Welcome to QwikCD... What this application aims to do was is allow the user to access their CD-ROM drive, be able to easily play audio tracks, and the last criterion is that it should fit into the smallest amount of RAM that it would be possible to run it on startup, and not notice the RAM lost.
As you will hopefully find out by running the application I have succeded on all of these points (Hopefully)...
The Interface
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Maybe Acorn won't approve of this applications interface; it doesn't conform to the style guide because it uses a dark greyed in section in the controls window, but, well.. I could name many things I don't approve of what Acorn do! Numero uno... Marketing......... :-)
In Use
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This application is easy to use. So easy infact, I'm not going to tell you much about it, you can figure it out yourself, or use RISC OS Interactive help as a guideline as to what is happening.
Basically, drag the application to some place where it can be left, ie. Hard Drive/Blank Floppy, and double click on it. Seconds later, a CD with a musical note next to it will appear on your iconbar. From here, either click `Player` from the menu or click on the icon and the control window will open. From here you can use the various `CD-like controls` to (left to right) rewind, stop, pause, play or fast forward.
Clicking menu over the window produces a menu - wow!. Moving the pointer right over the menu item `Tracks` produces a submenu which contains a list of the tracks on the CD (Clicking on one will make the CD play it), as long as you have defined the names of the tracks.
When a CD is paused, the pause indicator will flash. Pressing pause or play will make the CD carry on from the position.
If you insert a CD which the application doesn't recognise, a window will open. In here, you will need to type in the details, like Title etc. This window is tailored for that exact disc, for example it will have the correct number of track icons.
If you need more help than this, you will need to use interactive help (Apps icon or RiscOS applications disc).
Notable features
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There are some notable features about this QwikCD player, over any other player (PD/Commercial or whatever, and being a `normal` PD/Shareware programmer, I thought I might gloat a bit;
• This application doesn't stop the computer when the CD changes from track to track. One CD playing application does do this, and it can be a real pain in the arse!
• This application can list the tracks on the CD, as well as the title of the CD, and you can pick which track you want to listen to in various easy ways (FF/Rew buttons, or direct name clicking from a menu/dialogue box)
• This application can have an INFINITE number of CDs (Is there that many :-) ) stored away in it's memory files.
• This application can work with ANY CD-ROM player (device 0 - 7), letting the user pick the device (s)he is using from a menu in the config window.
• This application is PD, unlike all the others!
• And the reason why everyone has got it; It was written by me, of course!
Note(s)
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If you press eject whilst the CD is playing, the audio CD will be ejected as usual, but when push the drive back in, the audio CD will automatically start playing! Clever eh? This is not really a feature that I thought up, but is really an `after-effect` of what happens when the disc is scanned for it's positioning etc. The only thing is that the disc name will not be rescanned. This will be found in the regular scan that QwikCD does every 50 wimp polls.
I would be interested to recieve your CD list. I would like to build up a collection of as many of these as possible. I will split them up into their seperate CD sections, and place them in a special area on my BBS for people to download. This would make it so that you wouldn't have to bother typing in your CD details, you could simply either;
i) Logon to my BBS, search for that CD
ii) Or look in an archive to find that CD already stored! Clever eh?
So, can I urge you to send any MyCD files to any of the contact points below.
My other software
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I have written various other pieces of software, below is a list of them, and where you are likely to find them;
T D R
!2ndHand - Help with buying a second hand archie S N Y
!CCDoor - Call cost door, a door for BBSs users M Y Y
to use
!CD Door - A BBS door, allows users to access M Y N
the CD
!ClickCom - Click on the icon, and it issues a M N Y
star command of YOUR choice
!CMOS - A CMOS RAM settings saver M N Y
!CompComp - Compare your compies speed to an S N Y
A3000 and a RiscPC
!Contacts - An address book M Y N
!DoorMng - An ARCbbs door manager M Y N/Y (tester)
!Eventz - Set up an alarm like database M Y Y
!Make20 - Last 20 users on an ArmBBS bulletin M Y N/Y (tester)
board
!QwikCD - An audio CD player M Y N/Y (tester)
!RiscMacro - Use macros in RiscOS M Y N
!SerialLED - Show the serial port LEDs in a window M Y N
(Uses block driver)
!SpeedTest - Show the speed of your computer M Y Y
!STDCodes - A telephone code converter M N Y
!TrashCan - A Mac TrashCan derivative M Y Y
RGB - Show the pwetty colours of the S N Y
rainbow!
