Rockbox Archos Jukebox Studio 5000, Archos Jukebox Studio 6000, Player 10, Player 20 User Manual
DRAFT VERSION
The Rockbox Manual
for
Archos Jukebox Studio 5000, 6000, Player 10
and 20
rockbox.org
August 22, 2006
DRAFT VERSION
2
Rockbox
http://www.rockbox.org/
Open Source Jukebox Firmware
Copyrightc 2006 The Rockbox Team.
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, 2004, 2005, 2006 The Rockbox Team and its contributors,c 2004
Christi Alice Scarborough,c 2003 Jos´e Maria Garcia-Valdecasas Bernal &
Peter Schlenker.
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. Getting started 7
1.1. Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2. Getting more help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3. Naming conventions and marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Installation 9
2.1. Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2. Installing Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1. Using the windows installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.2. Manual installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3. Enabling Speech Support (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4. Running Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5. Updating Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.6. Uninstalling Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3. The Rockbox interface 12
3.1. Your player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.1. The player’s controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.2. File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2.1. File Browser Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.2. File Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.3. Playlist Submenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.4. Virtual Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3. Tag Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3.2. Initializing the Tag Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3.3. The Tag Cache Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.4. Using the Tag Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4. While Playing Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4.1. WPS Key Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4.2. The WPS Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. The Main Menu 22
4.1. Introducing the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.2. Navigating the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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4.3. Recent Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.4. Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.5. General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.6. Manage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.7. Browse Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.8. Playlist Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.9. Browse Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.10. Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.11. Shutdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5. Sound Settings 26
5.1. Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2. Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3. Treble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.4. Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.5. Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.6. Stereo Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6. General Settings 28
6.1. Playback Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6.2. File View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.3. Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.4. System Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.4.1. Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.4.2. Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.4.3. Power Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.4.4. Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.4.5. Car Adapter Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.4.6. Line In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.5. Bookmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.6. Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.7. Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7. Plugins 37
7.1. Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
7.1.1. Jackpot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
7.1.2. Nim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.2. Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.2.1. Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.2.2. Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.2.3. Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.2.4. Mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.2.5. Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7.3. Viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
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7.3.1. Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7.3.2. Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7.3.3. Text Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7.3.4. VBRfix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7.4. Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7.4.1. Alpine CD changer emulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7.4.2. Battery Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
7.4.3. Chess Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7.4.4. Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.4.5. Euro Converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.4.6. Favorites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.4.7. Metronome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.4.8. Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.4.9. Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
8. Advanced Topics 48
8.1. Customising the userinterface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8.1.1. Getting Extras (Fonts, Languages) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8.1.2. Loading Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8.2. Configuring the WPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8.2.1. WPS – General Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8.2.2. WPS – Build Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
8.3. Managing Rockbox settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8.3.1. Introduction to .cfg files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8.3.2. Specifications for .cfg files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
8.3.3. The MANAGE SE TT IN GS menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
8.4. Firmware Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
8.4.1. Using ROLO (Rockbox loader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
8.5. Rockbox in flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8.5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8.5.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8.5.3. Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8.5.4. Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.5.5. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.5.6. Flashing procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.5.7. Bringing in a Rockbox build . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
8.5.8. Restoring the original firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
8.5.9. Known issues and limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
8.5.10. Download the new flash content file to your box . . . . . . . . . . 59
A. File formats 60
A.1. Supported file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
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B. WPS Tags 61
B.1. Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
B.2. ID3 Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
B.3. Power Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
B.4. File Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
B.5. Playlist/Song Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.6. Runtime Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.7. Virtual LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.8. Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.9. Playback Mode Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
B.10. Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
B.11. Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
B.12. Conditional Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
B.13. Other Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
C. Config file options 66
C.1. Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
D. LCD Screen Sizes 68
E. User feedback 69
E.1. Bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
E.1.1. Rules for submitting new bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
E.2. Feature requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
E.2.1. Rules for submitting a new feature request . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
E.2.2. Features we will not implement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
F. Changelog 72
F.1. What’s new since v2.5? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
G. Credits 73
H. GNU Free Documentation Licence 75
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2. VERBATIM COPYING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4. MODIFICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
8. TRANSLATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9. TERMINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents . . . . . . . . . . 81
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CHAPTER 1. GETTING S TARTED 7
1. Getting started
1.1. Welcome
This is the manual for Rockbox. Rockbox is an open source firmware replacement for a
growing number of MP3 players. Rockbox aims to be considerably more functional and
efficient than your device’s stock firmware while remaining easy to use and customizable. Rockbox is written by users, for users. Not only is it free to use, it’s also released
under the GNU public license, which means that it will always remain free both to use
and to change.
