*** IMPORTANT ***
Version 0.7.2 and later of Clarion requires version 4.70 or later of ComCtl32.dll. If you've installed any Microsoft product of late, you probably have this file installed in your \windows\system already. Otherwise, you can get the file from my home page.
Intro
~~~~~
Clarion is a media player for MIDIs and Audio CDs. (The program can also play AVIs, or any MCI device for which you have installed the appropriate MCI driver. However, it's designed mainly for playing MIDIs and Audio CDs.) Clarion is 32-bit and runs on Windows95/NT. You need a sound card and (optionally) a CD drive, of course.
Features
~~~~~~~~
* Support for MIDI and Audio CD. Plus any media for which the appropriate MCI driver has been installed.
* Open multiple play lists at once!
* Registry of CD track titles.
* Built-in file browser.
* Easy (read: lazy) file / CD track selection.
* PlayList management / organization.
* Drag and drop files from Explorer (aka File Manager).
* Play position control via trackbar.
* Selectable volume control program.
* Floating miniature control panel that gives access to the program's major function at all time.
* and it's FREE!
History
~~~~~~~
Version 0.8.6: (2-May-97)
* Added options to make Clarion the default player for Audio CD and/or MIDI files. Once done, double click on a MIDI file or right click on the CD drive and select Play will launch Clarion. If you have CD autoplay turned on, just pop in a CD and Clarion will start up and play it.
* You can now add PlayLists from the files browser. Select 'Play Lists' from the drop down filter box, then add play lists as you would any file. Note: to open selected play lists in separate tabs, click the add ( < ) button. To merge selected play lists into the current one, use drag and drop.
* Added shortcut key: in any list, press Ctrl+I to invert the selection.
* By default, if you drag and drop items from one tab to another, the items are copied over. To move instead of copy, hold down the shift key as you drop the items on the destination tab.
Version 0.8.5: (28-Apr-97)
* Fixed problem with the position indicator and access error double clicking on an empty file list. Reduced (I hope) CD scanning between tracks,
* Check out the new Options dialog (Alt+O). You can select MIDI reset, volume control program etc there.
* Added more items to the popup menu of the system tray icon (right click to activate). You can now pretty much control Clarion while it's in sleep mode.
* You can now move the *.cdl files to a directory of your choice. Then point Clarion to the new location in the Options dialog. Note: each cdl file is only about 1K in size, but if you're using Win95 and have a large cluster size (>16K), these files can rapidly fill up space. So if you're concerned about this, move these files to a partition with small cluster size. If you don't know what this is all about, don't worry about it.
* Updated the readme.txt file.
Version 0.8.3: (21-Apr-97)
* Added "sleep" mode. Click on the status bar at the bottom or hit F4 to minimize the app to an icon in the Windows95 system tray. This does two things: 1) free up space in your task bar and 2) minimize CPU usage. Normally, when Clarion is playing a midi or CD with the main window minimized, it uses about 0.8% to 1.5% of CPU. Not a whole lot, I admit, but heh, if your system is as slow as mine... Anyway, in sleep mode, Clarion's CPU usage goes down to 0 (as reported by Microsoft's Wintop; YMMV). In comparison, Windows' CD player CPU usage while playing with window minimized is a little over 3%. To get out of sleep mode, just click on Clarion's icon in the system tray. Right click on the icon to bring up a popup menu. Sleep mode is perfect when you want to have the program play in the background while you do other things (you DO do other things on your PC, don't you :)
Version 0.8.2: (18-Apr-97)
* New play order options: Normal, Shuffled, and Random. 'Normal' means play songs in the order listed. 'Shuffled' and 'Random' both mean play songs in random order. The difference is that 'Shuffled' guarantees that each song gets played once per cycle whereas 'Random' is truly random, i.e., the program may play the same songs several times and others not at all (although it will get to them all eventually). Combine the different play orders with the different play modes (Once, Cycle, Repeat, etc.) yield quite a few variations. In line with my minimalist approach to documentation, I'll let you figure out what they are :)
* When a new CD is detected, the program now prompts for the CD's title, opens a new play list with the same name, and link the CD to said play list.
* In the About box, double click on my web address to launch your assigned browser and go to my home page. Same goes for my email.
* As always, miscellaneous bug fixes.
Version 0.8.0: (15-Apr-97)
* Changed the small font used in the display panel, which was causing problems on some systems.
* The size of the browser was not properly restored between sessions when the screen was maximizied. This has been fixed.