!ZAnsiDial - A little modem dialler for all you M Y Y
comms people
Key -
T - Tasking :-
m - Multitasking
s - Singletasking
D - Developing :-
y - Yes (Wow, he's actually doing some work!)
n - No (aw!)
R - Released :-
y - Yes (Wow, he's actually got something finished!)
n - No (Oh come on, release _something_ $:^) )
You should be able to get all the ones marked with `released` from your local (Or not so local as it probably will be!) PD library or an Archie BBS (Arcade/Digibank). There are a few other applications lurking on my hard drive, which I havent bothered to mention just yet, in case they don't turn into anything good (ie. they are worthy of my worthy trashcan!), and may I stress that even though there seems to be quite a lot of applications up there which I aren't releasing to the GAP (General Archimedes Public), they are usable, but not quite in a state worthy of release, ie. Internal Address Exceptions (`The pixies`) are rife!
Copyright
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This application is Archimedes PD. What this means is that it can be given to friends, put on BBSs, or passed to PD libraries freely. For this, the person who the application has come from must charge NO MORE than the price of a disc and postage. If you want to charge silly amounts for your discs, then you know where you can go, I write this software for free, and I am **NOT** letting other people make large profits from it (If anyone should make any cash, it should be me!).
I am allowing anyone to put it into/onto the follwing things;
CD with mass storage of PD software
Servers on any type of network
[[[ Archimedes PD (Public Domain) = PC Freeware ]]]
[[[ Archimedes Freeware = PC PD (Public Domain)]]]
Known bugs/problems
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Below is a short list of bugs that I have found in testing the package, and as yet haven't fixed/cannot fix them (due to techie reasons, or mad pixies ;-) )
• Sometimes, when a new CD is inserted into the drive, and QwikCD is asked to scan it, on the odd occasion the CD isn't recognised. This can be fixed by taking the disc out of the drive, and re-inserting it. I think this maybe something to do with CDFS rather than my program, or it might be my CD rom drive playing up on the odd occasion.
• In the present version, if the CD-ROM has just been inserted into the drive, and it is being scanned, if you load QwikCD (or click on the `whats this CD` icon) it ends up getting to the end of the file, which is rather strange. I don't know as yet how to fix it.
• All RiscPC users should note that whilst they have fonted windows, they will look awful if they are in a 16 colour mode. It is exactly the same with QwikCD, it looks nice in 256col modes (or above) but below, it looks awful. Most RiscPC users will be using modes with 256 cols or more (I do!).
Thanks go to
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For helping me creating this application, !QwikCD, I am thanking;
• Me (For actually spending the time to write it)
• Cher, Heart, Belinda Carlisle, Marcella Detroit, Kate Bush, Eurythmics, Pat Benatar, Alannah Myles, Tina Turner, Pauline Henry, Deborah Harry, Voice Of The Beehive, The Bangles, Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Tyler, Transvision Vamp, L7, Laura Branigan, Kim Carnes, and last but not least (?) Martha and the Muffins for being on Satin and Steel (Which I used to test QwikCD).
• The Prodigy, for playing whilst I was doing my wonderful coding!
• Kenco (`At Kenco we use only the finest beans`) for my lovely every quarter-of-an-hour coffee break!
• Asda, for making those lovelly doughnuts which make that quarter of an hour coffee break that much better!
• Acorn (For producing such a wondeful machine (RiscPC lover!)).. (Yuk!)
• And, euh... No one else (Aint I sad, or mebe not?!)
Contacting me
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You can contact me at the following places;
Snail mail -
15, Red Beck Vale
Shipley
West Yorkshire
BD18 3BN
England (For all you folks out in Ozy, and Norway!)
EMail - cjackson@digibank.demon.co.uk
`Chris Jackson` (#1) on The Northern ARM BBS << Quickest
(01274 530831) << Quickest
`Chris Jackson` on Digital Databank
(01707) 323531/(01707) 329306
`AAUC` on Arcade
(081) 654 2212/(081) 655 4412
Telephone - (0274) 596407
BBS - Phone 01274 530831 to access my 24Hr Archimedes BBS. It is run on ArmBBS with the space left on my Hard Drive (ie. about 100Mb) as a filebase storage. Two CDs supplement this, making up the total storage space (100Mb) plus PD already there (600Mb) to 700Mb! Call it now with your modem setup for 8N1, at upto 14k4...