Rockbox has been in development since 2001, and recieves new features, tweaks and
fixes each day to provide you with the best possible experience on your MP3 player. A
major goal of Rockbox is to be simple and easy to use, yet remain very customizable 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 that 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 can’t find the informations you’re 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 web site. Also you can ask on IRC. The
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CHAPTER 1. GETTING S TARTED 8
main channel 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 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 E (page 69) 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
informations 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 won’t cause any serious damage ignoring
warnings could cause serious damage. If you’re new to rockbox you should really read
the warnings before doing anything that is warned about.
This icon marks a section that are intended especially for the blind and visually im-
¸
paired. As they can’t read the manual in the same way sighted people can do we’ve
added some additional descriptions. If you aren’t 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.
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CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION 9
2. Installation
2.1. Prerequisites
Before installing Rockbox you should make sure you meet the prerequisites. Also you
may need some tools for installation. In most cases these will be already available on
your computer but if not you need to get some additional software.
zip Utility. Rockbox is distributed as an archive using the “zip” format. Thus you need
a tool to handle that compressed format. Usually your computer should have a
tool installed that can handle the zip file format. Windows XP has builtin support
for zip files and presents them to you as folders unless you have installed a third
party program that handles compressed files. For other operating systems this
may vary. If the zip file format isn’t recognized on your computer you can find a
program to handle them at
http://www.info-zip.org/ or http://sevenzip.sf.net/ which
can downloaded and used free of charge.
USB connection. To transfer Rockbox to your player you need to connect it to your
computer. To proceed you need to know where to access the player. On windows
this means you need to figure out the drive letter the device got associated with.
On Linux you need to know the mount point of your player.
Text Editor. If you want to create customized configuration files you’ll need a text ed-
itor like Windows’ “Wordpad”. Of course you can simply save configurations on
the player for which you don’t need an editor at all. Modifying configurations
from your computer is a more advanced feature which you probably won’t need.
2.2. Installing Rockbox
2.2.1. Using the windows installer
Using the Windows self installing executable to install Rockbox is the easiest method of
installing the software on your Jukebox. Simply follow the on-screen instructions and
select the appropriate drive letter and Jukebox model when prompted. You can use
“Add / Remove Programs” to uninstall the software at a later date.
2.2.2. Manual installation
For non-Windows users and those wishing to install manually from the archive the
procedure is still fairly simple. There are three different types of firmware binaries
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CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION 10
from Rockbox website: Current Version, Daily Build and Bleeding Edge. You need to
decide which one you want to install and get the version for your player.
Current Version. The current version is the latest stable version developed by the
Rockbox Team. It’s free of known critical bugs. It is available from http://www.
rockbox.org/download/. The current version includes everything meaning you
won’t need to download the fonts package separately.
Daily Build. The Daily Build is a development version of Rockbox. It supports all new
features and patches developed since last stable version. It may also contain bugs!
This version is generated automatically every day and can be found at http://www.
rockbox.org/daily.shtml. The daily builds don’t include the fonts (as they change
rarely). When installing Rockbox for the first time you should install the fonts
package.
Bleeding Edge. Bleeding edge builds are the same as the Daily build, but built from
the latest development on each commit to the CVS repository. These builds are
for people who want to test the code that developers just checked in.
If you don’t want to get undefined behaviour from your player you should really
stick to the Current Version. Development versions may have lots of changes so they
may behave completely different than described in this manual, introduce new (and
maybe annoying) bugs and similar. If you want to help the project development you
can try development builds and help by reporting bugs, feature requests and so so. But
be aware that using a development build may eat also some more time.
After downloading the Rockbox package connect your player to the computer via
USB as described in the manual that came with your player. Take the file that you
downloaded above, and unpack its contents to your Archos’s drive.
You will need to unpack all of the files in the archive onto your hard disk. If this
has been done correctly, you will have a file called archos.mod in the main folder of
your player’s drive, and also a folder called /.rockbox, which contains a number of
system files needed by Rockbox.
Note: Please note that the firmware folder starts with a leading dot. You may experience
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problems when trying to create such folders when using Windows. Directly unzipping
to your player’s drive works flawlessly; it is only Windows’ Explorer that is limited in
handling such files.
