CDAudio  -  Advanced CD Player

by Mike Fowler

CDAudio is a powerful audio CD cataloguing and playing application. It will automatically display the CD title and track titles for any CD which it recognises, and it can hold the details of over 300 CDs. You can create and play a selection of favourite tracks, and this selection can be stored with the CD details, and reloaded each time the CD is played. With the additional features of auto play and auto eject, you can insert a CD in the drive, and CDAudio will automatically play the selected tracks and eject the CD at the end, without the need for any further action! The display can show the elapsed time or remaining time for the current track, selection (if any) or the whole CD.

To run CDAudio, click on its icon in the RISC User Master menu system or double-click on its icon in the Filer window. If an audio CD is present in the CD-ROM drive, CDAudio's Control Panel window will open and, providing the details have already been entered, display the CD's name and track details. Otherwise, click Select on the iconbar icon to open this window. The Control Panel window can be reopened in this way at any later stage.

Clicking Menu on the iconbar icon displays a menu with five options. In addition to the usual Info and Quit options, there are three additional options: Drive, Auto play and Auto eject. Drive leads to a submenu, which, in a multi-CD system, enables the CD-ROM drive containing the CD to be selected. The other two options may be ticked or unticked. When Auto play is ticked, the application will automatically play a CD when it is inserted in the drive. When Auto eject is ticked, the application will automatically eject the CD when it has finished playing.

The Control Panel allows you to operate the CD player. It also displays the current status of the CD, and displays and allows you to enter or change the CD and track titles.

On the left of the Control Panel is a display area which shows the current status of the CD. While a CD is playing, this can show one of the following: 

- the elapsed playing time of the current track

- the remaining playing time of the current track

- the elapsed playing time of the CD

- the remaining playing time of the CD (or selection)

The display can be made to change between these modes by clicking Select anywhere within the display area.

To the right of the display area are the buttons which control the operation of the CD player. These use the symbols found on most hi-fi CD players, and are as follows:

(top row, left to right)

PLAY, PAUSE, STOP

(bottom row, left to right)

FAST REWIND, REWIND, FORWARD, FAST FORWARD, EJECT

Below the display area and control buttons are two long icons which show the title of the CD and the title of the current track respectively. Their total playing times are shown to the right. When there is no CD in the drive, the first title shows 'Drive empty' and the second is blank, while the times both show '00:00'.

Clicking Select on the resize icon will alternately show just the Control Panel as described above, or the Control Panel with the addition of the list of track titles (only if a CD has been inserted in the drive).

If CDAudio does not recognise the CD in the drive, the CD title is shown as 'Unknown disc' plus a number - see below. The track titles are shown as 'Track 01', etc. It is then possible to type in the actual CD and track titles and save them, so that the next time the CD is inserted, it is recognised and the actual titles are displayed. Position the pointer over the appropriate icon, click Select, press Ctrl-U to delete the default values, and then type in the correct titles.

To save the CD and track titles, click Menu over the extended Control Panel window, and choose Save tracks. CDAudio will save the titles in a file in a directory within the application; the filename will be the number which appeared after the message 'Unknown disc' when the CD was first inserted. Up to 4 directories are used to hold CD details (CDs.CD1 - CDs.CD4), allowing up to 308 CDs to be defined. CDAudio will automatically save a CD's details in the first of these directories which is not full. If all are full, a warning message will be displayed.

When a CD is inserted which CDAudio recognises (i.e. CD and track titles have already been been saved in a file), the titles are automatically loaded. The total playing time of each track is automatically displayed to the right of the track title. To the left is a small 'Play' button. Clicking Select on this (except when in Program or Random modes) will cause this track to be immediately played.

To create a selection of favourite tracks which can be played instead of playing the whole CD, click Select on the Program button. The Selection window will then open, and the Control Panel window will automatically toggle to full size to allow tracks to be chosen.

If a selection already exists, it will be listed in the Selection window. Any number of tracks can be added to the selection, in any order. To add a track, click on the small Play button to the left of the track title and the track number will be appear at the end of the list in the Selection window. An entry in the selection can be deleted by highlighting it with Select, and then clicking on Del. A complete selection can be deleted by clicking on Clear.

When you are happy with the selection, click on OK. This will close the Selection window, and store the selection in the program. To play the selection, click on Program and then click on Play. The display area and control buttons will then apply to the selection, e.g. the Fast Forward button will advance to the next track in the selection.

The selection can be saved with the CD and track titles by clicking Menu over the Control Panel and choosing Save tracks. The selection will then be loaded the next time the CD is inserted, and, if Auto Play is ticked, automatically played.

The Random button, above the track titles in the Control Panel, provides a special type of selection: it creates a random sequence of all tracks on the CD. In all other respects it can be treated as a selection.

 Copyright RISC User Magazine 1996
