@database "BMCDDA_Player V1.5" @width 80 @wordwrap ;$VER: BMCDDA Player V1.5 (15.6.97) ;Beer ME! @node main "BMCDDA Player Version 1.5" @{b}BMCDDA Player Version 1.5 ©1997 Byron Montgomerie Thank you for trying BMCDDA Player!@{ub} @{"Introduction" link Intro} @{" Features " link Features} @{"Requirements" link Requirements} @{"Recommended " link Recommended} @{"Installation" link Installation} @{" Usage " link Usage} @{"Registration" link Ouch} @endnode @node Intro "Welcome to BMCDDA Player" Beer Money Compact Disc Digital Audio Player Version 1.5 ©1997 Byron Montgomerie BEER-WARE KEYWORDS: CD-ROM Changer Support! Doesn't use MUI! Not Crippled or Nagged! Aspect Ratio Aware! Compatible with the CDID Collection! INTRODUCTION: What? Another CD Player on aminet? Geez, they are getting as bad as MODs! :) Well, this one doesn't use MUI so for one thing you get to see something different looking. :) You can change the entire look of the thing by going into DPaint or whatever and creating some pics, no special format is required and it even respects aspect ratios so that what you create will have the same appearance no matter what screen mode you use. It also supports changers so those play lists you like actually become useful. :) Enjoy using the program! Regards, Byron Montgomerie @endnode @node Requirements "Things you need to use BMCDDAPlayer V1.5" REQUIREMENTS: The obvious. AmigaOs 3.x (Isn't it about that time for you to upgrade if you haven't already?) IDE CD-ROM drive. This program sends out ATAPI commands rather than SCSI commands. If you have a SCSI CD-ROM drive you can try it and tell me if it works. It's not a large thing to add scsi support (it's mainly a matter of changing packet sizes) but without a drive to test it with I haven't bothered. Registrations would go a long way to adding this. :) ATAPI driver software. Something like asim_atapi.device or atapi.device. Installed JFIF datatype. (For the HiresImages cdplayer image or for your own images) NOTE: Set FindBestDisplayMode in the JFIF Prefs if you wish your jpeg images to have an aspect ratio other than the default. @endnode @node Recommended "How to get the most out of BMCDDA Player V1.5" RECOMMENDED: Aminet: /util/boot/ObtainBtrPens.lha or the equivalent. The gui I made for the program looks the same in 16 colors as it does in 256, with a color precision set to EXACT. You can do your own if you want something fancier, what I came up with took me a few hours playing with DPaint. (See included Screen Shot) 68030 or better cpu. It uses DataTypes extensively. It'll take longer for the gui to load on slower cpus. It all depends on the pics you use for the gui as well or if you use any at all. It's as fast as gadtools without loading any pics, looks similar as well. Notes: it takes aprox 7 secs for the highres images to popup on my 030 33mhz a1200, 3 secs for the 4 colour highres images. The program loads in a proportional font, scaled for the screen, loads in around 30 datatype pictures for the gui, scales them for a paticular screen mode, and creates masks so that the background shows through properly. That is why. :) AGA or a graphics card. Large screen and lots of colors would really get the most out of the gui. @endnode @node Features "What makes BMCDDA Player V1.5 stand out from the Crowd!" FEATURES: Changer support. (Only tested with the nec 4x4, but up to seven-disc changers should work with it) Conforms to ATAPI 2.6 specification. Supports the CDID Collection on aminet! Totally user configurable. Aspect ratio aware. (gui has the same size on 640x512 and 1280x1024) Font Sensitive. (Ties in with Aspect ratio awareness) WB and CLI interfaces with the human at the controls in mind. K.I.S.S. It's a commodity. (You can put it in your WBStartup drawer and ignore the existance of the GUI and still plop CDs out and stick others in and listen to them.) Separate Volume and Balance Controls. (Responsive custom BOOPSI gadgets) @endnode @node ToDo "Things I need motivation to implement." TO DO: AREXX interface. Some feedback on what people want from this would help. SCSI support. Need a scsi CD-ROM drive first. BOOPSI list view to replace the gadtools one to correct minor cosmetic aspects. Locale support. @endnode @node Installation "How to Install" INSTALLATION: Handy dandy install script provided, otherwise just move the thing to where it should go and edit the @{"tooltypes" link ToolTypes} for the paths. @endnode @node Usage "How to use BMCDDA Player V1.5" I suggest you start with the ToolTypes and work down from there. @{"What the ToolTypes mean." link ToolTypes} @{"What the Menu options do." link Menus} @{"About the Buttons." link Buttons} @endnode @node ToolTypes "ToolTypes" ToolTypes: ************Commodities Related************************* CX_POPKEY - Hotkey for BMCDDAPlayer. CX_POPUP - Whether or not to load the GUI when it first starts. CX_Priority - Running priority. DONOTWAIT - required for WBStartup use. CloseMeansClose - This makes the close gadget turn off the player otherwise it just hides the gui ala the commodities interface. ********************Main Config************************* Device - the name of the driver that your ATAPI driver uses. Unit - the unit number that your driver uses to find your CD-ROM drive. Discs - Path to the CDID Collection files (those files with the names of the songs. Images - Path to where you are storing the images for the gui elements for BMCDDA Player V1.5 Editer - The name of the text editor you want to use for entering in song titles for new CDID files. Defaults to "ed". Ex. Editer=c:vi EditerNeedsCli - If your text editer works with a cli window, use this to have a window opened under the Player. *******************Operation Options******************** Disc - Part of the play a specific song at startup feature, specifies the slot to use. Track - Part of the play a specific song at startup feature, specifies the track of the song to play. LeftVolume - Initial Volume setting for the left channel. (0-255) RightVolume - Initial