* You can now open multiple play lists at once! The program uses the familiar tabbed notebook interface. There's a new "tabs menu", activated by clicking the button below the musical note button. The tabs menu lists all tabs (i.e., play lists) currently opened. You can switch among the lists by clicking on their respective tabs or via the tabs menu. To move (copy) selected items among one list to another: 1) make your selection; 2) shift (ctrl) + click on the tabs menu; 3) select the destination list.
* Click on the MIDI reset label to see the new options. You can select GM, GS, XG, or custom reset (for cards that require it). If your sound card can or needs to be reset by playing a custom .mid file, copy this file into the directory in which Clarion resides and name it RESET.MID.
* More playing modes than you can shake a stick at:
- Straight: play current list once.
- Cycle: play current list over and over.
- Repeat: play current song over and over.
- Span: iterate through all opened lists (degrades to Straight if only one list is opened).
- Span Cycle: iterate through all opened lists over and over (degrades to Cycle if only one list is opened).
* Undocumented feature #1: right click on any tab to switch to the tab which has the song currently playing.
* Undocumented feature #2: by default, the notebook only displays one row of tabs. If all tabs do no fits on one rows, you need to use the scroll buttons. If you want to have multiple rows of tabs so that all tabs are visible at once, add this line under the [Settings] section of Clarion.ini:
MultilineTabs=1
* Undocumented feature #3: press Ctrl+F6 to cycle through the tabs; Shift+F6 cycles in reverse order. Press Ctrl+1 (that's number one on the main keyboard) through Ctrl+0 to switch to tab 1 through 10.
* Still no help file. Read the readme.txt. Who knows, you may gleam some useful information whither :)
Version 0.7.4:
* File browser now shows file size, type, and last modified date. As with the PlayList, you can resize each column, rearrange the column order by drag and drop, and sort by ascending or descending order (e.g., you can have the newest files appear at the top.) The program will save your preference.
Version 0.7.3:
* Now comes with sample MIDI files !! (copyright Yahama Corporation).
* Added multiselection in PlayList. You can now select multiple items in the PlayList then move them around or remove / delete them.
* Added single click open for the directory list box. Why waste energy double clicking?
* Fixed access violation bug when drag-and-dropping into an empty PlayList. (For once, it wasn't my fault; it was Borland's :)
Version 0.7.2:
* Added "show new only" button in the File List to show only files that are not already in the PlayList.
* Added Length column to PlayList and CD List, showing the time length of the file or track. Note: the program does not show the length for files until they're played. That's because it needs to actually open the file to determine its time length. To do this for every file as it is added would simply take too long (you may not care about the length anyway). The upper right corner of the display panel shows the total time of the PlayList -- at least the total time of those files whose length is known. If you double click on the total time, the program will go through each file and determine its length (this may take a while).
* Added grid lines to the PlayList and CDList. The column order can now be rearranged. Click on the column heading and drag it left or right. The program will retain the column order and widths between sessions. Cool! Thanks to Brad Stowers for the excellent TExtListView component.
* You can now sort the PlayList by length, title, or filename. Just click on the corresponding column heading. Click it again to sort by reverse order.
Version 0.7.0:
* MORE buttons!
* Added button on play panel to remove the currently playing item from the PlayList (no need to select it first).
* Added buttons to delete/move/copy files from the files browser.
* You can now rename a file in the file browser. Select a file and press Return or F2.
* You can now drag items from the CD or File browser and drop them into the PlayList. Select the items you want to add, drag them over to the PlayList, and drop them on the item you want to insert the new items after.
* Clock display no longer flickers!
* and as always, a variety of bug fixes.
Version 0.6.8:
* On startup, the program now checks whether there is already a copy running and, if so, quit. If you associate clarion.exe with MIDI files (or any other media types), you can double click on a .mid file and Clarion will add it to the PlayList -- without spawning another instance of the program.
* Added 'AutoPlay' toggle. If AutoPlay is on, Clarion will automatically play 1) the first item in the PlayList when it is opened; or 2) the first item added to the PlayList when nothing is playing. If AutoPlay is off, the program will (in both cases) move the pointer to the item to be played next without actually playing it.
Version 0.6.7:
* New, slimmer floater!
Version 0.6.6:
* Added a new (improved?) routine for editing names. To edit a name (either in the PlayList or CD tab), point to the item and press Return. Press Return again when done or Esc to cancel.
* Added Merge to menu (append contents of another PlayList to the current one).
* Added shortcut keys for the CD tab:
'+': add track
: add and play immediately.
Version 0.6.5:
* Lots and lots of bugs fixed! Ugh!
* Delete (trash) button now moves the file to the recycle bin. If you want to really delete, shift+click the trash icon.
* Added CD title display in the 'File' column of the PlayList window.
