Toshiba Gigabeat F Rockbox Manual

0 (0)

Toshiba Gigabeat F Series

The RockboxVERSIONManual

for

DRAFT rockbox.org

June 6, 2008

2

Rockbox

 

http://www.rockbox.org/

 

Open Source Jukebox Firmware

 

Rockbox and this manual is the collaborative effort of the Rockbox team and

DRAFT

 

its contributors. See the appendixVERSIONfor a complete list of contributors.

c

c

2003-2008 The Rockbox Team and its contributors, 2004 Christi Alice

Scarborough, c 2003 Jose´ Maria Garcia-Valdecasas Bernal & Peter Schlenker.

Version r17694-080606. 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

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

CONTENTS

3

Contents

1

Getting started

VERSION

 

9

 

1.1

Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

 

1.2

Getting more help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

 

1.3

Naming conventions and marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

2

Installation

 

 

11

 

2.1

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

 

2.2

Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

 

2.3

Installing Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

 

 

2.3.1

Automated Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

 

 

2.3.2 Manual Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

 

 

2.3.3

Enabling Speech Support (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

 

2.4

Running Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

 

2.5

Updating Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

 

2.6

Uninstalling Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

 

 

2.6.1

Automatic Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

 

 

2.6.2 Manual Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

3

Quick Start

 

 

17

DRAFT

 

17

 

3.1

Basic overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

 

3.1.1 The player’s controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

 

 

3.1.2 Turning the player on and off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

 

 

3.1.3 The first contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

 

 

3.1.4

Basic controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

 

 

3.1.5 Basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

 

3.2

Customising Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

 

3.3

Menu overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

 

3.4

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

 

 

4.2.2

Initializing the database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

 

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4

 

 

 

 

4.2.3

The Database Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

 

 

 

4.2.4

Using the database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

 

 

4.3

While Playing Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

 

 

 

4.3.1

WPS Key Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

 

 

 

4.3.2

Peak Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

 

 

 

4.3.3

The WPS Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

 

 

4.4

Working with Playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

 

 

5.8

Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . .VERSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

 

 

 

4.4.1

Playlist terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

 

 

 

4.4.2 Creating playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

 

 

 

4.4.3

Adding music to playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

 

 

 

4.4.4 Modifying playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

 

 

 

4.4.5 Saving playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

 

 

 

4.4.6

Loading saved playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

 

 

 

4.4.7

Helpful Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

5

The Main Menu

36

 

 

5.1

Introducing the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

 

 

5.2

Navigating the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

 

 

5.3

Recent Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

 

 

5.4

Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

 

 

5.5

Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

 

 

5.6

Now Playing/Resume Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

 

 

5.7

Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

 

 

 

5.7.1

Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

 

 

 

5.7.2 General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

 

 

 

5.7.3

Manage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

DRAFT

38

 

 

 

5.7.4

Theme Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

 

5.9

Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

 

 

5.10

System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

 

 

5.11

Quick Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

6

Sound Settings

41

 

 

6.1

Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

 

 

6.2

Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

 

 

6.3

Treble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

 

 

6.4

Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

 

 

6.5

Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

 

 

6.6

Stereo Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

 

 

6.7

Crossfeed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

 

 

6.8

Equalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

 

 

6.9

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

7

General Settings

47

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TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

 

CONTENTS

 

 

5

 

 

 

7.1

Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

 

 

7.2

Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51

 

 

7.3

File View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51

 

 

7.4

Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

 

 

7.5

Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

 

 

7.6

System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

 

 

 

7.6.1

Start Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

 

 

 

7.6.2

 

VERSION

 

 

 

Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

 

 

 

7.6.3

Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

 

 

 

7.6.4

Time and Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

 

 

 

7.6.5

Idle Poweroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

 

 

 

7.6.6

Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

 

 

 

7.6.7

Car Adapter Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

 

 

 

7.6.8

Button Light Timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

 

 

 

7.6.9

Button Light Brightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

 

 

7.7

Bookmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

 

 

7.8

Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

 

 

7.9

Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

8

Theme Settings

 

60

9

Plugins

 

 

62

 

 

9.1

Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62

 

 

 

9.1.1

Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

 

 

 

9.1.2

BrickMania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

 

 

 

9.1.3

Bubbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

 

 

 

9.1.4

Chessbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67

DRAFT9.1.20 Spacerocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

 

 

 

9.1.5

Doom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

 

 

 

