Jonathan Singer
David White
Developer: Bernd Johannes Wuebben
Developer: Dirk Forsterling
Developer: Dirk Foersterling
Reviewer: Lauri Watts
Copyright © 2000-2002 J Singer
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
Kscd is a small, fast, CDDB enabled audio CD player for Unix platforms.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Kscd is a fast, CDDBcddb enabled CD player for the Unix platform. Kscd stands for ‘The KDE Project's small/simple CD player’.
New: the workman2cddb.pl Perl script provided in order to facilitate transition for users of workman.
I hope you will enjoy this CD player.
Bernd Johannes Wuebben
Onscreen fundamentals
This is the main window of Kscd. You should see something like this when you start Kscd. The controls in this window are explained below, in no particular order.
This is the main control panel for Kscd. The function of these buttons should be familiar to anyone who has ever used a CD player.
The uppermost button in the above diagram toggles between playing and pausing the CD. The left button in the second row stops playing the CD. The right button in the second row toggles looping, so that the CD will start playing again from the beginning when the end of the last audio track is reached. The buttons in the third row advance the CD backward (left) or forward (right) 30 seconds. The two buttons under the status display skip forward (right) or backward (left) to the beginning of the next or previous track.
This button ejects the CD. Note that the eject button on your CD-ROM drive may not respond if an audio CD is in the drive and Kscd is started. Some very old CD-ROM drives may not support software eject. You may also have to close the CD-ROM drive manually after inserting a new disc.
This is the status display. Starting at the top, from right to left, is the main time display (see below for a discussion of the various possible time display modes), the status of the CD-ROM drive, the total play time of the audio CD, the current volume setting, and the current and maximum track numbers (curr./max.). The bottommost two lines of text display the artist and title of the CD, and then the title of the track, assuming that appropriate entries exist in the local or network CDDB (CD Data Base.)
This button toggles between the possible main time display modes. By default, Kscd displays the elapsed time of the current track, if the CD is playing, or either ––:–– or 00:00 if the CD is not playing. Pressing this button toggles in sequence between remaining track time, total elapsed time, and total remaining time.
This button opens the Kscd configuration panel. This allows you to configure Kscd to work on your machine. See the configuring Kscd section, for details about configuring Kscd
This button opens the CDDB (Compact Disc Data Base) entry editor panel.
The CDDB can identify your CD and often download a list of tracks for that CD or load it from the filesystem. See the CD Database Editor section for more details about using this tool.
This button will help you search for information about the artist on the Internet. You can find out about performance dates, purchase information, and other information by pressing this button and choosing the appropriate option in the pop-up menu that appears.
This slider controls the volume of the audio output of the CD. Right is louder, left is quieter. If you are playing your CD through your sound card, the sound card mixer will affect the playback volume as well.
Configuring Kscd
The primary configuration window for Kscd is a tabbed dialog with four major sections.
The CD Player tab
The LCD Color and Background Color fields show the color selected for the foreground and background of the status display. Press the color bars to change these colors.
Set the Skip interval box to the desired number of seconds to move ahead or behind when the forward skip or reverse skip buttons in the Control Panel are pressed.
The Show tool tips checkbox turns tooltips (tiny windows that pop up when the mouse is “parked” briefly over a control) on or off.
Show icon in system tray causes a Kscd control to appear in the Kicker panel.
Autoplay when CD inserted causes CD play to start when the tray is closed, with no need to press the Play button.
Eject CD when finished playing causes the CD to be ejected when playback ends.
Stop playing on exit causes CD playback to stop when Kscd is closed.
You can choose how random play operates, from two self-explanatory options: Shuffle order and play each song only once and Randomly select songs (may repeat).
The CD-ROM Device field contains the name of the CD-ROM device to be used to play audio CDs. The default value is /dev/cdrom. The permissions on this device must be set to allow opening this device read-only. Changing the permissions on this device file will in almost all cases require superuser privileges and can be done from the command line, or in the Super User Mode of Konqueror.
The Help button opens the Kscd help contents page. OK saves the current settings and exits; Apply saves the current settings without exiting; Cancel exits without saving.
