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QuickMP3
1.6 Documentation
Copyright ©1999-2000 Löwald
Interactive
QuickMP3 is a program for
playing lists of music files in MP3 and other formats using
QuickTime 4. It will work with earlier versions of
QuickTime, but requires QuickTime 4 for MP3
support.
Shareware
This program is provided as
shareware. The registration fee is $5 (US). You can pay
online via Kagi (http://order.kagi.com/?UBA)
or mail (use the registration program provided).
Please note: this program is
not crippled in any way, but does show a mildly (I hope)
annoying registration message if you haven't
registered.
If you have comments, criticism, or bug reports,
please contact me via email: tonio (at) loewald (dot) com.
For the latest version: loewald.com/quickmp3.html
System
Requirements
QuickMP3 requires a Power Macintosh
computer with QuickTime
4 (although it
is compatible with earlier versions of QuickTime). QuickMP3
works best under MacOS 8.6 (thanks to improved
multitasking).
Quick Start
This shows the
"standard skin" for QuickMP3 (as of 1.4).
If you use custom skins, don't blame me if you can't figure
out the controls!
- Launch QuickMP3. By default,
QuickMP3 will open an empty play list.
- Use the Add Folder
and Add Item
buttons to add MP3s (and
QuickTime movies) to the play list. Or just drag and drop
MP3s and QuickTime movies to the Play List window. (Try
dragging a CD containg MP3s to a QuickMP3 play
list!)
- Double-click on an item to
start playing it. (Or select it and press
Play.)
Features
- Check Continuous to play
the tracks in your play list continuously.
- Check Loop to have your
play list loop endlessly.
- Check Random to play the
tracks in random order.
- Check Autoplay to have
the play list start playing automatically when
opened.
- Try dragging files to
your play list from Finder.
- You can rearrange tracks
in a play list using control-up and
control-down.
- Add all sorts of audio files to
your play list using Add File...
- Add a folder full of files at a
time by clicking Add Folder...
Creating an
AutoStart MP3 CD-ROM
If you want to create a
self-playing CD-ROM of your favourite MP3s, then:
- Create an autoplay play list
(check continuous if you want to play more than the first
track, random if you like).
- Put a copy of QuickMP3 on the
CD-ROM along with your play list, and finally
- Make the play list the
AutoStart file for the CD, and you're done!
That's about it.
QuickMP3 is intended principally as
an MP3 play list manager for QuickTime 4, but it is
compatible with earlier versions of QuickTime (and will play
any sound-only movies -- it will play other movies too, but
it won't show them, so it's kind of pointless).
Change History
1.6 27/6/2000
- Sound volume now works
properly! Instead of messing with your system sound
level, QuickMP3 now adjusts the volume of the movie
properly. It also remembers you volume setting between
sessions.
- Recompiled with REALbasic
2.1.2.
- Major bug which caused crashes
if you opened the preference dialog
fixed.
- Miscellaneous minor
changes.
1.5 31/10/99
- Fixed problem with loading
playlists (top item in list no longer gets moved to
bottom).
- QuickTime 4.1 bug fixed (I
hope). For some reason QuickMP3 began crashing with
QuickTime 4.1. This problem appears to have been
addressed by an update to REALbasic.
1.5b4 1/7/99
- Fixed problem with dragging
files of type "Mp3 " to QuickMP3's icon in
Finder.
1.5b3 30/6/99
- Added list of available play
lists, and the tracks in the current play list to the
context menu.
- Fixed bug in behaviour of
Play and Stop in the new context menu.
1.5b2 30/6/99
- Context menu for controlling
volume (among other things) in the control widget.
Note that this changes the global volume; I will modify
this to only affect music being played by QuickMP3 in the
future. (Sorry I didn't finish writing this note in the
previous version of this page.)
1.5b1 29/6/99
- QuickMP3 is now
AppleScriptable. In particular, you can play a
track by name or number (e.g. 'Play 17' or 'Play "Bureau.
It is only for sheep"'), list available tracks,
and stop playback.
Note: this should make it
perfectly practical to turn a Mac running scriptable Finder
into a faceless jukebox (turn on program linking and you're
off). Tell me what additional scripting functionality you
need and I'll add it (if absolutely necessary, I'll support
the object model).
Add [track] and
save [play list [to path]] are
planned; as a workaround, you should have little trouble
building playlists on the fly as text files; open a play
list in BBEdit to see how simple the format is.
- You can double-click the
titlebar of the control strip to bring QuickMP3 to the
front.
- Cursor no longer changes over
various dialogs.
1.4 29/6/99
- Registration via Kagi is
now set up: http://order.kagi.com/?UBA
- If you're not online, the
registration application included should help
(thanks to Peter Lewis and Kagi).
- Window menu
added.
- Transcript now only pops up
if there's an error. You can bring forth the
transcript at any time using the window menu.
Apologies to those of you who've
submitted new skins. I haven't had time to sort them out and
upload them.
1.4b3 14/6/99
(1.4b2 was not
released.)
- Changing skins in the
Preferences dialog now updates live without
interrupting playback.
