A big thank you to all the people who helped me beta test this program, and without whom it would much buggier than it is. (Names at the end of the file)
Read this bit first...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, I'll be honest, I'm a programmer (No, really!) not a !Help file writer, and although I have tried to make this file and the StrongHelp interactive help file as easy to understand as possible I need to know if it's not right. So if there's something you are not sure about or don't understand GET IN TOUCH WITH ME and I shall endevour to help.
PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE PERSON YOU OBTAINED THIS PROGRAM FROM AS THEY WILL PROBABLY NOT BE ABLE TO HELP YOU AS WELL AS I CAN
My contact details are at the end of this file
Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Risc Tracker is a multi format music file player, some of it's features are:-
* It can play Coconizer, Digital Symphony, Tracker, QTM, DXen, Matrix¹ and Scream Tracker² files as well as audio CDs
* It has easy to use CD player like controls
* It can hold a list of tunes in memory, which it can play in a variety of ways, eg, repeat one track, shuffle, program, intro scan.
* It can scan a directory for tunes that it can play
* The filetypes that are recognised can be altered, so for example, if there is a filetype that QTM will play, and Risc Tracker doesn't know then you can add it
* Memory for tracks can be allocated dynamically, even on pre-Risc PC machines, which helps reduce RMA fragmentation
* SJPDs PD Tracker setup files can be used
* A Small toolbar is available, to prevent the display being cluttered
* Adjust click on the CDFS icon for a quick CD player.
* CD-Roms that contain tracker files can have a playlist associated with them, which will be auto loaded when they are inserted.
* And much more....
Interactive help is fully supported, as well as StrongHelp using Guttorm Viks StrongHelp application. Press F1 while the pointer is over an icon and you can get help on it. (Not for all icons)
¹Notes on the Matrix file format: You cannot fast forward or rewind through these songs while they are paused.
²Notes on Scream Tracker: Risc Tracker cannot directly play Scream Tracker (sorry, there isn't a module to play them!) so I convert them to Matrix first. Although this process is multitasking it could take some time. (You have been warned!!!!)
The conversion program was written by and is (c) Copyright Michael Pohle 1996.
The modified conversion program is used with permission and may **NOT** be distributed seperatly from Risc Tracker.
Notes on crashes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are using Risc OS 3.5 and above, and the program crashes it may leave some dynamic areas behind. These will be removed if the program is reloaded.
Some terms used in this file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Track - This refers to an actual music file. This could be coconizer, digital symphony, etc.
Pattern - This is part of a track, each track is split up into a number of patterns
Playlist - A playlist is a list of tracks that RiscTracker keeps in memory so you can select the tracks to play. Only the names of the tracks are held in memory, not the actual tracks.
A good way to look at this is like a CD, the playlist is like the CD, with the tracks representing tracks on that CD. A pattern is part of a track, so when you could refer to a track on a CD as so many minutes long, then you could say a track in a playlist is so many patters long, see?
How to play a song supported by Risc Tracker
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is easy, load the Risc Tracker application and either drag the song file onto the Risc Tracker icon (the one that looks like a portable CD player) or double click on the file. If the file is understood it will begin to play.
NB: Some filetypes can only be loaded by dragging them to Risc Tracker, for example, Scream Tracker 3 files are normally filetyped as data, so you don't want to be able to double click them (Because a non-scream tracker file could cause problems) so you have to drag them to Risc Tracker.
If the file does not play but it is a format supported by Risc Tracker then you will probably need to edit the types file, see the section entitled 'Tune types redefinition' below for instructions. If you don't understand how to do this then get in touch with me and I will try to help!
How to create a playlist file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are three ways you can do this:-
1) You can get the program to scan a directory and create a playlist file for all the songs in that directory. Drag the directory containing your songs to the Risc Tracker icon and the program will search through it and create a playlist of all the songs it finds there. If you want to save this list then click menu over the iconbar icon and slide off the save item to reveal a standard save box.
NB: This scan will NOT pick up files that have to be dragged to Risc Tracker, so it will not get Scream Tracker files that are filetyped as data for instance.
NB2: If you click on the 'Save as default' button then the playlist will be saved inside the !RTracker directory as the default playlist, which can be loaded on startup by selecting the 'Load program from !RTracker' option.