9.1.6

Flipit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71

 

 

 

9.1.7

Jewels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72

 

 

 

9.1.8

MazezaM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

 

 

 

9.1.9

Minesweeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

74

 

 

 

9.1.10

Pacbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

 

 

 

9.1.11

Pegbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

 

 

 

9.1.12

Pong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77

 

 

 

9.1.13

Robotfindskitten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

 

 

 

9.1.14

Rockblox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

 

 

 

9.1.15

Sliding Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

 

 

 

9.1.16

Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

 

 

 

9.1.17

Snake 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

 

 

 

9.1.18

Sokoban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83

 

 

 

9.1.19

Solitaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85

 

 

 

9.1.21

Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

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TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

CONTENTS

 

6

9.1.22

Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

9.1.23

Wormlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

9.1.24

Xobox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

9.2 Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

9.2.1

Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

9.2.2

Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

9.2.3

Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

9.2.4Demystify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

9.2.5 Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97

9.2.6

Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97

9.2.7

Mandelbrot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

98

9.2.8

Mosaique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99

9.2.9Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

9.2.10Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

9.2.11Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

9.2.12

Starfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

103

9.2.13

VU meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

104

9.3Viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 9.3.1 Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

9.3.2 Chip-8 Emulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

9.3.3JPEG viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

9.3.4 MPEG Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

9.3.5Rockboy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

9.3.6 Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

9.3.7Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

9.3.8 Text Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

9.3.9VBRfix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

9.3.10 ZXBox . . . . . . . .VERSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

9.4Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

9.4.1Battery Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

9.4.2Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

9.4.3Chess Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

9.4.4Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

9.4.5Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

9.4.6 Disk Tidy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

9.4.7Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

9.4.8

Metronome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

121

9.4.9

Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

122

9.4.10Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

9.4.11Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

DRAFT

125

10 Advanced Topics

10.1Customising the userinterface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 10.1.1 Getting Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

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7

10.1.2

Loading Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125

10.1.3

Loading Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125

10.1.4

Changing Colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125

10.1.5Loading Backdrops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

10.2Configuring the WPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

10.2.1WPS – General Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

 

 

10.2.2

WPS – Build Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

126

 

10.3

 

 

VERSION

 

Managing Rockbox settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129

 

 

10.3.1

Introduction to .cfg files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129

 

 

10.3.2

Specifications for .cfg files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

130

 

 

10.3.3

The MANAGE SETTINGS menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

130

 

10.4

Firmware Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

131

 

 

10.4.1

Using ROLO (Rockbox loader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

131

A

File formats

 

132

 

A.1

Supported file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

132

B

WPS Tags

 

 

133

 

B.1

Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133

 

B.2

ID3 Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133

 

B.3

Power Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

134

 

B.4

File Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

134

 

B.5

Playlist/Song Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135

 

B.6

Runtime Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135

 

B.7

Sound (DSP) settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135

 

B.8

Virtual LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

136

 

B.9

Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

136

DRAFT

 

136

 

B.10

Playback Mode Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

B.11

Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

137

 

B.12

Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

138

 

B.13

Conditional Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

138

 

B.14

Real Time Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

139

 

B.15

Other Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

139

C

Config file options

 

140

D

User feedback

 

143

 

D.1

Bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

143

 

 

D.1.1

Rules for submitting new bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

143

 

D.2

Feature requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

143

 

 

D.2.1

Rules for submitting a new feature request . . . . . . . . . . . . .

143

 

 

D.2.2

Features we will not implement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

144

E

Changelog

 

 

145

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CONTENTS

 

8

 

 

 

E.1

What is new since v2.5? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

145

F

Credits

 

146

G

Licenses

 

149

 

 

G.1

GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149

 

 

G.2

The GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

157

DRAFT

VERSION

 

 

 

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THE ROCKBOX MANUAL
TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES
1 Getting started
1.1 Welcome VERSION
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 public license, 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 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
DRAFTdifferent configurations quickly for different purposes (e.g. a large font for in your car, different sound settings for at home). Rockbox features a very wide range of languages, and all supported models also have the ability to talk to you – menus can be voiced and filenames spelled out or spoken.
1.2 Getting more help
This manual is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the Rockbox firmware. There is, however, more help available. The Rockbox website at http://www.rockbox.org/ contains very extensive documentation and guides written by members of the Rockbox community and this should be your first port of call when looking for further help.
If you cannot find the information you are searching for on the Rockbox website there are a number of support channels you should have a look at. You can try the Rockbox forums located at http://forums.rockbox.org/. Another option are the mailing lists which can be found at http://www.rockbox.org/mail/. From that page you can subscribe to the lists and browse the archives. For searching the list archives simply use the search field that is located on the left side of the website. Also you can ask on IRC. The main channel
CHAPTER 1. GETTING STARTED
9