- Period ("."), Escape, and
Clear keys stop the track being played. (Space
doesn't yet; it will when I get around to implementing
Pause properly.)
- Tab key allows you to cycle
through playlist windows (brings the rear-most window
to the front).
- The clipboard is now fully
supported.
- You can no longer
accidentally (or deliberately) drag an item back to the
same track list.
- Tracks are now added (via
all methods) above the current selection. E.g. if you
select a track and then add another track, the new track
will appear above it. (If there is no selection, tracks
will be appended to the list.
- Control window "auto
minimise" feature is now a preference (default is
off).
- Control window now has
close (use Show Controls to bring it back) and
minimise (Windowshade-style)
buttons.
- New Skin format
(backwards compatible with old format, although if you
use the old format the close and minimise widgets will be
invisible).
- Slight reduced memory
footprint.
- Misc. bug fixes. Screen
refreshes should be cleaner.
1.4b1 New Interface
12/6/99
This was going to be version 1.3.2
(a minor revision) but I was reviewing Matt Neuberg's
excellent upcoming REALbasic book (which will be published
by O'Reilly) and just couldn't stop adding
features.
- Major Interface
improvements. Control window is now borderless.
"Title bar" now shows program name and version or song
title, as appropriate.
- Control window live-drags
and snaps to edges of "main screen". (I don't have
multiple displays, so I haven't tried implementing this
for multiple monitors. Anyone know a good place to buy
cheap PCI video cards?)
- Control window can be
option-dragged if only controls are
visible.
- Control window automatically
hides itself if docked to left, right, or bottom of
"main screen". Comes back within a second if mouse hovers
over it.
- No change to skin file
format, but I recommend you flip the text area
(vertically and horizontally) to make it an "outie" now
that it's turned into a pseudo-title-bar. This has
already been done with the skins included.
- Sorting of the play list
is now allowed (either by clicking in a column header or
by the Play List | Sort List submenu) (by song
title and file path; the latter is useful
if you've organised tracks into album folders -- the way
MPecker offers to do things by default).
- Left/Right arrow keys
don't bring up diagnostic dialog in runtime any more
(oops!). Instead they map to next/previous
track.
- You can toggle the
visibility of the controller via a menuitem in the
controls menu.
- The control palette is now
better implemented using improved functionality in
REALbasic 2.0.2.
- File extensions are only
stripped if five chars or shorter. So "Bureau. Only
For Sheep" does not become "Bureau", whereas "Bureau.
Only For Sheep.mpeg3" does become "Bureau. Only For
Sheep". "Original Sin. INXS" is still screwed; this ain't
AI.
- Slightly improved (I
think) the appearance of most windows using new style
"bevel" buttons. Note that there are no key equivalents
for the new buttons (yet).
- File | Revert
implemented (didn't realise I hadn't done
it).
- Various minor bug
fixes.
- Note the extensive additional
menu functionality added in 1.3 (forgot to mention
it in the 1.3 notes).
1.3.1 Bug Fix 10/6/99
- Problem with control
palette not appearing fixed.
- Crashing bugs may have been
eliminated by same recompile.
1.3 First Registerable Version
9/6/99
- Registration function in
place.
- Omitting file extensions
(or anything after a period in a filename) is now a
preference option. QuickMP3 is also smarter at figuring
out which is the extension in a filename. So "Le Bureau.
It is Only For Sheep.mp3" will be listed as "Le Burea. It
is Only For Sheep".
- QuickMP3 now accepts most
audio formats (in particular, it accepts .WAV and
.AIFF files).
- QuickMP3 now remembers
playlist checkbox settings as defaults. When you save
a play list, its options become the new
default.
- Extra skins are now
included in standard distribution (thanks to Mauro Dalu
for both the skins and numerous excellent suggestions for
improvements to QuickMP3's user interface). Feel free to
send me more skins!
- Random (or "Shuffle")
Play now works without replacement, i.e. it plays
each track in random order once (per cycle). It also
doesn't start over unless the playlist is set to
loop.
I've tried to make shuffle behave nicely: for example, if
you specifically play a track it gets removed from the
shuffle list. QuickMP3 may play the same song twice in a
row (at the end of one cycle and the start of
another).
- You can now delete movies
from a Play List using the delete key.
- You can now rearrange
tracks by using control-up and control-down arrow.
(There's a couple of reasons why I haven't made this a
mouse-drag; one was that it would make dragging from
Finder very finicky; another was that is looked hard.
I'll revisit this later.)
- You can drag files "out of"
a play list into another Play List (or even into the
Finder -- try it and see, it's pretty wild).
- Continues playing after
failing to load a song. If QuickTime rejects a track,
QuickMP3 will (if playing continuously) proceed to the
next track.
- Various minor user interface
tweaks.
1.2 7/5/99
- Next button is now random if
play list is random. (Previous has not been
changed.)
- You can hide play lists
when QuickMP3 is in the background as a preference option
(default is true).
- You can now have the
floating controls window disappear when QuickMP3 is
in the background (preference option, default is
false).
- QuickMP3 will remember the
(top-most) open Play List and reopen it on launch as
a preference option (default is false).
