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Contents

  Home
  MP3 library layout
  Choices
  Utilities
  Play Lists
  Themes
  ID3 Tags
  ToDo list
  Limitations
  Known Bugs
  History
  Contact

ROTunes User Manual

Welcome to ROTunes

Version 0.14 (10th Apr 2006)

Purpose

Play MP3's using a user-interface similar to iTunes on Mac OS X.

Modules Required

ROTunes requires the AMPlayer module to be installed on your computer. You can download a copy of this from www.armware.dk/files/amplayer/

Licence/Copyright

ROTunes was written by Paul Vigay and is subject to copyright. It's been released as 'FREEWARE' which means you are permitted to freely copy and distribute it on the sole condition that all files are included and unaltered from the originals and no money is charged for distribution.

You may however, delete the 'choices' and everything in the 'data' directory, as these files are generated automatically if they doesn't exist.

Use

To load, double click on the !ROTunes icon. This will place an icon on the iconbar.
If it's the first time you've run it, and no library database exists, a window will open asking you to import some MP3s.
Drag the directory containing your MP3s into this window and click 'Add to Library' to being the import and building of the main library. This may take a few minutes depending on the number of MP3 files in your directory. It takes approximately 1 minute to index 7500 files on my Iyonix. A small count indicator increments with every 100 files detected.
N.B. To be recognised by ROTunes, MP3 files must be filetyped AMPEG (&1AD) or they will be ignored.

Although ROTunes is reasonably good at indexing libraries of MP3 files, it's advised to store your music collection in a standard layout.

The Main Window

Control of this window should be self explanatory, with three main sections; A top toolbar, the main information window and a bottom toolbar.

The top toolbar

From left to right;

Previous TrackLeft - Skip to the previous track
PausePlay/Pause - Play or pause the current track.
Next TrackRight - Skip to the next track
Volume 1
Volume 2
LEDs - Dual volume control (sets which volume is edited by volume settings)
SpeakerVolume - Toggle open/close a small window containing a small volume slider control.
If you click on Adjust, it will immediately switch between two preset volume levels (indicated by small LEDs to the left) so that you can quickly re-adjust the volume to a 'phone call' level.
Track Name
Name - The name and length of the current track.
Beneath this icon is a small graphical representation of the current play position within the current track. You can click on this bar to jump to a preset position within the current track.
The time on the right is the time remaining of the current track.
Current TrackCurrent track - Click to reposition the scroll bars to the currently playing track.
Search - Enter some text to search for track name, artist or album. On pressing return the first occurrence from the beginning of the database will the shown.
If you subsequently search for exactly the same search string, the next occurrence will be shown. If no matches are found, a beep will sound.

Beneath these main controls are the column titles separated by small slider bars. These are draggable in order to define the column widths - there are still some bugs in this though.

The main window

The main window is divided into two sections. The left contains the playlists available, in addition to the main library.
This is not fully implemented yet (see below)
The right side shows the main music database and comprises a number of colums including track name, artist and album name.
A small speaker icon indicates the currently playing track.
Double-click on a track to jump to and start playing it.

The bottom toolbar

At present contains two icons and an information indicator showing the number of tracks and disc space occupied.
The two icons are (left to right);

Add PlaylistAdd playlist - Add a new smart playlist.
ShuffleShuffle - Toggle shuffle mode on or off (see choices)
If on, tracks will be played in a random order.
The calculated 'total playing time' is also shown in the bottom toolbar.
ClockClock - If the clock has been enabled in the choices a digital clock will be displayed, along with a small LED to indicate if any alarms are set.
Click on it to toggle the alarm setting window.
ErrorIf the AMPlayer module reports any errors they will be shown on the right of the bottom toolbar. If AMPlayer reports that No ID3 tag is found, then ROTunes will try to extract the ID3 data itself. This can be viewed by selecting the 'Track xx...' option from the main menu.

The Mini Control window

Mini controller window

If you have the mini control window enabled, it reproduces the main controls such as previous/next track and play/pause. It also displays the current track playing and time remaining. If you click SELECT on the name playing icon, it will toggle between track name, album and artist. A small 'x' in the top left corner closes the window.

© Paul Vigay