2.3. Enabling Speech Support (optional)
If you wish to use speech support you will also need a language file, available from http:
//www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VoiceFiles
. For the English language, the file is
called english.voice. When it has been downloaded, unpack this file and copy it
into the lang folder which is inside the /.rockbox folder on your Jukebox. Voice
menus are turned on by default. See section 6.7 (page 35) for details on voice settings.
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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. 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 step before. 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 replacing that.
Note: Settings are stored on an otherwise-unused sector of your hard disk, not in any
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of the files contained in the Rockbox build. Therefore, generally speaking, installing a
new build does not reset Rockbox to its default settings. Be aware, however, that from
time to time, a change is made to the Rockbox source code that does cause settings to
be reset to their defaults when a Rockbox build is updated. Thus it is recommended to
save your settings using the MANAGE SETTINGS → WRITE .CFG FILE function before
updating your Rockbox build so that you can easily restore the settings if necessary. For
additional information on how to save, load, and reset Rockbox’s settings, see section
6.4 (page 32).
2.6. Uninstalling Rockbox
If you would like to go back to using the original Archos software, then connect the
Archos to your computer, and delete the archos.mod file. If you wish to clean up
your disk, you may also wish to delete the .rockbox folder and its contents. Turn the
Archos off and on and the original Archos software will load.
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3. The Rockbox interface
3.1. Your player
Throughout this manual, the buttons on the player are labelled according to the pic-
ture above.
3.1.1. The player’s controls
Write a section describing the player for blind users.
¸
3.1.2. Turning the player on and off
To turn on and shut down your player, the following keys are used:
Key Action
Hold On for 2-3s Start Rockbox
From the Main Menu, select Shutdown Shutdown Rockbox
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On shutdown, Rockbox automatically saves its settings. In the unlikely event of a
software failure, a hardware power off can be performed by holding down Stop until
the player power light goes off.
3.2. File Browser
Figure 3.1.: The file browser
Rockbox lets you browse your music in either of two ways. The FI LE BROWSER lets you
navigate through the files and folders on your player, entering folders and executing
the default action on each file. To help differentiate files, each file format is displayed
with an icon.
The TAG CA CH E B R OW SE R, 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 BRO WS ER or the TAG CA CH E BROWSER
by adjusting the SHOW FI LE S setting. If you choose the FI LE BROWSER, the SHOW FILES
setting also lets you select what types of files you wish to view. See section 6.2 (page
30) for more information on the SHO W FILES setting.
Note: The FILE BR OW SE R allows you to manipulate your files in ways that are not
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available within the TAG CAC HE BRO WS ER. Read more about TAG CACHE in section
3.3 (page 17). The remainder of this section deals with the FILE BROWSER.
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3.2.1. File Browser Controls
Key Action
Minus/Plus Go to previous/next item in list. If you
are on the first/last entry, the cursor
will wrap to the last/first entry.
n/a Move one page up/down on the list.
Stop Go to the parent directory.
Play Executes an action. Depending on the
file type, that action may vary. (See sec-
tion 3.2.2 (page 14))
On If there is a MP3 playing, returns to
the While Playing Screen (WPS) with-
out stopping playback.
Hold Play/On+Play Enter the File Menu
Menu Enter the Main Menu
3.2.2. File Menu
Figure 3.2.: The File Menu
The FILE ME NU allows you to perform certain operations on files or folders. To access
the FI LE MENU, position the selector over a file or folder and press the Play/On+Play
buttons.
Note: The FI LE MENU is a context sensitive menu. If the FILE MENU is invoked on a
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file, it will display options available for files. If the FILE MENU is invoked on a folder
or directory, it will display options for directories.
The FILE MENU contains the following options (unless otherwise noted, each option
pertains both to files and directories):
Playlist: Enters the PLAYL IS T SUBMENU (see below).
Rename: This function lets the user modify a file name.
Cut: Copies the name of the currently selected file or directory to the clipboard and
marks it to be ’cut’.
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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 fold-
ers contained in the selected directory. 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 7.3 (page 40) for more details on viewers.
Create Directory: Makes a new folder in the current folder on the disk.
3.2.3. Playlist Submenu
Figure 3.3.: The Playlist Submenu
The PL AYLIST SUBMENU allows you to put tracks into a “dynamic playlist”. If there
is no music currently playing, Rockbox will create a new dynamic playlist and put the
selected track(s) into the playlist. If there is music currently playing, Rockbox will put
the selected track(s) into the current playlist. The place in which the newly selected
tracks are added to the playlist is determined by the following options:
Insert: Add track(s) to playlist. If no other tracks have been inserted then the selected
track will be added immediately after current playing track, otherwise they will
be added to end of insertion list.