Volume setting for the right channel. (0-255) OperationMode - One of "Random", "Sequential", and "Debug". Random refers to playing random tracks from all inserted CDs and Sequential refers to playing all inserted CDs from beginning to end. Debug refers to killing flys with a bug zapper and . outputing text that tells you what is going on with the program. *******************Gui Related************************** Test - Don't open the device, we are just testing the GUI with our images. ListFill - Option for a different look in the listview for the PlayList. ListFillPen - Pen to use with ListFill. DisplayLeft - The Display gadget is left of the gain controls. NoAspectCorrection - Don't scale the gui to fit the screen. Initial menu value. NoImageMasks - The images don't have transparent areas so don't bother making masks. FontLeftEdge/FontTopEdge - Offset into the image of your display where you want the text to start. Since most songs have rather long names centering doesn't give good results. This works out well though, these offsets are also scaled for different screen modes. FontName/FontSize - Font to use in the display and play list. Stick with proportional fonts for best results. Eg. FontName=cgtimes.font FontSize=15 FontRender - One of Outline, Shadow, or None. Specifies various ways of rendering text. Eg. FontRender=Shadow BorderTop - The space you wish to leave BorderLeft around the buttons in your gui window. BorderRight BorderBottom Pen0..Pen7 - Pens to allocate for use with this program. Optional. Pen0 and Pen1 will be used with the main Display if present. d1fg..d7fg - Pens to use for each slot in you changer in the Play List d1bg..d7bg Window. these will either come from the ones you define with Pen0-7 or from the screen pens at those locations. d is for disc, fg is for foreground, and bg is for background. DefaultAspectRatio - This is to indicate the designed aspect ratio of your gui. Without this it is assumed to be 22:22. Note that jpeg images sometimes don't report a proper aspect ratio, instead they give 0:0, the default aspect ratio will take it's place. Also not that the JFIF datatype must have the SelectBestMode button selected for the default or for this program in paticular. The format is yaspect:xaspect. Ex. DefaultAspectRatio=44:22 The values are in ticks per pixel, which means they are 1/x and 1/y respectively with regard to an x/y ratio. It's optional, if you don't understand, leave it out. @endnode *****************End of ToolTypes*********************** @node Menus "Menus" Menu Items: Mode - None refers to manual mode. Random refers to playing random tracks from all inserted CDs. Sequential refers to playing all inserted CDs from beginning to end. PlayList refers to PlayList mode and is activated automatically with the PlayList window when you have done selecting songs. (Clicking on the Display Gadget opens the PlayList window). Prefs - Aspect Correction. This option allows you to turn off resizing the gui according to the screen mode. Handy for low res screens where your graphics have been scaled below the default aspect ratio. - Display Left Controls whether the display is on the left side or the right side of the player window. - Auto Edit Discs When the currently selected slot doesn't have a CDID file associated with it, when this is selected clicking on the display will open the editor so you can enter the data. The format of a CDID file is on a line per line basis according to: Band Album Track 1 name Track 2 name ... Track N name No spaces between lines and all tracks have to be filled in. Hide - Turn off the GUI and left the program run in the background. Same as clicking on the power gadget without CloseMeansClose. Quit - Exit the program. @endnode *****************End of Menus*************************** @node Buttons "Buttons" Buttons: Names of the images: back1 display2 ffwd1 next2 power1 rwd2 stop1 back2 dragbar1 ffwd2 pause1 power2 skip1 stop2 balance dragbar2 frontback1 pause2 prev1 skip2 volume cdplayer eject1 frontback2 play1 prev2 sliderknob1 display1 eject2 next1 play2 rwd1 sliderknob2 The 1 means a normal image, the 2 means a selected image. Each image can be any type that you have a datatype for, be it gif, iff, jpeg what have you. balance is the background image for the balance control. volume is the background image for the volume control. cdplayer is the image for the player window, it determines in part the size of the entire gui. back/skip relates to tracks. prev/next relates to discs. The display gadget opens up the PlayList window or the CDID file editor, depending on whether AutoEditDiscs is enabled and if the current disc has a CDID entry. @endnode @node Bugs "Not the bunny" BUGS: Well, you tell me, that's what your registration fee will go towards. :) @endnode @node Ouch "Beer Money Request" REGISTRATION FEE: This is BEER-WARE folks, the registration fee is the current price of a case of dozen beer locally. :) Round it up to $15 US. If you enjoy the program, buy me a case of beer. :) What you get for your money is the program you already have and my time working on this program to update it. That translates into @{"bug fixes" link Bugs} and @{"new versions" link ToDo}. You also get to tell me what changes you would like me to make to the program to make it suit you better. :) "The customer is always right", but you have to be a customer first. :) CONTACT INFO: EMAIL: byron@nfld.com WWW: HTTP://www.nfld.com/~byron/ PHONE: (709)-738-7659 ADDRESS: Byron Montgomerie 23 Prince of Wales St. St. John's, NF, Canada A1C-4N1 PAYMENT: However you wish to pay the registration fee as long as it works out to $15 US in the end, it's ok with me. Alternatively, if you have a shareware product of this value you can give me a registered copy. I will contact you by email to let you know that I received your registration and to thank you for your support. You will also be put on a list for future consideration with other programs that I am working on. Regards, Byron Montgomerie. @endnode