The Rockbox Manual
for
Archos Ondio 128 FM
rockbox.org
October 20, 2008
2
Rockbox
http://www.rockbox.org/
Open Source Jukebox Firmware
Rockbox and this manual is the collaborative effort of the Rockbox team and
its contributors. See the appendix for a complete list of contributors.
c
2003-2008 The Rockbox Team and its contributors,c 2004 Christi Alice
Scarborough,c 2003 Jos´e Maria Garcia-Valdecasas Bernal & Peter Schlenker.
Version r18824:18843M-3.0.1-081020. Built using pdfLATEX.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of
the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation
License”.
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Contents
1. Introduction 9
1.1. Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2. Getting more help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3. Naming conventions and marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2. Installation 11
2.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2. Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3. Installing Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3.1. Automated Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3.2. Manual Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.3. Enabling Speech Support (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4. Running Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5. Updating Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.6. Uninstalling Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6.1. Automatic Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6.2. Manual Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Quick Start 16
3.1. Basic Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.1. The player’s controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.3. Putting music on your player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.4. The first contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.5. Basic controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.6. Basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.2. Customising Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. Browsing and playing 19
4.1. File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.1.1. File Browser Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1.2. Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1.3. Virtual Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.2.2. Initializing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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4.2.3. The Database Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2.4. Using the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3. While Playing Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3.1. WPS Key Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3.2. Peak Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3.3. The WPS Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4. Working with Playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.4.1. Playlist terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.4.2. Creating playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4.3. Adding music to playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4.4. Modifying playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4.5. Saving playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4.6. Loading saved playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4.7. Helpful Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5. The Main Menu 34
5.1. Introducing the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.2. Navigating the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.3. Recent Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.4. Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.5. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.6. Now Playing/Resume Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.7. Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.7.1. Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.7.2. General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.7.3. Manage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.7.4. Theme Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.7.5. Recording Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.8. Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.8.1. While Recording Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.9. FM Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.10. Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.11. Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.12. System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6. Sound Settings 40
6.1. Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.2. Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.3. Treble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.4. Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.5. Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.6. Stereo Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.7. Loudness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.8. Auto Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
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6.9. Super Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6.10. MDB – Micronas Dynamic Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7. General Settings 44
7.1. Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7.2. Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.3. File View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.4. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
7.5. Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
7.6. System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.6.1. Start Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.6.2. Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.6.3. Idle Poweroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.6.4. Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.7. Bookmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.8. Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.9. Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
8. Theme Settings 54
9. Recording Settings 55
9.1. Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
9.2. Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
9.3. Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
9.4. Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
9.5. Independent Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
9.6. File Split Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
9.7. Prerecord Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
9.8. Clear Recording Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
9.9. Trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
10.Plugins 59
10.1. Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
10.1.1. Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
10.1.2. BrickMania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
10.1.3. Bubbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
10.1.4. Chessbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
10.1.5. Chopper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
10.1.6. Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
10.1.7. Flipit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
10.1.8. Jewels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
10.1.9. MazezaM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
10.1.10.Minesweeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
10.1.11.Pegbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
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10.1.12.Pong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
10.1.13.Robotfindskitten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
10.1.14.Rockblox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
10.1.15.Rockblox1d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
10.1.16.Sliding Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
10.1.17.Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
10.1.18.Snake 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
10.1.19.Sokoban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
10.1.20.Solitaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
10.1.21.Spacerocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
10.1.22.Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
10.1.23.Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
10.1.24.Wormlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
10.1.25.Xobox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
10.2. Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
10.2.1. Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
10.2.2. Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
10.2.3. Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
10.2.4. Demystify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10.2.5. Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10.2.6. Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.2.7. Mandelbrot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.2.8. Mosaique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10.2.9. Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10.2.10.Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10.2.11.Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10.2.12.Starfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10.2.13.VU meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
10.3. Viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
10.3.1. Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
10.3.2. Chip-8 Emulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
10.3.3. JPEG viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
10.3.4. Movie Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
10.3.5. Rockbox flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
10.3.6. Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
10.3.7. Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
10.3.8. Text Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
10.3.9. VBRfix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
10.3.10.Wavplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
10.3.11.ZXBox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
10.4. Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
10.4.1. Battery Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
10.4.2. Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
10.4.3. Chess Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
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10.4.4. Disk Tidy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
10.4.5. Firmware flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
10.4.6. Keybox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
10.4.7. Random Folder Advance Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
10.4.8. Split Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
10.4.9. Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
10.4.10.Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
10.4.11.Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
11.Advanced Topics 103
11.1. Customising the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.1.1. Getting Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.1.2. Loading Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.1.3. Loading Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.2. Configuring the WPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.2.1. WPS – General Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11.2.2. WPS – Build Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
11.3. Managing Rockbox Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
11.3.1. Introduction to .cfg Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
11.3.2. Specifications for .cfg Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
11.3.3. The MANAGE SET TINGS menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
11.4. Firmware Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
11.4.1. Using ROLO (Rockbox Loader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
11.5. Rockbox in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
11.5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
11.5.2. Terminology and Basic Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
11.5.3. Initial Flashing Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
11.5.4. Updating the Rockbox Image in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
11.5.5. Restoring the Original Flash ROM Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
A. File formats 112
A.1. Supported file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
B. WPS Tags 114
B.1. Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
B.2. ID3 Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
B.3. Power Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B.4. File Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B.5. Playlist/Song Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
B.6. Runtime Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
B.7. Virtual LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
B.8. Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
B.9. Playback Mode Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
B.10. Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CONTE NTS 8
B.11. Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
B.12. Conditional Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
B.13. Other Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
C. Config file options 121
D. User feedback 125
D.1. Bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D.1.1. Rules for submitting new bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D.2. Feature ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D.2.1. Rules for submitting a new feature idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D.2.2. Features we will not implement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
E. Changelog 128
E.1. What is new since v2.5? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
E.1.1. New features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
E.1.2. Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
E.1.3. New codecs supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
F. Credits 131
G. Licenses 134
G.1. GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
G.2. The GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 1. INTRO DUC TION 9
1. Introduction
1.1. Welcome
This is the manual for Rockbox. Rockbox is an open source firmware replacement for
a growing number of digital audio players. Rockbox aims to be considerably more
functional and efficient than your device’s stock firmware while remaining easy to use
and customisable. Rockbox is written by users, for users. Not only is it free to use, it
is also released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which means that it will
always remain free both to use and to change.
