WPlay Manual
Updated 19 Nov. 1998

Contents

How to Load a Song
Play, Pause and Stop
Next and Previous Song
FFW and REW
Using the Playlist
The WPlay InfoPage
Using the Equalizer

Playing an Audio CD
Recent files
The Options Menu
The Preferences Box
Changing Textures (Skins)
What is the ID3-Tag

How to convert to WAV
Using the Compression Manager
Using the Audio Grabber
The encoder Setup

How to Register WPlay

Loading a Song
This is not to difficult. Choose 'Load...' from the popup-menu or click on the 'Open' button. Select a song (MP1,MP2,MP3) and click 'OK'. It will then start playing.

Play, Stop and Pause
The play-button works also like an extra Pause button. If the song is not playing, it will start when you press 'Play'. If you then press 'Play' again, the song will be paused. Resume by pressing 'Play' again.
The Pause button can not start a song when it is stopped. It can only start when the player is in pause mode. As with the play button, it toggles play and pause.
The 'Stop' button stops the song and rewinds it.

Next Song and Previous Song
If you use a playlist, and it contains more than one file, you can use these buttons to skip to the next or previous song. Then it comes to the end of the playlist it stops. When you press one of these buttons, the song will automaticly start playing.

FFW and REW
The FFW-buttons jumps about 10 seconds forward in the MP3. The REW button jumps about 10 seconds backwards.

Using the Playlist
It is convenient to use the playlist instead of loading one song at a time. You can open a playlist directly from the 'Open...' function. When you want to see or edit the playlist, use the built-in playlist editor.
File...

Open a playlist (.pls .dmp .m3u) or save the playlist to file (.m3u).

Add...

Add a single or multiple files by pressing 'File...'.
Add a directory or directory structur by pressing 'Directories'.
Add an URL by pressing 'URL'

Delete

To remove all songs from playlist, press 'All songs'.
To remove the files you have selected, press 'Selected Songs'
To renove unselected files, press 'All but selected'.

Play

If you have selected only one file, you can press 'Play' to load it.

if you have selected only one song, you can move it up one position by pressing this button.

Down

if you have selected only one song, you can move it down one position by pressing this button.

Closes the playlist editor.

Edit

Select all, selects all files in current playlist.
Select None, deselects all files in current playlist.
Invert selection makes selected files deselected.

Effects

Randmomize all the files in the playlist by pressing 'Randomize'.
Reverse all the files in the playlist by pressing 'Reverse'
ID3-Tag. Shows the ID3 tag for the selected file.

CD-Track

if you are in CD-Mode, this function can rename a single track on the CD and save it to disk. The next time you load this CD, the correct names will be showed in the playlist box.

The WPlay InfoPage
Here you can find usefull information about the MPx-file. It can also show and edit the ID3-tag of the file. You can also find information about versions, news, links to web-pages and much more. It also describes how to register WPlay.
Song Info

Shows information about the MPx-file. You can find name, length, size, MPEG version, layer, layer, bitrate and mode. If you click on 'Next' the ID3 tag will be shown. Click 'Next' again and you will be back on the information. You can edit the ID3-tag by pressing 'ID3-tag'.

Register

When you register WPlay, you will receive your own personal code. Enter this code in the textbox on the register page. Then press 'Check Key'. If the key is correct, you will now be able to use the functions that is for registered users only. Click on the hyperlink to go directly to the registration page.
Register WPlay on-line

Using the Equalizer
The equalizer is 10 bands wide, but controles all 32 frequency bands. The 32 bands are remapped, because you don't hear each frequency band the same. The left and right channels are also synchronized.
When you make a change to the sliders, it takes about two seconds before you can hear the result. Click on 'Setup' and then 'Save' to store the settings to a file. This file will automaticly appear in the listbox. To reset all the sliders to the start position, press 'Setup' and then 'Reset'. If you don't want to use the equalizer then unmark the 'On'-box. This will save a little CPU-time.

Playing an Audio CD
You can toggle between playing MPx-files and Audio CD-Tracks. Choose 'Play Audio CD' from the popup menu. All functions will be the same, except that you are playing Audio tracks instead of MPx-files. The volume and balance controles and the shuffle and repeat functions are also disabled. Use can use most of the functions on the playlist editor, and you can also change the track names and save them to disk.

Recent Files
On the popup menu, there is a function named 'Recent Files'. The last 10 files loaded will be placed on the submenu of this item. Just click on them to load the file. It will automaticly start playing.

The Options Menu
On the popup menu, there is a submenu called 'Options'. You can make some settings to the player or enter the 'Preferences' box. Here you can change Textures and Register Filestyper.
Repeat

This functions returns to the beginning of the playlist when the last file is completed. The first song in the playlist will start playing.

Shuffle

This function will randomize the choice of the next song to be loaded. It will complete all songs before a played song can be played once again. If this function is true, then the 'Previous Song' will be disabled. The 'Next Song' will jump to the next song in the shufflelist.

