The Rockbox Manual
for
Archos Recorder V2 and FM
rockbox.org
March 5, 2013
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
2003-2013 The Rockbox Team and its contributors,c 2004 Christi Alice
Scarborough,c 2003 José Maria Garcia-Valdecasas Bernal & Peter Schlenker.
Version 3.13. 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”.
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Contents 3
Contents
1. Introduction 11
1.1. Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2. Getting more help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3. Naming conventions and marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. Installation 13
2.1. Before Starting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2. Installing Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1. Automated Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2. Manual Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3. Finishing the install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.4. Enabling Speech Support (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3. Running Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4. Updating Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5. Uninstalling Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.1. Automatic Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.2. Manual Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.6. Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3. Quick Start 17
3.1. Basic Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.1. The player’s controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.3. Putting music on your player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.4. The first contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.5. Basic controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.6. Basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2. Customising Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3. USB Charging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. Browsing and playing 21
4.1. File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.1.1. File Browser Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.2. Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.3. Virtual Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.2. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
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4.2.2. Initializing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2.3. The Database Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2.4. Using the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3. While Playing Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3.1. WPS Key Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3.2. Peak Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3.3. The WPS Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4. Quick Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.5. Working with Playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5.1. Playlist terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5.2. Creating playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5.3. Adding music to playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.5.4. Modifying playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.5.5. Saving playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.5.6. Loading saved playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.6. Hotkeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5. The Main Menu 38
5.1. Introducing the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.2. Navigating the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.3. Recent Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.4. Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.5. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.6. Now Playing/Resume Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7. Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.1. Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.2. Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.3. General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.4. Theme Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.5. Recording Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.6. Manage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.8. Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.8.1. While Recording Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.9. FM Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.10. Playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.11. Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.12. System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.13. Quick Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.14. Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6. Sound Settings 47
6.1. Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.2. Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.3. Treble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
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6.4. Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.5. Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.6. Stereo Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.7. Loudness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.8. Auto Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.9. Super Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.10. MDB – Micronas Dynamic Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
7. Playback Settings 51
7.1. Shuffle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.2. Repeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.3. Play Selected First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.4. Fast-Forward/Rewind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.5. Anti-Skip Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.6. Fade on Stop/Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.7. Party Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.8. Auto-Change Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.9. Constrain Auto-Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.10. Last.fm Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.11. Cuesheet Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.12. Skip Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
7.13. Prevent Track Skipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
7.14. Rewind on Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8. General Settings 55
8.1. Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.2. File View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.3. Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
8.4. Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
8.5. System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
8.5.1. Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
8.5.2. Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
8.5.3. Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
8.5.4. Use Shortcuts Menu Instead of Quick Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
8.5.5. Car Adapter Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.6. Startup/Shutdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.6.1. Start Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.6.2. Idle Poweroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
8.6.3. Sleep Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
8.7. Bookmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
8.8. Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
8.9. Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
8.10. Hotkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
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9. Theme Settings 67
10.Recording Settings 69
10.1. Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
10.2. Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
10.3. Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
10.4. Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
10.5. Independent Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
10.6. File Split Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
10.7. Prerecord Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
10.8. Clear Recording Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
10.9. Clipping Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
10.10.Trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
11.Time and Date 73
12.Plugins 74
12.1. Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
12.1.1. Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
12.1.2. BrickMania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
12.1.3. Bubbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
12.1.4. Chessbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
12.1.5. Chopper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
12.1.6. Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
12.1.7. Flipit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
12.1.8. Goban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
12.1.9. Jackpot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
12.1.10.Jewels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
12.1.11.MazezaM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
12.1.12.Minesweeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
12.1.13.Pegbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
12.1.14.Pong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
12.1.15.Reversi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
12.1.16.Robotfindskitten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
12.1.17.Rockblox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
12.1.18.Rockblox1d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
12.1.19.Sliding Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
12.1.20.Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
12.1.21.Snake 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
12.1.22.Sokoban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
