# Using &amarok;

&amarok; is a versatile audio player that offers many different ways of controlling your music collection. Like any ordinary audio player, &amarok; has a player window for controlling your most basic functions. &amarok; also has a playlist that is second to none. The playlist window has multiple browsers for creating and browsing your entire audio collection.

In this chapter we will go over how to use all the features of &amarok; including creating a collection and a playlist.

## The Player Window

Player Window Screenshot

The player window is your one click &amarok; control center. At the top of the player there is a scrolling display to show the currently playing track or stream. Just below the scrolling display there is an area to display the current track's play time, bit rate, and sample rate. Clicking this area will change the track time from total played to total time remaining.

The player window also features a selection of audio analyzers also located under the scrolling display. You can cycle through the available analyzers by left clicking the analyzer area.

Analyzer Tip

The &amarok; player analyzers can be detached from the player window. By pressing d on your keyboard the active analyzer will open in an independent, re-sizeable window.

Also below the scrolling display are the PL and EQ buttons. The PL button is used to quickly enable or disable the playlist window, while the EQ button is used to enable and disable the equalizer if your engine is compatible.

The remainder of the player includes the playback buttons and the volume and track position sliders. Use the sliders to choose a track postion or volume level that suits your needs. Use the playback buttons to control the playback of the current track, or to skip either forward or back through your tracks.

## The Equalizer Window

Equalizer Screenshot

The equalizer is similar to the equalizers found in other media players. Checking the Enable Equalizer check box activates the equalizer and enables the sliders to adjust the levels in the equalizer to suit your listening needs.

The equalizer can be found in the right mouse button menu. You can also find it in the Menubar by selecting Tools Equalizer.

## The Playlist Window

Playlist Window Screenshot

The &amarok; playlist is the most advanced playlist available to any audio player for &kde;. The playlist offers many features that are not found in any other player. You should not be intimidated by the power of the playlist however, as it is still the easiest to use.

The playlist window can be divided into two main sections, on the left is the sidebar. The sidebar is where you will find some of the excellent features of the playlist like the Context Browser. On the right side of the window is the playlist itself. The playlist is simple to use yet powerful enough for even the most advanced users.

## The Sidebar Browsers

The Sidebar Browsers transform the &amarok; playlist into a complete media management tool. From adding media to your collection to suggesting other tracks to listen to, the Sidebar Browsers do it all. You will also find full iPod support along with browsers for handling playlists and browsing your filesystem.

In this section there is all the information you need to get the most out of the Sidebar Browsers, and as you will see, the Browsers will have you listening to your music in a whole new way.

### Context Browser

Context Screenshot

The Context Browser is a tabbed browser that provides many different kinds of information about the currently playing track, and your music collection in general.

#### The Home Tab

The Home Tab offers information about your entire music collection. In this tab you will find the Your Favorite Tracks, Your Newest Tracks, and Least Listened Songs panes.

The Your Favorite Tracks pane lists the ten highest rated tracks in your collection.

The Your Newest Tracks pane lists the five most recently added tracks in your collection.

The Least Listened Songs pane lists the five least listened to tracks in your collection. These are tracks that were once played, but have not been played in a while.

Clicking an item in any of these panes will begin playback of the track.

#### The Current Track Tab

The Current Track Tab offers information about the currently playing track, and it's artist and album.

The first pane in this tab is for information about the track. The title of the pane lists the track name, artist name, and album. Inside the pane you will find it shows the album cover image for the track. Next to the image you will find a MusicBrainz icon. Click this icon to do a MusicBrainz look-up for the track.

Below the MusicBrainz icon there is more information about you current track. Here you will find the total number of times the track has been played, the track's current core, and when the track was First and Last played.

To display album cover images in the Context Browser you must have the album cover image in the same directory as the track you are listening to. Supported file formats are .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, and .png. The images can be named anything, but images with the word front in the filename will be used with preference. The Context Browser will also use cover images saved from the album cover downloader, or images embedded in ID3v2 tags.

The next pane, Suggested Songs, lists multiple tracks for suggested listening. Click on any of the listed tracks to begin playback of the track.

Below Suggested Songs is the Favorite Tracks By Artist. This pane lists the five highest rated tracks by the current track's artist.

The last pane, Albums By Artists, lists all of the albums by the current track's artists that are in your collection. Clicking on any of the albums in this pane will expand the album to show the album's content.

You can click on tracks in any of the panes to begin playback of the track. You can also right click albums and tracks for a pop-up menu to choose several ways to play or enqueue the track or album.