The freedb tab
The freedb tab sets up the CDDB functions of Kscd.
The Enable Remote freedb checkbox turns on or off CDDB lookups over the Internet. The time allowed before the lookup attempt times out can be set. To use an HTTP proxy, check the Use HTTP proxy to access freedb and enter the URL in the field below.
Checking Enable autosave to local database causes CDDB information to be stored locally, saving you from having to repeatedly perform lookups over the Internet. The freedb Base Directory: text field lets you choose the directory where you want CDDB entries to be stored locally.
The freedb server: list box shows a list of known freedb servers. Select an entry from this list and it will appear in the text field above the selection box. Press the Update button to update the list of servers in the list box. Press the Defaults button to enter the default value, freedb.freedb.org cddbp 888 -, which will permit you to update the list with a fresh list of freedb servers listed with the master freedb site at freedb.freedb.org. Servers can also be added manually by entering the address in the upper box and hitting the + button. Hit the - button to delete the selected entry from the list.
The Send freedb submissions to: field contains the e-mail address to which to submit CDDB entries. The default address is <freedb-submit@freedb.org>. As of version 0.8, CDDB entries from Kscd are accepted for inclusion in the database. Enter servers manually by entering the address in the upper box and hitting the + button. Hit the - button to delete the selected entry from the list. The Defaults button restores all settings to the default values.The Help button opens the Kscd help home page (this document).
The Help button opens the Kscd help contents page. OK saves the current settings and exits; Apply saves the current settings without exiting; Cancel exits without saving.
The SMTP tab
The SMTP tab sets up connection to a mail server to submit new CDDB entries. This is useful if you do not have your own system configured as a server. Check Enable submission via SMTP to use this feature. Select your preferred email profile in the Current Email Profile box. Enter the address of the SMTP server in the upper left text field and the port number (typically 25) in the upper right field. Enter a different email or reply address in the lower text fields. (Not working at this writing.)
The Help button opens the Kscd help contents page. OK saves the current settings and exits; Apply saves the current settings without exiting; Cancel exits without saving.
The Credits tab
The Credits tab displays information about the version of Kscd you are using and some copyright information.
The CD Database Editor
The CD Database Editor allows you to modify, download, save, annotate, and upload CDDB (Compact Disc Data Base) entries.
If there is an entry in your local CDDB tree (see the CDDB subsection in the Configuration chapter) for the CD in your CD-ROM drive, or if the disc could be found in the freedb, you will see the name of the artist and the title of the CD in the Artist: and Title fields and a list of tracks with song titles in the Tracks selection box. Otherwise, you will see a list of tracks and play times without titles.
You can make an annotation for the entire disc with the Comment button under the Title field, or for a selected track in the Tracks selection box with the adjacent Comment button. If you select a track in the Tracks selection box, the title, if present, will appear in the Title field below. You can type a title for the track in the box, or edit the entry to suit your needs. Press the Return key on your keyboard, and the text will appear in the proper line in the selection box.
Once all tracks have been given titles and the Artist: and Title fields have been filled out, you can press the Upload button to send your submission by e-mail to freedb.
You will be prompted to select a category for the submission. The Disc ID section displays the 32 bit ID code used by freedb to identify a compact disc. Above the ID code is the category of the freedb entry. These categories correspond to the subdirectories tree of the directory chosen in the freedb Base Directory: in the freedb tab of the Kscd Configuration window.
The Total Time: display shows the total play time of the CD.
Press the Fetch Info button to download CDDB data. Press the OK button to save your changes locally. The Cancel button closes the CD Database Editor without saving.
Using Kscd in the KDE Panel
When the Enable KPanel Docking box is checked, a small Kscd applet is also displayed in the KDE panel. Unlike the main Kscd window, this applet is available on any desktop. Right click on the applet to pop up a menu to control CD playback. A left click on the applet hides the main Kscd window. If the main window is hidden, a second left click on the applet restores it.
