			mxPlay User's Manual
			~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Introduction

2. Features

3. Windows

	3.1 Panel
		3.1.1 Play
		3.1.2 Stop
		3.1.3 Pause
		3.1.4 Rewind
		3.1.5 Forward
		3.1.6 Next song
		3.1.7 Previous Song
		3.1.8 Playtime
		3.1.9 Repeat
		3.1.10 Random
		3.1.11 Mute
		3.1.12 Volume Slider
		3.1.13 Playlist
		3.1.14 Module Info
		3.1.15 Plugin Info
		3.1.16 About

	3.2 Playlist
		3.2.1 Add file
		3.2.2 Add Directory
		3.2.3 Select All
		3.2.3 Remove
		3.2.4 Load Playlist
		3.2.5 Save Playlist

	3.3 Module Info

	3.4 Plugin Info

	3.5 About

4. Keyboard Shortcuts

	4.1 (SHIFT) CTRL + O
	4.2 CTRL + Q
	4.3 SPACE
	4.4 CTRL + P
	4.5 CTRL + S
	4.6 (SHIFT) UP ARROW
	4.7 (SHIFT) DOWN ARROW
	4.8 (SHIFT) CTRL + A
	4.9 DELETE
	4.10 INSERT
	4.11 CLR HOME
	4.12 (SHIFT) TAB
	4.13 HELP
	4.14 UNDO
	4.15 NUM /
	4.16 NUM (
	4.17 NUM )
	4.18 NUM *

5. Supported Protocols

	5.1 ARGV
	5.2 VA-START
	5.3 Drag & Drop

6. Thanks

7. Contact

----------------------------------------------------------------------

*******************
* 1. Introduction *
*******************

Phew... so it really happend... if you're reading this text it means 
our little child called mxPlay is finally released.

Everything started with the one post on our local Atari list for 
Czech and Slovak Atari fans, where one guy has complained he isn't 
able to use great MegaPlayer under CT60 and that is bad there's no 
decent player for so many formats... Some guy on dhs.nu came with the 
idea to make plugins to FalcAMP, but it seems FalcAMP development is 
quite slow (I asked Frost about release date but he's hunting bugs so 
no release date is know yet :( ) and even no plugin API is known...

Final 'ass-kick' was Xi's reply to my comment "Did you see the new 
GemAce and GemMod? They looks pretty nice!" in style "Yeah, that's 
nice, but hell, I don't want to have nice player for mods, nice 
player for ace songs and another nice one for mp3s.. I want one, good 
looking player with the playlist!". Oh yes, here it really started.

After some discussion we came to the point "That's damn easy to make 
it! We have many free replay routines for various formats, we'll make 
some lame gem interface to it, hmm, maybe playlist will be a little 
bit tricky, but this could be done in 1-2 weeks!". So, 3 months 
passed very fast and here you are, mxPlay player with playlist, 
skins, plugins, open code and the coolest user features from the 
plenty of other players ;)

Maybe you're wondering what the hell we did make on this for about 3 
months. Firstly, I'm democoder. I didn't know nearly anything about 
GEM. So getting touch with this kind of programming was a new 
experience for me. Secondly, every day we come with new ideas what 
should we add, my TODO list was (and still is) full of things to 
implement...


***************
* 2. Features *
***************

- modern user interface

- fully skinable GUI

- compatible from the simple TOS to the latest XaAES

- best d&d / va-start / long name support you've ever seen

- memory protection friendly

- multitasking support, windowed dialogs

- universal plugin API which allows you to take any kind of replay 
  routine and to adapt it to mxPlay

- it's free!

- open development, anyone can contribute / bugfix

- recursive directory/file adding with autodetection for supported 
  formats

- and a lot of more ...


**************
* 3. Windows *
**************

Here you'll find brief description of each mxPlay's window.


3.1 Panel
=========

The heart of mxPlay. You don't need to top the panel, button will be 
activated even on untopped panel.


3.1.1 Play
----------

Play the current song. If no song was selected it will be played 
either the first file in playlist or the random song (in the case 
'Random' button was activated, see bellow)


3.1.2 Stop
----------

Self-explaining.


3.1.3 Pause
-----------

Pause playing. Please note not every plugin supports this function. 
Click on this button again to continue playing.


3.1.4 Rewind
------------

Move backward in the song. Currently not implemeted.


3.1.5 Forward
-------------

Move forward in the song. Currently not implemeted.


3.1.6 Next song
---------------

Play the next song in the playlist.

If you're at the end of playlist and the 'Repeat' button was 
activated (see bellow) as next file will be taken the first one.

If 'Random' button was activated, next song will be choosen randomly.


3.1.7 Previous Song
-------------------

Play the previous song in the playlist. Please note previous song 
will be played even in random mode, no random selection as done in 
Aniplayer!


3.1.8 Playtime
--------------

By clicking on the playtime you change time addition/substraction a 
la Winamp or XMMS.


3.1.9 Repeat
------------

Wrap to the begin of playlist when requested for the next song and 
we're on the last entry in the playlist.


3.1.10 Random
-------------

Activate random song selection. 'Repeat' button has no sense then.


3.1.11 Mute
-----------

Mute the playing. Please note this function is not working very well 
:)


3.1.12 Volume Slider
--------------------

Increase or decrease volume level. It even watches for current sound 
system status so you can try to play with volume in some CPX and you 
will see the effect :)


3.1.13 Playlist
---------------

Open/close playlist.


