PocketMusic Player Bundle User’s Guide
PocketMusic Player Bundle includes PocketMusic and PocketMusic Feature Pack. PocketMusic with the Feature Pack is the most improved and popular music player for Pocket PC devices.
PocketMusic is compatible with Pocket PC 2003, Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 2003 SE, Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6.0 devices. The player supports MP1, MP2, MP3, OGG, WMA, WAV, AA, FLC, M3U, ASF, ASX, PLS, WSZ, and WAL file types.
This User’s Guide will help you learn and use all features of the player. Please note that most of features are available only if PocketMusic Feature Pack is installed.
Table of Contents
Improving Playback Performance
Playing Music from the Internet
How to copy music from a desktop PC to your Pocket PC
How to play music from local network drives
How to create new skins for PocketMusic
PocketMusic Player
Setup
1. Connect your Pocket PC device to your desktop PC with a connection cable or cradle.
2. Use ActiveSync for the software connection.
3. Open the PocketMusic installation file on your desktop computer and follow the installation wizard instructions. There is a choice to install PocketMusic into the main memory or onto a storage card or ROM file storage. We recommend that you install PocketMusic into the main memory. You can store your music files on storage cards.
4. When installation is complete, reset your Pocket PC.
5. To start PocketMusic, go to Programs and tap the PocketMusic icon.
Today Screen Plug-In
Using the Today screen plug-in, you can control music playback directly from the Today screen.
Figure. 1. Today screen plug-in.
To activate the Today screen plug-in, go to the general Pocket PC settings, and on the Personal menu, tap Today, and then tap Items.
Figure. 2. Today screen Settings menu with the Items tab highlighted.
Select the PocketMusic option and tap OK. Reset your Pocket PC. Now you can use the Today screen plug-In. When the plug-in is activated, you can quickly and easily start PocketMusic by tapping on the bar of the plug-in window.
To disable the plug-in, on the Settings menu, tap the Personal tab, tap Today, tap Items, and clear the PocketMusic option.
Interface Language
PocketMusic interface is available in the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian.
Figure 3. PocketMusic language menu.
To set the PocketMusic interface language, on the Player Options tab, tap General.
Load Music Options
To set Load Music options, on the Player Options
tab, and tap Load. The following screen will appear:
Figure 4. PocketMusic Load options.
File Types
PocketMusic supports MP1, MP2, MP3, OGG, WMA, WAV, AA, FLC, M3U, ASF, ASX, PLS, WSZ, and WAL file types. The most popular music formats are MP3, OGG, and WMA.
The File Types tab in the Player Options menu sets which types of files you want to associate with PocketMusic. This affects which files you can check in the file explorer to automatically call up PocketMusic to run, as well as which files show up in the Add to playlist and other directory functions. Initially, files associated with PocketMusic are MP1, MP2, MP3, M3U, PLS, and WSZ.
Skin Modes
There are two skin modes available in PocketMusic: PocketMusic and Winamp. To choose a skin mode, open the player menu.
Note: You can use Winamp skin mode in full-screen mode, or you can clear the Toggle FullScreen checkbox in the player menu to see the Windows toolbar.
Figure 5. PocketMusic
skin mode.
Figure 6. Winamp
skin mode.
Skins
PocketMusic supports Winamp 2.x skins for Winamp Skin Mode and its own skin format for PocketMusic Skin Mode.
To add a new skin, copy it to your Pocket PC:
1. Connect your Pocket PC device to your desktop PC with a connection cable or cradle.
2. Run ActiveSync for the software connection.
3. Click the ActiveSync icon on your desktop PC, and you will see the ActiveSync window. Click the Explore button in the ActiveSync window. You will see the folders and files that exist on your device.
4. Drag-and-drop skin files from a PC folder to a Pocket PC folder.
5. Be sure the skin has a standard extension: .wsz or .wal. If it has any other extension (such as .zip), rename it to .wsz and then tap the file to use it.
Changing the mode in the Skin Type menu list does not change the PocketMusic Skin Mode. You can change Skin Mode only in the Player menu.
You can find more skins on our Website (www.pocketmind.com) or on the Internet. There are about 10,000 Winamp 2.x skins available online. The best have been tested with PocketMusic and published on our site.
Figure 7. PocketMusic Skins options.
To change the current skin on the Player menu tap Player Options, and then tap Skins.
