Help file for !CDPlay

Application : CDPlay

  Purpose     : Filer Like CD Player
  Version     : 1.17
  Author      : Leo White
  Date        : Wed 17th December 1997

CDPlay is a small program to be used for playing Audio CDs. It was written by me when I got a CD-ROM drive for my 4MB A5000 and found out that the supplied CD Player took up 160K of memory. After looking around and not finding any other player with decent features that used less then 96K of memory, I decided to write my own.

CDPlay attempts to display the track information in a style similar to the 'Fill info' option on a Filer Window. I.e. it displays track number, name and size in the same sort of layout.

CDPlay can support multiply CDROM drives, enabling you to use just one program to control them all, and can store CD details on to disk and recall them next time you use that CD.

It also has function for random and program play, and the usual time display option.

Instructions

CDPlay does not use an icon on the icon bar. Instead you can open and close the main window in two ways. First is by adjust clicking on the CD Drive icon on the iconbar. The second way is by a user configurable hotkey. By default this is CTRL-SHIFT-TAB.

The main window consists of the CD Title, current track name, the CD controls, current track number, time, and a volume bar.

CD Controls

The control icons are, from left to right:

    R     - When depressed, selects Random play.
    M     - When depressed, selects memory play

Previous - When 'Select' clicked, jumps to start of current track,

               or begining of next track.
               When 'Adjust' click, acts as rewind.
    Pause/Play - Pauses or plays/restarts the CD
    Next     - When 'Select' clicked, jumps to start of Next track.
               When 'Adjust' clicked, acts as fast forwards.
    Stop     - Stop
    Eject    - When 'Select' clicked, attempts to eject or close the
               CD drawer depending on current status.
               When 'Adjust' clicked, forces the drive to eject, as
               CDFS can't tell the difference between an empty drive,
               and an open drawer drive.

Time

The time format can be toggled by clicking on the time part of the icon.

Volume

The volume can be changed by clicking on the appropiate part of the bar, or by dragging the slider left and right. This option will only work on drives that support it, and with a version of CDFS that supports it.

Track Information

Track Number - Plays the appropiate track Track Name - Displays track name. Click on the icon to edit it. Time - Shows the tracks total length.

The Choices Program

Most of these options are self explainatery. But I list here a few that may need explaining.

CD matching offset
Different CDROM drives can report different unique numbers for the same CD. This option enables you to configure the boundaries for matching CDs. CDPlay will look for a CD in the range of 'Reported number +- offset'
This option is only useful if you have more than one CDROM drive, or you have got a list of CD Details from someone else.

Autodetect CD Change
CDPlay normally checks at regular intervals if the current CD that is in the drive is the one that it thinks it is playing. This does not work with some CDFS drivers, and causes the CDPlay to rescan the Listings file to match the CD. If you have this problem, then turn this option off. The only problem you should then get is if you change the CD whilst single tasking, as CDPlay will not spot the change.

Check if track is audio
Some CDFS drivers do not support this. So if you find that CDPlay refuses to play audio tracks, then try turning this option off.

Hotkey code
This is the hotkey code that opens and closes the main window. To change, click in the icon, and press the desired hotkey, and the code should then change.

Save current window position
When selected, the current location of the main window AT THE TIME THAT YOU SAVE THE CONFIGURATION will be saved, and the window will be opened at that location next time that you run CDPlay.

The Listing File

This is where CDPlay stores its information on CDs.

To merge the current Listing file with a new one. Drag the new Listing file onto CDPlay's main window. The new Lising file must be either set to text, or data.

SMART CD+ users. CDPlay can convert and use the Smart CD Version 2 listing files. Just drag the Smart CD listing file onto CDPlay's main window as mentioned above.

Things To Do

-Expand the memory play routines. Allow saving of playlists etc. -Add interactive help.
-Rewrite at last part of the program as a module, so it works even whilst outside of the desktop. i.e When playing games.