12.1.23.Solitaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
12.1.24.Spacerocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
12.1.25.Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
12.1.26.Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
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12.1.27.Wormlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
12.1.28.Xobox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
12.2. Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
12.2.1. Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
12.2.2. Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
12.2.3. Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
12.2.4. Demystify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
12.2.5. Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
12.2.6. Fractals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
12.2.7. Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
12.2.8. Mosaique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
12.2.9. Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
12.2.10.PictureFlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
12.2.11.Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
12.2.12.Rocklife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
12.2.13.Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
12.2.14.Starfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
12.2.15.VU meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
12.3. Viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
12.3.1. Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
12.3.2. Chip-8 Emulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
12.3.3. Frotz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
12.3.4. Image Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
12.3.5. Rockboy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
12.3.6. Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
12.3.7. Shopper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
12.3.8. Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
12.3.9. Text Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
12.3.10.Theme Remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
12.3.11.VBRfix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
12.3.12.ZXBox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
12.4. Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.4.1. Alarm Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.4.2. Battery Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
12.4.3. Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
12.4.4. Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
12.4.5. Chess Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
12.4.6. Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
12.4.7. Disk Tidy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
12.4.8. Keybox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
12.4.9. Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
12.4.10.Lrcplayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
12.4.11.md5sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
12.4.12.Metronome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
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Contents 8
12.4.13.Random Folder Advance Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
12.4.14.Resistor Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
12.4.15.Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
12.4.16.Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
12.4.17.Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
13.Advanced Topics 135
13.1. Customising the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.1.1. Customising The Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.1.2. Getting Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.1.3. Loading Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.1.4. Loading Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13.1.5. UI Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13.2. Configuring the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13.2.1. Themeing – General Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13.2.2. Themes – Create Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
13.2.3. Info Viewport (SBS only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
13.2.4. Additional Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
13.3. Managing Rockbox Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
13.3.1. Introduction to .cfg Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
13.3.2. Specifications for .cfg Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
13.3.3. The Manage Settings menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
13.4. Firmware Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.4.1. Using ROLO (Rockbox Loader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.5. Rockbox in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
13.5.2. Terminology and Basic Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
13.5.3. Initial Flashing Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
13.5.4. Updating the Rockbox Image in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
13.5.5. Restoring the Original Flash ROM Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
13.6. Optimising battery runtime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
13.6.1. Display backlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
13.6.2. Anti-Skip Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
13.6.3. Peak Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
13.6.4. Audio format and bitrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
A. File formats 149
A.1. Supported file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
B. Album Art 151
B.1. Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
B.2. Where to put album art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
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Contents 9
C. Theme Tags 153
C.1. Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
C.2. Hardware Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
C.3. Information from the track tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C.4. Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C.5. Additional Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C.6. Misc Coloring Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
C.7. Power Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
C.8. Information about the file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
C.9. Playlist/Song Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.10.Playlist Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.11.Runtime Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.12.Hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.13.Virtual LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.14.Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.15.Playback Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
C.16.Current Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
C.17.List Title (.sbs only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
C.18.Changing Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
C.19.Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
C.20.Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
C.21.FM Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
C.22.Alignment and language direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
C.23.Conditional Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
C.24.Subline Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
C.25.Time and Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
C.26.Text Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
C.27.Bar Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
C.27.1. Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
C.28.Other Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
D. Config file options 168
E. Menu Overview 173
F. User feedback 174
F.1. Bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
F.1.1. Rules for submitting new bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
F.2. Feature ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
F.2.1. Rules for submitting a new feature idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
F.2.2. Features we will not implement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
G. Credits 177
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Contents 10
H. Licenses 181
H.1. GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
H.2. The GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 1. Introduction 11
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/. The mailing lists are another option, and
can be found at http://www.rockbox.org/mail/. From that page you can subscribe to
the lists and browse the archives. To search the list archives simply use the search field
that is located on the left side of the website. Furthermore, you can ask on IRC. The
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 1. Introduction 12
main channel for Rockbox is #rockbox on irc://irc.freenode.net. Many helpful developers
and users are usually around. Just join and ask your question (don’t ask to 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 so that you can join the Rockbox IRC channel without needing to install additional
software onto 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 F (page 174) for details on how to use the tracker.
1.3. Naming conventions and marks
We have some conventions (especially for 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”. In order to
b
make finding notes easier each one is accompanied by an icon in the margin as here.
Notes are used to mark useful information that may help you to get the most out of
Rockbox.
Warning: This is a warning. In contrast to notes mentioned above, a warning should
!
be taken more seriously. Whereas ignoring notes will not cause any serious damage,
ignoring warnings could cause serious damage to your player. You really should read the
warnings, especially if you are new to Rockbox.
