JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September

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CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 1 CDPLAYER FROM JUPITER SOFTWARE The information in this manual is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Jupiter Software. The software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the licence agreement. All rights reserved. This manual contains proprietary information which is protected by copyright. No part of this manual may be reproduced, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, translated into any language in any form whatsoever without the prior written consent of the publisher. Jupiter retains title to and ownership of the programs. You are licensed to use the programs for a trial period of 30 days. After this period you must either register as a user or remove the programs from your system. See ORDER.FRM for details of how to register. Please read the Licence agreement contained in a separate file. For further information or support contact - Jupiter Software 63 Parkside Wimbledon London SW19 5NL England Tel No. (+44) 081-946 4826 Fax No. (+44) 081-879 0090 EMail - CompuServe: 100140,2134 or pbrace@cix.compulink.co.uk Jupiter Software is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) Copyright (c) 1993 Jupiter Software CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 2 CONTENTS Page A INTRODUCTION 3 B BASIC OPERATIONS 1 Run CDPlayer Command line option 4 2 The CD Handset 4 3 Display area 5 4 Function Keys 5 C DISC CATALOGUE 8 1 Entering/editing the record for the current disc 8 2 Browsing through your catalogue 9 3 Editing during browsing 11 D INSTALLATION 12 CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 3 A INTRODUCTION CDPlayer(TM) is a DOS audio CD playing program which provides all the functions associated with a normal CD player, together with the ability to catalogue and search your CD collection. Features include: Custom programme play Single track play Shuffle play Repeat on any play function Track skip Music search Replay track Pause On screen volume control On screen balance control Disc catalogue allowing the storage of the following for each disc: Disc name Composer/artist Music type Disc reference Individual track details Browse through catalogue - with word search On screen display of elapsed and remaining time for both the current track and the disc. CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 4 B BASIC OPERATIONS 1 Run CDPlayer To load CDPlayer, simply change to the sub-directory containing the program, by typing the following: X: <Enter> CD \CDPLAYER <Enter> where X is replaced with the drive on which CDPlayer has been installed. Then type: CDPLAYER <Enter> alternatively, if the directory containing CDPlayer is included in the DOS path, you may type CDPlayer at the DOS prompt no matter where you are within the system. However, if you do this you must inform the program where your disc catalogue files are stored using the command line option, see below. The CDPlayer handset will be displayed and the system will interrogate the first CD drive to see if a disc is loaded and if it is playing - if the disc is playing, play will not be interrupted by running CDPlayer. If a disc is found the information relating to the disc will be loaded and the handset will display information which is relevant to it. If no disc is found in the first drive, the system will show an error status in the handset display. This error status will disappear as soon as a disc is inserted into the drive. You may change the CD at any time without reloading CDPlayer. The program will register that you have switched discs and load the information relevant to the new disc. Command Line Option (see end of manual for more options) If, when loading CDPlayer, the directory containing CDPlayer is the default it is not necessary to use any command line options. The program will use the default directory to load your CD database. However, if your database files are not resident in the default directory you must inform the program where the files reside. This is done by using the command line parameter "/D=". The path holding the data files is specified after the equals sign. For example, if you are running CDPlayer from the root directory C and the data files are contained in a directory called CDPLAYER the following would be entered: CDPlayer /D=C:\CDPLAYER Whenever CDPlayer needs to access the database it will look in the default, or specified, directory for files with the following names: DISCS.IX DISCS.DAT If they are not found it will create these two files to store a new database. 2 The CD Handset The handset is made up of three areas: CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 5 Figure 1 - The CD Handset Display - showing the play mode, track being played and track and disc time elapsed and remaining Play controls - using the numeric key pad to provide the "buttons" normally available on a CD Player Selection controls - using alpha keys for play mode selection and catalogue functions To the right of the handset a scroll bar indicates the current volume setting. An up arrow appears at the top and a down arrow at the end, indicating that you press these keys to increase and decrease volume. At the foot of the function key display a scroll bar indicates the current balance setting. The arrows displayed at either end indicate that pressing these will adjust the volume balance between the speakers. Pressing "*" will centralize the control. Not all drives support variable volume and on these drives the volume will be constant if the slider is anywhere but at the bottom, or fully to the side. In these cases play will be muted on one or both speakers. A window is also displayed showing the name of the disk and the title of the current track, as recorded in the entry for the disc in the disc catalogue, see section C. This window can be suppressed by including a command line parameter of /S when running CDPlayer. 