Audible Files Playback
PocketMusic supports Audible files playback, and you can listen to the Audible provided content (www.audible.com) on your Pocket PC, such as more than 34.000 hours of audio programs, plus 135 Audible content partners that include leading audio book publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers and business information providers.
To listen to the Audible files, you can just copy the files to the device or to the storage card through the card reader. But you will also need to activate your Pocket PC to be able to play Audible content. To activate your device, download and install Audible Manager software from www.audible.com. Open it, and on the Device menu, tap Activate/Deactivate. Choose which devices you wish to activate (make sure Pocket PC is checked in the Device list). Proceed with activation. Don’t forget that you must activate your Pocket PC with the same username that you used when buying books you wish to listen to. Now you are able to listen to your audio books.
Some audio books contain sections (for example, chapters). For navigating between sections, on the Player menu, tap Bookmarks, and use the Next/Previous Section commands. There is also the possibility to map these commands to the hardware buttons. From the Player Menu, tap Key Mapping Options.
Playlist
The playlist is a list of currently playing songs. In PocketMusic Skin Mode, you can access the playlist by tapping the Playlist menu item.
Figure 8. PocketMusic Playlist menu.
You can manage playback from the Playlist toolbar as well as on the main player screen.
The Playlist menu also has some special items:
Figure 9. PocketMusic file explorer.
Check the files you want to add and tap Done.
There are also special Menu sub-menus in the file explorer screen:
Figure 10. PocketMusic Find Song Search dialog box.
You can also Reverse your list in this sub-menu, so the first item becomes the last one, and vice versa.
Hardware Key Mappings
The Hardware Key Mappings option ties specific operations of the player to the hardware buttons. You also have the option to tie a mapping to a button while PocketMusic is in the background, allowing you to manipulate the player without closing the current application. You can define every button if you allow locking it when you have hardware buttons locked (see Power Options on page 17). To map a button, from the Player Menu, choose Key Mapping Options.
Figure 11. PocketMusic Hardware Key Mappings dialog box.
Choose an action from the list and check the hardware button you want to map. Tap the Unmap button to clear all key mappings.
Fast Forward and Rewind
To fast forward and rewind your tracks, map hardware buttons from the Player menu. Choose the Key Mapping Options to set Skip Forward and Rewind Back options. After that, you can fast forward and rewind by pressing these buttons when your track is playing.
From the Player menu, you can change the FF/Rewind Step from 2 seconds to 2 minutes.
You can also seek for position in your track using the slider on the main player screen.
Alarm Clock and Sleep Timer
Using the Alarm clock feature, you can wake up with your favorite music at a specified time. The Sleep timer automatically shuts off the device if you do not use it after a specified time, from 30 seconds to 2 hours.
To set the Sleep timer and Alarm clock options, go to the Player menu and choose Player Options, then tap the Timers tab.
Figure 12. PocketMusic Sleep timer and Alarm clock options.
Playlist Organizer
Using the PocketMusic Playlist Organizer, you can manage media files and playlists.
To run the Playlist Organizer, go to Player menu and choose Playlist Organizer. Once you have started Playlist Organizer, it will automatically search the device and storage cards for supported music files and will build a music library sorted by Genre, Artist, Album, and Title.
Figure 13. PocketMusic player menu showing the Playlist Organizer highlighted.
The Playlist Catalog lists any currently available playlists and allows you to select which one you would like to add to your playlist. The buttons on the control bar of the Playlist Catalog are
The Media Catalog shows you the content of the playlists you have selected in the Playlist Catalog. You can select particular styles of music, particular albums, or particular tracks from any album to add to the current playlist.
Figure 14. PocketMusic Media Catalog tab.
Buttons on the control bar of the Media Catalog:
§ Album Title
§ Artist Name
§ Directory/Filename
§ Artist/Album or Album/Artist
§ Genre/Artist/Album or Genre/Album/Artist
Figure 15. PocketMusic Grouper menu showing Genre\Artist\Album checked.
Figure 16. PocketMusic Edit Media Description options.
Figure 17. PocketMusic Current Playlist tab.
The Current Playlist tab shows the items in the current playlist. Options:
Note: The Current Playlist is not the same thing as the program playlist with currently playing items. Current Playlist was designed for creating and editing playlists. If you want to see the list of currently playing items, tap the Playlist button in PocketMusic Skin Mode or Winamp Skin Mode.
Bookmarks
The Bookmarks feature is great if you are listening to audio books, recorded lectures, DJ sets, radio programs, etc. A bookmark marks the current location in the current audio file and lets you return immediately to it.