2) Open a fresh window in a text editor, eg !Edit or !StrongED, and press RETURN so the first line is blank. This IS IMPORTANT. Next drag the tunes you want in your playlist into this window while holding down the SHIFT key. Once you have saved the file you need to filetype it correctly. Move the pointer over the file in the filer window and press the MENU button on the mouse, move left over the 'File 'xxx'' section (where xxx is the name of the file) and then move left over the 'Set type' option. Press CTRL-U to clear the icon, and type 'playlist' then press RETURN
3) Slightly more complicated this: Put the common part of the path on the first line, and put the remaining bits on the rest of the lines, see? Eg, if you have some tracks in ADFS::Rooster.$.Music, then you could put something like:
ADFS::Rooster.$.Music.
Track1
Track2
Track3
The main window
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The best way to find out about this is to use interactive help, or try pressing F1 while the mouse pointer is over an icon. But anyway here goes...
Hang on a sec lets just open the main window, right, now...
The main window is devided up into four sections, the black section at the top left gives information on the sate of the current tune. Along the bottom of this section are some icons. From left to right these are: Stop, pause, play, repeat, shuffle, and playlist. The three dashes are used when you are using the number buttons to enter a track number.
These icons should be quite self explanitory, but I shall just elaborate on the playlist and repeat icons. The program icon lights up when there is a playlist in memory. The repeat icon can be toggles in three states. These are 'Off','Repeat all','Repeat 1' The repeat one option repeats the current track over and over and over and over.... The repeat all option is not available if there isn't a playlist in memory.
The black icons below this display section shows the author and name of the tune, the 'Repeat' and 'Shuffle' icons to it's left toggle the states of the repeat and shuffle functions. The repeat function can be used to repeat one, or all the tracks in a playlist. If the shuffle function is selected then the tracks are played in a random order.
The four icons below are the main control icons, from the left these are:
Backwards- If there is no tune playing this button deincrements the current track number, assuming there is a program loaded. Otherwise, if a track is playing it rewinds through the track.
Play/pause- If there isn't a tune playing this button plays the current tune, assuming a program is loaded. If there is a tune playing this button toggles the pause function.
NB: Click on this button with ADJUST while a tune is playing and it is skipped.
Stop/Eject- This, erm, stops playback. If no tune is playing it clears the playlist, or ejects the CD if in CD mode.
Forwards- This is the opposite of the backwards button, when playing it fast forwards through the song. Otherwise it increments the track number.
The bar below these buttons allows you to set the volume level. This does not work for tracker files on new machines. (ie. Those with Risc OS 3.5 or later)
The number buttons to the top right of the window are used to enter a track number directly. Press the buttons 1-9 to access tracks 1 through 9.
To select tracks 10 through 19, just press the '+10' button followed by the second digit, eg to select track 18 press '+10'-'8'. To select track 10 ADJUST click on this icon.
To select track 20 and higher, press the '>20' button and then use the number buttons to type in your track number, with '+10' being used as the zero. You may need to press the '>20' button again to register your choice. As you do this you will see the track being entered into the bottom right corner of the display section.
The three radio icons to the right of the window control various functions.
Intro scan - When this option is selected, ie the button is popped in, then only the first two patterns of a song are played, and then the next song is played. This is like the intro scan feature on many CD players.
Speaker - This option allows you to toggle the state of the internal speaker. This option will only work on old Archimedies and the A3000, on newer machines, eg the A30x0, A4000, A5000, A7000, Risc PC the speaker is turned off when a plug is plugged into the headphone socket on the back.
Super VGA - This is another option for people with pre-Risc PC machines. It is designed for people who use VIDC enhancers, or super VGA mode 31. In these modes tracker songs are played back too fast. Select this button and they will be played back at the correct speed. This only works for Tracker files. Digital Symphony and QTM files will allways be played back at the correct speed. Coconzier files will just have to sound fast.
The options window
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The options window is split up into five sections, these can be accessed by using the radio buttons along the left hand side. The 'OK' button is used to register the selection, the 'Cancel' button disregards any changes made since the window was opened. The 'Save' button is the same as 'OK' but it saves the options for the next session.
General options
---------------
'Use dynamic area instead of RMA' - If this option is selected then the program will attempt to used dynamically allocated memory to store tracks in, instead of RMA. This helps to prevent RMA fragmentation. On pre Risc OS 3.5 machines the system sprite area is used, which can cause problems with programs which use this area themselvs. EG !SparkFS. On newer machines a dynamic area is reserved for the song.
'Display tools' - This option causes a small toolbar to be displayed above the left hand side of the iconbar when the main window is closed. This allows you to control the playing of tracks when the main window is closed.
'Allow F1 'strong' help on icons' - If this options is selected you can put the pointer over an icon and press F1 to get help via !StrongHlp. Help is not available for all icons in this way.
Startup options
---------------
NB: As options in this section are only invoked when the program starts you will have to click on 'Save' if you make any changes in this section and you want them to work.