Rockbox has been in development since 2001, and receives new features, tweaks and
fixes each day to provide you with the best possible experience on your digital audio
player. A major goal of Rockbox is to be simple and easy to use, yet remain very customisable and configurable. We believe that you should never need to go through a
series of menus for an action you perform frequently. We also believe that you should
be able to configure almost anything about Rockbox you could want, pertaining to
functionality. Another top priority of Rockbox is audio playback quality – Rockbox,
for most models, includes a wider range of sound settings than the device’s original
firmware. A lot of work has been put into making Rockbox sound the best it can, and
improvements are constantly being made. All models have access to a large number
of plugins, including many games, applications, and graphical “demos”. You can load
different configurations quickly for different purposes (e.g. a large font for in your car,
different sound settings for at home). Rockbox features a very wide range of languages,
and all supported models also have the ability to talk to you – menus can be voiced and
filenames spelled out or spoken.
1.2. Getting more help
This manual is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the Rockbox firmware.
There is, however, more help available. The Rockbox website at http://www.rockbox.org/
contains very extensive documentation and guides written by members of the Rockbox
community and this should be your first port of call when looking for further help.
If you cannot find the information you are searching for on the Rockbox website there
are a number of support channels you should have a look at. You can try the Rockbox
forums located at http://forums.rockbox.org/. Another option are the mailing lists which
can be found at http://www.rockbox.org/mail/. From that page you can subscribe to the
lists and browse the archives. For searching the list archives simply use the search field
that is located on the left side of the website. Also you can ask on IRC. The main channel
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 1. INTRO DUC TION 10
for Rockbox is #rockbox on irc://irc.freenode.net. A bunch of helpful developers and
users are usually around. Just join and ask – if someone knows the answer you’ll usually get an answer pretty quickly. More information including IRC logs can be found
at http://www.rockbox.org/irc/. We also have a web client for joining the rockbox IRC
channel so there is no need for you to install additional software to your computer.
If you think you have found a bug please make sure it actually is a bug and is still
present in the most recent version of rockbox. You should try to confirm that by using
the above mentioned support channels first. After that you can submit that issue to our
tracker. Refer to section D (page 125) for details on how to use the tracker.
1.3. Naming conventions and marks
We have some conventions especially on naming that are intended to be consistent
throughout this manual.
Manufacturer and product names are formatted in accordance with the standard
rules of English grammar, e.g. “Archos playback is currently unsupported”. Manufacturer and model names are proper nouns, and thus are written beginning with a
capital letter.
This manual has some parts that are marked with icons on the margin to help you
finding important parts or parts you could skip. The following icons are used:
Note: This indicates a note. A note starts always with the text “Note”. For easier finding
b
of notes we have put this an icon in the margin like here. Notes are used to mark information that could help you or indicate a possible “weirdness” in rockbox that would
be explained.
Warning: This is a warning. In contrast to notes mentioned above, a warning should be
!
taken more seriously. While ignoring notes will not cause any serious damage ignoring
warnings could cause serious damage. If you are new to rockbox you should really read
the warnings before doing anything that is warned about.
This icon marks a section that is intended especially for the blind and visually im-
¸
paired. As they cannot read the manual in the same way sighted people do we have
added some additional descriptions. If you are not blind or visually impaired you most
likely can completely skip these blocks. To make this easier, there is an icon shown in
the margin on the right.
