XPlaycd(1)
NAME
xplaycd - X based audio cd player for cdrom drives
SYNOPSIS
xplaycd [ -mixer ] [ -nomixer ] [ -v ] [ -display <<dis-
play>> ] [ -fn <<font>> ]
DESCRIPTION
XPlaycd is a program to play audio cd's on a cdrom-drive.
It runs on plain X. You don't need OpenWindows, Motif or
whatever. XPlaycd features a database which holds cd and
track titles of cds. Titles are displayed automagically as
the cd plays. The program has its own editor which eases
adding of new discs. The database is XMcd compatible, but
XMcd needs Motif.
THE EDITOR
To invoke the editor, press the right button anywhere
inside the window and select edit from the menu. A new
editor window will pop up. Fill in the fields then press
close or apply to save your changes.
The editor saves the database in files which have an eight
digit hexadecimal number as filename, in a directory spec-
ified by the *cddb resource. The decimal number is the
(hopefully) unique id of the cd and is used to find the
file next time the cd is used again.
THE PLAYLIST
You can program the order in which the tracks are played.
The program shows a small button for each track and a but-
ton for begin and end of play respectively.
Pressing the left mouse button on a track icon will imme-
diately start playing this track.
To change the playing order, press and hold the left mouse
button on a track icon and drag the number to your pre-
ferred place.
To double a track, i.e. to play it more than once, press
and hold the middle mouse button on a track icon and drag,
you will get a new icon to place at will while the old one
stays in place.
To delete a doubled icon, click on it with the middle but-
ton without dragging it.
To change the beginning and end of play respectively, drag
around the start/end icons. Using these icons, you can
skip titles by moving them after the end mark.
The top right button on the window can be used to end-
lessly repeat everything between the start and end marks.
The button showing three question marks will shuffle the
tracks inbetween the start and end marks. A second press
of the shuffle button will sort the tracks back into
order.
You can save the playlist by pressing the right mouse but-
ton anywhere in the window and selecting save from the
menu. This will save the playlist in the database together
with the list of track titles.
MORE ABOUT INSERTING AND EJECTING CDS
Whenever there is no cd in the drive, XPlaycd displays a
stippled pictogram in the eject button symbolising that it
is not able to close the disc tray itself (several drives
aren't able to close automagically, and the kernel driver
doesn't support it anyway).
So if you put a new cd in the drive, you have to press the
eject button to make XPlaycd detect it.
There is an option however, which tells XPlaycd to detect
a new disc automagically as soon as the drive is closed.
Since this led to problems on most systems, the option is
disabled by default since Version 2.0. Use the -emptypoll
option on the command line or set the xplaycd*empyPoll: on
resource. Please see the RESOURCES section for more
information about resources.
Problems reported have been flooding of the syslog with
'Please make sure there is a disc in the drive' messages
and cdrom drives making strange noises.
OPTIONS
Options offered by XPlaycd are the following:
-display <<display>>
Show the control window on the given display.
-fn <<font>>
Use this font rather than the default. The given
font should be about the same size like the default
font. If not, the window may look ugly.
-mixer
Use /dev/mixer to adjust the playback volume rather
than controlling the drive directly. Usually xplaycd
will autodetect whether it should use this option.
-nomixer
Adjust playback volume by controlling the drive
directly. Usually xplaycd will autodetect whether it
should use this option.
-emptypoll
Continue polling the drive even if its empty. In
that mode, XPlaycd will automagically detect when
someone inserts a cd in the empty drive. However,
polling an empty drive will flood the syslog with
nasty warning messages on most systems, some drives
will even make strange noises. For that reason this
is disabled by default since Version 2.0 and you
have to press eject after inserting a new disc.
-v Print current version and exit.
RESOURCES
XPlaycd understands a large number of X11 resources which
are listed below. These system wide resources usually sit
in a file called /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd. Per-
sonal resources reside either in ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xre-
sources depending on your installation. To put an XPlaycd
resource into your personal resource file, prefix it with
the word xplaycd. After editing your personal file, be
sure to run xrdb ~/.Xresources or xrdb ~/.Xdefaults to
make them work. There is no need for a prefix or an invo-
cation of xrdb if you change the system wide file.
