From: Dave Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi,
There is an article on Winamp which I recently updated on the ACB Radio site, this may be useful. http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_p age&PAGE_id=36&MMN_position=50:17
ACB Radio's Guide to Winamp Introduction Basic Winamp Operation Configuring Winamp The Playlist Editor The Graphical Equaliser Conclusion Introduction Note, full help, much of it describing visual techniques but some of it helpful, is available on the Winamp site. . On the face of it, Winamp from Nullsoft may not seem like a terribly accessible programme. Although the interface from the keyboard is somewhat unorthodox, you'll find that Winamp is in fact one of the most accessible of the fully featured MP3 players. This section seeks to help you understand what Winamp can do, how to configure it, and all the keyboard secrets will be revealed. This guide applies to Winamp versions 2 and 5 only. Winamp version 3 is beyond the scope of this document. You can get a brief keyboard summary of all of the keyboard commands mentioned in this document, and a few we won't be covering, by pressing F1 from the Winamp main window. From there, you can press control+tab through the multipage dialogue box until you get to the tips and tricks section. If you left click your mouse on any of the text of the edit box, this will give that read-only edit box focus, which means that you can then read the summary with your screen reader's continuous reading feature. You can also go to the top of this edit box with the control+home combination, press control+shift+end to select the entire edit box (control+A doesn't seem to work) and then press control+C to copy it to the clipboard. You may then want to paste this into a word processor or text editor and save it for future reference. Winamp is a fully featured audio player, supporting most common file formats. If a file format isn't supported out of the box, chances are you can get a plug-in that will do the job. It has a playlist editor allowing you to import individual files, entire directories and locations from the Internet. Files can then be randomised, or sorted by a number of criteria including song name and file name. A graphical equaliser allows you to make major adjustments to the sound of the player. You can choose from presets, save your own settings, and even specify your own settings on a song by song basis. The ID3 editor allows you to edit MP3 tag information, which is a handy way of recording information such as the album, the artist, the year the song was released and more. The plug-in architecture of Winamp means that fantastic add-ins are being released regularly, ranging from the support of many file formats through to pitch changers and audio compressors. Basic Winamp Operation When you install Winamp, you are asked if you want it to be your default audio player. If you answer yes to this question, Winamp will be launched from Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer when a file that Winamp supports is encountered. The file will start playing automatically. You can also launch Winamp by going to the Start menu, choosing programmes, then Winamp. From within Winamp, The following commands can be used for playback. Note that some of the Numeric Keypad commands listed here may conflict with your screen reader. You will need to change your screen reader's key settings or use its bypass key if you wish to use the Numeric Keypad in Winamp. X or Keypad 5 will play the current file. If Winamp is paused, this command will resume playing from where you paused. If no file is loaded into Winamp, you'll be prompted for a file name. V stops playback. If you hold down the shift key, Winamp fades out the currently playing song and then stops. If you hold down the control key while pressing the stop key, Winamp will stop at the end of the currently playing file. B or keypad 6 skips to the next track. You can do this either when Winamp is playing or when it is stopped. If you are playing a file when you press this key, th e next song in the queue will start playing immediately. If you press the key when Winamp is stopped, the song you have now selected will show in the window title with the word "stopped" beside it. Z or Keypad 4 skips back to the previous track. The same rules apply as for next track discussed above. Keypad 1 will jump ten songs back in the playlist. Keypad 3 jumps ten songs forward. Left-arrow or keypad 7 rewinds by 5 seconds. Right-arrow or keypad 9 fastforwards by 5 seconds. L or keypad 0 brings up the open file dialogue. Here, you can specify the name of a file provided Winamp supports the file format. You can also specify a playlist with a .m3u or .pls extension. Control+L or control+keypad 0 lets you specify a file on the Internet. You will need the full URL of the file or playlist. Shift+L or the insert key lets you specify a directory to play. All files in that directory with file formats that Winamp supports will be played. Keypad 8 or up-arrow increases the volume. Keypad 2 or down-arrow turns the volume down. Configuring Winamp Winamp is highly configurable. This section seeks to help you understand how to navigate Winamp's Preferences. To enter the preferences, press control+P. Winamp will present you with a treeview. As in any treeview, you use the right-arrow key to expand a branch of the tree, the left-arrow to close a branch, and the down-arrow to navigate through items in the tree. Once you've selected a section, you can use the tab and shift+tab keys to navigate through the various elements. When you get to the section for selecting and configuring plug-ins, it is important to understand