Jammer

2nd November 2003.

Jammer V0.5 released to the world!

Jammer is a program for organising and playing your mp3 files. Its main features are:

* displaying the mp3 library sorted according to album, artist, or genre

* allows you to create playlists

* allows you to rate a rate a file based on how much you like it

* built in ID3 Tag editor

* can also play Shoutcast broadcasts from Internet radio stations

Jammer was written using Kylix and is released under the GNU General Public License.

Please note, Jammer is available for Linux only. Sorry Windows users, but I won't be producing a version for you.

Links:

Jammer uses XMMS to play your mp3 files, so you'll obviously need that. It comes as standard with every Linux distribution though, so you'll probably already have it. If not, there's a link in the Downloads Section.

You'll also need the Kylix runtime libraries - again, there's a link in the Downloads section.

To install the source code, follow these instructions ...

create a directory for the source code e.g. mkdir ~./jammer_src

cd to that directory

untar the source code archive e.g. tar -xvzf <path to archive>jammer_src_V0.50.tgz

Then fire up Kylix and load the Jammer project.

To install the executable create a directory e.g. mkdir ~./jammer or mkdir /usr/local/jammer

cd to that directory

untar the executable archive e.g. tar -xvzf <path to archive>Jammer_V0.50.tgz

To run the program, execute the jammer command.

Don't forget to install the Kylix OE libraries. Installation instructions are in the download file.

The first thing to do of course, is start Jammer. Once the program has loaded, you'll be presented with an empty mp3 file library, so the first thing to do is scan your hard disk to locate your music files. To do this, go to the File menu and select 'Add Directory to Library ...'. A dialog box will appear allowing you to select a directory to scan for mp3 files. By default, the root directory is selected, which will cause the entire file system to be scanned. This might take some time, so to speed things up a bit you might like to drill down and select a specific directory which you know contains some mp3 files. Once you're happy with your selection, click Ok and Jammer will scan the directory (and any sub-directories) for mp3 files. As it does so, it will notify you of any files it finds, and when finished, of how many files were added to the library. Note that if you subsequently rescan the directory, only files newly placed there will be added - you won't get duplicate entries in the library.

You'll now have your mp3 files listed on screen. You can filter the items that appear on the screen by selecting options from the 'Genre', 'Artist' and 'Album' listboxes. To change the order in which the mp3 files are listed, click on the 'Title', 'Album', 'Artist' or 'Rating' column headers.

To start playing your music, click on the library to select an mp3 file and then click the play button. Simple as that!

To create a playlist, all you have to do it select a number of files in the library (<SHIFT>click, <CTRL>click or drag the mouse and click) then right click and select 'Create Playlist' from the menu that appears. You can then give the playlist a name and, if you wish, enter a comment.

To view your playlists, click the Playlist button on the left hand side of the screen. The top half of the screen will then contain a list of all the playlists you've created, and the bottom half will display the contents of the currently selected playlist. If you right click on the contents, you can re-order the files with the playlist, or delete items from it. To play the playlist, select it, click on the first file in the list, and then click the play button.

To setup an internet radio station in Jammer, you'll first need to get the url of the station. You can find a list of these at Shoutcast.com. Click the on the Radio button on the left hand side of the screen, and then right click on Radio Station list to add your selection. Enter the name of the station, a description, and the URL (you can verify that you've entered the right value by click the test URL button - this will cause XMMS to connect to the station). After that click Ok to add the station's details to the list. To connect to a station, simply click on it in the list, and the click the play button.

Links :

Find any bugs, have some suggestions, or just want to have my babies, let me know ...