Links to the wiki are abbreviated by the name of the wiki page. Those names are still
linked so you can simply follow them like any other link in this manual. If you want
to access a wiki page manually go to Z
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ and type the
page name in the “Go” box at the top of the page. Links to wiki pages are also indicated
by the symbol Z in front of the page name.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 2. INSTALLATION 11
2. Installation
2.1. Overview
There are two ways of installing Rockbox: automated and manual. While the manual
way is older, more tested and proven to work correctly, the automated installation is
based on a nice graphical application that does almost everything for you. It is still
important that you have an overview of the installation process to be able to select the
correct installation options.
Rockbox itself comes as a single package. There is no need to install additional software for running Rockbox.
Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in installing.
Fonts. Rockbox can load custom fonts. The fonts are distributed as a separate package
and thus need to be installed separately. They are not required to run Rockbox
itself but a lot of themes require the fonts package to be installed.
Themes. The view of Rockbox can be customized by themes. Depending on your taste
you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.
2.2. Prerequisites
Before installing Rockbox you should make sure you meet the prerequisites. You may
need some additional tools for installation. In most cases these will already be available
on your computer, but if not, installing some additional software might be necessary.
USB connection. To transfer Rockbox to your player you need to connect it to your
computer. For manual installation/uninstallation, or should autodetection fail
during automatic installation, you need to know where to access the player. On
Windows this means you need to figure out the drive letter associated with the
player. On Linux you need to know the mount point of your player.
For manual installation and customization additional software is required.
ZIP utility. Rockbox is distributed as a compressed archive using the .zip format.
Your computer will normally already have a means of handling such archive
files. Windows XP has built-in support for .zip files and presents them to you
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 2. INSTALLATION 12
as directories unless you have installed a third party program that handles compressed files. For other operating systems this may vary. If the .zip file format is not recognised on your computer you can find a program to handle them
at http://www.info-zip.org/ or http://sevenzip.sf.net/, both of which can be down-
loaded and used free of charge.
Text editor. As you will see in the following chapters, Rockbox is highly configurable.
In addition to saving configurations, Rockbox also allows you to create customised
configuration files. If you would like to edit custom configuration files on your
computer, you will need a text editor like Windows’ “Wordpad”.
2.3. Installing Rockbox
2.3.1. Automated Installation
To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool
ROCKB OX UTILITY. It allows you to:
• Automatically install all needed components for using Rockbox (“Small Installa-
tion”)
• Automatically install all suggested components (“Full Installation”)
• Selectively install optional components
• Install additional themes
• Install voice files and generate talk clips
• Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility
Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and MacOS X are available at the ZRockboxUtility
wiki page.
Warning: When first starting ROCKB OX UTI LIT Y run “Autodetect”, found in the con-
!
figuration dialog (File → Configure). Autodetection can detect most player types. If
autodetection fails or is unable to detect the mountpoint, make sure to enter the correct
values. The mountpoint indicates the location of the player in your filesystem. On Windows, this is the drive letter the player gets assigned, on other systems this is a path in
the filesystem.
Note: Rockbox Utility currently lacks some guiding messages. Please have a look at the
b
manual installation instructions if you are stuck during installation.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 2. INSTALLATION 13
2.3.2. Manual Installation
Choosing a Rockbox version
There are three different types of firmware binaries available from the Rockbox website:
Release version, current build and daily build. You need to decide which one you want
to install and get the appropriate version for your player.
Release. The release version is the latest stable release, free of known critical bugs. The
current stable release of Rockbox, version 3.0, is available at http://www.rockbox.
org/download/.
Current Build. The current build is built at each source code change to the Rockbox
SVN repository and represents the current state of Rockbox development. This
means that the build could contain bugs but most of the time is safe to use. You
can download the current build from http://build.rockbox.org/.
Archived Build. In addition to the release version and the current build, there is also
an archive of daily builds available for download. These are built once a day from
the latest source code in the SVN repository. You can download archived builds
from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.
Warning: Because current builds and daily builds are development versions which
!
change frequently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they
may introduce new (and maybe annoying) bugs. If you do not want to get undefined
behaviour from your player, you should stick to the current stable release if there is
one for your player. If you want to help with project development, you can try development builds and help by reporting bugs. Just be aware that these are development
builds that are highly functional but not perfect!
Installing the firmware
1. Download your chosen version of Rockbox from the links in the previous section.
2. Connect your player to the computer via USB as described in the manual that
came with your player.
3. Take the .zip file that you downloaded and use the “Extract all” command of
your unzip program to extract the files onto your player.
Note: The entire contents of the .zip file should be extracted directly to the root
b
of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your player
for the Rockbox files! The .zip file already contains the internal structure that
Rockbox needs.
Note: If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a file called
b
ajbrec.ajz in the main directory of your player’s drive, and also a directory called
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 2. INSTALLATION 14
.rockbox, which contains a number of other directories and system files needed by
Rockbox. If you receive a “-1” error when you start Rockbox, you have not extracted
the contents of the .zip file to the proper location.
Installing the fonts package
Rockbox has a fonts package that is available at http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml or
from the extras link in the menu on the Rockbox website. While the current builds and
daily builds change frequently, the fonts package rarely changes and is therefore not
included in these builds. When installing Rockbox for the first time, you should install
the fonts package. The release version, on the other hand, does not change, so fonts are
included with it.