that after you have selected the plug-in with the arrow keys, there is often a configure button which allows you to fine-tune the settings for that particular plug-in. Normally, you need to press the tab key to find the configure button. Pressing the space bar will bring up the configuration dialogue box for that plug-in. The Playlist Editor The Playlist Editor is one of Winamp's less accessible features, but there is more that you can do with the keyboard than many people think. The major difficulty is that with most screen readers, using the arrow keys in Winamp 2.x and 5.x will not always give your screen reader reliable information about the selected item. In many cases this problem has been overcome for users of Windoweyes and JFW, thanks to some clever set and script file writing. These sets and scripts should be supplied with recent versions of your screen reader and installed automatically. If you're going to work with the Playlist Editor, these sets and scripts are a must! If the Playlist Editor window isn't open yet, you will need to open it by pressing alt+E. Incidentally, once windows such as the Playlist Editor are open, you can cycle through all open windows with the control+tab combination. The Winamp menu, which you can access with the alt key and choosing Winamp, will also show a checkmark beside those windows that are open. The R key toggles the repeat function. Many screen reader users have always had difficulty determining the status of the repeat function from the Playlist Editor window itself, but you can also toggle the repeat function from the main Winamp Menu, which can be accessed from the main Winamp window with the ALT key, and then choosing playback options. Here, your screen reader should have no trouble telling you whether repeat is checked or not. The S key toggles whether shuffle is on or off. The same applies here as for the repeat function. L or keypad 0 adds a file to the playlist. Control+L or control+keypad 0 adds an Internet location to the playlist. Shift+L or the insert key adds a directory to the playlist. Control+N clears the playlist and lets you start from scratch. Control+O lets you open a playlist you might previously have saved to disk. Control+S saves the playlist you've been working on. You have a number of formats from which you can choose once you open the save dialogue. Alt+3 views the track information for the selected track or tracks. Control+E lets you edit the names of the selected track or tracks. Control+A selects the entire playlist. Control+I inverts the selection, in other words what was selected becomes unselected and vice versa. The delete key removes selected files from the playlist. Control+delete crops the playlist. Control+shift+delete clears the playlist. Alt+down-arrow moves selected files down. Alt+up-arrow moves selected files up. The down and up-arrow keys move the cursor down and up respectively. The ENTER key plays the selected file. The home and end keys jump to the start and end of the playlist respectively. Page up and page down move up and down by a fifth of a page. Alt+delete removes all non-existent files from a playlist. Control+shift+1 sorts the playlist by title. Control+shift+2 sorts the playlist by file name. Control+shift+3 sorts the playlist by file path and name. Control+R reverses the order of the playlist. Control+shift+R randomises the playlist. Also, all playback controls are available as they are in the main window. Graphical Equaliser Although we have not heard of anyone being able to set up their screen reader to report the percentage of each band of the equaliser in Winamp 2.x and 5.x, you can make changes via the keyboard and listen to the results to see how you like it. Also, control+s brings up a list of presets. First though, you'll need to open the graphical equaliser if it isn't open already. You can do this with the alt+G combination. As before use Alt+Tab to move focus until the equaliser is selected. The 1 and 0 keys increase their respective band of the ten band equaliser. 1 is the lowest band IE base, 0 is the highest band, IE treble. The row underneath decreases each band, from the q to the P keys. So 1 and Q turns the lowest band up and down respectively, 0 and P turns the highest band up and down respectively. Similarly, the tilde and tab keys turn the pre-amp up and down respectively. The Tilde key may in fact be an accent key on some keyboards. The N key toggles the equaliser on and off, so if it doesn't sound like what you are doing with the number and qwerty rows is having any effect, try pressing the N key to turn the equaliser on. S opens the presets menu. The A key toggles auto-loading of the equaliser. Conclusion As you can see there is plenty you can do with Winamp when using a screen reader. Winamp is constantly changing and growing, and the numbers of plug-ins continues to increase. Don't be scared to experiment. Be sure to chehck out the many Winamp resources which exist on the Internet. It is even possible to use Winamp to broadcast on ACB Radio, and who knows, one day we may hear you. But that's a subject for another guide. If you have further questions about Winamp not covered hear or on the Winamp site you may want to check out the Winamp4TheBlind community. You are also welcome to ask questions about Winamp on the ACB Radio Friends Email list. Created on 2005-03-18 10:53:49 by acbradio Updated on 2005-03-18 18:56:45 by acbradio Edit This Page Printable Version Copyright © ACB Radio 1999 - 2005
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Regards Steve,
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Skype: steve1963
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