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 can
probably 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 Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 2. Installation 13
2. Installation
Installing Rockbox is generally a quick and easy procedure. However before beginning
there are a few important things to know.
2.1. Before Starting
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 know the drive letter associated with the player.
On Linux you need to know the mount point of your player. On Mac OS X you
need to know the volume name of your player.
2.2. Installing Rockbox
There are two ways to install Rockbox: automated and manual. The automated way is
the preferred method of installing Rockbox for the majority of people. Rockbox Utility
is a graphical application that does almost everything for you. However, should you
encounter a problem, then the manual way is still available to you.
Rockbox itself comes as a single package. There is no need to install additional
software to run 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 appearance of Rockbox can be customised by themes. Depending on your
taste you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.
2.2.1. Automated Installation
To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool
Rockbox Utility. It allows you to:
• Automatically install all needed components for using Rockbox (“Minimal Installation”).
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 2. Installation 14
• Automatically install all suggested components (“Complete Installation”).
• Selectively install optional components.
• Install additional fonts and themes.
• Install voice files and generate talk clips.
• Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility.
Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are available at the ZRockboxUtility
wiki page.
When first starting Rockbox Utility run “Autodetect”, found in the configuration
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.
Choosing a Rockbox version
There are three different versions of Rockbox available from the Rockbox website: Release version, current build and archived daily build. You need to decide which one you
want to install and get the appropriate version for your player. If you select either “Minimal Installation” or “Complete Installation” from the “Quick Start” tab, then Rockbox
Utility will automatically install the release version of Rockbox. Using the “Installation”
tab will allow you to select which version you wish to install.
Release. The release version is the latest stable release, free of known critical bugs.
For a manual install, the current stable release of Rockbox is available at http:
//www.rockbox.org/download/.
Development Build. The development build is built at each change to the Rockbox
source code 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.
For a manual install, 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 repository. For a manual install, you can download
archived builds from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.
Note: Because current and archived builds are development versions that change fre-
b
quently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they may introduce new (and potentially annoying) bugs. Unless you wish to try the latest and
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 2. Installation 15
greatest features at the price of possibly greater instability, or you wish to help with
development, you should stick with the release.
Please now go to section 2.2.3 (page 15) to complete the installation procedure.
2.2.2. Manual Installation
The manual installation method is still available to you, should you need or desire it by
following the instructions below. If you have used Rockbox Utility to install Rockbox,
then you do not need to follow the next section and can skip straight to section 2.2.3
(page 15)
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 of
b
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.
If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a file called
ajbrec.ajz in the main directory of your player’s drive, and also a directory called
.rockbox, which contains a number of other directories and system files needed by
Rockbox.
2.2.3. Finishing the install
Safely eject / unmount the USB drive, unplug the cable and restart.
2.2.4. Enabling Speech Support (optional)
If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file. Voice files allow Rockbox
to speak the user interface to you. Rockbox Utility can install an English voice file, or
you can download it from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml and unzip it to the root
of your player. Rockbox Utility can also aid you in the creation of voice files with
different voices or in other languages if you have a suitable speech engine installed on
your computer. Voice menus are enabled by default and will come into effect after a
reboot. See section 8.9 (page 64) for details on voice settings. Rockbox Utility can also
aid in the production of talk files, which allow Rockbox to speak file and folder names.
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 2. Installation 16
2.3. Running Rockbox
When you turn the unit on, Rockbox should load.
2.4. Updating Rockbox
Rockbox can be easily updated with Rockbox Utility. You can also update Rockbox
manually – download a Rockbox build as detailed above, and unzip the build to the root
directory of your player as in the manual installation stage. If your unzip program asks
you whether 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
b
components.
2.5. Uninstalling Rockbox
2.5.1. 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.
2.5.2. 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.
2.6. Troubleshooting
“File Not Found” If you receive a “File Not Found” from the bootloader, then the
bootloader cannot find the Rockbox firmware. This is usually a result of not
extracting the contents of the .zip file to the proper location, and should not
happen when Rockbox has been installed with Rockbox Utility.
To fix this, either install Rockbox with the Rockbox Utility which will take care
of this for you, or recheck the Manual Install section to see where the files need to
be located.