Insert next: Add track(s) immediately after current playing track, no matter what else
has been inserted.
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Insert last: Add track(s) to end of playlist.
Queue: Queue is the same as Insert except queued tracks are deleted immediately
from the playlist after they’ve been played. Also, queued tracks are not saved
to the playlist file (see section 4.8 (page 24)).
Queue next: Queue track(s) immediately after current playing track.
Queue last: Queue track(s) at end of playlist.
The PLAYLIST SUBMENU can be used to add either single tracks or entire directories
to a playlist. If the PLAYL IS T SUBMENU is invoked on a single track, it will put only that
track into the playlist. On the other hand, if the PLAYLIST SUBMENU is invoked on a
directory, Rockbox adds all of the tracks in that directory to the playlist.
Note: You can control whether or not Rockbox includes the contents of subdirectories
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when adding an entire directory to a playlists. Set the MAI N ME NU → PLAYLIST OP-
TIONS → RE CU SI VELY INSERT DIR ECTORIES setting to YES if you would like Rockbox
to include tracks in subdirectories as well as tracks in the currently-selected directory.
If you want to have Rockbox create a playlist of a whole folder (to play an entire
album, for example), use the FILE BROWSER to select the song. When a single song is
selected from the FILE BROWSER, Rockbox will automatically create a playlist with all
songs in the current folder. However, if you want to play only a single song and then
stop, stop playback, navigate to the song you want to play, and use the PLAYLIST →
INSERT function to select the song.
Dynamic playlists are saved so resume will restore them exactly as they were before
shutdown.
Note: To view, save or reshuffle the current dynamic playlist, use the PLAYLIST OP-
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TIONS setting in the WPS Context Menu.
3.2.4. Virtual Keyboard
Figure 3.4.: The virtual keyboard
This is the virtual keyboard that is used when entering file names in Rockbox.
The current filename is always listed on the first line of the display. The second line
of the display can contain the character selection bar, as in the screenshot above, or one
of a number of other options.
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Key Action
Minus/Plus Moves the arrow to/from the filename
and changes between the character bar
and BACKSPACE, DELETE, ACCEPT and
ABORT.
Play/Stop Varies (see below)
Menu Shift. When the character selection bar is se-
lected
this changes between upper case, lower case,
and accented letters.
The function of the Play and Stop buttons depends on what the arrow is pointing to,
as follows.
Selected option Play/Stop function
filename Moves the cursor left (Stop)
or right (Play) within the filename
character bar Moves the character bar to the next (Play)
or previous (Stop) character.
BACKSPACE Playdeletes the character before
the current cursor position
DELETE Playdeletes the character at the
current cursor position
ACCEPT Playexits the virtual keyboard and
saves any changes
ABORT Playexits the virtual keyboard and
discards any changes
3.3. Tag Cache
3.3.1. Introduction
Tag Cache is the Rockbox music database system. Using the information contained in
the tags (ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis Comments, Apev2, etc.) 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 and Genre.
3.3.2. Initializing the Tag Cache
Before you use the Tag Cache for the first time, you must initialize it by using the INI-
TIALIZE NOW function in the TAG CACHE ME NU, which is described in the following
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section.
3.3.3. The Tag Cache Menu
Auto Update: If AUTO UPDATE is set to ON, each time the player boots, Tag Cache will
automatically do everything that the UPDATE NOW setting does. Note that the
AUTO UPDATE will only check for deleted files if the Directory Cache (GENERAL
SETTINGS → SYSTEM → DISK → DIRECTORY CAC HE) is enabled. UPDATE NOW
includes that check whether dircache has been enabled or not.
Initialize Now: Before you use the Tag Cache for the first time, you must initialize it
by using the INITIALIZE NO W function in the TAG CACHE MEN U. INITIALIZE
NOW removes all database files (removing runtimedb data also) and rebuilds the
database from scratch. This takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes, and may require
a restart to allow the files to be committed to the cache.
The Tag Cache initialization happens in the background, so you can continue to
listen to music while the Tag Cache is being initialized. If you shut down your
player during initialization, the database building process will continue next time
you turn it on.