'Load program from !RTracker' - When the program starts a playlist is loaded from Risc Tracker's directory if it exists. To save this default playlist click on the 'Save as default' button in the save box.
'Enter CD mode' - Select this and, providing you have a CD Rom drive, Risc Tracker will startup ready to play audio CDs
'Start playing' - If a playlist is loaded and this option is on, then when the program starts it also starts playing.
'Shuffle' - The shuffle option is turned on if this is selected
'Repeat all' - The repeat all option is turned on
'VIDC Enhancer (Super VGA)' - This options controls the setting of the 'Super VGA' option
Speaker/Volume
--------------
Using the radio buttons in this section you can elect to either turn on or turn off the speaker. Or you can just leave it alone.
The volume writable icon slects the initial volume level on startup. Eg a value of 50% will set the volume at half way.
CD control
----------
'Stop CDs on exit' - Select this and CDs will be stopped when the program is quit, otherwise they will carry merrily on!
'Enable quick CD control from CDFiler' - If this option is selected then a small patch is applied to the CDFiler, this means that if you click with adjust on the CD icon on the iconbar then a window will open allowing you to control the playing of audio CDs
'Do not remove on exit' - If this option is selected then the patch is not removed when the program quits, so you can still adjust click to play CDs.
NB: Once the program is quit there is no way to remove the patch without resetting the machine.
'Nudge track 1:' - Enabling this option causes the begining of track 1 to be skipped, the amount of skippingness is dictated in the writable icon to the left. The reason for this is that some CD Roms try to play the track data which is located at the beginning of track 1. Therefore they won't play track one correctly, enabling nudgeing and entering an appropriate value should solve the problem. Unfortunatly the value to enter is not known, apparantly 150 is correct, but it may take a bit of fiddleing to get it to work with your CD Rom.
Window options
--------------
'Open main window on startup' - If this option is selected then the main window will be opened when the program loads (suprising really), if this option is not selected and the toolbox is on this will be displayed when the program loads.
'Initially rolled up tools' - Select this and the toolbar will be rolled up (minimized)
'Hotkeys only if pointer in window' - If this option is selected then you must have the mouse pointer inside one of Risc Tracker's windows for hotkeys to work. This is usefull if another program passes on keypresses that it shouldn't and Risc Tracker intercepts them.
'Enable pointer tip control' - When this is switched on hold down ADJUST-MENU and a small window will pop up around the pointer. This allows you to control the player functions. This window will close when you move out of it.
NB: If some other program has priority over the ADJUST-MENU click then this may not work!
Some things that might not be too obvious
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've tried to make the program as easy to use as possible but here are some things that might not be too obvious:-
Patch CDFiler - If you want to apply the patch so that when you adjust click on the CDFS icon on the iconbar a small control window pops up, then you can do so without loading Risc Tracker. Just call Risc Tracker with the -CD option. This is how I load it in my boot file, thus:-
Run ADFS::4.$.Music.!RTracker -CD
NB: Once applied, this patch can't be removed without a CTRL-BREAK.
Track scan - If you drag a directory to the Risc Tracker icon it will be scanned for tunes that I know (as defined in the types file) it will then build a playlist of these tunes. If you open the save window, set the save filename to '<RTrack$Dir>.Program' [This is the default filename!] and click on OK this playlist will be used as the default. If you press shift and drag a file/directory to the icon then the directory containg that file will be scanned, this means you can scan a whole hard disc, CD, etc.
Sprite area - Tracks can be loaded into sprite area to prevent RMA fragmentation on pre Risc PC machines, use the 'Use dynamic areas instead of RMA'.
Tracklist - Select the 'Tracks...' option from the menu in the main window and you will be presented with a list of tracks, if you type in the name of a song into the writable icon the program will search for the song. This is interactive, so everytime you press a letter the program searches.
Ram tansfer - You can save and load playlists from other programs, such as !Edit. This means that you can save a playlist to !Edit and then load it back one you have edited it.
Help - There is full support for the !Help application and if you open the info window you will see a help button, click on it to attempt to load !StrongHlp. Previous versions of !RTracker has strong help included inside the !RTracker directory. This has been removed, although it might still be distributed seperatly. This is how I look for Strong Help :
* It is loaded? if not...
* Has it been 'seen' by the filer, if not...
* Is it inside !RTracker (You can put a copy here if you want, and distribute it with this inside!), if not...
* Is is in the same directory as !RTracker, if not...
* Give up and load this file instead.
If you don't have a copy of !StrongHlp and one was not supplied with this program then you can order it from the Datafile PD library, it's on UT184.