* Added the following shortcut keys:
F5 / F6 / F7 / F8: Play|Pause / Previous / Next / Stop.
F9: Toggle browser.
F10: Invoke menu.
In the PlayList (when not editing):
'-': remove item
: move item to trash (+shift to really delete)
: play the item immediately.
Version 0.6.4:
* Added full window (as opposed to just outline) dragging for the floater. Rather cool ghost trail effect!
* Main window can now be maximized, although severe tire damage may ensue :)
Version 0.6.3:
* Fixed weird window sizing bugs. I'm sure there are more, but where?
Version 0.6.2:
* Added 'splitter' so that the relative sizes of the left and right sides of the window can be adjusted. Place the mouse pointer on a blank part in the middle panel (the one with the menu, trash, etc.). The mouse cursor will turn into a horizontal split cursor; then click and drag left and right. The window will resize in real time!
* Added shortcut for accesing the menu (F10) and toggling the browser on and off (F8)
Version 0.6.1:
* The window is now resizable!!
Version 0.6.0:
* The biggest change is that Clarion now keeps a registry of CD track titles. Take the trouble to enter titles for your CD tracks once and the program will recognize your CDs and their tracks next time.
* Each CD can be linked to a PlayList so that whenever the CD is inserted, the program will load that PlayList. * Drag and drop files from the Explorer.
* NOTE: I changed the CD signature generating routine, so that the program no longer recognizes signatures from the previous version. Sorry about this :(
* Added status bar hint.
Version 0.5.5:
* Fixed a problem with the eject/close CD button. Note: if your CD drive cannot be closed by software, i.e., you need to do it manually, shift+click in the CD icon. This will force it to load CD track info.
Version 0.5.4:
* Fixed serious display problem relating to screen font size (bug in Delphi's TListView?)
* Fixed ghost trailing while dragging in the play list. * Added font setting option.
* Added F2 shortcut key to rename item (a la Explorer).
Version 0.5.3:
* Added visual pointer indicating the currently playing item.
Version 0.5.1 and 0.5.2:
* Numerous internal changes.
Version 0.5.0:
* Initial release.
Install/Uninstall
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To install, create a directory for Clarion and unzip the distribution file into it. To uninstall, just remove the directory. The program does not make any change to your system files or registry.
The program is more or less self explanatory, so I’ll just try to hit the highlights here.
FIRST THING FIRST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First and foremost, CLICK ON EVERYTHING. Hold the mouse pointer over any element on the screen and wait a second for the popup hint or read the hint in the status bar at the bottom. You can pretty much learn how to use the program this way!
Parts of the screen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The screen is divided into two major parts. On the left are the PlayList, the display panel, and the control panel (with the play, next, prev, stop buttons). On the right is the Files/CD browser, which lets you browse your folders and add files (MIDs, WAVs, etc.) and CD tracks to your play list. The narrow vertical strip in the middle shows the tracks on your audio CD (assuming you have a CD drive and there’s a CD in it). (This is slightly redundant since the CD browser does pretty much the same. It's a leftover from a previous version. I decided to keep since it takes up little space and allows you to access CD track even when the browser is toggled off.) To the left of the CD strip is the PlayList toolbar for, well, doing various things with the PlayList. There’s also a floating toolbar outside the main screen (I call it the floater). The floater has a miniature control panel and always stays on top so you can access it anytime.
Adding files to the PlayList
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have the AutoSelect box checked, then just click on a file name to add it to the play list. This is a lazy way of selecting files and I like it. Uncheck AutoSelect if you want to select files the usual way (i.e., with Ctrl+click and Shift+click for multiselection). Then to add the selected files to the play list, click the < button on the play list toolbar. Click << to add everything in the file list box to the play list. Click the refresh button to reload the file list. Click the Explorer button to open the currently displayed folder. Shift+click to open it in “Explorer” mode. You can also move or delete files right in the file browser. To rename a file, select it them press Return or F2. You don't need to type in an extension, by the way: the program remembers the extension and will automatically fill it in. Click the "Show new files only" if you want to remove from the files browser all the files that are already in the PlayList.
>> HINT: To see what any button does, just hold the mouse pointer over it for a second. A hint bubble will pop up. The same hint is also display in the status bar <<
To add a CD track to the play list, just click on the track number, either in the black strip or in the CD tab in the browser. Click while holding down Alt to add and play the track immediately.
Play
~~~~
Press Play to play (duh :). While playing, press it again to pause and again to resume. There's no rewind button: when you click on Stop, it automatically rewinds. To fast forward/reverse, click on the track bar and drag. Click the button with the return arrow while a song is playing to start over at the beginning. Click < and > to play the next / previous item in the play list. Click the round red button with the slash across it to remove the currently playing item from the play list (this does not delete the file from the disk).