Go to Player Menu and choose Bookmarks. Then tap Bookmark Current Position to create a new bookmark. You can also map a hardware button for this action.
Figure 18. PocketMusic Bookmark Current Position option.
From the Player menu, choose Bookmarks to quickly go to existing bookmarks, or navigate further to Organize Bookmarks to organize your bookmarks.
Items in the Menu of the Bookmark Organizer:
Figure 19. PocketMusic Bookmark menu with the Edit bookmark feature highlighted.
Playlist Options
There are various playlist options available in PocketMusic menu. To set them, go to Player Menu and choose Player Options, then Playlist.
Figure 20. PocketMusic Playlist options.
Options in the Playlist menu:
Use tags if possible - If tags are enabled, the player displays the author's name and track names as they play. Otherwise, it will show the filename or filename and folder name.
Show filename - Show filename only.
Show folder and file - Show folder name and file name.
Show numbers - Display item numbers that show the order that the items appear in the playlist.
Repeat whole playlist - If the option is enabled, PocketMusic repeats the entire playlist.
Repeat current item - If the option is enabled, PocketMusic repeats only the current playlist item.
Repeat selected items - You can select some of your favorite songs in the playlist and PocketMusic will repeat them.
Tap the Repeat button on the main player screen if it is disabled to repeat items in the playlist.
Effects and Equalizer Presets
Features such as Equalizer and Extra Bass in PocketMusic improve the sound quality and make music performance better. You can tune Equalizer manually or by using the standard Equalizer Presets, and even create your own preset choices by going to Player menu and choosing Equalizer Options.
Figure 21. PocketMusic Equalizer options.
Available EQ presets: Techno, Soft, Soft Rock, Rock, Reggae, Pop, Party, Live, Large Hall, Headphones, Full Treble, Full Bass, Full Bass and Treble, Dance, Club, Classical.
Equalizer Options:
Effects options are located in the Player menu under Player Options and the Effects tab.
Figure 22. PocketMusic Effects options.
The new version of PocketMusic supports a set of features to improve your listening experience:
To set up these features, go to the main menu in Player Options and choose the Effects dialog box.
Improving Playback Performance
The General tab offers ways to improve playback performance.
Figure 23. PocketMusic General options.
Power Options
To set or change the power options, go to the player menu and choose Player Options and the Power Options tab.
Options in the Power Options tab:
Playing Music from the Internet
PocketMusic supports HTTP streaming for MP3, Ogg, SHOUTcast, and Icecast title streaming formats. A large number of Internet radio stations can be found at yp.shoutcast.com.
To play streaming radio, you will need to download playlist files for selected stations. In case you are browsing directly from your Pocket PC, tap on the desired station link in Pocket Internet Explorer and choose the Open command. Pocket IE will download the playlist file for the radio station and then start to play it in PocketMusic.
You can also download playlists for all desired stations on your Desktop PC and then copy them to your Pocket PC. Then start PocketMusic, open the desired playlist, and press Play. Make sure that you are connected to the Internet before playing. If you do not have a playlist for the radio station, but you know its IP address, you can add it manually. To do this, start PocketMusic, open the Playlist window, tap Playlist, and choose Add URL. Now enter the IP address of the station. It should have the following format: http://ip-address:port (e.g. http://123.45.67.100:8000) or http://server-name:port (e.g. http://www.streaming-radio.com:8011). Then double tap on the added playlist entry, or press Play.
To access streaming playback options, go to the player menu and choose Player Options, then Streaming dialog. It is possible to connect to a streaming radio station through a proxy server. The proxy server address should be in the following format: proxy-server:port. Adjust the buffer size for the data streamed from radio station by moving the corresponding slider. The default buffer size is 128 KB. When streaming playback begins, PocketMusic pre-buffers some amount of data from the server. On slow Internet connections, the player can run out of incoming data. Then it will start pre-buffering again. For both these cases, you can set how much data will PocketMusic pre-buffer.
Advanced Options
You can change the playlist font size in the player menu under Player Options, Advanced. Note: This works only for the playlist screen that is available from PocketMusic Skin Mode.
Let PocketMusic use system volume can resolve volume problems on a range of devices.