Note
To be precise, the applet is displayed in the system tray in the panel. If no applet appears when Kscd is minimized, you may have removed the tray. To add it, right click on an empty spot on the panel and select Add->Applet->System Tray
CDDB Support
freedb is a distributed network database accessible over the Internet that contains information about most audio CDs in circulation. If you have Internet access, you will likely never have to manually enter track information for your CDs if you have this set up properly. See The freedb Tab subsection in the configuring Kscd chapter for detailed instructions on how to configure this service, and the The CD Database Editor section for instructions on how to edit CDDB entries.
Use of the CDDB is free. Submissions from users are encouraged.
When preparing entries for the CDDB, please keep the following points in mind:
Use ‘standard’ latin characters in the entries. Some special characters are supported, but Cyrillic or Greek alphabet submissions, for example, cannot be accepted.
Use only one / character in the Disc Artist / Title field in the CD Database Editor.
For classical CDs, it is standard practice to put the composer's name in the Artist section (before the slash) and the performer's name in the Title section (after the slash).
If you send an entry that already exists in the database, any additional information you provide may be added to the existing entry.
By default, Kscd installs the standard CDDB categories in $KDEDIR/share/apps/kscd/cddb. You can create as many category subdirectories as you like. However, when uploading, only the offical CDDB categories are displayed. The default upload address is <freedb-submit@freedb.org>. For more information about freedb visit the freedb homepage.
The local CDDB entry for a particular CD is stored in the file category name/disc ID under the CDDB Base Directory. These files can be edited with any text editor if you have nothing better to do with your spare time.
Questions and answers
- 7.1. I see this dialog when I start Kscd. What's wrong?
- 7.2. I can't get the CDDB to work. Can I get any detailed information about what may be going wrong?
| 7.1. | I see this dialog when I start Kscd. What's wrong?  |
This means that Kscd couldn't open your CD-ROM drive. The name of the device in the CDROM Devicecdrom field of the Kscd Configuration must actually refer to the block device associated with your CD-ROM drive. This will often be a hardlink to the appropriate IDE (/dev/hdx) or SCSI (/dev/sdx) device. The device file normally belongs to user root in group root, and does not allow normal users to open it for reading, writing, or execution directly. This has nothing to do with the SUID (Set User ID programs use the setuid() function in the standard Un*x library to assume the identity of another user) mount command, which has no problems with permissions; Kscd must be able to get a read-only file descriptor referring to the CD device to control the CD-ROM drive and read raw data off the disk. If you have the root password, you can fix this quickly and easily. Become root and type chmod a+r /dev/cdrom to allow any user on your system to read from /dev/cdrom. If your CD-ROM device is called something else, change the permissions on that device with the same procedure. If you don't have the root password, ask your system administrator nicely to give you read permission for the CD-ROM device. See also the chapter on configuring KSCD | |
| 7.2. | I can't get the CDDB to work. Can I get any detailed information about what may be going wrong? |
If you experience trouble with the CDDB functionality try to starting Kscd from the command line with the -d switch and observe the debug output. |
Credits and licenses
Kscd Copyright 1997,1998 Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben@kde.org>wuebben>
Kscd contains code from:
workman 1.4 beta 3 Copyright (c) Steven Grimm <koreth@hyperion.com>
Special thanks to Ti Kan and Steve Scherf, the inventors of the CDDB database concept. Visit http://ww.cddb.com for more information on CDDB.
A very special thank you also to David White who wrote the original Kscd help documention. Great Job David!
Documentation updated for KDE 2.0, and copyright by Jonathan Singer <jsinger@leeta.net.>
This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Installation
Kscd is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org/.
Kscd can be found in the kdemultimedia package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main FTP site of the KDE project.
Requirements
In order to successfully compile Kscd, you need the latest versions of the KDE libraries as well as the Qt™ C++ library. All required libraries as well as Kscd itself can be found at the KDE FTP site, ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/.
Compilation and Installation
In order to compile and install Kscd on your system, type the following in the base directory of the Kscd distribution:
% ./configure % make % make install
Since Kscd uses autoconf and automake you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.
Please inform the current maintainer, Dirk Foersterling, at <milliByte@gmlx.net> of any modification you had to undertake in order to get Kscd to compile on your platform.