The Play List
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clarion lets you organize your MIDIs and CD tracks into play lists (or albums) and save them. (Play list files are saved with the .pls extension.) You can have both MIDIs and CD tracks in the same play list. It's not a good idea to have tracks from different CDs in the same list, however, since Clarion does not support CD changers (sorry, I don't have a CD changer so I didn't program for it.)
On the play list toolbar, click the button with the musical note to bring up a menu for opening, saving, or reloading a recently used play list. Select one or more items in the play list, then click the up/down button to move them up/down. Ctrl+click the up /down button to bring the items to the top/bottom of the play list. Shift+click the up button to move the items below the one currently playing (so that them will be played next). Click the > button to remove selected items from the list. Click >> to empty the play list. Click the trash icon to move selected items to the trash (Shift+Click to really delete them). Confused? Just hold the mouse over a button and a hint will pop up.
CD operations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To eject the CD drive door, click the eject button. To close the door and load the tracks, shift+click on the eject button. Note: if your CD cannot be closed by software, e.g., it does not have a tray, then insert it manually then shift+click on the eject button. Clarion assigns a signature number to each CD. The signature is calculated as: length of CD (in milliseconds) times number of tracks. If the signature of a track in your play list does not match the signature of the CD in the drive, Clarion will skip mark the item with a red X (to indicate an error condition) and skip to the next item.
Clarion keeps a registry of CD track titles. Take the trouble to enter titles for your CD tracks once and the program will recognize your CD and their tracks next time. The first time you insert a CD, the browser will open up with the CD tab and prompt for the title of the CD. It also (optionally) opens a new play list by this title and link the CD to this play list (see explanation below). Initially, the tracks are named CD [XXXXXXXX] Track NN where XXXXXXXX is the CD signature and NN is the track number. It's a good idea to enter the names of the tracks (the ones you like, at any rate :) Just move the cursor to the track title you want to name and press Enter or F2. Press Enter again when you're done editing or Esc to cancel.
Upon exiting, Clarion automatically saves track info you've entered. You can click the Save button to manually save in case "something happens". Of course Clarion is extremely stable and never known to crash -- ever, but you may want to be safe... ;-)
Linking a CD to a PlayList
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can link a CD to a particular PlayList so that whenever you put in that CD, the linked PlayList will load and start playing. If you want to link the CD to another play list, you can:
a) Click on the blue label in the CD browser and choose a PlayList from the disk; or b) Select 'Link CD' from the drop down menu. You can link the CD to the current PlayList or some other PlayList on the disk.
You can manually load a linked PlayList either by shift+clicking on the blue label or select 'Load linked PlayList' from the menu. If for some reason you no longer want to link the CD to any PlayList, choose 'Unlink' from the menu.
The display panel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The display panel shows information about the currently playing item -- length, elapsed time, position in play list, and name. It also has labels you can click on to toggle and select various things. When the toggle is on, the label has a bold, bright green font. Here's a description of these toggles and options:
* ‘Floater’: hide or show the floater.
* 'Auto': when on, automatically plays on startup or any new item added to the list (provided there is nothing currently playing).
* Play order options: ‘Normal’, ‘Shuffled’, or ‘Random’.
- Normal: play songs in the order listed.
- Shuffled: guarantees that each song gets played once per cycle in random order
- Random: is truly random, i.e., the program may play the same songs several times and others not at all (although it will get to them all eventually).
* Playing mode options: ‘Straight’, ‘Cycle’, ‘Repeat’, ‘Span’, or ‘Span Cycle’
- Straight: play current list once.
- Cycle: play current list over and over.
- Repeat: play current song over and over.
- Span: iterate through all opened lists (degrades to Straight if only one list is opened).
- Span Cycle: iterate through all opened lists over and over (degrades to Cycle if only one list is opened).
The Floater
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The floater has a miniature control panel that gives you access to the program even when the main window is minimized. You can move the floater around the screen by clicking on an empty spot and drag. Click the X button to hide the floater. Shift+click the X button to quit the program. Click on the red/blue area to move the floater to the bottom/top of the screen.
Multiple play lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, you can open multiple play lists at once. The program uses the familiar tabbed notebook interface. There's a "tabs menu", activated by clicking the button below the musical note button. The tabs menu lists all tabs (i.e., play lists) currently opened. You can switch among the lists by clicking on their respective tabs or via the tabs menu. To move (copy) selected items among one list to another: 1) make your selection; 2) shift (ctrl) + click on the tabs menu; 3) select the destination list.