Update Now: UPD ATE NOW causes Tag Cache to detect new and deleted files Note
that unlike the AUTO UPD ATE function, UPD ATE NOW will update the database
regardless of whether the DIR ECTORY CAC HE is enabled. Thus, an update using
UPDATE NOW may take a long time. Unlike IN IT IA LI ZE NO W, the UPDATE NOW
function does not remove runtime database information.
Gather Runtime Data (Experimental): When enabled, this option allows the most
played, unplayed and most recently played tracks to be logged and scored.
Export modifications: This allows for the runtime data to be exported into
/.rockbox/tagcache changelog.txt, which backs up the runtime data in
ASCII format. This is needed when Tag Cache structures change, because new
code cannot read old Tag Cache database code. But, all modifications exported to
ASCII format should be readable by all Tag Cache versions.
Import modifications: Allows the /.rockbox/tagcache changelog.txt backup
to be conveniently loaded into the Tag Cache. This is performed automatically
when the Tag Cache is initialized.
3.3.4. Using the Tag Cache
Once the Tag Cache has been initialized, you can browse your music by Artist, Album, Genre and Song Name. To use the Tag Cache, change the SH OW FI LE S show
mode by changing the GENERAL SETTINGS → FILE VIEW → SH OW FILES option to ID3
DATABASE. This disables the FILE BRO WS ER and instead allows you to view files using
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the information in the Tag Cache database.
Note: You may need to increase the value of the MAX FI LE S IN DI R BROWSER setting
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(GENERAL SE TT IN GS → SYS TE M → LI MITS) in order to view long lists of tracks in the
ID3 database browser.
There is no option to turn off Tag Cache completely. If you do not want to use it just
don’t do the initial build of the database and do not load it to RAM.
Supported Tags Unsupported Tags
Artist Comment
Album Performer
Bitrate
Composer
Genre
Length
Title
Track Number
3.4. While Playing Screen
The While Playing Screen (WPS) displays various pieces of information about the currently playing audio file.
Note:
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• Playlist index/Playlist size: Artist - Title.
• Current-time Progress-indicator Left.
See section 8.2 (page 48) for details of customising your WPS (While Playing Screen).
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3.4.1. WPS Key Controls
Key Action
Menu+Plus/Minus Volume up/down
Minus Go to beginning of track, or if pressed
while in the first seconds of a track, go
to previous track.
Hold Minus Rewind in track
Plus Go to next track.
Hold Plus Fast forward in track.
Play Toggle play/pause
On Return to the FILE BROWSER
Hold On Enter the WPS CONTEXT ME NU
Stop Stop playback
Menu Go to Main menu
Menu+Stop Key lock on/off
Menu+Play Mute on/off
Menu+On Enter ID3 VIEWER
3.4.2. The WPS Context Menu
Like the context menu for the FILE BROWSER, the WPS CONTEXT MEN U allows you
quick access to some often used functions:
Sound Settings
This is a shortchut to the SOUND SETTINGS MENU, where you can configure volume,
bass, treble, and other settings affecting the sound of your music. See section 5 (page
26) for more information.
Playlist
The PLAYLIST submenu allows you to view, save, search and reshuffle the current
playlist.
Bookmarks
This allows you to create a bookmark in the currently-playing track.
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ID3 Viewer
Figure 3.5.: The ID3 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 Menu+On.Use Minus and Plus to move through the information.
Open With...
This OPEN WITH function is the same as the OPEN WITH function in the FI LE CONTEXT
MENU.
Pitch Screen
The Pitch Screen allows you to quickly change the pitch of your player. The pitch value
can be adjusted between 50% and 200%.
Key Action
Increase / Decrease Pitch by 0.1%
Increase / Decrease Pitch by 1%
Minus/Plus Temporarily Increase / Decrease Pitch by 2.0%
Reset Pitch to 100%
Leave Pitch screen
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4. The Main Menu
4.1. Introducing the Main Menu
Figure 4.1.: The main menu
The MAIN MENU is the screen from which the rest of the Rockbox functions can be
accessed. It is used for a variety of functions, which are detailed below. All options in
Rockbox can be controlled via the MAIN MEN U. To enter the MAI N ME NU, press the
Menu button.
All settings are stored on the unit. However, Rockbox does not spin up the disk solely
for the purpose of saving settings. Instead, Rockbox will save settings when it spins up
the disk the next time, for example when refilling the MP3 buffer or navigating through
the file browser. Changes to settings may therefore not be saved unless the player is
shut down safely (see section 3.1.2 (page 12)).