Appendix
How to copy music from a desktop PC to your Pocket PC
1. Connect your Pocket PC device to a desktop PC with a connection cable or cradle.
2. Run ActiveSync for software connection.
3. Double tap the ActiveSync icon on your desktop, and then tap the Explore button. This will open a window called Mobile Device on your desktop PC. Now you will see folders and files that are in your Pocket PC's internal memory.
4. Drag music files from the desktop PC folder into the Pocket PC folder. For example, if you double tap My Pocket PC and then Storage Card, you will be able to browse the contents of your storage card and copy your music there.
How to play music from local network drives
To play music from local network drives, map a network drive using a third-party application such as Resco Explorer or by using the special PocketMusic dialog box on the Playlist screen. After you map a network drive such as your Pocket PC local storage, you can play music from it. PocketMusic is specially adapted to play music from network drives, with excellent performance.
How to create new skins for PocketMusic
Skin types
PocketMusic uses skins of two different formats: Winamp 2.x skin format and PocketMusic native format. For detailed description and hints for developing Winamp skins, visit www.winamp.com. PocketMusic searches for Winamp skins in the Skins subfolder (e.g. \Program Files\PocketMusic\Skins\).
Native PocketMusic skins are placed in the PMSkins subfolder. PocketMusic supports portrait and landscape orientation of skins. To distinguish landscape skins from portrait (vertical) skins, different extensions are used. Portrait skins use the .vsk extension, and landscape-oriented skins use the .lsk extension. Actually, these files are just .zip archives containing a skin description file named layout.xml, a set of images containing skin elements, and optionally, a preview.png file. The preview file should have a resolution of 139x185 pixels and is a downscaled screenshot of a whole skin. It is presented to the user in the skin selection dialog box in PocketMusic options.
Skin description file layout.xml
Feel free to use skins distributed with PocketMusic as a base for creating your own skin. Copy the default portrait-oriented skin (usually located at \Program Files\PocketMusic\PMSkins\default.vsk) to your desktop computer, rename it to default.zip, and extract its contents. You can view the layout.xml file in Internet Explorer. This will also help during development, since Internet Explorer detects and shows errors in xml formats. You can edit the layout.xml file in any simple text editor (e.g. Notepad).
Skin definition consists of two parts (or two corresponding xml nodes):
Preload node.
|
|
<preload> <bitmap alias="BACK" file="back.png" /> <bitmap alias="PLAYPAUSE" file="playpause.png" /> <bitmap alias="BUTTONS" file="buttons.png" /> <bitmap alias="CONTROLS" file="controls.png" /> <bitmap alias="OTHER" file="other.png" /></preload> |
Preload node describes
all bitmaps needed by skin. Bitmaps may be in PNG, GIF, JPG or BMP format. You
will need to assign an alias for each bitmap. The bitmaps will be identified by
these aliases later.
Layout node.
|
|
<layout> <control1 param1="aaa" param2="bbb" /> <control2 param1="ccc" param2="ddd" /> . . . <controlN param1="yyy" param2="zzz" /> </layout> |
Layout node contains information about every
control used with skin. Here is detailed
description of possible controls:
- Background node.
|
|
<background src="BACK"x="0" y="0" w="240" h="320" /> |
- This node is required to be included in each skin. It defines background image for the skin. src parameter specifies alias of the bitmap, x, y, w and h parameters are used to determine position and size of the rectangle inside source bitmap. Background should always use whole device screen, i.e. you may not create non-fullscreen skins.
- Timer node.
|
|
<timer> x="17" y="15" w="76" h="30" orientation="0" font="Tahoma" point="18" weight="700" color="000000" </timer> |
- Timer control is a window displaying current playing time. You may specify it's position on the screen and it's size with x, y, w and h parameters. You may set timer's text orientation with orientation parameter. Orientation may be 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Default text orientation is 0 degrees other values rotate text CCW. You may also set font name (font parameter), size (point) in points, weight and color. Possible font weights are 200 (thin), 400 (normal), 700 (bold) and 900 (extra bold). Color is defined as RRGGBB value, where RR, GG and BB is red, green and blue values in hexadecimal notation (000000 = black, FFFFFF = white).
- Titlebar node.
|
|
<titlebar>x="15" y="41" w="210" h="25" orientation="0" font="Tahoma" point="12" weight="700" color="000000" </titlebar> |
- Titlebar control displays name of the playing song or hint messages. This control uses just the same set of parameters as a timer control do.