3 Display Area The display area at the top of the handset, see figure 1, is made up of four lines of information relating to the current disc being played. Line 1 To the left of line 1 is displayed the current mode of play, this can be one of four modes: Disc - play the whole disc from the currently selected track Track - play the selected track only Shuffle Play - play the tracks on the disk in a random order Custom Play - play the tracks listed in the custom play field of the disc's record. To the right of line 1 the word "Repeat" will be displayed if the currently selected play mode is to be repeated, i.e. repeat the whole disc, the track or the custom programme. Line 2 To the left of line 2 will appear one of the following: Stop - this will appear if the disc inserted is not currently being played Play - this will appear if the disc is currently being played Pause - this will appear if pause has been pressed Working - this will appear momentarily when one of the function keys has been pressed Reading - this will be displayed when the player is loading control data from the disk. Error - this will be displayed if no disc is present in the first drive or if the drive is open. The remainder of line 2 simply contains headings for the information displayed on lines 3 and 4. Line 3 This line contains details of the track currently selected, or being played, together with the playing time elapsed and that remaining for the track. Line 4 This line contains details of the amount of playing time which has elapsed and is remaining for the disc. CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 6 4 Functions Keys The remainder of the handset, see figure 1, shows the keys which are active when CDPlayer is running. The functions available are as follows: 9/P Play. Pressing this key will either play the whole of the disc from the currently selected track, the selected track only or any custom programme, depending on the play mode (see function "T" below) 8/I Pause/Interrupt. Pressing this key will cause play to pause, and pressing the key a second time will result in play continuing. 7/S Stop. Pressing this key causes play to cease. 6/N Next Track. This key causes the system to move forward to the next track on the disc based on the mode of play. 4/L Last Track. This key causes the system to move back to the previous track on the disc based on the mode of play. 5/C Replay Current track. Pressing this key, when a disc is being played, will cause the system to replay the currently selected track from the beginning. 3/F Fast Forward. Pressing this key causes the system to jump to a point 30 seconds later in the track. This key is only effective while a CD is being played. 1/B Fast Back. Pressing this key causes the system to jump to a point 30 seconds earlier in the track. This key is only effective while a CD is being played. 2/E Eject/Close. For drives which have an automatic eject and closing facility, this key will either open or close the drive. If a disc is being played when this key is pressed, play will cease and the disc will be ejected. ./G Pressing this key causes the system to request the track number to jump to. If the disk is in play mode, play will continue from the selected track. Arrows Adjust volume and balance. (*=centralize balance) 0 Exit. Pressing this key, or "Esc", will terminate CDPlayer. If a CD is being played when the program is terminated, it will continue to play. R Repeat. This key toggles repeat mode. When repeat mode is on, "Repeat" is displayed on line 1 of the display, the current play mode will repeat continuously until "R" is pressed again (or stop is pressed). M Track/Custom/Shuffle/Disc. This key circulates between the three play modes, however, if no custom programme has been created for the disc currently being played, it will skip past this mode. The three modes are as follows: CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 7 Track - play the current track only Custom - play the tracks entered in the custom play field of the database record for the current disc. Whenever a disc is inserted the program identifies the disc and if a record exists for it, it will be loaded and any custom play programme will be available. Shuffle - shuffle the tracks into a random order for playing. If repeat is on when playing a disk in shuffle mode, the disk will be repeated played with the tracks shuffled into a different order on each play. Disc - play the whole disc from the track currently selected D Disc Catalogue. Pressing this key will cause the system to enter disc catalogue mode in one of three ways: 1. If a record already exists for the disc inserted in the drive the record will be loaded and offered for editing. 