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xplaycd

NAME

xplaycd - X based audio cd player for cdrom drives

SYNOPSIS

xplaycd [ -start ] [ -mixer ] [ -nomixer ] [ -v ] [ -display <display> ] [ -fn <font> ]

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

Usually XPlaycd can't detect when you've inserted a new cd and closed the tray manually.

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.

Note:

The open/close button implementation is a bit broken currently and might get confused easily. It will be fixed some day...

OPTIONS

Options offered by XPlaycd are the following:

-display <display>

Show the control window on the given display.

-fn <font>

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.

-start

Start playing immediately if possible.

-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/local/lib/app-defaults/XPlaycd or /etc/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd depending on your installation. 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

Standard X11 resources with their defaults are shown here. For an explanation of the standard resources please see the X11 dcumentation.

Standard resources are:

*title: XPlaycd

*geometry: no default!

*iconic: off

*background: gray80

*foreground: black

*font: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-normal-sans-*-120-*-*-p-*-*-*

*reverseVideo: off

*synchronize: off

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.

*autostart: off

Start playing immediately on startup.

*emptyPoll: off

Please see -emptypoll commandline option above.

*useMixer: auto

This setting actually can be:

<id>

use the mixerDevice to control the volume and use the input with the given id. This works only if the audio output of your drive is connected to a soundcard. It doesn't matter where the flat ribbon data cable of the drive is connected to. Since soundcard manufacturers don't agree on which input must be used for the cdrom audio, you might have to try several values here until it works. In a perfect environment, the id cd would be the way to go. However, you might have to try line, line1, line2 or line3 to get it working.

auto

Works like cd 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 needed if you define *useMixer to use it.

*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 your system! At least, this was the case in 1.3.x series of Linux, dunno what happens today. (So, for example, don't use a symbolic link for mounting and the real device name for playback or the wrath of the kernel shalt come upon you :)

*cddb: (none)

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: (none)

This is an additional read-only database, which may be maintained by someone else. XPlaycd searches this directory and all subdirectories of it.

If neither cddb resource is set, XPlaycd will refuse to use a database and will annoy you with a nasty message each time a new cd is detected.

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 /etc/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd

Q:

When I try to search forward or backward, it doesn't really work. Sometimes the program hangs for several seconds doing nothing.

A:

Sometimes the drive responds extremely slow to play commands which makes searching unusable. This happened to me with a scsi cdrom CDR-H93MV on an Asus SC-200 using the BSD-NCR53C8XX driver from linux 2.0.7. I even had a lock up once. The generic NCR53c7,8xx driver however works well. With other hardware your mileage may vary.

Update: Got a wowie-zowie 10x Pioneer Drive now, this one reacts much smoother to search commands.

Q:

The Volume slider doesn't do anything. I can shift it back and forth but the volume does not change. What's wrong?

A:

If you have your drive connected to a soundcard, then you might have one of those where the cdrom audio connector is wired to one of the line inputs. Try setting the useMixer resource to one of the following values and see if it works: line, line1, line2, line3. You can try this quickly by calling XPlaycd like this: xplaycd -usemixer <value>

SEE ALSO

xmdb(1), xmixer(1)

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.