
This is an excerpt from the main AMPlay documentation (v2.03).

* 4.2 Display:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

* 4.2.1 Main Window:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Track format, Album format and Artist format tell AMPlay how to
display information about the currently playing track. This uses a
system of macros to encode the information. A macro consists of a %sign,
followed by a few letters to give the macro name.

Macros are covered in detail in section 2.12. There is a button here to
open a quick reference for the macros.

Interactive help can be used to see what the macro would expand to.
This can be used both here and on other panes where a macro can be
entered. AMPlay must be running for useful macro expansion to be done.

For the track, album and artist information displayed on the main
window, there is a further option for each as to whether it should
scroll. Scrolling will only happen if the length of the string in the
current desktop font is such that it would not fit in the icon in
question. Scrolling speed is dependant on the slow refresh setting
described below (scrolling pauses while any event that requires
fast refresh completes).


Timeformat:

This controls the default format of the time display.


Slow update and Fast update:

These allow you to set the refresh rates for the main window, in
centi-seconds.

Fast update is used while fast forwarding and rewinding.
Slow update is used in normal playback, and while paused.
(The window doesn't update at all while stopped)

If you're not interested in keeping the display up to date while fast
forwarding (rewinding is generally instant) then you might increase
the Fast update value. If you regularly play short files (below 1
minute), then you might want to decrease the Slow update value to
update the progress bar more frequently.

Slow update also defines the speed at which scrolling occurs in the
track, album and artist information icons.


* 4.2.2 Database Editor:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This allows you to define format strings for tracks, albums and artists
as displayed in the database editor. This format string is used for the
item selectors in the parent pane, not for things on particular panes
within the editor.

Again, the quick reference for the macros may be useful here.


* 4.2.3 Text Processing:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Show '_' as ' ':

This causes underscores to be shown as spaces in AMPlay windows and
menus.

Show '\' and '/' as '.'

This causes all forward or back slashes to be shown as dots.


LanMan98 Conversions:

This allows files accessed through the LanMan98 filesystem to show
characters that are not allowed in RISC OS filenames.

e.g. if a track name on the server side is;

Artist1 & Artist2 - a duet live@somewhere.mp3

LanMan98 would show this as;

Artist1 ;+ Artist2 - a duet live;=somewhere/mp3

With this option enabled, the trackname would be converted back to the
original for display purposes.

Systems other than LanMan98 may use the same mappings, so it's worth
a try for other things as well. LanMan98 is all it has been tested
with though.


Sunfish conversions:

This is a similar mechanism to the LanMan98 mechanism above, but using
the system that Sunfish appears to use for passing characters that are
not legal in normal RISC OS filenames.

Where an illegal character occurs in a filename on the server, Sunfish
appears to present it to RISC OS as ?xx, where xx is two digits of hex
indicating the ASCII value of the character in question. So;

Artist1 & Artist2 - a duet live@somewhere.mp3

Would be seen via sunfish as;

Artist1 ?26 Artist2 - a duet live?40somewhere.mp3

The Sunfish conversions options reverses this process and allows AMPlay
to display the original name.

As with the LanMan98 conversion, it may be applicable to other clients.


Space before Caps:

This is useful in two circumstances;

- Files have been stored without spaces in them, and you are using
  pathname based naming. (e.g. 01ATrackName/mp3)

- Due to the length limitations in the tag, the tag information has
  been entered with spaces omitted.

In either case, the assumption is that the capital letters in the
string can be used to work out where the spaces should be put back.

The upshot of this is a routine that will convert, for instance;

"01ATrackName(LIVE)" to "01 A Track Name (LIVE)"

i.e. keeping sequences of capitals together, but adding a space
where there appear to be word boundaries.

________________________________________________________________________
Copyright  2008 Mike Sandells, mike@mikejs.com
Last Modified: 30.05.2008