2. If a record does not exist for the disc inserted in the drive the system will load the track data from the CD and offer a blank record for a new record to be created. 3. If no disc is inserted in the drive, i.e. the handset is displaying "Error", the system will enter browse mode, for details see the next section. O/X/V Import/Export/CSV. Pressing these keys access the database import and export facilities. Export data The information stored in the CD catalogue may be exported in one of two formats: Record format Where each field is written to the file on a separate line, each record occupying a fixed number of lines. (press X) CSV Where the whole record is written on one line in Comma Separated Variable format. (press V) In both cases the order of the record is as follows: Disc ID Name Composer/artist Music type Custom play Disc reference 30 track titles On selecting the appropriate option, you will be asked to: Enter path and name of file to create Enter the full path and name and press <enter>. If you select the option but do not wish to proceed, pressing Esc will abort the routine and return you to the handset. If the file already exists you will informed of this fact and asked to confirm that you wish to proceed. A count of the records being exported is displayed as the file is created and on completion a message indicating that the process was successful. Import data Data may be imported from a file stored in Record Format, see above. The system uses the Disc ID to identify records and if the ID already exists in the database the record will be updated, if it does not exist a new record will be created. You may use this facility to merge multiple databases. On selecting the import data option, you will be asked to: Enter path and name of file to import Enter the full path and name and press <enter>. If you select the option but do not wish to proceed, pressing Esc will abort the routine and return you to the handset. If the file does not exist, or is not in the correct format, a message will be displayed. If the file is acceptable, the data will be imported and a progress message displayed. When the import is complete a message to this effect will be displayed. If any new records are added during an import they will not contain details of track time, and the total number of tracks may not be correct as this will be based on the track titles recorded. However, both the track times and the total number of tracks will be updated by the system on the first occasion that the CD is loaded and the data record accessed. If you have a mouse installed you can control the handset with it. When the handset is displayed, the mouse cursor will be visible and you may click on a button or the arrow keys of the volume controls to invoke the function. Clicking on the bar of the balance slider will centralize the control. CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 8 C DISC CATALOGUE CDPlayer provides a facility for maintaining and searching a catalogue of your CDs. Whenever a CD is inserted in the drive, CDPlayer identifies the disc and determines whether or not a record exists in the database. If a record is found it is loaded and any custom play programme is made available for playing. If a record is not found CDPlayer will allocate a unique identification to the disc and determine the number of tracks and playing time of each. It is possible to play CDs which do not have an entry in the database, however, the custom play facility will not be available until a record has been created. 1 Entering/editing the record for the current disc When a disc is inserted in the drive, the system displays details regarding the disc in the handset display and you may access the record for the CD by pressing "D" - this will operate whether or not the current CD is being played or is in "stop mode". On pressing "D" the Record Screen will be displayed, see figure 2. Figure 2 - Record Screen If a record for the CD already exists it will be loaded and presented to you for edit, if no record exists a blank record screen will be displayed containing the total tracks on the disc, the total playing time and the playing times for each track. Each record consists of the following: Disc name - up to 30 characters. Records are sorted alphabetically by disc name when displayed in browse mode, see below. Composer/Artist - this may be up to 30 characters and can be used to record the composer or artist. Music type - a field of 15 characters which you can use to identify the type of music, e.g. baroque, romantic, pop etc. Custom play - this field is 30 characters long and contains the tracks to be played when custom play mode is selected. Tracks are identified by a number from 1 to 9 or a letter from A to U (representing tracks 10 to 30). To set up a custom play simply enter the track identifications one after the other in the order in which they are to be played. For example if you wish to play track 7 followed by 10 and then 15, enter "7AF". Disc reference - a field of 15 characters in which you may record the reference by which you identify the disc. It is sensible to allocate unique references to each of your discs as this field is displayed when browsing through your CD collection, providing a means of identifying the disc you are seeking. Track details - you may enter a description of up to 50 characters (100 characters for