Advanced usage

The appearance and behaviour of the fileselector can be edited in the cp.ini (page ) file or by pressing <ALT>+<c>. Changes made to the cp.ini are permanently, while configuration applied with <ALT>+<c> is only valid while OPENCP is running.

Afer pressing <ALT>+<c> you can toggle 13 options with keys <1>...<9> and <a>...<d>. The following list will explain every option:

1

screen mode: you can change the screen mode for the fileselector. 80x25 and 80x50 are standard screen modes and should be available on every vga card. 80x30, 80x60, 132x25, 132x30, 132x50 and 132x60 are only available with a proper VESA bios installed.

2

scramble module list order: if this options is enabled the files inside the playlist will be played in random order. Otherwise the order shown in the fileselector from top to bottom will be used.

3

remove modules from playlist when played: normally you will want this enabled as modules are only played once. If you disable this option you playlist can be processed foreever.

4

loop modules: if the music file ends it will start again. The next file will be played after pressing <Enter>. If you turn off this option the playlist will play all modules without any user interaction.

5

scan module information: When entering a directory the files are processed to gather module information which can be shown. If you disable this option directories will be processed quicker.

6

scan module information files: the module information cache in the home directory of OPENCP will be read if this option is enabled.

7

scan archive contents: to save hard disk space you can store your files inside archives like ARJ or ZIP. If the fileselector finds an archive it will open it to scan for files.

8

scan module information in archives: if modules are found inside archives they will be decrunched to find any module information. This option can take several minutes if many modules are stored in archives

9

save module information to disk: toggles weather to save gathered informations in the module information chache.

A

edit window: If you don't want the module information window at the bottom disable this option. The directory and playlist windows will spawn over the complete screen.

B

module type colors: different file types are shown in different colors on the screen. When watched on monochrome monitors or laptops you might want to disable this option.

C

module information display mode: changes the contents of the directory window. You can also use <ALT>+<tab> or <ALT>+<i> inside the fileselector.

D

put archives: Show archives, so they can be accessed like directories. Normally this should be disabled if archives are scanned automatically.

The screen size can be changed by pressing <ALT>+<z>. In 132 columns mode some additional module information can be shown in the directory window. If the fileselector is busy scanning the current directory for files, you can interrupt the scanning with <ALT>+<s>.

You can delete a file with <ALT>+<k>. You will be prompted if you really want to delete this file. When pressing <y> the file will be deleted. If the file is stored inside an archive the file will be deleted from the archive.^3.2 The current file can be moved by <ALT>+<m>. You will have to type the new path in the path window into which the file will be moved. If the file is inside an archive it will be extracted. You can specify an existing .ARJ file and the file will be packed into the archive.^3.3

The module information shown in the module information window can be saved to a portable ascii file (see page ). You may want this feature if you are a composer of music and want to trade your music together with already processed module information files. Start the fileselector and edit the information for the file. Then switch back to the directory window and press <ALT>+<w>. The fileselector will save a file with the extension .MDZ and the filename of the selected file, which stores all module information seen in the module information window. If a directory is scanned and the fileselector finds such .MDZ files they will be read and processed. The module information for all files in the current directory can be saved with <ALT>+<a>. You have to type the filename manually in the path window without extension!

You may want to change the entry type in the module information window if you have old amiga modules or a non-standard midi file. Very old Noise- and SoundTracker modules only had 15 instruments and no file identification. So the fileselector is not able to detect those files as valid modules and refuses to play them. You have to insert M15 in the type entry. If the module does not differ between tempo and speed and is of the 15 instrument type insert M15t. Some ProTracker modules do not differ between tempo and speed too. If you have one of those modules use MODt. A module player for PC called DMP introduced a feature called panning. To enable this (non-standard) feature insert MODd. If you want to play midi files with a second drum track on channel 16 use the MIDd option. Any other file should be autodetected correctly. If you have renamed a module to a different extension (say hello.mod to hello.s3m) OPENCP will refuse to play it, because the file type is wrong. You could correct this by inserting the right file type in the module information as shown above. But it is recommended to rename the file to the right extension instead of tweaking the autodetetion of the player.

The current playlist can be saved into the .PLS format by pressing <ALT>+<p>. You have to type the filename without extension in the path window. A standard extension .PLS is appended. The playlist can be loaded just like any other module from the fileselector or at startup.

The drive @: is a special device which can be used to change the hardware configuration without leaving the player. If you access this drive you will see two subdirectories.

In the INPUTS subdirectory you can choose the device which will be used when sampling from external sources (when playing CD audio tracks or starting OPENCP in sample mode). The DEVICES directory displays all devices which where detected at startup. Normally you might want to change this if you want to save the next file as a .WAV or .MP2 file to the harddisk.^3.4If you have a soundcard with hardware mixing support (Gravis, AWE, EWS) you can enable softwaremixing.

If you are the lucky owner of a soundcard capable of hardware sample playing^3.5 you only have limited sample memory. If the sample data of the music is larger than the available memory OPENCP will try to reduce the sample size by applying the following steps:

1. Convert 16bit of 8bit samples. This is indicated by a ``!'' in the bit entry of the instrument section.
2. Half the size of an 8bit sample. This is shown by a small $\frac{1}{2}$.
3. Quarter the size of an 8bit sample, indicated by a $\frac{1}{4}$.

Before downsampling the sample data OPENCP will search for the sample with the lowest frequency spectrum. This sample will be converted first. If enough space is freed up OPENCP will stop downsampling. If not the loader will continue until the sample data fits into the sound card memory.

The above behaviour can be avoided if a file is marked big by pressing <ALT>+<b> in the fileselector. The filesize will turn red. Now a file will not be loaded into the soundcard memory, but played with the internal mixing routines. This limits the size of files only to the size of physical memory.^3.6

Footnotes

... archive.^3.2

If only one file was stored inside a .ZIP archive pkzip will leave an empty archive of 22 bytes on your harddisk. See section 5 on how to avoid this.

... archive.^3.3

this works only with ARJ archives by now.

... harddisk.^3.4

See section 4.5.

... playing^3.5

Gravis Ultrasounds, Sound Blaster AWE series and Terratec EWS series

... memory.^3.6

You have to apply a valid playback- and mix-device to use this feature. See section Configuring on page for details.