default file is usually /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd
TODO
The editor should support putting cd's in separate categories.
It should be possible to edit a cd without having to insert it into the
drive. This would be possible only for cd's which have been at least once
in the drive and have been saved before, though.
Much more...
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
Olav Woelfelschneider
(wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de)
COPYING
Copyright (C) 1994
Olav Woelfelschneider
(wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de)
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
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