#### The Lyrics Tab

The Lyrics Tab has a single pane that is used to display the lyrics to the currently playing track if they are available.

#### The Wiki Tab

This tab is not yet documented.

### Collection Browser

Collection Browser Screenshot

The Collection Browser is used to view your audio collection in a Tree View. In order to use the Collection Browser, you must setup the directories to use for your collection. Clicking the Configure Folders.. button in the Collection Browser toolbar will start a dialog for adding directories to your collection.

If you enabled the Watch folders for changes option in the Configure Collection dialog you may notice that changes may not be updated instantly. This is because the normal behavior of the Collection Browser is to update automatically every 30 seconds.

Once your directories have been scanned, you will see your collection in a tree view. The tree view is organized by First, Second and Third Levels. The Levels can represent the tracks Album, Artist, Genre, or Year. Selecting the First, Second, or Third Level entries in the Tag Filter menu will allow to set what the branches represent.

The Collection Browser also features a Flat View. You can choose the Flat View by clicking the Flat View button in the Collection Browser toolbar. In the Flat View your collection will first appear to be empty. You can now start entering text into the search text box. After three or more characters are entered you will begin to see the results in the Flat View. You can begin another search by clicking the Clear Filter button next to the text box, and then enter more text in the text box.

At the top of the Collection Browser is a search bar for searching your collection. The Collection Browser will show only the items that contain the search string you type in the text box. Once you are done searching, you can click the clear button to clear the search field.

The Collection Browser also supports downloading of album cover images. To download an album cover you can simply right click an item in the Collection Browser and select Fetch Cover Images. The cover downloader will open a window to display the downloaded image allowing you to save the image or perform a new search with a more specific search string.

Included with the cover downloader is an Album Cover Manager. You can launch the Cover Manager by selecting Actions Cover Manager.

### Playlist Browser

Playlist Browser Screenshot

The Playlist Browser is used for easy handling of your multiple playlists. The Playlist Browser also features built in smart playlists making it the most clever playlist browser around.

The Playlist Browser is divided into two sections, Playlists and Smart Playlists. The Playlists sections is for your own custom playlists. You can view the contents of your playlists in a list view by clicking the + symbol found next to each of the listed playlists. When you view a playlist in the list view new items can be added to the playlist by dragging and dropping them into the view. When you have found a playlist that you would like to load, you can double click the playlist, or press the Space Bar to have &amarok; load it. The other Playlist Browser keyboard shortcuts can be found in the Keyboard Shortcuts section.

When you save a new playlist from the Playlist Window it is automatically added to the Playlist section.

The bottom section of the Playlist Browser is the Smart Playlists. The Smart Playlists use &amarok;'s built in data base to compile some useful playlists on the fly. The Smart Playlists include the following.

All Collection: a playlist with all the tracks that are in your configured collection.

Favorite Tracks: multiple playlists of the fifteen highest rated tracks in a listview by artitst.

Most Played: multiple playlists of the fifteen most played tracks in a listview by artitst.

Newest Tracks: multiple playlists of the fifteen most recently added tracks in a listview by artitst.

Last Played: a playlist of the fifteen most recently played tracks in your collection.

Never Played: a playlist of the tracks in your collection which have never been played before.

Genres: multiple playlists in a listview ordered by genre.

User defined smart playlists are also possible. Clicking the Create Smart-Playlist button will open a dialog to configure a smart playlist to fit your criteria.

### Media Device Browser

Media Device Browser Screenshot

The Media Device panel is used for connecting your iPod, to &amarok;. To use your iPod with the Media Device browser you must have your iPod mounted at /mnt/ipod before starting &amarok;. Once you have started &amarok; you will find the tracks on your iPod listed by artist in a listview at the top of the browser.

To add tracks to your iPod, drag the tracks you want to add from the playlist and drop them on the Artist listview. After you are done adding tracks to the list click the Transfer button to upload them to your iPod. After the transfer has completed, close &amarok; and unmount your iPod.

### File Browser

File Browser Screenshot

The File Browser panel is like a mini konqueror embedded into the playlist. You can use the File Browser panel to browse your entire filesystem for audio files to add to the playlist. At the top of the File Browser you will find a toolbar with navigation buttons for moving Up, Back, and Forward through your filesystem. The tool bar also offers a Home, Reload, Short view and Detailed view buttons, it also features a Bookmarks button for creating bookmarks of your favorite filesystem areas.