Always on top

If this function is true, WPlay will stay on top when you are using other programs at the same time. Unfortunately the drag and drop function to the main window will stop working.

Easy Move

If this function is true, you can move WPlay mainwindow only by clicking on it. If it is false you need to click on the menuline (the top of the program).

Coolbar Mode

Toggles between Normal Mode and Coolbar Mode (compressed mode).

Show time elapsed/Remaining

Choose the function you are most comfortable with. You can toggle the mode by dubbel-clicking on the timecounter.

The Preferences Box
Icons

Choose the icons you like to represent your MPx and Playlist files. Then click 'Register file types' to tell windows what program to associate with MPx files. You can use your own icons by putting the in the 'Icon' directory under 'WPlay'.

Textures

Choose the texture in the listbox to the left. If only the *default* texture is shown, there are no other textures. To add new textures to WPlay, do like this:
Download a texture from WPlay homepage. Start WinZip and open the file. Press 'Extract' and then choose 'Use folder Names' and change the directory to ...\WPlay\Textures. When you press 'OK', a map is created in the 'Textures' directory. This map is containing all the bitmaps for this texture.
You can also use WinAmp Skins with WPlay.

General

Some General settings for WPlay. All information is already in the player.

Plug-ins

Visual plug-ins is not in this version of WPlay. But you can use winamp general purpose plugins like docking, IR-Receiver, Tray Icons etc. Place the dll files in the plugins directory and then start WPlay. All files will be loaded at startup. To configure a plugin, just select one and press 'Configure'.

What is the ID3-Tag
The ID3-Tag is a datasegment that is saved together with the MPx-File. You can save information about the songname, artistname, album, year, genre and a comment. There are two ways to edit the ID3-Tag. You can do it inside the Playlist Editor by selecting a file, and then press 'Effects' and then 'ID3 Tag'. You can also do it from the WPlay InfoPage when selecting 'ID3 Tag' from the 'Song Info'-window.
Enter the information you want to save and press 'Save'. If the file is write- protected you will get an access error. If you want to remove the tag, press 'Remove ID3-Tag'.

How to convert to WAV...
The file that will be converted is the current song loaded. Please turn the song off before converting. It will save a lot of time. Click on 'Click to start decoding'. You will then be asked to enter a filename. The extension will be added automatically (wav). Press OK to start decoding.

Using the Compression Manager
Select the files you want to encode by clicking on 'Add...'. When you have made a list of files, you can save the list if you want to use it later, by selecting 'Save List'. Select a destination by pressing 'Explore'. If you do not enter a path, the files will end up in the same path as the input-file. Choose the settings (bitrate, mono/stereo etc.) you want to encode with, and press 'Compress'. The progressbar will monitor the encoding process.
Error messages
"File already exists or the filename is not valid"

You will get this error if the mp3 file already exists. Then change the name and press OK. If the filname is invalid (containing characters like ?/,.) then remove these characters and try again.

"The file was not encoded"

The settings for the encoder you are using is not correct. Check the setup page. If you are using BladeEnc, the settings must match this encoder (Choose BladeEnc in the drop-down list).

Other possible errors

Disk space to small. You need some extra space to hold both the wave file and the mp3 file. Make sure that you have at lease 100Mb free on the drive you are working with.

Using the Audio Grabber
Press "Refresh Track List" to load the tracks on the Audio CD. Select the tracks you want to grab and press "Add" or double-click on the tracks. The files will be saved with the names in the right listbox. You can change those names by selecting a file and use "Rename Track" or by double-clicking on them.
Then choose a destination by pressing "Explore". If you select "Compress after each song", the files will be compressed to MP3 (You have to specify an encoder). But if you select "Don't compress songs", the files will be saved as WAV files. Press "Grab Selected" to start.

NOTE: To get the best possible quality, please turn of the MIDI, Line-in and Microphone volume. You can do this by double-clicking on the loadspeaker in the system tray. Select 'Sound off' for these channels.
Error messages
"File already exists or the filename is not valid"

You will get this error if the mp3 file already exists. Then change the name and press OK. If the filname is invalid (containing characters like ?/,.) then remove these characters and try again.

"The file was not encoded"

The settings for the encoder you are using is not correct. Check the setup page. If you are using BladeEnc, the settings must match this encoder (Choose BladeEnc in the drop-down list).

Other possible errors

Disk space to small. You need some extra space to hold both the wave file and the mp3 file. Make sure that you have at lease 100Mb free on the drive you are working with.

The Encoder Setup
To encode (compress) wave files you need an encoder. There are three encoders available at WPlay homepage. It is BladeEnc which is a freeware program, and l3enc and mp3enc. My recommendation is that you use BladeEnc. You can also use a different encoder, but then you have to configure it manually.
Start by pressing 'explore' to locate the software you want to use. After that WPlay (Beta 3) will select the correct settings. If you have an early version, select the software you are using in the drop-down box below. You don't have to worry about the settings under the drop-down box. Only change these if you are using a non-supported encoder.