registered users), shown within a scrolling field of 25 characters if the disc contains more than 15 tracks, for each track on the disc. When browsing through your CD catalogue, "word filter" searches all fields within a record including track details, it is therefore possible to search for CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 9 a particular track and then identify the disc on which it resides. See section on browsing below. Disc ID - Each disc record is indexed by a unique 8 digit hex string. This key is shown on the edit screen for reference purposes. The system allows you to record details of up to 30 tracks for each CD. Two edit screens are provided, one for discs with 15 or less tracks and one for those with over 15 tracks. The edit screen for the the former, displays the track list in a single column while that for the latter uses a two column format. If the CD is playing, the track currently being played is highlighted and the track and disc status are shown at the top right of the Record Screen. If the CD is being played in Shuffle mode, the order in which the tracks are being played is displayed at the top right of the window. On accessing the record, the entry field will be positioned by "Disc name". Enter or edit the name of the disc and press <Enter> to move to the "Composer/Art." field. If you enter all 30 characters it is not necessary to press <Enter>. You may continue entering the fields one at a time and on completing the entry for the final track the entry field will move back to "Disc name". You may move from field to field by pressing the "up" and "down" arrow keys, provided the cursor is positioned on the first character of the field. The following keys are available to you whilst entering information: Insert - inserts a space at the current cursor position Delete - deletes the character at the current cursor position Right arrow - moves the cursor one position to the right Left arrow - moves the cursor one position to the left Ctrl V - toggles insert mode on and off. If insert mode is on the cursor is displayed as a flashing box, if off it is a flashing line. In insert mode characters are inserted within any existing text and the back space key is destructive. In over write mode characters over write existing text and the back space key is non destructive. At any point when the Records Screen is displayed pressing "F8" will access the browse window, see below. When you have finished entering or editing the record press "Esc". If you have made any changes to the record the system will ask you if you wish to save the edited record. Pressing "Y" will cause the changes to be stored in the database, while pressing "N" will discard the changes you have made and leave the original record intact, if one existed. 2 Browsing through your catalogue Pressing "F8" when the Record Screen is displayed, or pressing "D" when the handset is displayed and an error status is indicated, accesses the Browse Screen. See figure 3. Figure 3 - Browse Screen If you have a mouse installed, a scroll bar will appear on the right hand side of the window and a mouse cursor will appear in the centre of the screen. The scroll bar indicates the relative CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 10 position of the highlighted record within the database and it use is described below. The Browse Screen is divided into three areas as follows: 1 Heading - taking up the first two lines 2 Catalogue display - showing 10 entries from the database at a time 3 Instruction area - displayed on the last two lines On accessing the Browse Screen, the first ten entries in your database, based on a alphabetical sort of the disc name, will be displayed. Each line contains the following: Disc name Composer Music type Disc reference The first entry will be highlighted. You may scroll through your CD catalogue with the following keys: Page up - Pressing "Page up" will cause the list to scroll back 10 records. Page down - Pressing page down will cause the list to scroll forward 10 records. Up arrow - Pressing "Up arrow" moves the highlight bar to the previous record, scrolling the list back if necessary. Down arrow- Pressing "Down arrow" moves the highlight to the next record, scrolling the list forward if necessary. Home - Pressing "Home" displays the first 10 entries in the list. End - Pressing "End" displays the last 10 entries in the list. If you have a mouse you may use it to scroll up and down a line at a time by clicking on the "up" and "down" arrows displayed in the instruction area. Clicking on the "Page up" and "Page down" arrow will cause the screen to scroll up and down ten entries at a time, as will clicking on the arrows at the top and bottom of the scroll bar. You may move to the beginning of the list by clicking on "Home" and to the end of the list by clicking on "End". Mouse users can also jump to a relative position within the list by clicking on the scroll bar itself. For example, if you click two thirds of the way down the scroll bar the system will jump to two thirds of the way through your catalogue. Goto Disc It is possible to jump to a specific disc, by pressing "G" and entering the first few characters of the disc name. If the name entered does not exist the system will jump to the next highest name found, based on an alphabetical sort. CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 