Below the toolbar is a handy search bar for searching by file name. You will find the search bar useful for directories with many files as it searches as you type leaving only the relevant file names in the view.

At the bottom of the File Browser is an address bar for accessing your music from any URL that you type. For instance typing `tar:/home/mike/music.tar.gz` into the address bar and pressing Enter on your keyboard will allow you to access the files inside the music tar ball. Now you can drag the audio from the tar ball and drop it into the playlist.

When playlist grows larger than one screenful, it becomes hard to append files by simply dropping them. Holding Shift key on keyboard while dropping may help in this case: the files will be appended at the end of playlist rather than inserted at current drop position.

## The Playlist

Playlist Screenshot

The Playlist holds all the tracks you have en-queued for playing. You can change the sequence by dragging items around with the mouse, and dropping them in the desired position. Above the Playlist you see a Text Box, where you can enter a filter string. As soon as you enter a letter there, the Playlist will be redisplayed, showing only entries containing the entered characters. To stop the filtering, simply press Backspace, until the filter is empty.

Advanced, Google-esque syntax is also available.

By default, when you enter terms separated by spaces, it will search for items containing all of them. For example: one two three, will search for anything that contains one, two, and three.

However, you can put OR between terms to search for items that contain either, like this: one OR two OR three. That way, it will search for items that contain either one, or two, or three (or a combination of them).

You can also use quotes to search for terms with spaces in them: "Mike Oldfield". That will search for items that contain Mike Oldfield, but not, for example, ones that contain Mike J. Oldfield.

By default, it searches in all the columns of the playlist that are currently visible. However, you can use column:term to specify the column to search in: title:amarok (this can also be a column that isn't visible). This way, it will only search for items that have the word amarok in the title, and not, for example, in the album.

When specifying a specific column to search in, you can also search for items less than or greater than a term, for example: score:>50, which will search for items with a score greater than 50.

To specify a term you don't want the items to match, you can put a minus (-) sign before them: -thing, to search for anything that doesn't contain thing.

You can combine the above at will, for example: "Mike Oldfield" OR score:>50 -comment:bad. That will search for anything that either contains Mike Oldfield or has a score greater than 50, but excludes items where the comment contains "bad".

Playlist Tip

You can select items to be played in a specific order by holding Control and clicking the &RMB; on items in the order in which you wish them to be played. The items will be tagged with a number showing the order in which you selected them.

## The Playlist Menubar

Playlist Menubar Screenshot

### The Actions Menu

Actions Play Media...

  Opens a dialog for entering an URL.

Actions Play Audio CD

  Allows you to view and play an Audio CD using the audiocd:/ protocol.

Win Z Actions Previous Track

  Move to the previous track in the playlist.

Actions Pause

  Pauses the playback of the current track.

Win Z Actions Stop

  Stops playback.

Win Z Actions Next Track

  Move to the next track in the playlist.

Ctrl Q Actions Quit

  Quits &amarok;.

### The Playlist Menu

Ctrl O Playlist Add Media...

  Opens a dialog to add media to your current playlist.

Ctrl S Playlist Save Playlist As...

  Opens a dialog to save your current playlist.

Ctrl Z Playlist Undo

  Undo the last change to the playlist.

Ctrl Shift S Playlist Redo

  Reverts changes made by Undo.

Playlist Clear

  Clears the current playlist.

Ctrl H Playlist Shuffle

  Shuffles the ordering of the current playlist.

Ctrl Enter Playlist Goto Current Track

  Moves the playlist to the currently playing track.

Ctrl D Playlist Queue Selected Tracks

  Queues all selected tracks in the playlist.

Playlist Remove Duplicates & Dead Entries

  Remove all duplicate or dead entries in the current playlist.

Ctrl A Playlist Select All

  Selects all the tracks in the current playlist.

### The Tools Menu

Tools Cover Manager

  Opens the Cover Manager.

Tools Queue Manager

  Opens the Queue Manager.

Tools First-Run Wizard

  Opens the First-Run wizard.

Tools Visualizations

  Opens the Visualizations dialog.

Tools Equalizer

  Opens the Equalizer Window.

Tools Scripts

  Opens the Script Manager.

Tools Rescan Collection

  Starts a manual scan of your collection folders.

### The Settings Menu

Ctrl M Settings Hide Menubar

  Hide the Playlist Window Menubar.

Settings Hide Toolbar

  Hide the Playlist Window Toolbar.

Settings Hide Player Window

  Hide the Player Window.