1. Download the fonts package from the link above.
2. Take the file that you downloaded above, and use the “Extract all” command of
your unzip program to extract the files in the .zip file onto your player. As
with the firmware installation, the entire contents of the fonts .zip should be
extracted directly to the root of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate
directory on your player for the fonts! The .zip already contains the correct
internal structure.
2.3.3. Enabling Speech Support (optional)
If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file, English ones are
available from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml. Download the “voice” package for
your player and unzip it directly to the root of your player. You should now find an
english.voice in the /.rockbox/langs directory on your player. Voice menus
are enabled by default and will come into effect after a reboot. See section 7.9 (page 52)
for details on voice settings.
2.4. Running Rockbox
Remove your player from the computer ’s USB port. Unplug any connected power
supply and turn the unit off. When you next turn the unit on, Rockbox should load.
When you see the Rockbox splash screen, Rockbox is loaded and ready for use.
2.5. Updating Rockbox
Updating Rockbox is easy even if you do not use the Rockbox Utility. Download a
Rockbox build. (The latest release of the Rockbox software will always be available
from http://www.rockbox.org/download/). Unzip the build to the root directory of your
player like you did in the installation stage. If your unzip program asks you whether
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 2. INSTALLATION 15
to overwrite files, choose the “Yes to all” option. The new build will be installed over
your current build.
Note: If you use Rockbox Utility be aware that it cannot detect manually installed com-
b
ponents.
2.6. Uninstalling Rockbox
2.6.1. Automatic Uninstallation
You can uninstall Rockbox automatically by using Rockbox Utility. If you installed
Rockbox manually you can still use Rockbox Utility for uninstallation but will not be
able to do this selectively.
2.6.2. Manual Uninstallation
If you would like to go back to using the original Archos software, connect the player
to your computer, and delete the ajbrec.ajz file.
If you wish to clean up your disk, you may also wish to delete the .rockbox directory and its contents. Turn the Archos off. Turn the player back on and the original
Archos software will load.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 3. QUICK START 16
3. Quick Start
3.1. Basic Overview
3.1.1. The player’s controls
Throughout this manual, the buttons on the player are labelled according to the picture above. Whenever a button name is prefixed by “Long”, a long press of approximately one second should be performed on that button. The buttons are described in
detail in the following paragraph.
Additional information for blind users is available on the Rockbox website at Z
BlindFAQ.
¸
The main characteristic of the Ondio case is the dent on its lower right side which is
the MMC slot. Holding the player with this slot in the described position you’ll find
the following:
On the curved top it has the headphone jack to the left, the On/Off button is in the
middle and the line in jack to the right. Apart from the already mentioned MMC slot
you will find the USB connector on the player’s right side. Placed on the upper side
of the device right below the flat display there is the main button pad of the player. A
strong deepening marks the center of it and helps to operate the directional keys from
there. Left and Right form some sort of a strip and divide Up and Down. The raised
button positioned in the lower left of this round crosspad is labelled Mode.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 3. QUICK START 17
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off
To turn on and off your Rockbox enabled player use the following keys:
Key Action
On/Off Start Rockbox
Long On/Off Shutdown Rockbox
On shutdown, Rockbox automatically saves its settings.
In the unlikely event of a software failure, hardware poweroff or reset can be performed by holding down On/Off until the player shuts off or reboots.
3.1.3. Putting music on your player
With the player connected to the computer as an MSC/UMS device (like a USB Drive),
music files can be put on the player via any standard file transfer method that you
would use to copy files between drives (e.g. Drag ’n’ Drop). The default directory
structure that is assumed by some parts of Rockbox (album art searching, WPS missingtag fallback) is: /ArtistName/AlbumName/*.ext. See section ?? (page ??) for a list of
supported audio formats.
3.1.4. The first contact
After you have first started the player you’ll be presented by the MAIN ME NU. From
this menu you can reach every function of Rockbox, for more information (see section 5.1 (page 34)). To browse the files on you player select FILES (see section 4.1
(page 19)), and to browse in a view that is based on the meta-data
1
of your audio files,
select DATABA SE (see section
4.2 (page 22)).
3.1.5. Basic controls
When browsing files and moving through menus you usually get a list view presented.
The navigation in these lists are usually the same and should be pretty intuitive. In the
tree view use Down and Up to move around the selection. Use Right to select an item.
When browsing the file system selecting an audio file plays it. The view switches to the
“While playing screen”, usually abbreviated as “WPS” (see section
4.3 (page 25). The
dynamic playlist gets replaced with the contents of the current directory. This way you
can easily treat directories as playlists. The created dynamic playlist can be extended
or modified while playing. This is also known as “on-the-fly playlist”. To go back to
the FI LE BROW SER stop the playback with the Long On/Off button or return to the file
browser while keeping playback running using Mode. In list views you can go back
one step with Left.
