home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ===============================================================================
- CD-V ver 1.5
- ===============================================================================
-
- An Audio-CD VGA Player
-
- Itamar Grutman
- Israel
- 1994
-
- ===============================================================================
-
- This program was put as Public Domain by the author and may be distributed
- freely. It may not be sold, nor be made part of anything that is sold.
-
- ===============================================================================
-
- Description
- -----------
- This program was written to fulfill my need for a VGA-based audio-cd player
- for DOS. It seemed that all the nice CD players were written for windows and I
- found nothing for DOS. Since I don't like using the mouse in text mode, I wrote
- a graphic player.
-
- The program has a very simple interface and includes all the buttons one
- would expect to find in an advanced CD player as well as a blank screen saver.
-
- The bottom row of buttons corresponds to usual commands (e.g. stop,play)
- where the play button serves also as pause (toggle).
- The eject/close-tray button is on the right of the time display. When
- ejected or not ready, all buttons (except eject and PWR) are grayed (whited).
- The top row of buttons contains special purpose buttons, which are (from
- left to right) : Power, Track display(enables to select a track), Statistics
- display(Show totals and progress bars), Direction(Toggles between increasing or
- decreasing time),Play mode (sequential or ordered),Volume control,Mute and
- finally - About.
- All the top row buttons are togglers (except PWR, of course).
-
-
- NOTE : Volume control will work only for those devices that support it. It does
- not make use of the sound card, therefore, the sound card itself should
- be set to it's maximum level to get the full scale of the volume bar.
-
-
- Instructions
- ------------
- I will provide instructions only for what isn't obvious.
-
- Screen saver :
- Will either operate after a specified time (see configuration) of no
- movement or when the mouse is moved to the upper-left corner of the screen and
- remains idle there for 2 seconds.
- Moving the mouse or pressing a letter key on the keyboard will shut off the
- screen saver and return the program to the screen.
-
- Configuration :
- If a file called "cd-v.cfg" exists in the directory cd-v is run from, cd-v
- will read it's configuration from it. A sample file is included.
- The format is spartanic : The first number indicates the number of seconds to
- wait for the activation of the screen saver. A zero disables the screen saver.
- The second number indicates the starting volume level (ranging 0 to 255). A
- negative number means that the current volume level should be used.
- The third number holds the ascii of the key that will be used for addition of
- a track to the track list (see below - Track order selection).
- The following 4 numbers indicate the initial state of 4 of the togglers :
- Track display, Statistics display, Direction and Volume control, by that order.
- 0 means the togglers are off and 1 (or any other) that they are on.
- The following 16 numbers are the palette values (which I highly recommend not to
- change). If the first of them is negative, all are ignored. If not, the values
- are read into the system palette.
- Given with the included configuration file are the numbers for the default
- gray-level palette. The numbers there correspond to the following colors :
-
- BLACK 0
- BLUE 1
- GREEN 2
- CYAN 3
- RED 4
- MAGENTA 5
- LIGHTGRAY 7
- BROWN 20
- DARKGRAY 56
- LIGHTBLUE 57
- LIGHTGREEN 58
- LIGHTCYAN 59
- LIGHTRED 60
- LIGHTMAGENTA 61
- YELLOW 62
- WHITE 63
-
- As an example, changing between the entry containing 63 and the one
- containing 56 will result in all the buttons to be reversed (i.e. pressed
- instead of raised and raised instead of pressed).
-
-
- Track order selection :
- Press the Play-Mode button (drawn as 1-2-3 on diagonal) and the track order
- list should appear as well as the track selection box (if it wasn't visible). If
- this is the first time this mode is selection during a run of the program, the
- list would be almost empty and the first entry whould appear as a pressed button
- with the value of 1.
- Selection of a track from the track list changes the number in the currently
- pressed button in the order list. After selecting a track, depress the next
- button or press the key '+' (or the key selected in the config file, defaulted
- to '`') or press the button marked '+' at the top, and choose a track similarly.