Settings Repeat Track

  Repeat playback of the current track.

Settings Repeat Playlist

  Repeat playback of the current playlist.

Settings Random Mode

  Randomizes the order of playback of the tracks in the playlist.

Settings Dynamic Mode

  Starts the dynamic playlist mode.

Settings Configure Global Shortcuts...

  Opens the global shortcut configuration dialog..

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Opens the &amarok; shortcut configuration dialog..

Settings Configure Toolbars...

  Opens the &amarok; toolbar configuration dialog..

Settings Configure amaroK...

  Opens the &amarok; configuration dialog..

### The Help Menu

F1 Help amaroK Handbook

  Opens this documentation.

Shift F1 Help What's This

  Activates the What's This mouse cursor.

Help Report Bug...

  Starts the bug reporting tool.

Help about amaroK

  Opens the about amaroK dialog.

Help about KDE

  Opens the about KDE dialog.

## The Playlist Toolbar

Playlist Toolbar Screenshot

The Playlist Window Toolbar is found near the bottom of the Playlist Window. The Toolbar contains buttons for many of the Playlist actions. On the right side of the Toolbar you can find the Add Media button, which opens a file dialog to add your media files to the playlist. Following the Add Media button are the Save Playlist, Clear Playlist, and Refresh Playlist buttons. You can use these buttons for handling the current Playlist.

The next set of buttons are the Undo, and Redo buttons. You can use these buttons to Undo or Redo any changes made to the playlist.

In the center of the Toolbar you can find a unique, re-sizeable analyzer. You can adjust the refresh rate for the analyzer by using the &RMB; menu, and selecting your desired frame rate.

The last button in the Toolbar is the Menu button. The Menu button opens the same menu as the Player Window &RMB; menu. You can use this menu for accessing the &amarok; configuration options.

There are many other buttons available for the Toolbar including player control buttons and a volume slider. You can configure what buttons are in the Toolbar by clicking the Menu button and selecting Configure Toolbars...

## The Playlist Status Bar

Status Bar Screenshot

The Status Bar provides quick access to some useful information about the playlist. The Status Bar displays the current track's title, the number of tracks in the playlist along with the total playlist time, Random and Repeat status, a mini track position slider, and the current track's play time. You can change the Random and Repeat status by double clicking there respective areas in the status bar.

You can also choose to not have the Status Bar displayed using the Show statusbar option in the Configure General Options Dialog.

## The Right Mouse Button Menu

RMB Menu Screenshot

The &RMB; menu can be found by right clicking the player window, it can also be found by clicking the Menu button in the playlist window. The &RMB; menu is used for access to all of &amarok;'s options.

Repeat Track

  This option when enabled repeats playback of the current track.

Repeat Playlist

  This option when enabled repeats playback of the entire playlist.

Random Mode

  This option when enabled randomizes the playback of the tracks in your playlist.

Append Suggestions

  Appends the suggested songs in the Context Browser to the current playlist.

Cover manager

  Opens the Cover Manager.

First-run Wizard

  Clicking this option starts the first-run wizard for the initial configuration of &amarok;.

Visualizations...

  Clicking this option opens the Visualizations Window for choosing what visualizations to use with &amarok;.

Equalizer

  Opens the Equalizer Window.

Script Manager

  Opens the Script Manager dialog.

Configure Toolbars...

  Clicking this option opens a dialog to configure the Playlist Toolbar.

Configure Shortcuts...

  Clicking this option opens a dialog to configure the &amarok; Shortcuts.

Configure Global Shortcuts...

  Clicking this option opens a dialog to configure the global &amarok; Shortcuts.

Configure Global amaroK...

  Clicking this options opens the &amarok; Configuration Dialog.

Help

  This entry provides a sub-menu providing links to this document and other &amarok; information.

Quit

  This entry when clicked will quit &amarok;.

## Album Cover Manager

Album Cover Manager

The Album Cover Manager is a useful tool for managing your album covers. You can start the Cover Manager by selecting Actions Cover Manager in the Collection Browser.

The cover manager provides a listview of all the albums in your collection. You can view all of your album covers for an artist by clicking on the artist in the list view.

The cover manager provides a search bar for searching in your album covers. The cover manager will search your albums for the search criteria you type in the search bar.

The View menu allows you to choose what is displayed in the cover manager. You can choose from:

All albums which displays all your albums in your collection.

Albums with cover which displays only the albums that have cover images.

Albums without cover which displays only the albums that do not have cover images.