CHAPTER 1. GETTING STARTED

10

for Rockbox is #rockbox on irc://irc.freenode.net. A bunch of helpful developers and users are usually around. Just join and ask – if someone knows the answer you’ll usually get an answer pretty quickly. More information including IRC logs can be found at http://www.rockbox.org/irc/. We also have a web client for joining the rockbox IRC channel so there is no need for you to install additional software to your computer.

If you think you 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. AfterVERSIONthat you can submit that issue to our tracker. Refer to section D (page 143) 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. “Toshiba 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 of notes we have put this an icon in the margin like here. Notes are used to mark information that could help you or indicate a possible “weirdness” in rockbox that would be explained.

Warning: This is a warning. In contrast to notes mentioned above, a warning should be taken more seriously. While ignoring notes will not cause any serious damage ignoring DRAFTwarnings could cause serious damage. If you are new to rockbox you should really read

the warnings before doing anything that is warned about.

This icon marks a section that are intended especially for the blind and visually impaired. As they cannot read the manual in the same way sighted people can do we have added some additional descriptions. If you are not blind or visually impaired you most likely can completely skip these blocks. To make this easier, there is an icon shown in the margin on the right.

Links to the wiki are abbreviated by the name of the wiki page. Those names are still linked so you can simply follow them like any other link in this manual. If you want to access a wiki page manually go to 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 Zin front of the page name.

b

!

¸

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL
TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES
2 Installation
2.1 Overview VERSION
There are two ways of installing Rockbox: automated and manual. While the manual way is older, more tested and proven to work correctly, the automated installation is based on a nice graphical application that does almost everything that is needed for you. It is still important that you have an overview of the installation process to be able to select the correct installation options.
There are three separate components, two of which need to be installed in order to run Rockbox.
The Toshiba bootloader. The Toshiba bootloader is the program that tells your player how to boot and load the remaining firmware from disk. It is also responsible for the disk mode on your player.
This bootloader is stored in special flash memory in your Toshiba. It is already installed on your player, so it is never necessary to modify this in order to install Rockbox.
The Rockbox bootloader. The Rockbox bootloader is loaded from disk by the Toshiba bootloader. It is responsible for loading the Rockbox firmware and for providing DRAFTthe dual boot function. It directly replaces the Toshiba firmware on the player’s
disk.
Note: Dual boot does not currently work on the gigabeat.
The Rockbox firmware. Similar to the Toshiba firmware, most of the Rockbox code is contained in a “build” that resides on your player’s drive. This makes it easy to update Rockbox. The build consists of a directory called .rockbox containing all of Rockbox’ files, which is located in the root of your player’s drive.
Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in installing too.
Fonts. Rockbox can load custom fonts. The fonts itself are distributed as separate package and thus needs to be installed separately. The fonts are not required to run Rockbox itself but a lot of themes require the fonts package to be installed.
Themes. The view of Rockbox can be customized by themes. Depending on your taste you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.
CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION
11

b

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION

12

2.2 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.

USB connection. To transfer Rockbox to your player you need to connect it to your

VERSION

 

computer. To proceed you need to know where to access the player. On Windows

 

this means you need to figure out the drive letter associated with the device. On

 

Linux you need to know the mount point of your player.

!

Warning: During installation, do not connect your player using the cradle but

plug the USB cable directly to the player.

For manual installation and customization additional software is required.

 

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 built-in

 

support for .zip files and presents them to you as directories unless you have

 

installed a third party program that handles compressed files. For other oper-

 

ating systems this may vary. If the .zip file format is not recognised on your

 

computer you can find a program to handle them at http://www.info-zip.org/ or

 

http://sevenzip.sf.net/ which can be downloaded and used free of charge.

 

Text editor. As you will see in the following chapters, Rockbox is highly configurable.

 

In addition to saving configurations within Rockbox, Rockbox also allows you to

 

create customised configuration files. If you would like to edit custom configura-

 

tion files on your computer, you will need a text editor like Windows’ “Wordpad”.

