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FalcAMP V1.2 by Sector One [web]
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
| FalcAMP |
| GEM version |
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
by SPLASH & STGHOST
of SECTOR ONE
v1.20beta 31/12/2005
Welcome to FalcAMP v1.20 ! This is the fifth release of the GEM frontend
of FalcAMP which is our MP3 player for Atari Falcon030 computers. This
release took once again alot of time and features quite few improvements
(compared to plugins :)
Table Of Contents:
------------------
I / The Player
II / GEM interface
III / External control
IV / Changes since v1.09
V / Contact
I/ The Player
--------------
This player features a plugin system that will allow other fileformats
than the primary one to be played. Currently, only 2 plugins are available
and both are Mpeg audio layer 3 related plus a new plugin for playing
soundtracker MOD files (using dspmod engine).
Please refer to the documentation of each plugin for more informations
about the supported features and abilities.
The GEM interface is plugin independant (it's just designed for streamed
replay). Some parts of the interface<->plugin protocol are not finished
yet, so we apologize for missing functions... Don't contact us just for that,
there will be other releases.
II/ GEM Interface
------------------
We've tried to make it as easy to use as possible. However, please read
what follows before complaining about strange behaviour because it has
not a pure GEM behaviour in some cases...
The interface is splitted into many windows and features keyboard shortcuts
to move between these windows and access most function even without a mouse.
Check KEYS.TXT for the detail of available shortcuts.
The player will open many windows, if the system gets out of available
windows, current one will be used for the new display, that's not a bug
but a way of avoiding an horrible alert box ;)
This has been betatested under TOS, Mint and Magic, so in case of trouble
remember it's (probably nearly) not OS-dependant.
1) Main window
--------------
This window is icon based, most icons are quite specific but aren't... You
can also find a sliding bar in the bottom that will allow you to move inside
a file. Here comes the detail of all this...
In the top of the window, you'll find the filename. It will be replaced by
the title of the song if the file contain such information (ID3 tag in case
of MP3 files).
The 1st group of icons on the left controls the replay. It features basic
cd player functions: load/stop/play/pause/next/previous...
* LOAD: use it to change file... The new file will be loaded but won't
be played directly.
* STOP: use it to stop current replay. The audio system will remain locked
and the file will remain locked, it's kind of super-pause in fact.
The file will be restarted at the begining if you play it again...
Click on STOP a 2nd time to physically close the file and to release
audio subsystem & DSP. NB: When you quit FalcAMP, the audio subsystem
will always be released.
* PLAY: start the replay of current file (or unpause it if it was in pause).
If no file is loaded or if the replay is already active, it will call
the fileselector to load another file. If you load a file using this
button, it will be played directly.
* PAUSE: stops replay but keep current position. Re-select this button to
unpause the file.
* PREVIOUS: if elapsed time is higher than 3 seconds, it will seek to the
file to its start. Else, will jump to previous file in playlist (if
it's not empty...)
* NEXT: jumps to next file in playlist (if it's not empty...)
* FASTFORWARD: works like pause button, but for faster replay instead of
pausing. This features has not been tested though as available
plugins doesn't support it... (It won't have any effect with plugins
which doesn't recognize it)
* LOOP: when selected current file won't stop at the end, and will restart
from its beginning, thus it won't allow the player to jump to next file
if you're in playlist mode ! (It won't have any effect with plugins
which doesn't recognize it)
The second group of icons is a bit less obvious but not tricky at all...Here
comes the details (from left to right and top to bottom order)
* PLAYLIST: will open the playlist editor window
* FILEINFO: will open a window with information about loaded file
* ABOUT: will display informations about the program
* ADDTOLIST: current file will be added at the end of the playlist
* PLUGINFO: will open the plugin-info window
* CONFIG: preliminary setup window... will be redesigned later.
Then comes the time display. It displays theorically elapsed playtime, not
real playtime. It's not possible to show the remaining time because of
variable bitrate files...
Right below time display is a slidebar that controls volume. Just move it
to modify output volume (if the plugin supports this). Note that you can
also control it manually using the sound setup of xcontrol (both methods
are independant... software control in plugin - hardware control in the cpx)
And finally, there's the slidebar that shows current position in current
file. You can use it to move inside the file. BUT DON'T TRY TO SLIDE IT,
just click to the position you want to go to !
2) Program Information / File Informations
------------------------------------------
Well, these windows are rather obvious I think... nothing to do except
reading what is written ! :-)
3) Playlist editor
------------------
This player comes with a very basic playlist editor. The playlist format
is M3U, it's an ascii format so you can even make/edit list by hand too.
The editor features a small display window and a slider on its right side
(you can either click to where you want to go or slide the cursor here).
Then comes a few buttons in the bottom:
* ADD: open fileselector to select a new file... File will be appended at
the end of the list or right before the 1st selected item on display.
If you select a playlist, it will be appended to current one too.
* DELETE: use it to remove all selected entries from the playlist.
* PLAY: start the replay of playlist (the player is now in playlist mode
until you manually load a file).
* LOAD: let you load a new playlist
* SAVE: save current playlist
* CLEAR: flush all entries of current playlist
* PLAYLIST MODE: this button controls switching between single file mode
and playlist mode. It mostly affects the LOOP function of main
window (it won't loop current file endlessly if list mode is active)
* SHUFFLE: this button enables a simple randomizer for the playlist mode.