1
ID3 Tags, Vorbis comments, etc.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 3. QUICK START 18
3.1.6. Basic concepts
Playlists
Rockbox is playlist oriented. This means that every time you play an audio file, a socalled “dynamic playlist” is generated, unless you play a saved playlist. You can modify the dynamic playlist while playing and also save it to a file. If you do not want to
use playlists you can simply play your files directory based. Playlists are covered in
detail in section 4.4 (page 29).
Menu
From the menu you can customise Rockbox. Rockbox itself is very customisable. Also
there are some special menus for quick access to frequently used functions.
Context Menu
Some views, especially the file browser and the WPS have a context menu. From the
file browser this can be accessed with Long Right. The contents of the context menu
vary, depending on the situation it gets called. The context menu itself presents you
with some operations you can perform with the currently highlighted file. In the file
browser this is the file (or directory) that is highlighted by the cursor. From the WPS this
is the currently playing file. Also there are some actions that do not apply to the current
file but refer to the screen from which the context menu gets called. One example is the
playback menu, which can be called using the context menu from within the WPS.
3.2. Customising Rockbox
Rockbox’ User Interface can be customised using “Themes”. Themes usually only affect
the visual appearance, but an advanced user can create a theme that also changes various other settings like file view, LCD settings and all other settings that can be modified
using .cfg files. This topic is discussed in more detail in section 11.3 (page 107). The
Rockbox distribution comes with some themes that should look nice on your player.
Note: Some of the themes shipped with Rockbox need additional fonts from the fonts
b
package, so make sure you installed them. Also, if you downloaded additional themes
from the Internet make sure you have the needed fonts installed as otherwise the theme
may get displayed garbled.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 4. BROWS ING AN D P LAYING 19
4. Browsing and playing
4.1. File Browser
Figure 4.1.: The file browser
Rockbox lets you browse your music in either of two ways. The FIL E BROWSE R lets
you navigate through the files and directories on your player, entering directories and
executing the default action on each file. To help differentiate files, each file format is
displayed with an icon.
The DATAB ASE BR OWS ER, on the other hand, allows you to navigate through the
music on your player using categories like album, artist, genre, etc.
You can select whether to browse using the FI LE BROWSER or the DATAB ASE BRO WSE R
by selecting either FILES or DATABA SE in the MAIN MEN U. If you choose the FILE
BROWS ER, the SHOW FI LES setting lets you select what types of files you wish to view.
See section
7.3 (page 47) for more information on the SH OW FILE S setting.
Note: The FILE BROWSER allows you to manipulate your files in ways that are not
b
available within the D ATABAS E BRO WSE R. Read more about DATABASE in section 4.2
(page 22). The remainder of this section deals with the FI LE BROW SER.
Unlike the Archos Firmware, Rockbox provides multivolume support for the MultiMediaCard, this means the player can access both data volumes (internal memory and
the MMC), thus being able to for instance, build playlists with files from both volumes.
In the FILE BROWSER a new directory will appear as soon as the device has read the
content after inserting the card. This new directory’s name is generated as <MMC1>,
and will behave exactly as any other directory on the player.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 4. BROWS ING AN D P LAYING 20
4.1.1. File Browser Controls
Key Action
Up/Down Go to previous/next item in list. If you
are on the first/last entry, the cursor will
wrap to the last/first entry.
Left Go to the parent directory.
Right Executes the default action on the se-
lected file or enters a directory.
Mode If there is an audio file playing, returns
to the WHILE PLAYIN G SCR E EN (WPS)
without stopping playback.
On/Off Stops audio playback.
Long Right Enter the CONTEXT ME NU
Long Mode Enter the MAIN MENU
4.1.2. Context Menu
Figure 4.2.: The Context Menu
The CONT EXT MENU allows you to perform certain operations on files or directories.
To access the CONTEXT MEN U, position the selector over a file or directory and access
the context menu with Long Right.
Note: The CO NTE XT MEN U is a context sensitive menu. If the CONTEXT ME NU is in-
b
voked on a file, it will display options available for files. If the CON TEX T MENU is
invoked on a directory, it will display options for directories.
The CONTE XT ME N U contains the following options (unless otherwise noted, each
option pertains both to files and directories):
Playlist. Enters the PLAYL I ST SUBM ENU (see section 4.4.3 (page 31)).
Playlist Catalog. Enters the PLAYLIS T CATALO G SU BME NU (see section 4.4.2 (page 30)).
Rename. This function lets the user modify the name of a file or directory.
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 4. BROWS ING AN D P LAYING 21
Cut. Copies the name of the currently selected file or directory to the clipboard and
marks it to be ‘cut’.
Copy. Copies the name of the currently selected file or directory to the clipboard and
marks it to be ‘copied’.
Paste. Only visible if a file or directory name is on the clipboard. When selected it will
move or copy the clipboard to the current directory.