 

2.3 Installing Rockbox

 

2.3.1 Automated Installation

 

To automatically install Rockbox download the official installer and housekeeping tool

 

ROCKBOX UTILITY. It allows you to

 

Automatically install all needed components for using Rockbox (“Small Installa-

 

tion”)

 

Automatically install all suggested components (“Full Installation”)

 

Selectively install any of all available parts of Rockbox

 

DRAFTInstall additional themes interactively

 

Install voice files and generate talk clips

 

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TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

Choosing a Rockbox version
2.3.2 Manual Installation

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION

13

Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility

Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and MacOS X are available from http://download. rockbox.org/rbutil/. As Rockbox Utility is still under development more information including up-to-date download links can be found at ZRockboxUtility.

Warning: Upon the first start of Rockbox Utility you need to set at least the correct player and mountpoint in the configuration dialog. Autodetection can detect most

other systems this is a path in the filesystem.

player types. If autodetection failed or was unable to detect the mountpoint make sure to enter the correct values. TheVERSIONmountpoint indicates the location of the player in your filesystem. On Windows, this is the drive letter the player gets assigned, on

Note: Rockbox Utility currently lacks some guiding messages. Please have a look at the manual installation instructions if you are stuck during installation.

There are three different types of firmware binaries from the Rockbox website: Release version, current build and daily build. You need to decide which one you want to install and get the version for your player.

Release. There has not yet been a stable release for the Toshiba Gigabeat F Series. Until there is a stable release for Toshiba Gigabeat F Series, use a current build.

Current Build. The current build is built at each source code change to the Rockbox SVN repository, and represent the current state of Rockbox development. This means that the build could contain bugs, but is most of the time safe to use. You

DRAFTcan download the current build from http://build.rockbox.org/.

Archived Build. In addition to the release version and the current build, there is also an archive of daily builds available for download. These are built once a day from the latest source code in the SVN repository. You can download archived builds from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.

Because current builds and daily builds are development versions which change frequently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they may introduce new (and maybe annoying) bugs. If you do not want to get undefined behaviour from your player you should really stick to the current stable release, if there is one for your player. If you want to help the project development, you can try development builds and help by reporting bugs. Just be aware that these are development builds that are highly functional, but not perfect!

Installing the firmware

1. Download your chosen version of Rockbox from the links in the previous section.

!

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THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION

 

14

 

 

2. Connect your player to the computer via USB

as described in the manual that

 

came with your player.

 

 

 

 

3. Take the file that you downloaded above, and use the “Extract all” command of

 

your unzip program to extract the files in the .zip file onto your player.

 

Note that the entire contents of the .zip file should be extracted directly to the

 

root of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your

 

 

VERSION

 

player for the Rockbox files! The .zip file already contains the internal structure

 

that Rockbox needs.

 

 

 

b

Note: If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a directory

called /.rockbox, which contains all the files needed by Rockbox, in the main direc-

tory of your player’s drive. If you receive a “-1” error when you start Rockbox, you have not extracted the contents of the .zip file to the proper location.

Installing the fonts package

Rockbox has a fonts package that is available at http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml or from the extras link in the menu on the Rockbox website. While the current builds and daily builds change frequently, the fonts package rarely changes. Thus, the fonts package is not included in these builds. (The release version, on the other hand, does not change, so fonts are included when you download a release). When installing Rockbox for the first time, you should install the fonts package.

1.Download the fonts package from the link above.

2.Take the file that you downloaded above, and use the “Extract all” command of your unzip program to extract the files in the .zip file onto your player. As with the firmware installation, the entire contents of the fonts .zip should be extracted directly to the root of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your player for the fonts! The .zip already contains the correct internal structure.

DRAFTInstalling the bootloader

Installing the bootloader is only needed once. It simply requires you to replace a file on your player with the Rockbox bootloader. To be able booting the original firmware please make sure to rename the original file properly. If you ever wish to uninstall Rockbox you should keep a backup copy of the original file.

Download the Rockbox bootloader from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ gigabeat/

Starting at the root directory of your player browse into the directory GBSYSTEM and from that into the subdirectory FWIMG. These directories are hidden. Make sure that you have configured your browser to show hidden files or you may be unable to see FWIMG.