Scanning - This can be aborted by pressing escape. (You may need to keep it pressed for a few seconds!), Also, if the main window is open then the number of found tracks will be displayed while scanning.
The 'Fast response' option - If this is turned off then the program will use Wimp_PollIdle, this should make the machine run slightly faster, but I doubt you'll notice the difference. If this options is off the speaker icon in the main window will not update to reflect the current state of the speaker.
The three option buttons in the main window don't affect the options that are saved.
Tune type redefinition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This facility allows you to decide what module plays what type of tune. This means that if you find a format that can be played by QTM for example, but Risc Tracker doesn't support it then you can add it to the list and next time you load Risc Tracker the file will be loaded into QTM.
NB: Obviously certain format files wont play with certain players, for example you could make the coconizer player load symphony files but they wouldn't play (You would probably crash the program, and possibly the machine!)
There seems to be some confusion over which file type represents which type of tune, so I decided to let you choose. Inside the !RTrack directory is a file called 'Types' (If it isn't there defaults are used!) If you look inside this file you will find lines like
xxx,y
Where xxx is the file type in hex and y is the type of song. For example if we take the line
10B,0
This tells Risc Tracker to treat any files with the file type &10B as type 0, digital symphony. The reason for this system is so that you can add files to the list if I have forgotten or I don't know about them. The types supported are
0 - Digital symphony
1 - Tracker
2 - Coconizer
3 - QTM
4 - DXen
5 - MatrixTRK
6 - Scream Track (via conversion)
99- Digital symphony (new format)
Use type 99 to force the new digital symphony module on pre RPC machines.
If you add 100 to the value (eg, 106 for scream tracker) then this type must be dragged to Risc Tracker to make it play, this is used for Scream Tracker files that are filetyped as data. This is so that double clicking on a data file won't load Risc Tracker and try to play it. Also these files will be ignored on directory scanning.
History
~~~~~~~
Erm, this is in the seperate file called 'History' inside !RTracker, 'cos it's too bloody big.
Beta testers
~~~~~~~~~~~~
To the following people I'd like to say a very big thank you (In no particular oder):-
Alex Singleton
Colin G. Bennett
Tor Houghton
Mike Pumford
Matthew Williams
Richard Goodwin
William Holland
Dirk Bollema
Lenny
Nick Kaijaks
Terry Moffit
Malcolm Knight
Colin McQueen
Angelo Melis
William
A special thank you to Malcolm Knight for putting up with my persistant attempts to get the program to work with SCSI drives, and to Tom Tanner for testing with his amazing 40 (yes 40) track CD and a few slight code tweaks.
Last bit...
~~~~~~~~~~~
Right, there is no warrenty, either express or implied, and this program is not guarenteed fit for use in any situation. I (the author) take no responsability for any (mis)use of this program by you (the user) and I can accept NO responsibility for any damage incurred by doing so.
Basically, if something goes wrong, it's not my fault.
The Risc Tracker application was written by Ian Clark, all files (exept the player modules and Scream Tracker 3 conversion program) are copyright 1993-97 Ian Clark and may not be copied or changed. You may alter your own, private, not to be given away, copy though.
This program is FREEWARE but it /must be distributed unaltered./ and NO charge may be made for it! (This does not account for media and handling costs, which people (eg PD Librarys) may make. Such charges are nowt to do with me and at the discression of the person/company you got the program from.)
You may translate the !RTracker.Resources.Messages file into another language if you like, and if you do please send me a copy!
If you have any queries, bugs¹, money, or general comments about this or any
other program by me please write to the following address (A disc with some PD will make my reply that much swifter):-
You can contact me by...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post:
Ian Clark
146 York Road
Haxby
York
North Yorkshire
ENGLAND YO3 3EL
This is my home address, so in term time it'll take a while to reach me.
Fax:
(01904) 763549
The wonderous electronic mail:
se96ic@dmu.ac.uk
This is valid until June '98, and then from Sep '99 to June 2000
Bugs¹
~~~~~
Right, lets get this straight, shall we. If you find a bug, don't just sit there swearing at the program, write to me and tell me, otherwise I can't fix them. Please include all the details about what caused the crash, ie, what setup, memory, OS version, expansion cards, your taste in music, etc. is all usefull.
Obviously all bugs have been added by me subconsiously and are in fact features designed to brighten up your day and bring a little frustration into your life... Ho hum!
And finally...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I understand that huge great sums of money are a burden on the soul, so if you have any then send them to me! (Well, it was worth a try!)
'Are you all sitting comftibold two square on your botty?
Good, then I'll begin....' The Small Faces - "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake"