Program History

Version 0.01

Created Template And Sprite files, And Copied Basic Code From My First Attempt At A CD Player

Version 0.02 Thu 12th September 1996

Added Code To Make The Main Window Adjust Size And Create The Icons Needed To Hold The Track Names Etc.

Version 0.03 Fri 13th September 1996

Code Added To Detect Data CDs
If You Try And Play A Data Track, CDPlay Performs A Filer_OpenDir On The Root Of The CD-ROM To Open The Filer Window Link List Finished To Hold All The Track Information Added Code To Generate The Playing Time Of The Track

Version 0.04 Tue 17th September 1996

Added Memory Routines
Change Merge File Procedure So It Works With Native Files Properly

Version 0.05 Sun 22nd September 1996

Tidied Up The Code
Made Linked List Accessing More Memory Efficient And Faster

Version 0.06 Sat 5th October 1996

Edited The Template Files To Make Them Conform To The RISC OS 3 Style Guide To A Greater Degree

Version 0.07 Mon 7th October 1996

Added Choices Window And Saving And Loading Of Choices File Added Routines To Check If The Listing And Choices Files Exist

Version 0.08 Sat 12th October 1996

Fixed Bug, If The CD Was Stopped By CDPlay, And Started By Another Method, CDPlay Didn't Register The Fact That It Had Restarted Added Routines To Set The 'Listing' File To Protected So That It Can't Be Overwritten Or Deleted By Accident

Version 0.09 Sun 3rd November 1996

Fixed Bug Which Stopped CDPlay Being Used On Multiple Drives Added Code To Detect Return And Escape Keypresses In The Choices Window, And Perform The Appropriate Action

Version 1.00 Mon 04th November 1996

First Release Version, Finally Decided The Program Was In A Fit State To Be Released

Version 1.01 Mon 22nd November 1996

Fixed Bug In Saving CD Listing Which Could Mess Up The Listing File

Version 1.02 12 December 1996

Different CDFS drivers (e.g. ATAPI, PSLCD) return different CD ID numbers. Added hack to enable CDs entered into the listing under one driver, to be used by the other driver. Tidied up some of the code

Version 1.03 4 January 1997

Rewrote CD Play routines, and window creation/handling routines, edited the sprite files and template files, resulting in a 25% reduction in memory usage. CDPlay now only requires 48k of memory to run in, instead of 64k.
Also changed the 'memory' mode. Can now handle having the same track more than once in the Program. Making it far more useful. Removed Listing Merge routines out of main program and into a separate application, which is called by CDPlay when needed.

Version 1.04 Wed 15th January 1997

Fixed problem with wrong Sprites file being loaded for the current mode.
Added code to listing save routines to reduce chance of corrupted listing files.
Add check to make sure Random play doesn't play the same track twice in a row.

Version 1.05 Sun 19th January 1997

Added Menu, removed Info, Choices etc. buttons from main window to the menu.
Added volume bar.
Added Auto Repeat CD option in the Choices Window. Tidied up the code slightly.
Hopefully fixed problem which resulted in CDPlay crashing when using the Alsystems CDFS drivers.

Version 1.06 Tue 11th February 1997

Changed Track Playing routines.
Altered the code which generated track time and CD playing time. Made sure the menu closed if the window was closed, unless adjust used. Added changing of icon background colour when got input focus. Added scrolling of window to keep caret in view. Changed the Volume bar code, so it doesn't mess up as much on a system which doesn't support it.

Version 1.07 Sat 1st March 1997

Removed configuration code and turned it into a separate application. Added new configuration options :
Disable CD Scanning
Warn If Track listings Not Saved
CDMatching Offset Number
Show Track Lengths
Added 2 new Time Formats
Save Volume On Exit
Auto Save CD Listing
Changing of the Hotkey Code
Wimpslot was increased to 52K :(

Version 1.08 Tue 11th March 1997

Reduced the wimpslot back down to 48k again :) Added better support for the auto save CD listings. Changed the volume support detection routines. Hopefully will work slightly better now.
Rewrote the Help file to cover the new Choices application Changed the layout of the Choices file so I could remove some code.