3.1.14 Module Info
------------------

Open/close module info dialog.


3.1.15 Plugin Info
------------------

Open/close plugin info dialog.


3.1.16 About
------------

Open/close information about application.


3.2 Playlist
============

The best playlist for our little Atari :)


3.2.1 Add file
--------------

Add file(s) to the playlist. Please note your fileselector has to 
support Selectric and/or MagiC fileselector protocol to select more 
than one file. Except the Selectric and MagiC it does Hugo for 
example.


3.2.2 Add Directory
-------------------

Add director(y|ies) to the playlist. It's fully recursive operation 
so, yes, you can take your music partition and open it in mxPlay! If 
your fileselector doesn't allow you to select exact directory, open 
such directory, clear "filename" field and press RETURN.


3.2.3 Select All
----------------

Select all entries in the playlist. If you press SHIFT key, it will 
do inverse operation - i.e. deselecting selected files and vice versa.


3.2.3 Remove
------------

Remove selected files. No stupid questions, so beware.


3.2.4 Load Playlist
-------------------

Load .m3u file. Yes, that's the file from winamp and others :)


3.2.5 Save Playlist
-------------------

Save .m3u file.


3.3 Module Info
===============

Here you can find some information about currently played module as 
provided by plugin. Enabled (not shaded) arrows mean you can scroll 
left and/or right to see the full text (better is to resize window I 
think ;)


3.4 Plugin Info
===============

Similar to Module Info but you're allowed even enter some values. It 
could be simple on/off flag or numerical/text parameter. If there are 
up and down arrows you can scroll with them (sorry no resize at this 
time...)


3.5 About
=========

Simple about dialog. Here you can read the license under which is 
mxPlay released and the current version.


*************************
* 4. Keyboard Shortcuts *
*************************

4.1 (SHIFT) CTRL + O
====================

Open (and add to playlist) file(s) or (with SHIFT) director(y|ies).


4.2 CTRL + Q
============

Quit application.


4.3 SPACE
=========

Pause playing.


4.4 CTRL + P
============

Start playing.


4.5 CTRL + S
============

Stop playing.


4.6 (SHIFT) UP ARROW
====================

If in playlist, move up (1 entry or whole page with SHIFT)


4.7 (SHIFT) DOWN ARROW
======================

If in playlist, move down (1 entry or whole page with SHIFT)


4.8 (SHIFT) CTRL + A
====================

Select all entries in the playlist or (with SHIFT) make opaque to the 
current state.


4.9 DELETE
==========

Delete selected entries from the playlist.


4.10 INSERT
===========

Activate 'Repeat' button.


4.11 CLR HOME
=============

Activate 'Random' button.


4.12 (SHIFT) TAB
================

Open/close Module info or (with SHIFT) Plugin info dialog.


4.13 HELP
=========

Open/close About dialog.


4.14 UNDO
=========

Activate 'Mute' button.


4.15 NUM /
==========

Change the current skin. Change is done in realtime!


4.16 NUM (
==========

Play previous song in the playlist.


4.17 NUM )
==========

Play next song in the playlist.


4.18 NUM *
==========

Open/close playlist.


**************************
* 5. Supported protocols *
**************************


5.1 ARGV
========

You can assign some file type, e.g. *.mp2 to mxPlay and then just 
click on the mp2 files and mxPlay will open & play such file. The 
filename could be even with spaces, bigger than 8+3 characters etc. 
Please note, not all desktops support this, see file BUGS for details.


5.2 VA-START
============

If you go in the way described in 5.1 you can double-click on the 
file during song playing and mxPlay will update its playlist and 
begin to play this file.


5.3 Drag & Drop
===============

You can take files, directories and even hard disk icons and place it 
onto mxPlay, everything will go as you expect! Full support for long 
names.


*************
* 6. Thanks *
*************

At first I would like to thank to all people who decided to publish 
their source codes. Without them there's no mxPlay. So for 
others - please, support free software, release your source code - it 
helps all of us. Very good example is zView, really good work, Zorro!

Next I have to thank Xi, my never-tired-for-another-bugreport friend 
;), without your usefull hints about application architecture and 
without your massive support I doubt I finish mxPlay in this look and 
functionality.

Also thanks to people on MiNT list, they helped me sometimes when I 
was in total dark :)

And at last but not least I have to thank YOU, Atari fan, you're 
still using Atari computers!


**************
* 7. Contact *
**************

Don't forget mxPlay is FREE SOFTWARE that means everyone can 
contribute to and/or bugfix the current version. If you can't code 
you can make skins. If you can't make GEM dialogs, you can test 
mxPlay, spell-check documentation, think about new features, ... help 
is always welcomed.

You can reach me 7 days of week at:

mikro@hysteria.sk

Xi is the author of skins, the most of plugins and he is the very 
good beta-tester, you can reach him at:

xi@napri.sk



... happy playing!


Project's homepage:
===================

http://mxplay.atari.org


Authors' homepages:
===================

MiKRO / Mystic Bytes                      -XI- / Satantronic
http://mikro.atari.org                    http://satantronic.atari.org
http://msb.neostrada.pl

      -----------         Don't forget to visit    -----------
      -----------            http://atari.sk       -----------