- When choosing from the order list, you can always choose one of the tracks
- previously selected or the next-to-last selected track. You can't choose a
- specific button from the order list if there is an empty slot above it.
- To erase the last entry to the list press the button marked '-' on the top
- or press the RIGHT mouse button when the mouse pointer is located on any of the
- buttons of the list. Keeping the button pressed longer the 2 secs will activate
- the autorepeat feature which will erase an entry every 0.2 secs as long as the
- button is pressed.
- When leaving this mode, the track selection box will disappear if it wasn't
- visible when you entered the mode, or remain visible if it was visible before
- entering the mode.
- Entering this mode another time will display the previously set list. The
- mode is NOT functional, however, when the list is not DISPLAYED.
- The about box will disappear and not return if it was visible before
- entering the mode.
-
- AutoRepeat :
- When pressing a button longer than 1Sec, it gets released and if still
- pressed, will activate every 0.1Sec. Thus allowing true FF ,REW ,SKIP and PREV.
- The volume control autorepeat is faster ; The delay is only 0.5Sec and then then
- the button gets pressed every 0.01Sec (which is actually zero) and the volume is
- changed by a larger amount (10 levels instead of one with single press).
-
-
- Requirements
- ------------
- The program expects to find the following :
-
- - Microsoft compatible mouse and driver
- - MSCDEX version 2.20 or up
- - VGA adapter
- - 386
-
-
- Author
- ------
- The author can be reached by e-mail address :
-
- igrutman@bguee.bgu.ac.il
-
- Please send any observation, remark or suggestion you might have.
- I will try and code your suggestions if I like them and have the time.
-
-
- Thanks
- ------
- To Paul <something>, for being the first to contact me about the program.
-
-
- History
- -------
- 0.1 - First version.
-
- 0.2 - Fixed bugs :
- 1. Font and screen drivers not found when run from another directory.
- Fixed by moving them into the code thus leaving the only necessary
- file to be cd-v.exe
- 2. Track length not updated in statistics window when track was changed
- indirectly (by ff, rewind, or track finish).
-
- 1.0 - Added Track order selection for playing and indication of play mode
- at the top-right corner of the time display.
-
- 1.1 - Fixed bugs :
- 1. Memory access violations causing strange screen behaviour.
- 2. When clicking on a blank slot from the track list, a number appeared.
- 3. Incorrect disk length when playing entire disk.
-
- 1.2 - Fixed bugs :
- 1. When entering without a CD and the tray is closed, the button would
- operate properly (not operate) but would not get whited.
- 2. Tracks higher than 19 caused trouble due to incorrect BCD to decimal
- conversion.
-
- Added features:
- 1. Added the ability to exit with the ESC key. ESC now functions as PWR.
- 2. Added AutoRepeat feature. When pressing a button longer than 1Sec, it
- gets released and if still pressed, will activate every 0.1Sec. Thus
- allowing true FF ,REW ,SKIP and PREV.
- 3. Added screen-saving ability.
- 4. Added configuration file cd-v.cfg
-
- 1.3 - Added features:
- 1. Added volume control.
- 2. Added the ability to change the system palette from the configuration
- file.
- 3. Added the ability to change the initial state of commonly used
- togglers.
-
- 1.4 - Added features:
- 1. Added mute button.
- 2. Added "sleep now" corner.
- 3. Ablitity to erase last entry from order list.
- 4. Use of the keyboard key '+' to add an empty entry to the order list
- thus enabling faster filling of the list without running the mouse
- back and forth.
-
- Arbitrary changes:
- 1. Swapped places of the buttons SKIP with PREV and FF with REW.
-
- Fixed bugs:
- 1. The program would terminate when pressing SKIP or PREV in ordering
- mode and with the list empty. The list is now never really empty.
-
- 1.5 - Added features:
- 1. Added an entry in the config file to select one more key to function
- as the key '+'.
- 2. Added two buttons on the track order selection buttons : Add new
- entry and Remove last entry.
-