Version 1.09 Tue 18th March 1997

Added two new configuration options to handle problems with some CDFS drivers.
Fixed a bug that was causing CDPlay to crash occasionally when redrawing the volume bar.
Changed code so it displays 'CD Scanning Disabled' instead of 'Unknown' for the CD Title when that option is turned on.

Version 1.10 Thu 20th March 1997

Changed code so track names are empty if they are unknown Rewrote the Listings file merging program so it is more memory based processing. Speeding it up considerable on larger files. Added a proper sprite for the Misc icon in the Choices program. Decided to release it if no bugs had crept in :)

Version 1.11 Tue 20th May 1997

Fixed bug. If U saved when the drive was empty, the listing file got corrupted. Now only saves if drive is not empty. Got the greying out of the 'Save' option in the menu working properly.

Version 1.12 Sun 25th May 1997

Added Cue And rewind functions when U adjust click on the 'Next' 'Last' icons.

Version 1.13 Tue 27th May 1997

Fixed bug where the CD Title was being overwritten when a program was created.
Fixed bug in the configure program, which was causing the machine to get stuck in an endless loop.

Version 1.14 Wed 17th September 1997

Switched from playing single tracks to playing until end of disc, as playing single tracks caused problems on the 4x4 autochangers.
Fixed the setting of the volume when CDPlay is first loaded. Tided up the code, removed some unwanted variables. The current track name is updated when it is changed. Fixed a problem where the track number occasionally got stuck on '117', causeing CDPlay to get 'stuck'

Version 1.15 Mon 17th November 1997

Removed the 'create random list' option, as it was a bit useless really.
Changed to using my own linked list functinos. Managed to reduce the (uncompressed) size of !RunImage by 15.6% :) Chopped the sprite files so they took up less space. Reduced the wimpslot size from 48K to 44K Changed the polling of NULL events from .5 seconds to 1 second Fixed the 'Warn if track listings are not saved' option, when quitting CDPlay was checking the 'Autosave CD Listing' flag instead.

Version 1.16 Tue 25th November 1997

Some bugs creeped into CDPlay to do with redrawing the slider when the window had been scrolled down, and getting the window to to follow the caret correctly. These have both been fixed.

Version 1.17 Wed 17th December 1997

Fixed the auto disabling of the volume slider if the CDROM drive/driver doesn't support it.
Fixed a small bug where the newline after the CD title was not always saved in the listings file.
'Merged' the play and pause button into a single button that changes depending on the current status of the CDROM drive.

Disclaimer

This software is provided as is. The author cannot take responsibility for any loss of data or any other problems consequent upon the use of this program.

Conditions of Use

This software is freeware. It may be freely distributed as long as no money is exchanged, apart from cost of distribution i.e. cost of discs, and that all the file are included with the possible exception of the Choices and Listing files.

Thanks go to my beta testers for helping to find bugs, suggesting improvements and generally forcing me to make it into a releasable product, rather than the underdeveloped version that I was quite happy with at the time ;)

Thanks also go to Acorn's !CDPlayer whose large memory usage compelled me into writing this program in the first place.

Updates and Listing Files

You can get the latest version of CDPlay from my web page at

http://www.ukc.ac.uk/php/lptw1

there is also a large Listing file here which contains > 1000 CD Details

Contacting The Author

If you wish to contact me, e.g. to tell me about any bugs, improvements etc. Or if you just want to send me large amounts of money :) (Well you never know), then you can use the following methods.

email : lptw1@ukc.ac.uk (Should be valid for a few more years yet)

or send mail to

L P T White
208 New Road
West Parley
Ferndown
Dorset
BH22 8EN

Any mail arriving here will be sent on to me at University. So could take quite some time to reach me.