It has a little memory of past songs so you can skip to previous song
if you feel like listening to it again.
4) Plugin informations
----------------------
Nothing special here. It will display informations about available plugins
in the player. Refer to the each plugin information file for details of
supported/missing features. You can either slide or click to where you want with
the slider.
5) Player setup
---------------
Here you'll find an opton to force mono output, it's useful for slow
Falcons (esp if you want to play MPEG1 streams). This was formerly known
as the "Special Standard mode" in TTP version.
III/ External control
--------------------
This interface accept commandlines parameters and also VA_START & DRAG'n'DROP
protocols. The AV_SENDKEY function has been added but not tested...
The commandline control is quite basic, you can specify either 1 or more
files even with longnames. If multiples filenames are present, a playlist
will be automatically built and started. If commandline contains 1 playlist,
it will be loaded and played too (but the playlist has to be alone in the
parameter list).
The VA_START protocol can be used to start a file anytime. This will turn
off playlist mode unless you send a playlist through this method, in which
case it will be started automatically.
The DRAG'n'DROP protocol can be used to pass 1 or more filenames to the
player. If the dragndrop is performed on the playlist window, all passed
file(s) will be appended to current list. If you dragndrop a playlist on the
editor window it will be appended too. If you dragndrop on another window,
a single file will be played directly but if you pass many files (or a
single playlist), they will be played as a new list (overwriting existing
one, so be careful)...
The AV_SENDKEY message is used to pass keypress to FalcAMP, but keep in
mind that key interpreting is window dependant in FalcAMP ! I've just added
it because it was a request, but I'm not convinced of it's usefulness.
IV/ Changes since v1.09
----------------------
Few change again, but it's more visible this time... More is planned
once Joint-Stereo will be done... Last changes were:
- Better support of faster falcons, this version should work better with CT60.
- Some changes occured in RSC files, so previous one cannot be used
(except if you apply the changes to obtain new structure)
- New shuffle mode for playlist, and possibility to switch between
file mode and playlist mode.
- A new plugin for playing MOD files
- A preliminary attemp to make a mintnet version of the shoutcast plugin.
However both stik and mintnet version can't be active at same time, you have
to change file extension to enable/disable plugins.
- now you can directly enter radio URL by pressing Ctrl+L
For those who don't remind, the changes from v1.08 to v1.09:
- changed rsc files location in the directory tree
- added a skin selection system (changing RSC on the fly). If you are
running FalcAMP as an ACC under TOS, only change RSC when you're not
in another program (from desktop only)
- modified icon & color icon handler to automatically width in order
to enable full range of the sliders (color icons must have a mono icon
with the same size than the color ones, else width isn't adjusted)
- fixed a bug in drag'n'drop when the list of parameter is too big,
now the buffer is dynamic
- enlarged the playlist buffer from 16K to 64K (untested), but still
limited to 2047 entries
And the changes from v1.01 to v1.08:
Here's a non-exhaustive list of the main changes that were made:
- all setup files are taken as lowercase
- modified redraw routine to cope with texts and transparent areas in
color icons
- correct name display of the program under Mint
- proper setting of the system to leave FalcAMP cleanly
- fixed some tricky display troubles in the playlist
- some fixes on playlist / mp3 file handling
- added volume control
- added fastforward support
- added support for URL-like pseudofiles (to call specific plugins)
- fixed some bugs in the plugin loader
- fixed a bug in memory handler
- behaviour of dragndrop rewritten
- support for title change on the fly (on plugin request)
- added track display in fileinfo window
- many fixes in playlist behaviour (current position correctly handled
when adding/deleting entries)
- fixed accessory mode
- many fixes in paths handling
- fixed completely (normally) the 'add to playlist' function
- some changes in the player look (but still not changed the preferences)
- autosaving of window position (even when in accessory). If a window goes
beyond screen borders on startup, it will recentered (even for 1 pixel !).
Don't forget to backup your favourite FAMPDATA\FAMP.DAT file ;-)
- added support for autostarting of a file upon loading (write the filename
in FAMPDATA\FAMP.INF, it can be a file or a playlist... but only 1st line
will be parsed in this INF file). That's a rather nice feature when used
as an accessory ;-)
- Added multi-user support: each user will have FAMP.DAT and FAMP.INF files
in his/her home directory instead of the FAMPDATA directory of FalcAMP
itself.
V/ Contact
----------
The player has been tested alot but some bugs can remain :( The plugins
can report errors (for example, the MP3 plugin may complain about a dsp
timeout), in this case, have a look at the plugin doc... The GEM interface
may only got troubles from plugins... The interface has been designed so that
the closer button of each window will bring you to main window if no other
one is available, and only the closer of main window will exit the program
(but ctrl+q is always available). That's a security I kept from the single
window version of the player, it's not a bug !
If you find any GEM interface related bug, please email-me at this address:
deunstg@free.fr with at least the keyword 'famp' in the subject. If this is
a plugin related bug, check the contact section in the documentation of the
plugin.
Don't hesitate to visit http://falcamp.atari.org if you have troubles or if
you want to be sure to have the latest version (don't send a bug report if
you don't have the latest release !!! it will be ignored then...)
STGHOST of SECTOR ONE
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