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

Unplug any power adapter.

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION

15

In that directory you’ll find a file called FWIMG01.DAT. This too may be hidden. Rename the file to FWIMG01.DAT.ORIG. Make sure you spelled that name correctly as it is needed for booting the Toshiba firmware.

Now copy the file FWIMG01.DAT you downloaded to that directory. Make sure the spelling is correct.

Warning: After installing the bootloader you need to power-cycle the player by doing the following steps. Failure to do so mayVERSIONresult in problems.

Eject / unmount USB drive and unplug the USB cable.

Hold the Power button to turn off the player.

Slide the battery switch located on the bottom of the player from ‘on’ to ‘off’

Slide the battery switch back from ‘off’ to ‘on’

2.3.3 Enabling Speech Support (optional)

If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file, english ones are available from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml. Download the “voice” package for your player and unzip it directly to the root of your player. You should now find an english.voice in the /.rockbox/langs directory on your player. Voice menus are enabled by default and will come into effect after a reboot. See section 7.9 (page 58) for details on voice settings.

DRAFT2.4 Running Rockbox

Remove your player from the computer’s USB port. Unplug any connected power supply and turn the unit off. When you next turn the unit on, Rockbox should load. When you see the Rockbox splash screen, Rockbox is loaded and ready for use.

2.5 Updating Rockbox

Updating Rockbox is easy even if you do not use the Rockbox Utility. Download a Rockbox build. (The latest release of the Rockbox software will always be available from http://www.rockbox.org/download/). Unzip the build to the root directory of your player like you did in the installation 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.

Note: If you use Rockbox Utility be aware that it can not detect manually installed components.

!

b

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL
DRAFT
software will load.
and its contents. Turn the Toshiba
2.6.2 Manual Uninstallation

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLATION

16

2.6 Uninstalling Rockbox

2.6.1 Automatic Uninstallation

You can uninstall Rockbox automatically by using Rockbox Utility. If you installed Rockbox manually you can still use Rockbox Utility for uninstallation but will not be able to do this selectively.

If you wish to clean up your disk, youVERSIONmay also wish to delete the .rockbox directory off. Turn the player back on and the original Toshiba

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

Toshiba Gigabeat F Rockbox Manual

CHAPTER 3. QUICK START

17

3 Quick Start

3.1 Basic overview

VERSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.1.1 The player’s controls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DRAFTswitch is to the left, the battery is disconnected. This can be used for a hard reset of

 

Throughout this manual, the buttons on the player are labelled according to the pic-

 

ture above. When a table of button actions says “Long” before the button it means that

 

you should make a long press on that button, in other words, press it for approximately

 

1 second. In detail the buttons are described in the following paragraph.

¸

Additional information is available for blind users on the Rockbox website at ZBlindFAQ.

Hold the player with the screen on top and the controls on the right hand side. Below

the screen is a cross-shaped touch sensitive pad which contains the Up, Down, Left and Right controls. On the top of the unit from left to right are the power socket, the Hold switch, and the headphone socket. The Hold switch puts the player into hold mode when it is switched to the right of the unit. The buttons will have no effect when this is the case.

Starting from the left hand side on the bottom of the unit, nearer to the front than the back, is a recessed switch which controls whether the battery is on or off. When this

the unit, or if the player is being placed in storage. Next to that is a connector for the

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

TOSHIBA GIGABEAT F SERIES

3.1.3 The first contact

CHAPTER 3. QUICK START

18

docking station and finally on the right hand side of the bottom of the unit is a mini USB socket for connecting directly to USB.

Finally on the right hand side of the unit are some control buttons. Going from the bottom of the unit to the top there is a small round A buttton then a rocker volume switch with of the Volume down button below the Volume up button. Above that is are two more small round buttons, the Menu button and nearest to the top of the unit the Power button, which is held down to turn the player on or off.

 

 

VERSION

3.1.2 Turning the player on and off

To turn on and off your Rockbox enabled player use the following keys:

 

Key

Action

 

Power

Start Rockbox

 

Long Power

Shutdown Rockbox

On shutdown, Rockbox automatically saves its settings.

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 36)). To browse the files on you player select FILES (see section 4.1 (page 21)), and to browse in a view that is based on the meta-data1 of your audio files, select DATABASE (see section 4.2 (page 25)).