- Iconstatus node.
|
|
<iconstatus>x="95" y="23" w="11" h="13" <stop src="OTHER" x="22" y="75" /> <play src="OTHER" x="0" y="75" /> <pause src="OTHER" x="11" y="75" /></iconstatus> |
- This control displays one of three images depending on the current playback status: stop, play or pause. It has usual parameters specifying position and size and three subnodes for corresponding playback states. Each subnode describes which bitmap to use to draw the status icon and coordinates of the upper-left corner of that icon inside the bitmap.
- Text node.
|
|
<text> x="112" y="20" w="35" h="15" id="BITRATE" orientation="0" font="Tahoma" point="10" weight="400" color="000000" </text> |
- You
may use text control to display playing media file bitrate and sampling
rate. Use id="BITRATE" to display bitrate or
id="SAMPLINGRATE" to display sampling rate. Pretty straightforward.
- Button node.
|
|
<button> id="PLAY" x="205" y="142" w="35" h="75" <released src="BACK" x="205" y="142" /> <pressed src="OTHER" x="0" y="0" /></button> |
- Button node defines
button control. You must set button's position and size and specify images
for pressed button and released button. The action the button will do is
defined using id parameter. Here is the list of
currently supported button ids:
|
NEXT |
Jump to next track |
|
PREVIOUS |
Jump to previous track |
|
VOLUMEUP |
Increase volume |
|
VOLUMEDOWN |
Decrease volume |
|
PLAY |
Start playback |
|
STOP |
Stop playback |
|
PAUSE |
Pause playback |
|
MUTE |
Mute sound |
|
LOADFILES |
Clear current playlist and show Load Files dialog |
|
ADDFILES |
Show Add Files dialog |
|
FASTFORWARD |
Fastforward (for 10 sec) |
|
REWIND |
Rewind (for 10 sec) |
|
SETBOOKMARK |
Set bookmark at playing position |
|
MODE |
Switch to/from Landscape mode |
|
OPTIONS |
Open PocketMusic menu |
|
PLAYLIST |
Open playlist window |
|
PREVIOUSSECTION |
Jump to previous section (for Audible files) |
|
NEXTSECTION |
Jump to next section (for Audible files) |
- Checkbutton node.
|
|
<checkbutton>id="XBASSONOFF" x="12" y="102" w="35" h="35" <state1> <released src="BACK" x="12" y="102" /> <pressed src="BUTTONS" x="245" y="0" /></state1> <state2> <released src="BUTTONS" x="280" y="0" /> <pressed src="BUTTONS" x="315" y="0" /></state2> </checkbutton> |
Checkbutton
control is a button which have two states - on and off. Checkbutton definition
is similar to simple button, but you have to specify two additional images for
drawing it's second state. Here is the list of
supported checkbutton ids:
|
REPEATONOFF |
Turn repeat on/off |
|
EQONOFF |
Turn equalizer on/off |
|
XBASSONOFF |
Turn extra bass on/off |
|
SHUFFLEONOFF |
Turn shuffle on/off |
|
PLAYPAUSE |
Play/Pause button |
|
LOCKBUTTONS |
Lock hardware buttons |
- Slider node.
|
|
<slider> id="SEEKBAR" orientation="0" x="10" y="67" w="220" h="24" <released src="OTHER" x="70" y="0" w="40" h="24" mask_color="FF00FF" /> <pressed src="OTHER" x="70" y="24" w="40" h="24" mask_color="FF00FF" /> </slider> |
Slider control may be used to change volume or seek to position in media file. x, y, w and h parameters are used to define rectangle on the background which will be treated as borders of control. Slider has orientation parameter. You may set it's orientation to 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Slider with orientation of 180 degrees looks exactly like the same control with orientation of 0 degrees, but their minimal and maximal positions are placed on the opposite sides. Slider control does not have background image, instead it uses skin's background. So you only need to specify images for slider's tracker. Tracker has two states - pressed and released. It also may be partially transparent. If you wish to make some pixels of the tracker transparent, fill them with some unique color. Then add mask_color parameter with that unique color.
Useful tips.
You may use as many bitmaps for skin as you want. But loading a large number of small bitmaps may be slower then loading several mid-size bitmaps. Please, try not to leave unused space in bitmaps as it takes up program memory.
If you have a skin for PocketMusic General Skin Mode or Landscape Skin Mode, and if you wish to share your skin with other PocketMusic users, please send a skin to pocketmusic@pocketmind.com. Make sure you included skin screenshot, skin name, your name or nick-name.