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Chapter 3. Quick Start 17
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 ZBlindFAQ.
Holding the Jukebox in front of you, there should be three rectangular buttons in a
horizontal line towards the middle of the unit, and below this centred on the middle
button there are four radial arc shaped buttons placed in a cross formation with the
circular play button as the centre of the cross. These are the navigation controls. Below
the cross and to the left are two other buttons.
The On button is the leftmost of the two buttons located below and to the left of the
navigation controls whereas the rightmost and little lower one of these two is called Off .
The round button raised slightly higher than the others in the centre of the navigation
controls is the Play button. To the right of the Play button there is the Right button,
left of it is the Left, above it Up, and below the Play button there is the Down button
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 3. Quick Start 18
placed. In the row of three rectangular buttons the following buttons can be found (from
left to right): F1, F2 and F3.
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off
To turn on and off your Rockbox enabled player use the following keys:
Key Action
Long On Start Rockbox
Long 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 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-and-Drop). Files may be placed wherever
you like on the player, but it is strongly suggested NOT to put them in the /.rockbox
folder and instead put them in any other folder, e.g. /, /music or /audio. The default
directory structure that is assumed by some parts of Rockbox (missing-tag fallback in
some WPSes) uses the parent directory of a song as the Album name, and the parent
directory of that folder as the Artist name. WPSes may display information incorrectly if
your files are not properly tagged, and you have your music organized in a way different
than they assume when attempting to guess the Artist and Album names from your
filetree.
3.1.4. The first contact
After you have first started the player, you’ll be presented by the Main Menu. From
this menu you can reach every function of Rockbox, for more information (see section 5.1
(page 38)). To browse the files on your player, select Files (see section 4.1 (page 21)),
and to browse in a view that is based on the meta-data1of your audio files, select
Database (see section 4.2 (page 25)).
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 or On to
1
ID3 Tags, Vorbis comments, etc.
The Rockbox manual (version 3.13) Archos Recorder V2/FM
Chapter 3. Quick Start 19
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 27). 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 File Browser stop the playback with the Off button or return to the
file browser while keeping playback running using On. In list views you can go back one
step with Left.
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 4.5 (page 34).
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 Play. 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 13.3 (page 142). 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
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Chapter 3. Quick Start 20
from the Internet make sure you have the needed fonts installed as otherwise the theme
may not display properly.
3.3. USB Charging
To charge your player over USB, hold any button while plugging it in. This will prevent
it from connecting to your computer and let you continue to use it normally. Your player
must already be in Rockbox for this to function.
Note: Be aware that this button may still perform its normal function, so it is recom-
b
mended to use a button without harmful side effects, such as F1.
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 21
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 File Browser 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 Database Browser, 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 File Browser or the Database Browser
by selecting either Files or Database in the Main Menu. If you choose the File
Browser, the Show Files setting lets you select what types of files you wish to view.
See section 8.2 (page 56) for more information on the Show Files setting.
Note: The File Browser allows you to manipulate your files in ways that are not
b
available within the Database Browser. Read more about Database in section 4.2
(page 25). The remainder of this section deals with the File Browser.
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 22
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.
On+Up/ Down Move one page up/down in the list.
Left Go to the parent directory.
Right Execute the default action on the selected
file or enter a directory.
On If there is an audio file playing, return
to the While Playing Screen (WPS)
without stopping playback.
Off Stop audio playback.
Long Play Enter the Context Menu.
F1 Enter the Main Menu.
F2 Switch to the Quick Screen (see sec-
tion 5.13 (page 45)).
F3 Switch to the Quick Screen.
F2 Activate the Hotkey function (see sec-
tion 4.6 (page 37)).
The functions of the F keys are also summarised on the button bar at the bottom of
the screen.
4.1.2. Context Menu
Figure 4.2.: The Context Menu
The Context Menu allows you to perform certain operations on files or directories.
To access the Context Menu, position the selector over a file or directory and access
the context menu with Long Play.
Note: The Context Menu is a context sensitive menu. If the Context Menu is
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invoked on a file, it will display options available for files. If the Context Menu is
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 23
invoked on a directory, it will display options for directories.
The Context Menu contains the following options (unless otherwise noted, each
option pertains both to files and directories):
Playlist. Enters the Playlist Submenu (see section 4.5.3 (page 35)).
