cd-console
by Osku Salerma
- General information and history
cd-console is a CD player program for linux. It first originated many years ago because none of the available text-mode CD players for linux was any good, so I decided to write my own. Some time after that I wrote a QT version because QT was new and exciting back then and I wanted to try GUI programming.
Then nothing much happened for several years. Then I decided the low-level code sucked because I couldn't add couple of features I wanted easily, so I rewrote it. Then I had to rewrite the text-mode interface to accommodate to the changes and new features added. The QT version would've needed a rewrite too, but by this time GTK had come out and we all saw how Evil and Wrong QT was, so I scrapped the whole QT version and started writing a GTK version. That never got finished, because even though I was then using X 99% of the time, the text-mode interface running in an xterm was proving to be everything I ever wanted from a cd-player. So I scrapped the half-finished GTK version too.
Some time after that, I decided the interface had way too much empty space in it. That hadn't mattered back in the console days, because you couldn't do anything with that space anyway. But in X if you removed the empty space, you could just run it in a smaller xterm leaving more room for other stuff. So I added an alternate display mode, using just 41x7 space compared to the 80x16 the old one used. That's where it stands now. There are some bugs in changing between programmed/random mode, but I haven't bothered chasing them down since it's so easy just to restart the program (that and I'm lazy).
2. How to use the program
The program displays a list of most commands available when it's running and they're pretty self-explanatory. It doesn't say the keys to select tracks. They are:
F1-F12 : tracks 1-12
1-9 : tracks 11-19
0 : track 20
(F11 and F12 don't work in an xterm for me. Just use 1 or 2 if that's the case for you too.)
The 'Extra track' command, which is under the 'T' key, adds 20 to the next track number you choose. So if you want to play track 32, press 'T' and then F2.
Another thing it doesn't say: CTRL+L redraws the screen.
Programmed mode works like this: you toggle it on, select all the tracks you want to add, and press play. It starts playing those tracks. If you have random mode on, it plays them in random order. If you have loop mode on, it loops after it has played them all.
cd-console -h displays help on available command line arguments.
3. Where to send bug reports and patches and whatever
Osku Salerma
osku@iki.fi
http://www.iki.fi/osku/ (my homepage)
http://www.iki.fi/osku/cd-console/ (the program's homepage)
4. People who've contributed in some way
Kimmo Surakka <kusti@cs.tut.fi>
-sbpcd patches
Walter Vellenich <walterv@eur.autodesk.com>
-testing
Julian Dunn <jdunn@aquezada.com>
-FreeBSD support