11 Word Filter Pressing "W" will cause the system to request the entry of a filter string, with the prompt "Enter word filter". The filter string can be up to 10 characters long (30 characters for registered users) and may be a single word or a group of words. On entering a string the system will redisplay the browse list containing only those records which contain the string entered in the Composer/Artist field, for registered users the string may be present within any field, and case is ignored. You may use the word filter to, for example, display all music by Mozart. For registered users, this will result in all discs being listed which contain Mozart in any field, e.g. as the Composer or within track details. It will therefore pick up any compilation discs which include Mozart music. Once the list is displayed you may scroll through the filtered list in the same way as you scroll through the full list. Filtering is deactivated by pressing "W" for a second time or by exiting from the Browse Window. Exit From Browse Mode You exit from the Browse Window by pressing, or clicking on, "Esc". 3 Editing during browsing When browsing through your database, a record may be selected for viewing or editing by highlighting it on the Browse Screen and pressing <Enter>, or by double clicking on the entry. The Edit Disc Record Screen will be displayed, which is in the same format as the Record Screen. You may edit the selected record, if required, in the same way as records are edited from the Record Screen. To exit from the Edit Disc Record Screen press "Esc". If you have edited the record you will be asked if you want it saved; pressing "Y" will cause your catalogue to be updated while pressing "N" will discard any changes made. 4 Deleting a record (Registered users only) If you wish to delete a record, highlight it in the Browse Window and press "D". A window will be displayed asking for confirmation that you wish to delete the record. If you do wish to continue press "Y" and it will be removes, otherwise press "N". 5 Rebuilding the database index It is possible that your database index may become corrupt. This is not likely to happen very often, but loss of power to the system while the index is being updated is one event which will definitely corrupt the data. If the system detects a problem with the index it will inform you that the index requires rebuilding and ask you to confirm that you wish this to be done. CDPlayer from Jupiter Software Page 12 D INSTALLATION An automated installation routine is provided on the disk. To run this routine insert the disk in your floppy drive, log on to the drive and run the installation routine by typing: X: <Enter> INSTALL Y <Enter> Where "X" will either by "A" or "B" depending on the drive being used and "Y" will be the letter identifying the hard disk on which CDPlayer is to be installed. The installation routine will create a directory called CDPLAYER within the root of your hard disk, and copy the programs to it. It is, in fact, only necessary to have the program file CDPLAYER.EXE present on the hard disk and this can be resident in any directory. When the program is first run, it will create the database files required to store your CD catalogue, see section B.1. for more information. To update a shareware installation, simply copy CDPLAYER.EXE from the issue disk to the directory containing your shareware version of the program. Note - ADDITIONAL COMMAND LINE OPTIONS Five new command line options are available. These allow you to change the screen colours used to display the handset and database. They are as follows: /S - Suppress display of disk title and current track /N=999 - Normal display used for handset display area /E=999 - Display of entry keys /B=999 - Display of background /V=999 - Display of view/browse screen The may appear in any order and must be separated by at least one space. 999 = The number of the attribute to be used from 0 to 255, following standard IBM colours. E. MEMORY RESIDENT PLAYER This disk included a restricted demonstration copy of CDTsr(TM). Note this is not a shareware program but all registered users of CDPlayer will also receive a full unrestricted copy of this program. CDTsr is a memory resident CD playing handset which can be called up over any text based application. The default key sequence for invoking help is <Alt><P>, however this may be changed and a second key sequence may be defined using command line parameters. CDTsr is a swapping memory resident program, so when not in use it occupies less than 7kb of memory. On being called, the system will secure the DOS environment before loading itself and displaying the handset. On exit, the operating system environment is reinstated and the user may continue. By adopting this approach the system occupies the minimum possible memory and can be used with programmes that require large amounts of memory to be available to them. This program allows DOS users to pop up a CD handset similar to that contained in CDPlayer. This is very handy for pausing the CD to take a phone call, carrying on with your current application and then resuming play by popping up the handset a second time. Also for playing a new CD without having to close down your current application. To load CDTsr simply change to the directory containing CDTsr and type: CDTSR <Enter> CDTsr will be