Using MACAST Lite

Overview

Most MACAST Lite functions are accessible from its floating window.

When you start up MACAST Lite, you will see a MACAST Lite window thumb in the top right corner of the screen (Picture 1).

When you click on the thumb, a window pops up, giving access to buttons (Picture 2). [Your actual picture may vary, depending if you have timer option on or off]

Below are short descriptions of the buttons:

Previous:
Skips to the beginning of the current song. If you click it again within a second, skips previous song in the playlist, if available. If you hold it down, it rewinds inside a song, similar to CD players. Note that if Random mode is on, you cannot skip to the previous song.

Play/Pause:
Starts playing the first song in the playlist, or pauses if a song is already playing.

Next:
Skips to the next song in the playlist, if available. If you hold it down, it forwards inside a song, similar to CD players.

Playlist:
This button allows you to save the existing playlist. To do so, click on it and hold the mouse button. Keep holding the button and drag it to the Finder window where you want to save the playlist to. Release the mouse button to save the playlist. More on playlist in the "Playlists" section of this chapter.

Pop-Up Menu:
Clicking on this button invokes the pop-up menu, a control center of MACAST Lite. The menu is described in detail below.

MACAST Lite Thumb:
Clicking on this button shows/hides MACAST Lite window. Clicking on the button and dragging it will move MACAST Lite window on your screen.

Playlists

Playlist is a list of songs MACAST Lite uses to play. When it finishes playing a song, it automatically skips to the next song in the playlist.

Adding songs to the playlist

To add a song, or number of songs to MACAST Lite playlist, select them in the Finder and drag them to the MACAST Lite window. It will automatically scan through all the dragged items and add files it can play to the playlist. You can drag folders and disks on the window as well.

Removing songs from the playlist

To remove a playlist item, hold down Command and choose an item to remove.
To clear the playlist completely, hold down Control, Option, and Command, and choose any item in the playlist or choose 'Clear Playlist' option.

Saving a playlist

Saving the playlist is easy. Simply click on the Playlist button and don't release the mouse button. Keep holding the button and drag it to the Finder window where you want to save the playlist to. Release the mouse button to save the playlist. Rename the playlist in Finder if desired.

Loading a playlist

To load a playlist, simply drag it's icon from the Finder to MACAST Lite window or double-click it.
Note. Exported playlists from MACAST are currently not supported.

Pop-Up Menu

MACAST Lite pop-up menu is the primary control center for the application. You can skip to specific songs in the playlist with it, set preferences, and quit the application. Below are brief descriptions of the menu items:

MACAST Lite:
Brings MACAST Lite application to the front.

Preferences:
Brings up a pop-up menu with preferences you can choose. More on the options is below, in "Options" section.

Skins:
Brings up a pop-up menu with MACAST Lite skins stored in Skins folder. Skins are special appearance files that customizes the look of MACAST Lite.

Volume:
Brings up a pop-up menu where you can set the sound volume.

Quit:
Use your imagination and try to guess what this one does.

Clear Playlist:
Clears the playlist and stops playing current track, if any.

Below are the playlist items. Items marked with the minus sign (-) are done playing; the item marked with a bullet mark ('•') is the current track being playing.

Preferences

In the Preferences submenu of MACAST Lite pop-up you can choose various options:

Automatic Pop-up:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite window will automatically slide in when mouse is passing over the Thumb.

Show Timer:
If this option is set, the timer will be shown. Timer displays the current time in a current song.

Autoplay on Launch:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will start playing first song in the playlist right after the application is launched.

Repeat All:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will repeat the playlist infinitely until you press Stop button.

Random Play:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will play the songs in the playlist randomly.

Allow Duplicates in Playlist:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will allow multiple identical items to the playlist.

Remember Playlist:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will remember the playlist when you quit and will restore it when you launch the application again.

Show ID3 Tags In Playlist:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will show song title and author information stored in MPEG files (if available). Selecting this option will increase plalist loading time because MACAST Lite will have to scan through files for tags.

Random Skin On Startup:
If this option is set, MACAST Lite will load random skin from the Skins folder every time it's started. You can get more skins at MACAST add-ons center: <http://www.macast.com/addons/>