The Fetch Missing Covers button is used to download cover images for your albums that do not already have cover images available.

## The Queue Manager

Queue Manager Screenshot

The Queue Manager makes it's grand entrance in &amarok; 1.3. This feature is designed to enable users to have even more control over their playlists. After queuing, a track a number will be shown beside it in the Queue Manager. This number indicates the order in which &amarok; will play the track: one will be first, two will be second, and so on.

You can use the Queue Manager by opening it from Tools Queue Manager, selecting the track, and then pressing the + icon in the Queue Manager. You can also just drag tracks to the Queue Manager to create a queue. Alternatively, the playlist's context menu may also be used and the Queue Manager can then be opened in order to modify the order.

## The Dynamic Mode

The Dynamic Mode feature is new to the 1.3 release. In this mode it is possible to have &amarok; add tracks to the playlist based on a set of criteria. To enable Dynamic Mode you can use the menu by going to Settings Dynamic Mode. You can also go to the Playlists tab and click on the Enable Dynamic Mode button. Finally, you can also click on the last icon in the statusbar. Once Dynamic Mode is enabled in &amarok; you can go to the Playlists tab and customize just how dynamite, er dynamic, your playlist is going to be.

Dynamic Mode Screenshot

### Buttons, what do they all mean?

More customizations can be performed than merely what type of playlist will be generated. (above image with Dynamic Mode and stuff and labelled numbers to refer to them.)

1. The Enable Dynamic Mode checkbox is what begins all the magic. Clicking on this will "get the party started" and you can walk away safe in the knowledge that everything will be alright.

2. The Show Options button toggles the dynamic mode options view for adjusting the following items to create a dynamic playlist that suits your needs.

3. The Type of Song to Append to Playlist dropdown box allows you to select different modes of play. These are explained in the upcoming section.

4. The Cycle tracks option removes tracks from the beginning of the playlist if checked. This can be further customized via the Maximum history to show option.

5. Checking Mark history will grey out tracks once they have been played.

6. The Played tracks to show option allows you to choose how many songs that have already been played will show up in the playlist.

7. The Upcoming tracks option allows you to choose just that. Whenever you click on the Repopulate button it appends this many tracks to the playlist.

8. Tracks to append defines how many tracks will be added to the playlist each time a song is played. Adjust to you pleasure.

9. The Repopulate button allows you to restart or even begin the playlist if nothing is currently added.

### Modes of Play

There are three types of playlist which can currently be generated using Dynamic Mode:

1. Random song

2. Suggested song

3. Playlist shuffle

With random song, songs from the entire collection to be added to the playlist in a non-sequential, nonspecific, nonsystematic, nonuniform way. Which is to say they are going to be added randomly.

With Suggested song, the songs are taken from the audioscrobbler database. This allows for a playlist with musical genres which have some similarity to be generated.

Choosing Playlist Shuffle does absolutely nothing. OK that's not totally true. If you choose to use this method with Dynamic Mode you'll also need to select playlists for which &amarok; can shuffle. After choosing your playlists, songs are then added randomly from these selected playlist.

Dynamic Mode Playlist Shuffle Screenshot
Playlist shuffle with selected playlists

That's it for the dynamic mode introduction people. Time to 'roK.

## The Script Manager

Script Manager Screenshot

The script interface provides a simple way to extend the functionality of &amarok;. To run an &amarok; script, start the Script Manager by selecting Tools Script Manager in the &amarok; Menubar. In the Script Manager dialog you will find a listview of your installed scripts, select a script from the listview and click the Run button to launch the script. The &amarok; script will run until it has finished, or is manually stopped by selecting the script in the Script Manager and clicking the Stop button.

Some scripts provide special configuration options. To access these options first run the script and then click the Configure button to access the script's configuration dialog.

To install new &amarok; scripts click the Install Script button in the Script Manager dialog. A select file dialog will open allowing you to select an &amarok; script package. After selecting a package to install a new entry for the script will appear in the listview. You can also install new scripts by clicking the Get More Scripts button, which opens a Dialog for downloading and installing scripts automatically from the internet.

You may also find that there are scripts that you no longer use. To uninstall a script select the script in the Script Manager listview and click the Uninstall button.

If you are looking for information on writing an &amarok; script, please see the Script Writing section of this document.

## The Visualizations

Visualizations Screenshot

The Visualizations Window is used to enable your available visualizations with &amarok;. A list of your available visualizations will be provided in the window. To enable a visualization check the provided checkbox for the specific visualization.