4.2. Navigating the Main Menu
Key Action
Minus Selects previous option in the menu.
Inside an setting, decreases the value or chooses previous option
Plus Selects next option in the menu.
Inside an setting increases the value or chooses next
option
Play Selects item
Stop Exit menu, setting or moves to parent menu.
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4.3. Recent Bookmarks
Figure 4.2.: The list bookmarks screen
If the SAVE A LIST OF RECENTLY C RE ATED BOOKMARKS option is enabled then you can
view a list of several recent bookmarks here and select one to jump straight to that track.
See section 6.5 (page 34) for more details on configuring bookmarking in Rockbox.
Note: This option is off by default.
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4.4. Sound Settings
The SOUND SE TT IN GS menu offers a selection of sound properties you may change to
customize your listening experience. The details of this menu are covered in detail in
section 5 (page 26).
4.5. General Settings
The GE NE RA L SETTINGS menu allows you to customize the way Rockbox looks and
the way it plays music. The details of this menu are covered in detail in section 6 (page
28).
4.6. Manage Settings
The MA NA GE SE TT IN GS option allows the saving and re-loading of user configuration
settings, browsing the hard drive for alternate firmwares, and finally resetting your
player back to initial configuration. This menu also allows the user to load different
versions of the Rockbox firmware. The details of this menu are covered in detail in
section 8.3 (page 51).
4.7. Browse Themes
This option will display all the currently installed themes on the player, press Plus to
load the chosen theme and apply it.
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A theme is basically a configuration file, stored in a specific directory, that typically
changes the WPS , font used and on some platforms additional information such as
background image and text colours.
There are a number of themes that ship with Rockbox. If none of these suit your
needs, many more can be downloaded from . Some of the downloads from this site
will actually be standalone WPS files, others will be full-blown themes.
Note: Themes do not have to be purely visual. It is quite possible to create a theme that
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switches between audio configurations for use in the car, with headphones and when
connected to an external amplifier. See section 8.2.2 (page 49) for more details.
4.8. Playlist Options
This menu allows you to work with playlists. Playlists can be created in three ways.
Playing a file in a directory causes all the files in the directory to be placed in a playlist.
Playlists can be created manually by either using the FILE MENU (see section 3.2.2 (page
14)) or using the PLAYLIST OPT IO NS menu. Both automatically and manually created
playlists can be edited using this menu.
Create Playlist: Rockbox will create a playlist with all tracks in the current directory
and all subdirectories. The playlist will be created one folder level “up” from
where you currently are.
View Current Playlist: Displays the contents of the playlist currently stored in mem-
ory.
Save Current Playlist: Saves the current dynamic playlist, excluding queued tracks,
to the specified file. If no path is provided then playlist is saved to current directory (see section 3.2.3 (page 15)).
Recursively Insert Directories: If set to ON, then when a directory is inserted or
queued into a dynamic playlist, all subdirectories will also be inserted. If set
to ASK, Rockbox will prompt the user about whether to include subdirectories.
Options: OFF, ASK, ON
Warn When Erasing Dynamic Playlist: If set to YES, Rockbox will provide a warn-
ing if the user attempts to take an action that will cause Rockbox to erase the
current dynamic playlist. Options: YES, NO
4.9. Browse Plugins
With this option you can load and run various plugins that have been written for Rockbox. There are a wide variety of these supplied with Rockbox, including several games,
some impressive demos and a number of utilities. A detailed description of the different plugins is to be found in section 7 (page 37).
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4.10. Info
This option shows RAM buffer size, battery voltage level and estimated time remaining, disk total space and disk free space. Use the MINUS and PLUS keys to step through
several pages of information.
Rockbox Info: Displays some basic system information. This is, from top to bottom,
the amount of memory Rockbox has available for storing music (the buffer), battery status, hard disk size and the amount of free space on the disk.
Version: Software version and credits display.
Debug (Keep Out!): This submenu is intended to be used only by Rockbox developers.
It shows hardware, disk, battery status and other technical information.
Warning: It is not recommended that users access this menu unless instructed
!
to do so in the course of fixing a problem with Rockbox. If you think you have
messed up your settings by use of this menu please try to reset all settings before
asking for help.
4.11. Shutdown
This menu option saves the Rockbox configuration and turns off the hard drive before shutting down the machine. For maximum safety this procedure is recommended
when turning off the player. (There is a very small risk of hard disk corruption otherwise.) See section 3.1.2 (page 12) for more details.
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