Delete. Deletes the currently selected file. This option applies only to files, and not to
directories. Rockbox will ask for confirmation before deleting a file. Press Right
to confirm deletion or any other key to cancel.
Delete Directory. Deletes the currently selected directory and all of the files and subdi-
rectories it may contain. Deleted directories cannot be recovered. Use this feature
with caution!
Open with. Runs a viewer plugin on the file. Normally, when a file is selected in Rock-
box, Rockbox automatically detects the file type and runs the appropriate plugin.
The OPE N WI TH function can be used to override the default action and select a
viewer by hand. For example, this function can be used to view a text file even if
the file has a non-standard extension (i.e., the file has an extension of something
other than .txt). See section 10.3 (page 84) for more details on viewers.
Create Directory. Create a new directory in the current directory on the disk.
Properties. Shows properties such as size and the time and date of the last modifica-
tion for the selected file. If used on a directory, the number of files and subdirectories will be shown, as well as the total size.
Set As Recording Directory. Save recordings in the selected directory.
Add to Shortcuts. Adds a link to the selected item in the shortcuts.link file. If
the file does not already exist it will be created in the root directory. Note that if
you create a shortcut to a file, Rockbox will not open it upon selecting, but simply
bring you to it’s location in the FILE BR OW S ER.
4.1.3. Virtual Keyboard
Figure 4.3.: The virtual keyboard
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 4. BROWS ING AN D P LAYING 22
This is the virtual keyboard that is used when entering text in Rockbox, for example
when renaming a file or creating a new directory. The virtual keyboard can be easily
changed by making a text file with the required layout. More information on how to
achieve this can be found on the Rockbox website at ZLoadableKeyboardLayouts.
Key Action
Up/Down/Left/RightMove about the virtual keyboard (moves
the solid cursor). If you move out of the
picker area with Up/Down, you get to
the line edit mode.
Mode Selects the letter underneath the cursor.
Long Mode Accepts the change and returns to the
File Browser.
On/Off Quit the virtual keyboard without saving
the changes.
Table 4.1.: Picker area
Key Action
Left/Right Move left and right
Mode Deletes the letter to the left of the cursor
Long Mode Accepts the deletion
Up/Down Returns to the picker area
Table 4.2.: Line edit mode
4.2. Database
4.2.1. Introduction
This chapter describes the Rockbox music database system. Using the information contained in the tags (ID3v1, ID3v2) in your audio files, Rockbox builds and maintains a
database of the music files on your player and allows you to browse them by Artist,
Album, Genre, Song Name, etc. The criteria the database uses to sort the songs can be
completely customised. More information on how to achieve this can be found on the
Rockbox website at ZDataBase.
4.2.2. Initializing the Database
The first time you use the database, Rockbox will scan your disk for audio files. This can
take quite a while depending on the number of files on your player. This scan happens
THE ROCK BOX MANUAL ARCHOS ONDI O
CHAPT ER 4. BROWS ING AN D P LAYING 23
in the background, so you can choose to return to the Main Menu and continue to listen
to music. If you shut down your player, the scan will continue next time you turn it on.
After the scan is finished you may be prompted to restart your player before you can
use the database.
Ignoring Directories During Database Initialization
You may have directories on your player whose contents should not be added to the
database. Placing a file named database.ignore in a directory will exclude the files
in that directory and all its subdirectories from scanning their tags and adding them to
the database. This will speed up the database initialization.
If a subdirectory of an ’ignored’ directory should still be scanned, place a file named
database.unignore in it. The files in that directory and its subdirectories will be
scanned and added to the database.
4.2.3. The Database Menu
Auto Update If AUTO UPD ATE is set to ON, each time the player boots, the database
will automatically be updated. AUTO UPDATE does not detect deleted files. To
remove deleted files from the database you need to run UP DATE NOW.
Initialize Now You can force Rockbox to rescan your disk for tagged files by using the
INITI ALI ZE NOW function in the DATABAS E MENU.
Warning: IN I TIALIZE NOW removes all database files (removing runtimedb data
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also) and rebuilds the database from scratch.
Update Now UPDATE NO W causes the database to detect new and deleted files Unlike
INITI ALI ZE NOW, the UPD ATE NOW function does not remove runtime database
information.
Gather Runtime Data When enabled, rockbox will record how often and how long a
track is being played, when it was last played and its rating. This information
can be displayed in the WPS and is used in the database browser to, for example,
show the most played, unplayed and most recently played tracks.
Export Modifications This allows for the runtime data to be exported to the file
/.rockbox/database changelog.txt, which backs up the runtime data in
ASCII format. This is needed when database structures change, because new code
cannot read old database code. But, all modifications exported to ASCII format
should be readable by all database versions.
Import Modifications. Allows the /.rockbox/database changelog.txt backup
to be conveniently loaded into the database. If AUTO UPDATE is enabled this is
performed automatically when the database is initialized.