- Floating Panel now correctly
remembers its position; earlier version only
remembered its horizontal position (owing to very bizarre
bug in REALbasic -- not that I'm ducking responsibility;
most of the other bugs are my fault).
- Bugs in AutoPlay
behaviour (e.g. skipping first track) should be
fixed.
1.1.2 4/5/99
- Fixed minor bug where
saving preferences always interrupts playback (caused by
the skin being marked as changed, even when it hasn't
been). Playback will still be interrupted if you've
changed your skin preferences.
- Corrected bug where
QuickMP3 would change filetypes it wasn't supposed
to.
- QuickMP3's file type
changing behaviour is now a preference item. The
default behaviour is as it was previously documented
(i.e. it only changes files named "something.mp3" with
type "????"; in fact, earlier versions behaved somewhat
differently).
1.1.1 30/4/99
- Added support for
recursively adding items in dropped
folders.
- Increased memory partition
size to 2000k (preferred). It probably only needs
about 1200k for most purposes, but one user reported
crashes in 24-bit colour (owing to lack of memory, I
suspect).
- Updated
documentation.
1.1 27/4/99
- Major user interface
changes!
- Many subtle
enhancements.
- Controls are now in a global
floating window. (The program remembers the
x-position of the control floater, but always places it
near the bottom of the screen.)
- QuickMP3 now has a
preferences file (stored in the Preferences
folder).
- Preferences dialog
allows you to set default font and font
size for lists (also affects the displayed track
name). I've allowed for font sizes up to 12 point, but I
don't recommend using fonts larger than 10
point.
- A first cut of Custom
Skins has been implemented. A skin is a picture that
has a 14-pixel high strip at the top which will look good
under white text, and three equally tall strips of eight
buttons beneath it showing enabled, active, and disabled
states.
See 1.4 release notes for new
skin format.
Two examples of skins have been
provided (one is the default). These are not necessary
for the correct functioning of QuickMP3. Also note that
you can paste a skin over the internal default skin
(using ResEdit) if you like.
- Eliminated QuickTime
controller as this was causing all sorts of confusion
and didn't work properly (e.g. setting the volume
suffered the same problems as with QuickTime Player). I
will eventually put in a seconds readout,
etc.
- Corrected an error in 1.0.2
that resulted in toggling some checkboxes not registering
a change to a play list file.
- QuickMP3 now saves loop
property (another dumb mistake).
- Turning continuous on
now starts play automatically.
- QuickMP3 nows remembers play
list window size and position. It treats a
window's size as part of its file information, so
resizing a window counts as a change.
- By default new windows are
opened at the size of the last window.
1.0.2 26/4/99
- QuickMP3 now only checks a
file's suitability if you're holding down the command
key. This means that dragging 100 files from a CD-ROM
onto your playlist now takes no time at all -- but if
there's a bad file, it may cause an error
later.
- QuickMP3 now does not
display filenames beyond the first ".". Thus, for
files batched using MPecker which might be called
"Bizarre Love Triangle.pcm.mp3" the file will be listed
as "Bizarre Love Triangle". I've been asked to parse ID3
tags, but I don't know how yet...
- Added a "Loop" button
(off by default).
- Dropped 68k support
after getting performance complaints from a German user
with a 200MHz 604e-based Mac. Figure there are no 68k
users out there. If I'm wrong, tell me!
- After many complaints about
lack of support for files with correct file type
information but no .mp3 extension, I've added support
for files with type "MPEG", "MPG ", "Mp3 ", "MPG3",
"MPG2", "MooV", "sooV", "SwaT", and "PLAY". If you
still have files that cause problems, please drop me a
line.
- Fixed a bug whereby files
typed "MPG3" might not be recognised. (I can't easily
tell; all my MP3s have a ".mp3" file name extension, and
my test files are on old CD-Rs. I'll assemble a decent
set of test files some time. Please don't send me MP3s! I
have enough problems with my email as it
is...)
- QuickMP3 now provides a
transcript of its activities (e.g. if you drag 50
files to it, it will tell you how many of them it liked,
didn't like, etc.).
- You can play the movie
selected in a play list by pressing space, enter, or
return.
- I've put active URL links in
the About box. I've also replaced the REALgurus link
with the QuickMP3 home page (such as it is).
1.0.1 23/4/99
- Opening a QuickMP3 MP3 document
(e.g. by double-clicking) adds it to the frontmost play
list (QuickMP3 will create a new play list if none is
open). Double-clicking QuickMP3 MP3 no longer causes it
to crash.
- Changed user interface
slightly. You now need to double-click a movie in the
list to start playing it (allows you to select and delete
entries without interrupting the song being played).
Eventually, I'll support dragging movies around to
re-order them, and dragging movies between
playlists.
- Fixed crashing bug if you open
a playlist file with an unsaved playlist window
open.
- Fixed mysterious crashing bug
when you let a playlist play (so much for my amazing
QA!).
1.0 (Initial Release)
23/4/99
QuickMP3 was written by Tonio Loewald and is copyright
©1999 Löwald Interactive.
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