loaded and a welcome message displayed but the program will remain dormant. You may now activate CDTsr at any time, either from the DOS line or from within an application, by pressing <Alt><P>. The following command line parameters are available and should be inserted after the name of the program, separated by spaces. The order of the appearance of the command line parameters has no effect. a) \bold /U - Unload Inserting this command line parameter, which must appear on its own, causes CDTsr to remove itself from memory providing it is safe so to do. If it is not safe for CDTsr to be removed, because other programmes have been loaded after it, CDTsr will display a message indicating that it is not safe to unload itself and will remain in memory. If CDTsr is successfully unloaded, you will be informed of this fact before being returned to the DOS prompt. b) /S - Swap File The program maintains two swap files on disk that are used to temporarily hold the DOS environment when the handset is being used. These swap files default to: CDSwp.1$$ CDSwp.2$$ and are stored in the root of drive C. If you wish to change name of the file used, or the directory where the swap file is stored, use the /S parameter in the following format: /S= X:\path\name without providing an extension. The swap file will then be created using the name provided and extensions of ".1$$" and ".2$$". If the path specified cannot be found a message will be displayed indicating that CDTsr cannot be loaded. Important Warning for Network Users Where CDTsr is being used over a network and the swap files are being stored on the file server, it is essential that each user's swap files are contained in a different directory on the disk, or carry different names. This can easily be achieved by using the users home directory. If this is not done crashes will occur as the users DOS environment, which has been stored to the swap file, may be overridden by the DOS environment stored by another user and hence will not be available to be reloaded by the first user when the handset closed. c) /M - No Swap Message By default CDTsr displays a message indicating that it is swapping in and swapping out as these actions occur. If you have EMS available, CDTsr will swap to EMS rather than to disk and these messages may be annoying as the speed of swapping will be virtually instantaneous. You may therefore turn off the swap message by including this command line parameter. d) /F - Force use of disk for swapping By default the system will swap to EMS if it is available. When memory is at a premium you may want to keep all EMS available for your applications, adding /F on the command line forces the system to create the swap files on disk. e) Display Attributes As for CDPlayer --- /N, /E and /B. f) /P - 2nd Hot Key The standard key sequence of <Alt><P> is always available for calling the handset. However, it may be that you would like to use an alternative key sequence. You can select an alternative key sequence by using the P parameter, which takes the following format: CDTSR /P=\$0000 The four zero's are made up of two pairs of hexadecimal numbers and are interpreted as follows: First two digits These are made up from the following and represent the status of the Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys: 00 no shifts 01 right shift 02 left shift 04 Ctrl 08 Alt If you wish to use more than one key in combination, add together the codes given. For example, <Ctrl><Alt> is "0C". Second two digits The second two zeros must represent a valid scan code, in hexadecimal. The following table sets out the valid scan codes: A-1E N-31 0-0B F1-3B [-1A B-30 0-18 1-02 F2-3C ;-27 C-2E P-19 2-03 F3-3D ,-33 D-20 Q-10 3-04 F4-3E /-35 E-12 R-13 4-05 F5-3F \-2B F-21 S-1F 5-06 F6-40 ]-1B G-22 T-14 6-07 F7-41 '-28 H-23 U-16 7-08 F8-42 .-34 I-17 V-2F 8-09 F9-43 '-29 J-24 W-11 9-0A F10-44 K-25 X-2D F11-57 L-26 Y-15 F12-58 M-32 Z-2C For example: /P=$0244 identifies left shift + F10 /P=$082E identifies Alt + C /P=$0517 identifies Ctrl + right shift + I As the alternative key sequences. g) /R - Replace main Hot Key The standard Hot Key of <Alt><P> can be replaced using this parameter. It is used in exactly the same way as "/P" but the defined key sequence will be available in place of the default not in addition to it. You may use both "/P" and "/R" together, selecting two sequences of your choosing. h) /K - Keep in memory By default the program only keeps a small portion in memory when it is not in use. It will swap in the remaining code when called and swap it out when closed. By this method only 6.5k of memory is used by CDTsr. If you wish to force the program to remain in memory and not swap to disk, add the command line parameter /K. If this is used the system will take up approximately 86.5k of memory. The handset is very similar to that contained in CDPlayer, but it does not provide access to your disc catalogue, and the play mode cannot be changed. All the functions provided by pressing the numeric keys, described in section B.4., are available and will remain in force when you exit from the program. The program will also remember the status of the drive. It is therefore possible to call up the handset, pause a CD, close the handset and continue work and then call it again to continue play from the same point on the disk --- very handy when taking phone calls.