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4.2.4. Using the Database
Once the database has been initialized, you can browse your music by Artist, Album,
Genre, Song Name, etc. To use the database, go to the MAIN MEN U and select DATABASE.
Note: You may need to increase the value of the MAX FILE S IN DIR BRO WSER setting
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(SET TIN GS → GENERAL SETT INGS → SYS TEM → LIM ITS) in order to view long lists of
tracks in the ID3 database browser.
There is no option to turn off database completely. If you do not want to use it just
do not do the initial build of the database and do not load it to RAM.
Tag Type Origin
filename string system
album string id tag
albumartist string id tag
artist string id tag
comment string id tag
composer string id tag
genre string id tag
grouping string id tag
title string id tag
bitrate numeric id tag
discnum numeric id tag
year numeric id tag
tracknum numeric id tag/filename
autoscore numeric runtime db
lastplayed numeric runtime db
playcount numeric runtime db
Pm (play time min)
numeric runtime db
Ps (play time - sec) numeric runtime db
rating numeric runtime db
commitid numeric system
entryage numeric system
length numeric system
Lm (track len min)
numeric system
Ls (track len - sec) numeric system
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4.3. While Playing Screen
The While Playing Screen (WPS) displays various pieces of information about the currently playing audio file. The appearance of the WPS can be configured using WPS
configuration files. The items shown depend on your configuration – all item can be
turned on or off independently. Refer to section B (page 114) for details on how to
change the display of the WPS.
• Status bar: The Status bar shows Battery level, USB power mode, key lock status,
memory access indicator. In contrast to all other items, the status bar is always at
the top of the screen.
• (Scrolling) path and filename of the current song.
• The ID3 track name.
• The ID3 album name.
• The ID3 artist name.
• Bit rate. VBR files display average bitrate and “(avg)”
• Elapsed and total time.
• A slidebar progress meter representing where in the song you are.
• Peak meter.
Note:
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• The number of lines shown depends on the size of the font used.
• The peak meter is only visible if you turn off the status bar or if using a small font
that gives 8 or more display lines.
See section
11.2 (page 103) for details of customising your WPS (While Playing Screen).
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4.3.1. WPS Key Controls
Key Action
Up / Down Volume up/down.
Left Go to beginning of track, or if pressed
while in the first seconds of a track, go
to previous track.
Long Left Rewind in track.
Right Go to next track.
Long Right Fast forward in track.
On/Off Toggle play/pause.
Long On/Off Stop playback.
Mode Return to the FILE BROW SER.
Long Mode Enter WPS CONT EXT MENU.
Long Mode twice Enter M A IN ME NU via the WPS CON -
TEXT MEN U.
Long
Mode+Down
Key lock on/off.
Short Right +
Long Right
Skip to the next directory.
Short Left + Long
Left
Skip to the previous directory.
4.3.2. Peak Meter
The peak meter can be displayed on the While Playing Screen and consists of several
indicators. For a picture of the peak meter, please see the While Recording Screen in
section 5.8.1 (page 36).
The bar: This is the wide horizontal bar. It represents the current volume value.
The peak indicator: This is a little vertical line at the right end of the bar. It indicates
the peak volume value that occurred recently.
The clip indicator: This is a little black block that is displayed at the very right of
the scale when an overflow occurs. It usually does not show up during normal
playback unless you play an audio file that is distorted heavily. If you encounter
clipping while recording, your recording will sound distorted. You should lower
the gain.
Note: Note that the clip detection is not very precise. Clipping might occur with-
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out being indicated.
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The scale: Between the indicators of the right and left channel there are little dots.
These dots represent important volume values. In linear mode each dot is a 10%
mark. In dbfs mode the dots represent the following values (from right to left):
0db, -3db, -6db, -9db, -12db, -18db, -24db, -30db, -40db, -50db, -60db.
4.3.3. The WPS Context Menu
Like the context menu for the FILE BRO WSE R, the WPS CONT EXT MENU allows you
quick access to some often used functions:
Playlist
The PLAYLI ST submenu allows you to view, save, search and reshuffle the current
playlist. To change settings for the PLAYLIS T VIEWER press Long Mode while viewing the playlist to bring up the PLAYLIST VIEW ER MENU.
Playlist Viewer Menu
Show Icons. This toggles display of the icon for the currently selected playlist entry
and the icon for moving a playlist entry
Show Indicies. This toggles display of the line numbering for the playlist
Track Display. This toggles between filename only and full path for playlist entries
Save Current Playlist. Allows the current playlist to be saved as a .m3u playlist file
Playlist catalog
View catalog. This lists all playlists that are part of the Playlist catalog. You can load
a new playlist directly from this list.
Add to playlist. Adds the currently playing file to a playlist. Select the playlist you
want the file to be added to and it will get appended to that playlist.
Add to new playlist. Similar to the previous entry this will add the currently playing
track to a playlist. You need to enter a name for the new playlist first.
