in the task tray and
select "Properties". This window allows you to add your music to the
AudioAlien database, change skins, register AudioAlien, and adjust various
settings.Index
3. Quick Search Music Search Engine
4. Advanced Search Music Search Engine
To open the properties window, right click on the AudioAlien
icon in the task tray and
select "Properties". This window allows you to add your music to the
AudioAlien database, change skins, register AudioAlien, and adjust various
settings.
This tab allows you to add your music directory or directories to AudioAlien. For more information on configuring your music database visit the Setting up the Music Database section.
This area will list all of the music collections that you have added to AudioAlien by their root directory.
Clicking this button will allow you to obtain information about your music database such as the number of artists, albums, songs, and playlists in your collection as well as which files were not added to the database because they did not match any of your name schemes.
This area will allow you to add all the media players that you want to use to launch various file types. For more information on configuring your media players visit the Setting up Media Players section.
This tab allows you to customize exactly how the system tray music menu operates and appears.
Checking this box will enable the system-tray music menu.
Checking this box will add sub-menus for each category in your collection. Checking the "Play Category" box will add an option to play each category in your music menu (Winamp Only).
Checking this box will add menus for the first letter of the following sub-menu.
Checking this box will add sub-menus for each artist in your collection. Checking the "Play Artist" box will add an option to play all songs by a particular artist.
Checking this box will add sub-menus for each album in your collection. Checking the "Play Album" box will add an option to play each album in your collection. If you have a matching playlist available it will be launched by this option. Checking the "Unknown Folder" will add a sub-menu for unknown albums, however if left blank, all of the songs in each unknown album will be placed in the same menu as the other album sub-menus.
These radio buttons determine if the menu will be sorted alphabetically, or by track number.
This area allows you to customize various aspects of the search engines.
This area allows you to select which skin you want to use with the Quick Search.
This area allows you to specifiy what hotkeys you want to use for both the Quick Search and Advanced Search. Simply click in the appropriate box, and type your desired hotkey (e.g. ctrl+alt+q)
The task tray music menu is one of two ways to find and play songs in your music collection.
After you have set up your music collection, you can now seek out songs using the music menu. To bring up the menu, left-click on the AudioAlien tray icon
To play a song simply click on the song that you have selected within the menu. The song will then be launched using the media player defined for that file type. If you would like to add the song to your media players playlist (if available), simply hold down the <Control> key while clicking.
To play an album, simply click on the "Play Album" menu item within the album of your choice. The album will then be launched using the media player defined for that file. If you want to enqueue the album, simply hold down the <Control> key while clicking. If you have playlists for your albums, and have added these playlists using the appropriate playlist naming scheme, AudioAlien will first try to find a playlist to launch that matches the artist/album you have selected. If it does not find one, it will simply launch all songs that match that particular artist/album.
Note: The "Register AudioAlien" option will be remove from the album menu after registering
Quick Search Music Search Engine
The Quick Search Music Search Engine is a powerful skinable interface for finding and playing your songs and albums quickly. The skinable interface of this search engine was designed to allow the user to locate songs without having to be close enough to the computer to read small print. The AudioAlien Music Search Engine can be used in a number of application, including playing your music by using a TV display with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Please visit www.ActiveVoid.com for additional skins to suit your application.
To find a song in your collection, simply right click on the AudioAlien task tray icon
After activating the Quick Search you will see a list of all of the artists in your collection. To narrow down this list, simply begin typing the first few letters of the artist you are looking for. As you type, the list of matches will be narrowed down to only those artists that match what you have typed. Use the arrow and page keys to move through the list of matches. At any time, you can press the <ENTER> key to select this artist or the <*> key to select all matching artists and move on to the album search. If you have not defined albums within your filename schemes, the album search will be skipped and you will go directly to the song search. If you would like to play all of the songs by the selected artist instead of searching for a specific album, hold down the <SHIFT> button and press <ENTER>. This will play all of the songs that match the selected artist. Adding <CONTROL> to this key combination will enqueue all songs by that artist.
After selecting an artist or several artists, you will now see all albums that belong to this artist(s). To narrow down the list, simply type the first few letters of the album you are looking for. After you have selected the album you are looking for, you can press the <ENTER> key to began searching for a specific song in this album, or the <*> key to search for songs in any of the matching albums. If you would like to play the selected album instead of search for a specific song, you can hold the <SHIFT> key and press <ENTER>. Adding the <CONTROL> key to this combination will enqueue the album in Winamp.
After selecting an album(s), you will now see all of the songs that belong to this artist(s) and album(s). simply type the first few keys of the song name to find the song you are looking for. Use the arrow and page keys to move around within the matches. When you have found the song you are looking for, simply press <ENTER> to play it in Winamp. If you would like to enqueue the song hold the <CONTROL> key while pressing <ENTER>. You can also hold down the <ALT> key while playing songs to keep the Quick Search window open at its current state to allow you to play multiple songs that match your search criteria.
Note: The "Register AudioAlien" option will be remove from the song match list after you register.
With a little practice, you will be able to find any song in your collection with only a few quick keystrokes.
Detailed instructions for making skins will be coming soon. If you are the adventurous type, you can see how some of the already available skins were made by looking at the skin.ini files for each skin.
Advanced Search Music Search Engine
The Advanced Search Engine is a powerful search engine, which is intended to be used while sitting at your computer. This search engine offers more powerful search and browsing features at the expensive of the quick skinable interface of the AudioAlien search engine.
To find a song in your collection, simply right click on the AudioAlien task tray icon
After you executing a search, various information about the results will be displayed, based on which fields you have chosen to include in your search. To play a song, simply double-click the song in the results window. The <SHIFT> and <CTRL> keys can be used to select multiple songs to play or enqueue. After selecting the desired songs, simply press the "Play Selected" or "Enqueue Selected" buttons at the bottom of the window. If you would like to play a particular album or songs by a particular artist, you can simply right click on the artist or album's name and play or enqueue your selection.
Searching for playlists is very similar to Searching for Songs. To search for playlists, simply press the "Playlist Search" radio button, and enter the desired keywords into the various search fields. In addition to being able to play all songs by a particular artist, you can also choose to view a selected album by right clicking on it. Choosing "View Album" from the popup menu will switch back to Song Search mode, and display all songs which match the selected album. Double-clicking on a result will launch that playlist in Winamp.