The Player
Help Page
This is the help page for the file player tool,
which is part of the KarVCD toolset. This is a general-purpose player for MIDI,
KAR and WAVE files, with the capability to synchronously display the lyrics
associated with KAR files.
The
Player Dialog
Let us take
a look at the Player fields and buttons:
At the top
of the Player dialog there is the File group of controls with the
following elements:
¨
File type. These two radio buttons let you
choose the file to play, either the WAVE file or the MIDI/KAR file selected in
the main window.
¨
File name. This field shows the file to play.
¨
Browse. This button lets you load a file
to play.
Bellow the File
group there is the Show lyrics group with three radio buttons. These let
you choose the type of lyrics window to show while the file is being played.
Follows a
description of the remaining elements:
¨
Position. This slider control shows the
progress as the file is being played. When the player is stopped or paused this
slider can be set manually to indicate the position within the file where the
playing will start or resume.
¨
Play. This button initiates or resumes the playing
process.
¨
Pause. This button allows you to
temporarily suspend the playing process.
¨
Stop. This button stops the playing process.
¨
Status. This field shows you the status of
the player plus the time already played versus the total plying time.
¨
Help. This button shows you the file that you are
now reading.
¨
Close. This button closes the Player
Dialog and returns you to the Main Window.
The Lyrics Window
When KarVCD
is playing a file and it has access to the lyrics corresponding to that file,
it will show you the lyrics in a window. You can choose between a normal window
and full screen. The normal window looks like this:
The full window
has the same elements in the client area but doesn’t have a title bar or
borders.
The lyrics
window has four lines of text. The text is initially shown in white characters.
As the music corresponding to a word or syllable is played, that word or syllable
is shown in red. When all the words in a line are red, playing starts at the
next line.
Playing
starts at the third line of text. As that line of text is completed, playing
resumes at the fourth line. At the end of that line, playing continues at the first
line, after which it continues on the second line, and so on.
At the
transition from line 3 to 4, if the first and second lines have already been
played, they will be updated with the new words that follow the fourth line.
Similarly, during the transition from line 1 to line 2, the third and fourth
lines will be updated with new text.
Whenever
there is a part of a song that is purely instrumental, the window will show a
delay bar instead of the first and second lines of text. The third and forth
lines will show the text that follows the instrumental. The delay bar shows in
a continuous way how much time there is before the end of the instrumental:
Initially the delay bar is all white; as the instrumental progresses, part of
the delay bar will be painted red; when all of the delay bar is red, the
instrumental is ending.
The lyrics
window, when not in full-screen mode, is resizable to any dimensions that you
want. As you resize the window, the text will be resized accordingly. If a line
of text doesn’t fit in the window, the text will scroll horizontally, as each
word is being played.
Operation
The operation of the Player is very simple: You
select the file to play, choose the type of lyrics window you want and hit Play.
You can
start playing the file from the beginning or at a specified location. You do
that by adjusting the slider bar.
You can
pause the playing at any time by hitting Pause. You can then resume the
playing with Play or stop it altogether with Stop. While in the
pause state you can adjust the slider bar to resume playing at another
location.
The Player
will work with the files that were selected in the main window. You can also
load new files in the Player tool. In that case, the main window will reflect
that fact. You can also select files by dragging them with the mouse from the
Windows Explorer to the player window.
The Player
will use the hardware device selected in the Options
Dialog which is appropriate for the type of file being played: For WAVE
files it will use the Wave output device, for MIDI/KAR files will use
the MIDI output device. This allows you to use any Windows defined
device, internal or external.
Whenever
you play a KAR file with embedded lyrics, the Player can show you the lyrics in
the Lyrics window. You can choose between a normal window and full screen. You
can also disable the Lyrics window altogether.
When you
play a WAVE file and there is a KAR file loaded as well, the Player assumes
that the WAVE file corresponds to the rendering of the KAR file and shows you
the lyrics just like when you play the KAR file.
When the
lyrics window is showing, normal or full-screen, hitting any keyboard key will
cause the window to be closed and the playing to stop.
Feedback
Comments, suggestions and bug reports are welcome and should be sent to fadevelop@clix.pt
This page last modified 2003-07-28 - Copyright
© 2000-2003 ACE