DRAFT3.1.4 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 Select or Right to select an item. When browsing the file system selecting an audio file plays it. The view switches to the “While playing screen”, usually abbreviated as “WPS” (see section 4.3 (page 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 Power button or return to the file browser while keeping playback running using Select. In list views you can go back one step with Left.

1ID3 Tags, Vorbis comments, etc.

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CHAPTER 3. QUICK START

19

3.1.5 Basic concepts

Playlists

Rockbox is playlist oriented. This means that every time you play an audio file, a socalled “dynamic playlist” is generated, unless you play a saved playlist. You can modify the dynamic playlist while playing and also save it to a file. If you do not want to use playlists you can simply play your files directory based. Playlists are covered in detail in section 4.4 (page 31).

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 Select. 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

 

 

VERSION

 

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 vari-

 

ous 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 10.3 (page 129). The

 

Rockbox distribution comes with some themes that should look nice on your player.

b

Note: Some of the themes shipped with Rockbox need additional fonts from the fonts

package, so make sure you installed them. Also, if you downloaded additional themes

DRAFT

 

 

from the Internet make sure you have the needed fonts installed as otherwise the theme may get displayed garbled.

3.3 Menu overview

include an overview of the menu structure here

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CHAPTER 3. QUICK START

20

3.4 Charging

The player can be powered over USB without connecting to your computer by holding Menu while plugging in. This allows you to continue using the player normally.

DRAFT

VERSION

 

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CHAPTER 4. BROWSING AND PLAYING

21

4 Browsing and playing

4.1 File Browser

VERSION

 

 

 

 

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 7.3 (page 51) for more information on the SHOW FILES setting.

b

Note: The FILE BROWSER allows you to manipulate your files in ways that are not

DRAFTavailable within the DATABASE BROWSER. Read more about DATABASE in section 4.2

(page 25). The remainder of this section deals with the FILE BROWSER.

THE ROCKBOX MANUAL

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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.

Left

VERSION

Go to the parent directory.

Select or Right

Executes the default action on the se-

 

lected file or enters a directory.

A

If there is an audio file playing, returns

 

to the WHILE PLAYING SCREEN (WPS)

 

without stopping playback.

Power

Stops audio playback.

Long Select

Enter the CONTEXT MENU

Menu

Enter the MAIN MENU

4.1.2 Context Menu

DRAFTFigure 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 Select.

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Note: The CONTEXT MENU is a context sensitive menu. If the CONTEXT MENU is in-

b

voked on a file, it will display options available for files. If the CONTEXT MENU is

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 4.4.3 (page 33)).

 

 

 

 

 

VERSION

 

Playlist Catalog. Enters the PLAYLIST CATALOG SUBMENU (see section 4.4.2 (page 32)).

 

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 Select

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

DRAFT

 

 

 

 

Open with. Runs a viewer plugin on the file. Normally, when a file is selected in Rockbox, 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 9.3 (page 104) 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.

Add to Shortcuts. Adds a link to the selected item in the shortcuts.link file. If the file does not already exist it will be created in the root directory. Note that if you create a shortcut to a file, Rockbox will not open it upon selecting, but simply bring you to it’s location in the FILE BROWSER.

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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.

 

Key

Action

 

 

VERSION

 

 

Left / Right /

Move about the virtual keyboard (moves

 

Up / Down

the solid cursor)

 

A + Left or A +

Move the line cursor within the text line

 

Right

 

 

 

Select

Inserts the selected keyboard letter at the

 

 

current cursor position

 

Power

Exits the virtual keyboard without sav-

 

 

ing any changes

 

A

Exits the virtual keyboard and saves any

 

 

changes

 

Menu

Deletes the character before the line cur-

 

 

sor

 

A + Power

Enters Morse input mode

 

Select

Tap to select a character in Morse input

DRAFTmode

 

 

 

 

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25

4.2 Database

4.2.1 Introduction

This chapter describes 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.

The first time you use the database, RockboxVERSIONwill 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.

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.

DRAFT4.2.3 The Database Menu

Load To Ram. The database can either be kept on disk (to save memory), or loaded into RAM (for fast browsing). Setting this to YES loads the database to RAM, allowing faster browsing and searching. Setting this option to NO keeps the database on the disk, meaning slower browsing but it does not use extra RAM and saves some battery on boot up.

