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Esprit de Apple Corps
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1994-10-30
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Sonobox 1.0 by Tony Morales
Copyright (c) 1994 by Tony Morales
All Rights Reserved
INTRODUCTION
Sonobox is FreeWare. Please give copies of Sonobox to everyone you
know. You may upload Sonobox to other on-line services or BBSs and
include Sonobox with other software, as long as my copyright notices
remain intact, and the program and it's documentation are not modified
in any way.
WHAT IS SONOBOX?
Sonobox is an Apple IIgs New Desk Accessory (NDA) that allows the
loading and playing of Amiga music MODules (MODs) from within any
desktop application that supports NDAs. Sonobox features extremely high
quality sound output, the ability to listen to songs in the background
while you work, variable stereo and volume controls, and much more.
Sonobox plays MODs that conform to the standard set by the
Protracker program on the Amiga, as well as Startrekker 4-track MODs,
and some older Noisetracker/Soundtracker MODs.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Sonobox works on any Apple IIgs computer running GS/OS 6.0 or
later. Sonobox is more usable if you have a hard drive and more than
2MB of RAM, though these are not absolutely necessary to use the
program. To install Sonobox, copy the file "Sonobox" from this archive
into the Desk.Accs folder inside your System folder and restart your
computer.
USING SONOBOX
To use Sonobox, select it from the Apple menu. When you first
install Sonobox, it's play list will be empty. Therefore, you must add
some songs to the play list. This is described below. Sonobox keeps
track of your play list between uses of the program by storing a small
file in your Desk.Accs folder named "Sonobox.Data". Each time you open
Sonobox, it tries to load this file.
ADDING SONGS
To add a song to the play list, click the "Add" button. You will
then be presented with a dialog box, asking you to select a song. If
the "Play Only" checkbox in this dialog is checked when you open a song,
rather than adding the selected song to the play list, Sonobox will
attempt to load and play that song.
DELETING SONGS
If you do not want a particular song to remain in the play list,
you may remove it by hiliting that song and clicking the "Delete"
button.
PLAYING SONGS
To play a song, double-click on an entry in the play list.
Alternatively, you may hilite the song and click the "Play" button.
Note that if you want to play a song from disk without adding it to the
play list, click the Add button and check the Play Only checkbox. See
the "ADDING SONGS" section for more information.
STOPPING A SONG
To stop the currently playing song, click the "Stop" button.
PLAYER OPTIONS
Sonobox allows you to adjust many parameters involved in the
playback of songs. See the "THE OPTIONS DIALOG" section for more
information on what options Sonobox allows you to set.
ABOUT SONOBOX
You can get additional information on Sonobox by clicking the
"About" button.
THE OPTIONS DIALOG
When you click on the "Options" button, a dialog box will appear
with all of the player options Sonobox allows you to modify. The
following sections describe these options in detail.
CONTROLLING THE TEMPO
Normally, Sonobox uses a default timing rate of 50Hz while it is
playing MODs. This is due to the fact that most MODs ever created were
written using trackers which ran at a 50Hz clock rate. However, some
MODs have been written to run at 60Hz. With older MODs, there was no
easy way, short of listening to the song, to tell which clock rate the
song should be played at.
Sonobox allows you to select from a default playing speed of 50Hz,
or an increased speed of 60Hz. You may toggle these settings by
clicking on the appropriate radio button, either "50Hz" or "60Hz".
STEREO OUTPUT
Sonobox normally plays all songs in stereo. You may listen to
Sonobox's output in mono, if you wish. When the "Stereo" checkbox is
checked, output is in stereo, otherwise, it is mono.
ADJUSTING THE VOLUME
You may select from one of four different volume settings while
listening to songs with Sonobox. The settings you may select from are
expressed in percentages of the maximum possible output Sonobox
produces. The available options are 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Simply
click the appropriate radio button. The default is 100%.
BACKGROUND PLAYING
One of Sonobox's most exciting features is it's ability to continue
to play songs, even after you have closed the Sonobox window. This is
known as background playing. You may turn on background playing by
clicking the "Yes" radio button next to the "Background playing:"
heading. Turn off background playing by clicking the "No" radio button.
When background playing is on, Sonobox will shut off the player
when you quit the current application, rather than when you quit
Sonobox.
TROUBLESHOOTING
This section will try to explain what is going on if you get an
error while using Sonobox. Where ever possible, workarounds are
suggested.
I get an error that says that an application is currently using the
sound tools when I try to play a song! If some other part of the system
is using the sound hardware when you attempt to play a song, Sonobox
will alert you to this, since only one client may use the IIgs sound
facilities at any one time. Try opening Sonobox from an application
that does not use sound.
I get an error that says the song I am loading can't be found!
Sonobox will give you this error when a song you have selected to play
cannot be located where Sonobox believes it is. This can happen if you
move a song from one folder to another. When you get this error, you
have three options. You may choose to have Sonobox automatically remove
this song from the play list by clicking the "Delete" button, you may
tell Sonobox to try to locate this song again by clicking the "Try
Again" button, or you may cancel the operation entirely by clicking
"Cancel". Note that it is perfectly acceptable to insert an off-line
disk at this point, and click Try Again. This way, you can have several
songs from different disks all in one list.
RAP UP
Sonobox is copyright (c) 1994 by Tony Morales. Sonobox has been
tested, and works fine, in a wide variety of applications, and should
cause you no problems. However, I shall not be held responsible for any
loss of data as a result of the use of this software. If you find any
bugs in the enclosed software, or if you have suggestions for it's
improvement, feel free to contact me at one of the following addresses.
GEnie: t.morales
Internet: hexman@netcom.com