Playlist Catalogue. Enters the Playlist Catalogue Submenu (see section 4.5.2 (page 35)).
Rename. This function lets the user modify the name of a file or directory.
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 Play 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 Open With 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 12.3 (page 107) 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 modification
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.
Start File Browser Here. This option allows users to set the currently selected directory
as the default start directory for the file browser. This option is not available for
files.
Note: If you have Auto-Change Directory and Constrain Auto-Change
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 24
enabled, the directories returned will be constrained to the directory you have
chosen here and those below it. See section 7.9 (page 53)
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 its location in the File Browser.
4.1.3. Virtual Keyboard
Figure 4.3.: The virtual keyboard
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.
Also you can switch to Morse code input mode by changing the Use Morse Code
Input setting.
Note: When the cursor is on the input line, Play deletes the preceding character
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 25
Key Action
On + Left / On
+ Right
Move the line cursor within the text line.
F3 Delete the character before the line cur-
sor.
Left / Right Move the cursor on the virtual keyboard.
If you move out of the picker area, you
get the previous/next page of characters
(if there is more than one).
Up / Down Move the cursor on the virtual keyboard.
If you move out of the picker area you get
to the line edit mode.
F1 Flip to the next page of characters (if
there is more than one).
Play Insert the selected keyboard letter at the
current line cursor position.
F2 Exit the virtual keyboard and save any
changes.
Off Exit the virtual keyboard without saving
any changes.
Play Tap to select a character in Morse code
input 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
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.
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 26
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 update is set to on, each time the player boots, the database
will automatically be updated.
Initialize Now You can force Rockbox to rescan your disk for tagged files by using the
Initialize Now function in the Database Menu.
Warning: Initialize Now removes all database files (removing runtimedb data
!
also) and rebuilds the database from scratch.
Update Now Update now causes the database to detect new and deleted files Unlike
Initialize Now, the Update 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.
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 Menu and select
Database.
Note: You may need to increase the value of the Max files in dir browser setting
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 27
(Settings → General Settings → System → Limits) 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
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 items can be
turned on or off independently. Refer to section C (page 153) for details on how to
change the display of the WPS.
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 28
• Status bar: The Status bar shows Battery level, charger status, volume, play mode,
repeat mode, shuffle mode and clock. 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:
b
• 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 13.2 (page 136) for details of customising your WPS (While Playing
Screen).
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 29
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 the previous track.
Long Left Rewind in track.
Right Go to the next track.
Long Right Fast forward in track.
Play Toggle play/pause.
Off Stop playback.
On Return to the File Browser /
Database.
Long Play Enter WPS Context Menu.
F1 Enter Main Menu.
Long F2 Switch to the Quick Screen (see sec-
tion 5.13 (page 45)).
F1+Down Key lock (software hold switch) on/off.
F3 Toggles Display quick screen.
F1+Play Mute on/off.
On + Up/Down Show Pitch Screen (see section 4.3.3
(page 32)).
F1 + On Enter ID3 Viewer.
F2 Activate the Hotkey function (see sec-
tion 4.6 (page 37)).
On + Left or
Short Right +
Long Right
Skip to the next directory.
On + Right or
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 41).
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.
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Chapter 4. Browsing and playing 30
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
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without being indicated.
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):
0 dB, -3 dB, -6 dB, -9 dB, -12 dB, -18 dB, -24 dB, -30 dB, -40 dB, -50 dB, -60 dB.
4.3.3. The WPS Context Menu
Like the context menu for the File Browser, the WPS Context Menu allows you
quick access to some often used functions.
Playlist
The Playlist submenu allows you to view, save, search and reshuffle the current playlist.
To change settings for the Playlist Viewer press Long Play while viewing the current
playlist to bring up the Playlist Viewer Menu. In this menu, you can find the
Playlist Viewer Settings.
Playlist Viewer Settings
Show Icons. This toggles display of the icon for the currently selected playlist entry and
the icon for moving a playlist entry
Show Indices. 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 .m3u8 playlist file
Playlist catalogue
View catalogue. This lists all playlists that are part of the Playlist catalogue. 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.
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