Note: If you browse your music frequently using the database, you should load to RAM, as this will reduce the overall battery consumption because the disk will not need to spin on each search.

Auto Update. If AUTO UPDATE is set to ON, each time the player boots, the database will automatically be updated.

Note: The AUTO UPDATE will only check for deleted files if the DIRECTORY CACHE

(SETTINGS ! GENERAL SETTINGS ! SYSTEM ! DISK ! DIRECTORY CACHE) is

enabled. UPDATE NOW includes that check whether dircache has been enabled or not.

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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

Note: Unlike the AUTO UPDATE function, UPDATE NOW will update the database

4.2.4 Using the database

VERSION

regardless of whether the DIRECTORY CACHE is enabled. Thus, an update using UPDATE NOW may take a long time.

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.

DRAFTOnce the database has been initialized, you can browse your music by Artist, Album, Genre and Song Name. 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 (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.

!

b

b

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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

 

 

VERSION

 

 

 

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

-

numeric

runtime db

 

min)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps (play time - sec)

numeric

runtime db

 

rating

 

 

numeric

runtime db

 

commitid

 

 

numeric

system

 

entryage

 

 

numeric

system

 

length

 

 

numeric

system

 

Lm

(track

len

-

numeric

system

 

min)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ls (track len - sec)

 

numeric

system

DRAFT4.3 While Playing Screen

The While Playing Screen (WPS) displays various pieces of information about the currently playing audio file. The appearance of the WPS can be configured using WPS configuration files. The items shown depend on your configuration – all item can be turned on or off independently. Refer to section B (page 133) for details on how to change the display of the WPS.

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.

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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.

See section 10.2 (page 126) for details of customising your WPS (While Playing Screen).

4.3.1 WPS Key Controls

 

Key

Action

 

 

Up / Down

Volume up/down.

 

Left

Go to beginning of track, or if pressed

 

 

while in the first seconds of a track, go

 

 

to previous track.

 

Long Left

Rewind in track.

 

Right

Go to next track.

 

Long Right

Fast forward in track.

 

A

Toggle play/pause.

 

Power

Stop playback.

 

Select

Return to the FILE BROWSER.

 

Long Select

Enter WPS CONTEXT MENU.

 

Menu

 

VERSION

 

Enter MAIN MENU.

 

Long Menu

Enter QUICK SCREEN.

 

A + Right

Skip to the next directory.

 

A + Left

Skip to the previous directory.

DRAFT

 

 

4.3.2 Peak Meter

The peak meter can be displayed on the While Playing Screen and consists of several indicators.

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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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.

 

 

b

 

Note: Note that the clip detection is not very precise. Clipping might occur with-

 

out 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):

 

 

0db, -3db, -6db, -9db, -12db, -18db, -24db, -30db, -40db, -50db, -60db.

 

 

 

4.3.3 The WPS Context Menu

 

 

 

 

Like the context menu for the FILE 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 Menu while viewing the

 

playlist to bring up the PLAYLIST VIEWER MENU.

 

 

 

Playlist catalog

 

 

 

 

View catalog. This lists all playlists that are part of the Playlist catalog. You can load

 

 

a new playlist directly from this list.

 

 

 

Add to playlist. Adds the currently playing file to a playlist. Select the playlist you

 

DRAFT

VERSION

 

want the file to be added to and it will get appended to that playlist.

Add to new playlist. Similar to the previous entry this will add the currently playing track to a playlist. You need to enter a name for the new playlist first.

Sound Settings

This is a shortcut to the SOUND SETTINGS MENU, where you can configure volume, bass, treble, and other settings affecting the sound of your music. See section 6 (page 41) for more information.

Playback Settings

This is a shortcut to the PLAYBACK SETTINGS MENU, where you can configure shuffle, repeat, party mode, study mode and other settings affecting the playback of your music.

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Rating

The menu entry is only shown if GATHER RUNTIME INFORMATION is enabled. It allows the asignment of a personal rating value (0 – 10) to a track which can be displayed in the WPS and used in the Database browser. Press Right to increment the value. The value wraps at 10.

VERSION DRAFTCONTEXT MENU. Figure 4.4: The track info viewer

Bookmarks

This allows you to create a bookmark in the currently-playing track.

Show Track Info

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,

Open With...

This OPEN WITH function is the same as the OPEN WITH function in the file browser’s

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