STANDARD RESOURCES
Standard X11 resources with their defaults are shown here.
For an explanation of the standard resources please see
the X11 dcumentation.
Standard resources are:
*title: XPlaycd
*geometry: no default!
*iconic: off
*background: gray80
*foreground: black
*font: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-normal-sans-*-120-*-*-p-*-*-*
*reverseVideo: off
*synchronize: off
SPECIAL RESOURCES
Special XPlaycd resources are:
*brightBorder: gray94
*darkBorder: gray40
*hilightColor: gray72
These settings are responsible for the 3D-look-and-
feel of the program. Just play with the values to
see what they do.
*emptyPoll: off
Please see -emptypoll commandline option above.
*useMixer: auto
This setting actually has three states:
on use the mixerDevice to control the volume
This works only if your drive is connected
to a soundcard.
auto Works like 'on' if mixerDevice is avail-
able, works like off if not. (This is the
default)
off Control the volume directly at the drive.
Some drives do not support this (e.g.
Mediavision CDR-H93MV).
*mixerDevice: /dev/mixer
The mixer device, this is only needed if you define
*useMixer to on but auto will not work if this is
not set.
*cdromDevice: /dev/cdrom
This is the devicename of your cdrom. Please use
exactly the same devicename you use for mounting the
drive. If you chose another name for mounting than
for playback, XPlaycd will not be able to detect
when a CD is mounted and may crash. (For example,
don't use a symbolic link for mounting and the real
device name for playback or vice versa.)
*scsiDevice:
If you don't have a scsi cdrom, please ignore this
resource.
Some scsi cdroms support tray loading under software
control. With one of those, you may load the tray by
pressing eject when the tray is open. To use this
feature, enable generic scsi support in the linux
kernel and set this resource to the generic device
name of the cdrom. For the first scsi device, this
is /dev/sga, the second is /dev/sgb and so on.
WARNING! GIVING WORLD ACCESS TO A GENERIC SCSI
DEVICE MAY BE A SECURITY RISC. For security rea-
sons, your cdrom should have the highest scsi id of
all your scsi devices. Imagine what would happen if
you have an id 0 cdrom and an id 1 harddisk. Should
the cdrom break and not be detected during boot,
suddenly the harddisk becomes /dev/sga and thus
prone to hacking.
*cddb: /usr/local/lib/cddb
The path where xplaycd expects the database. XPlaycd
searches this directory and all subdirectories of
it. You are encouraged to change this to some place
where you have write access.
*systemCddb: /usr/local/lib/public-cddb
This is an additional read-only database, which may
be maintained by someone else. XPlaycd searches this
directory and all subdirectories of it.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Q: It quits with 'xplaycd: Can't open /dev/cdrom: No such
file or directory'
A: As root, create a symbolic link from /dev/cdrom to
your cdrom device. For a scsi cdrom, usually this
works:
cd /dev
ln -s cdrom sr0
Q: It starts up and says 'No disk' even if there is a
disk in the drive.
A: Hm, this may have many reasons, check if you have made
the right link in /dev.
Q: The volume control doesn't work, it is just an empty
bar.
A: You told XPlaycd to use the mixerdevice for volume
control and you don't have such a device or you used
the wrong name for it. To use the mixerdevice, you
must have a soundcard.
Q: I don't have the default font, so the program always
tells me an annoying message that it uses a fixed
font, how can i get rid of this?
A: Call it as 'xplaycd -fn fixed' or change the font name
in the default file. The default file is usually
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XPlaycd
TODO
The editor should support putting cd's in separate cate-
gories.
It should be possible to edit a cd without having to
insert it into the drive. This would be possible only for
cd's which have been at least once in the drive and have
been saved before, though.
Much more...
SEE ALSO
xmixer(1)
AUTHOR
Olav Woelfelschneider
wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
COPYING
Copyright (C) 1994
Olav Woelfelschneider
wosch@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA.