Introducing QCD

Welcome to the QCD Player help system! Use this information to understand how to use your QCD player most effectively.

If you want to find out about the controls and buttons on the QCD Player (base skin ), go to The QCD Controls.

Tip: All the features of the player are also accessible via the Main Menu and hot key commands.

If you want to learn how to get started with QCD, go to any of these topics:

The QCD Controls

The illustration below shows all the controls as they appear on the QCD base (default) skin. Click on any number to see what the control does.

Note: Other skins may not have all these features, or will give the controls very different locations and appearances than shown here. If you want to find a certain control, and QCD does not appear as shown below, just type Ctrl-0 (zero) to restore the default skin.

Tip: Use the Message Area (#1 below) to remember what each control does. As you move your mouse pointer over the controls on the QCD base skin, the Message Area describes what it does. If a description appears in parentheses, a right-click shortcut menu is available. For example, as you move your mouse pointer over the Time Display (#5 below), the Message Area shows "play time (settings)", which tells you that this control shows the play time, and you can click your right mouse button to bring up 'settings' for the play time display.

Here's the QCD base skin. Click a number to see what the control does.

#	Control Name	What it does
1	QCD Message Area	Displays control descriptions (tool tips) as well as event, status, and error messages. Control descriptions in parentheses ( ) indicate something you can do with the right mouse button.
2	Menu button	Opens the QCD main menu.
3	Playlist Time button	Displays the time for the full Playlist (all tracks).
4	Track Time button	Displays the time for the track currently playing.
5	Time Display window	The main time display; shows the track or Playlist time elapsed or remaining. back to illustration
6	Elapsed Time button	Displays the total elapsed time in the track or Playlist.
7	Remaining Time button	Displays the remaining time in the track or Playlist.
8	Visual effects gain (visual level )	Controls the reaction of the visual effects to the music.
9	Visual Effects Area	Displays visual effects which react to the beat of the music. If nothing is displayed, use the Next Visual Effect button to turn the visual effect on. back to illustration
10	Always On Top button	Keeps player on top of other windows.
11	Change Skin Mode buttons	The single arrow switches to the next (or previous) skin mode in the currently loaded skin family . The double arrow switches to the last (or first) mode in the skin family.
12	Minimize Window button	Minimizes the QCD window (excluding the Playlist extended area if it is detached) to the taskbar or system tray.
13	Close button	Closes the QCD player.
14	Help button	Displays QCD Help. back to illustration
15	Next Visual Effect button	Displays the next visual effect.
16	Full-screen and Visual Effects Window buttons	The upper button launches the full-screen visualization when music is playing. The lower button opens a separate window for displaying the visual effects (normally displayed in #9), so that you can move or resize the visualization area. Caution: The larger the visualization window, the more computation resources required, which may slow down other applications' performance.
17	Album / Artist Name display	Displays the artist and album name for the currently playing track. If the track is an MP3 or other digital music file, the album name may not be available.
18	Track Name display	Displays the track name for the currently playing track. back to illustration
19	Playback Progress slider	Displays current location in the track or Playlist. You can drag this to fast-forward or rewind to any location.
20	Music Library button	Provides a list of plug-ins to use for maintaining your local database of CDs and tracks.
21	Edit Song Information button	Lets you edit information about the currently selected track. If part of a CD, the CDDB submit dialog appears. For MP3s, an ID3 tag editor appears.
22	Extended Info button	Lets you view information about any of the tracks in the Playlist (the current track, by default). Tip: If you want see the Extended Info, but the current skin provides no visible button, just double-click the Track Name (#18), or press Ctrl +E.
23	Play/Stop/Pause/Eject/Next Track/Previous Track	Provide traditional playback controls. back to illustration
24	Volume Knob	Adjusts the QCD volume level. This only affects QCD volume (unlike the sound-card Volume in the Mixer controls (#27), which affects volume for all applications on your computer).
25	Equalizer/Mixer button	Displays/hides the Equalizer and Mixer controls.
26	Equalizer controls	Graphic equalizer sliders let you shape the tone on a frequency-by-frequency basis. This is only supported with some plug-ins (such as MP3 playback).
27	Mixer controls	Volume, Bass, and Treble adjust the sound-card settings. To adjust the volume for a specific channel, right-click on the Volume slider. Note that this sound-card Volume is different from the QCD Volume Knob (#24) because it affects all applications on your system. Balance adjusts the QCD left-right speaker balance (if you have a stereo sound-card). Balance does not affect other applications. To use any of the slider controls: Use your mouse to drag the slider control left/right or up/down. For more information, see Using the Mixer. back to illustration
28	Music Links button	Displays a menu of links that open your web browser.
29	Music Browser button	Opens the Gracenote Music Browser to display more information about the currently playing artist.
30	Playlist button	Displays/hides the QCD Playlist. In the default skin, you can drag the Playlist area away from the main body of QCD.
31	Playlist	The list of tracks queued for playing. Click on a specific track to jump to it. back to illustration
32	Add (to Playlist) button	Adds one or more tracks to the displayed Playlist. Provides choices to add single tracks, saved Playlists, folders of music, or Internet locations (URLs) that stream music.
33	Remove Tracks button	Provides choices to remove all "marked", all "unmarked", or all tracks from the Playlist. To "mark" a track, click the track name using the right mouse button.
34	Save Playlist button	Saves the current Playlist to a file that you can load later using the Add button (#32).
35	Sort Playlist button	Provides a number of choices for sorting the Playlist. back to illustration
36	Playlist Scrollbar	Lets you scroll through the Playlist if it's longer than the Playlist area. To use the Scrollbar, drag the slider knob and up and down, or click the up / down buttons above and below the scrollbar.
37	Search Playlist	Lets you type in all or part of a track title to search in the Playlist. To find all matches, hit Enter after you type your search word(s). Use down and up arrows to go to the next or previous match.
38	Repeat Track/Repeat All toggle	Repeats the currently playing track or the entire Playlist.
39	Shuffle button	Shuffles the order of the Playlist.
40	Equalizer preset controls	Arrow buttons move through the list of preset equalizer settings. The "Pre" button lets you save or recall a preset. back to illustration