Diamond GUI v1.1 (29.10.1997.) (c) 1997 by Dejan Stepanovic MPEGA is an MPEG Audio decoder (Layers I, II & III) (Aminet:mus/play/MPEGA.lha) (c) 1997 by Stephane Tavenard Distribution conditions: This program is copyrighted by Dejan Stepanovic. It may be distributed freely under the condition that no profit is gained from its distribution. It may be put on public domain disks or included in public domain program collections only with my permission, nevertheless it must not be sold commercially as a single program. All files that are part of this package have to be distributed together and none of them may be changed in any way other than archiving or crunching. Disclaimer: Use this program at your own risk. I'm not responsible for any damage which it may cause. Introduction: Diamond GUI is a freeware graphic user interface for great MPEGA player created by Stephane Tavenard. At this time there are few programs with same purpose, but no one fulfills all my demands, so I decided to make one which will support more parameters and will be more usable. Current version supports version 3.3 of MPEGA. Requirements: - MPEGA v3.3 - can be found on Aminet:mus/play/MPEGA.lha - Kickstart 2.0+ - display fonts (included) - reqtools.library ((c) by Nico François and Magnus Holmgren; can also be found on Aminet) Installation: Copy the program and documentation where ever you want and put the included fonts into FONTS: directory. Features: - LCD like display with the most important informations (time, total time, status, track name and info...) - easy controlable playing functions - main panel selectable playing options - real-time changing parameters (changing speed, of course, depends on priority, processor speed and compression method) - forward/backward in track positioning via slider with automatic time and percentage calculating and displaying - multitrack selection - track repeating and random choosing - convert window for converting MPEG to AIFF, WAV or PCM file, with progress bar, and start/stop position slider - preferences window which features other more important MPEGA settings Usage: When you start the program, you will see a window with these gadgets/buttons: Play - Start playing track. If the track is not loaded, it will open requester and after selection will start to play it automatically. Using this gadget during the play will restart the track. Prev - Position to the previous track. If you chose more files, this function will position program to the previous one. Next - Position to the next track. If you chose more files, this function will position program to the next one. Pause - Pause playing. 'Play' gadget will continue it. Stop - Stop playing. Will reset time and percentage counters and move slider to the beginning. Eject - Eject the current tracks and open requester to select the next ones. With the slider at the bottom of the window you can jump to any position of the track. Moving it directly with the mouse or clicking inside its field can achieve this operation during the reproduction. Moving by the arrows operate only in the Stop and Pause mode. In those modes time display will be refreshed instantly. Buffer - This option will wait for audio buffer to be full before starting audio play. Size of the buffer can be changed in the preferences window. When it is turned ON it will show current buffer status (in seconds) on display so you will be able to see when the buffer is full or empty. This is usefull for users with slower CPUs, because you can get better listening quality, but this requires a lots of RAM for buffer, and you will have to wait before song start to play. Stereo - Turn the stereo mode on/off. Filter - Turn the sound filter on/off. Quality - Choose the output quality (Low, Medium or High) Frequency - Choose the number by which the track's sampling division frequency will be divided (x1, x2 or x4) Random - Play random selected track. In this case 'Next' means 'next random track'. Repeat - Start playing again after the end of the last track On the right side of the window is the volume scroller. You can set the volume value either the track is playing or not. R - Reset volume scroller to default value (64) ? - Just some informations about the author and the current version of the program Prefs - Open preferences window. I think that most of these options are self-explainable and there is no need for special descriptions. If you can't understand them, please consult MPEGA manual. 'Reset' - Return previously used settings. 'Save' - Save settings from both windows. All functions from the preferences window are activated immediately after set up. You can reset them until 'Save' button is used. Convert - Open convert window. Here you can choose type of converted file (AIFF, WAV or PCM), quality, start/end position for convert, etc. If you turn OFF silence button, song will play while converting. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you use MPEGA configuration file, you need to know that its parameters will be called at last, which means that these set by the GUI won't be performed. I could make an empty cfg file and call it every time but think that wouldn't be a proper solution. The best way to handle this is renaming your cfg file and using it with the '-c' option. History: 04.08.97. - Started coding. 05.08.97. - Internal release, actually not really usable. 07.08.97. (v0.2) - Fixed some bugs, fixed time measuring, added display, slider and real-time commands. Many other small improvements. 08.08.97. (v0.4) - Fixed bugs in display, added 'Frequency division' buttons, fixed slider moving, added 'Quality' buttons, fixed time measuring (now should work okay) 09.08.97. (v0.5) - Disabled slider moving by one click while playing, added 'Volume' scroller, added 'Reset volume to default' button, some minor improvements. 10.08.97. (v0.6) - Added 'Repeat' button, blinking playing status 12.08.97. (v0.7) - Minor changes on display, added multitrack selection, 'Filter' and 'Random' buttons 15.08.97. (v0.8) - Buttons redesigned. First public release. 23.08.97. (v0.9) - Fixed to work with MPEGA v3.2 (header was changed). Added preferences window and 'Save configuration on exit' button. Added 'Process priority' slider (don't set priority too high because you won't be able to stop the track, or you'll have to wait a lot. Priorities -1 and 0 are the best choices if you have a slower Amiga) Added 'Max. decoding frequency' and 'Audio mixing frequency' sliders. Added 'Default track path' and 'Default MPEGA path' requesters as well. Added 'Save' and 'Reset' buttons and fixed a bug with saving configuration. 18.09.97. (v1.0) - Fixed to work with MPEGA v3.3. Some code optimizations. Added input file buffer slider and AHI support (if you don't have AHI installed, option will be disabled). Added audio buffer support. DOS command 'Break' is no longer needed. 29.10.97 (v1.1) - Convert window. Status command is no longer needed. Removed 'Select MPEGA file' requester when config file is not founded (some users has trouble with this) - now GUI loads default parameters, and you can change them afterwards. Track slider is now in seconds. Minor changes in track and volume slider positioning (should work better now). To do: - Playlists with configurable description fields - Better random routine - Iconify option - MUI version (maybe) - And more... Greetings to: - Stephane Tavenard, for making the best MPEG Audio player - Vlade, for visual design, beta-testing and suggestions - Roderick Mouthaan, for beta-testing and pretty cool NewIcon - Amiga for being best computer ever :) This program is freeware. No donation or usage fee is required, however, any donations are always appreciated, and can only encourage further development of the program. If you like it and if you use it, if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to contact me at e-mail address: dexter@afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.yu.