Sleep mode
~~~~~~~~~~
You can put Clarion into 'sleep' mode by hitting F4 or clicking on the status bar at the bottom. This minimizes the program down to an icon in the system tray. You can restore the program by clicking on the icon. Right click on the icon to invoke the popup menu from which you can control most of the program's functions.
While in sleep mode, the program uses virtually zero CPU cycles. Its window is also hidden so that you have fewer items on your task bar. Sleep mode is perfect for when you want to play music in the background while you are doing other things.
Options dialog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can bring up the Options dialog from the menu or by hitting Alt+O. Here's a descriptions of items in the Options dialog:
* Display: lets you a) change the display font and b) specify whether you want to have multiple rows of tabs in the play list display (this option will take effect the next time you run Clarion.)
* Volume Control: by default, Clarion uses Window's sndvol32.exe program for volume control. If you want to use a different program, you can specify it here. You also need to specify the title of the program as it appears on its caption bar (For sndvol32.exe, this is 'Volume Control'. This allows Clarion to bring the program up while it is running without having to launch another instance.
* ‘MIDI reset’: select how you want MIDI reset to be done. You can select GM, GS, XG, or custom reset, Note: do NOT delete the files named XX_reset.mid. These are used by Clarion for this purpose. If your sound card can or needs to be reset by playing a custom .mid file (usually supplied by the card manufacturer), select Custom reset and specify the file.
* File Location: lets you specify the directory where *.cdl files are stored. These are files that hold track information for your CDs. By default, these files are placed in the same directory Clarion was installed in. If you want to put them in another directory, create the directory, move all existing *.cdl files into it, then point Clarion to the new directory.
HINTS TIPS SECRETS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* You can select multiple items in any list the usual way (with Shift and Ctrl click).
* The selection bar (highlight) in the play list does NOT follow the item that is currently being played (indicated by a left pointing triangle). This allows you to shift/move/delete an item in the list while another item is playing. To move the selection bar to the song being played, click on the item's name in the black display panel.
* The file list box can be toggled on and off by clicking on the disk and CD drive icon.
* DRAG AND DROP EVERYWHERE!
* To move items around in the play list quickly, use drag and drop.
* You can drag files from the Explorer and drop them onto Clarion. The files will be added to the PlayList. If you drop a PlayList file (.pls) onto Clarion, it will MERGE the files in that PlayList into the current PlayList.
* You can drag files from the CD / Files browser and drop them into the PlayList.
* If you have multiple play lists opened, you can copy items from one list to another by dragging and dropping them on the tab of the destination list. (By tab, I mean the physical tab you click on to switch to a list.) If you want to move instead of copy, hold down the shift key as you perform the drag and drop. You can also drag items from the CD or files browser and drop them onto a tab to add to a playlist without having to switch to that tab first.
* Double click on an item in the play list to immediately start playing it. Double click on a file in the file list box to add it the PlayList and immediately start playing it. For the CD strip and the CD browser, alt+click on a track number does the same thing.
* To sort the PlayList by Name, Length, or File name, click on the corresponding column heading. Click the heading again to sort by reverse order. You can resizes and rearrange the order of the column (click on the column heading and drag). The same applies to the file list.
* Clarion will save the window settings and reloads the current play list (if you have saved it) on the next startup.
* If you’ve moved the floater off the screen somewhere and can’t fish it out, double click on the ‘Floater’ label in the display panel. This will bring the floater back to the top left corner of the screen.
* Press Ctrl+Q to quit the program WITHOUT saving any play list. (Skip the annoying confirmation prompts.)
* In any list, press Ctrl+I to invert the selection.
* Shortcut keys for common operations abound. They are shown in the popup hints and on the main menu.
Copyright, left, and center
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is freeware. It may be freely distributed, and must be distributed freely (i.e., you cannot charge people except possibly a nominal handling fee ). Also, you must include all the files in this distribution in their original form. Needless to say, you may not alter the copyright notice.
The program is provided AS IS. It may or may not work as intended. Please don't hold me responsible for ANYTHING (unless it's good).
I wrote Clarion to learn Delphi and have some fun. I hope you enjoy the program and find it useful.
Questions, comments, suggestions, bug reports, please send them to Luu Tran
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Clarion. (C)opyright 1997 Luu Tran
You can find the latest version of Clarion at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9860/
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Demo MIDI files (C)opyright 1996 Yamaha Corporation.
These files may be downloaded for personal use from
http://yamahaxg.ysba.com/english/xg/html/pds/pds.html
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