Sound Settings
This is a shortcut to the SOU ND SETT INGS MENU, where you can configure volume,
bass, treble, and other settings affecting the sound of your music. See section 6 (page 40)
for more information.
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Playback Settings
This is a shortcut to the PLAYBACK SET TIN GS MENU, where you can configure shuffle, repeat, party mode, study mode and other settings affecting the playback of your
music.
Rating
The menu entry is only shown if GATHER RUNTI ME INFO RMATIO N is enabled. It allows
the asignment of a personal rating value (0 – 10) to a track which can be displayed in
the WPS and used in the Database browser. Press Right to increment the value. The
value wraps at 10.
Bookmarks
This allows you to create a bookmark in the currently-playing track.
Show Track Info
Figure 4.4.: The track info viewer
This screen is accessible from the WPS screen, and provides a detailed view of all the
identity information about the current track. This info is known as meta data and is
stored in audio file formats to keep information on artist, album etc. To access this
screen, press Long Mode to access the WPS CONTEXT MEN U and select SHOW TRAC K
INFO. Use Left and Right to move through the information.
Open With...
This OPEN WITH function is the same as the OPEN WITH function in the file browser’s
CONTE XT MENU.
Delete
Delete the currently playing file.
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Pitch
The PITCH SCREEN allows you to change the pitch and (at the same time) the playback
speed of your player. The pitch value can be adjusted between 50% and 200%. 50%
means half the normal playback speed and the pitch that is an octave lower than the
normal pitch. 200% means double playback speed and the pitch that is an octave higher
than the normal pitch. It is not possible to change the pitch without changing the playback speed and vice versa. Changing the pitch can be done in two modes: procentual
and semitone. Initially (after the player is switched on), procentual mode is active.
Key Action
Long Mode Toggle pitch changing mode
Up / Down Increase / Decrease pitch by 0.1% (in pro-
centual mode) or a semitone (in semitone
mode)
Long Up / Long
Down
Increase / Decrease pitch by 1% (in pro-
centual mode) or a semitone (in semitone
mode)
Right / Left Temporarily increase / decrease pitch by
2.0%
Mode Reset pitch to 100%
On/Off Leave the Pitch Screen
Warning: Changing the pitch can cause audible ’Artifacts’ or ’Dropouts’.
!
4.4. Working with Playlists
4.4.1. Playlist terminology
Some common terms that are used in Rockbox when referring to playlists:
Directory. A playlist! One of the keys to getting the most out of Rockbox is under-
standing that Rockbox always considers the song that it is playing to be part of a
playlist, and in some situations, Rockbox will create a playlist automatically. For
example, if you are playing the contents of a directory, Rockbox will automatically
create a playlist containing all songs in it. This means that just about anything that
is described in this chapter with respect to playlists also applies to directories.
Dynamic playlist. A dynamic playlist is a playlist that is created “On the fly.” Any
time you insert or queue tracks using the PLAYLIS T S UBM ENU (see section 4.4.3
(page 31)), you are creating (or adding to) a dynamic playlist.
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Insert. In Rockbox, to INSERT an item into a playlist means putting an item into a
playlist and leaving it there, even after it is played. As you will see later in this
chapter, Rockbox can INSERT into a playlist in several places.
Queue. In Rockbox, to QUE UE a song means to put the song into a playlist and then
to remove the song from the playlist once it has been played. The only difference
between INSE RT and QUE UE is that the QUEUE option removes the song from the
playlist once it has been played, and the INS ERT option does not.
4.4.2. Creating playlists
Rockbox can create playlists in four different ways.
By selecting (“playing”) a song from the File Browser
Whenever a song is selected from the FIL E BROW SER with Right, Rockbox will automatically create a playlist containing all of the songs in that directory and start playback
with the selected song.
Note: If you already have created a dynamic playlist, playing a new song will erase the
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current dynamic playlist and create a new one. If you want to add a song to the current
playlist rather than erasing the current playlist, see the section below on how to add
music to a playlist.
By using Insert and Queue functions
If playback is stopped, the INSE RT and QUEU E functions can be used as described in
4.4.3 to create a new playlist instead of adding to an existing one. This will erase any
dynamic playlist.
By using the Playlist catalog
The PL AYLIST CATALOG makes it possible to modify and create playlists that are not
currently playing. To do this select PLAYLI ST C ATALOG in the CONTEXT MENU. There
you will have two choices, ADD TO PLAYL IST adds the selected track or directory to
an existing playlist and ADD TO A NEW PLAYLI ST creates a new playlist containing the
selected track or directory.
Note: All playlists in the PLAYLIST C ATAL OG are stored by default in the /Playlists
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directory in the root of your player’s disk and playlists stored in other locations are
not included in the catalog. It is however possible to move existing playlists there (see
section 4.1.2 (page 20)).
By using the Main Menu
To create a playlist containing all music on your player, you can use the CREATE PLAYLIST
command in the PLAYLIS T OP TIO NS menu found in the MAIN MEN U. The created
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