Install all needed packages
---------------------------
-See README for a list of required software. You don't need everything
-listed there. In particular, mp3, ogg vorbis and aac support is
-optional. Autoconf will detect what is installed on your system
-and will only try to build those executables that can be built with
-your setup.
+See REQUIREMENTS for a list of required software. You don't need
+everything listed there. In particular, mp3, ogg vorbis and aac, ortp
+support is optional. Autoconf will detect what is installed on your
+system and will only try to build those executables that can be built
+with your setup.
-Note that no special library (not even the mp3 decodong library libmad)
+Note that no special library (not even the mp3 decoding library libmad)
is needed for para_server if you only want to stream mp3 files.
Also, it's fine to use para_server on a box without sound card as
para_server only sends the audio stream to connected clients.
Start para_server
-----------------
-For this first try, we'll use a debug level of one to make the
+For this first try, we'll use a debug level of two to make the
output of para_server more verbose.
para_server -l 2
para_client add /my/mp3/dir
This might take a while, so it is a good idea to start with a directory
-containing not too many audio. Note that the table only contains data
-about the audio files found, not the files themselves.
+containing not too many audio files. Note that the table only contains
+data about the audio files found, not the files themselves.
Print a list of all audio files found with
- para: Like display, but start "para_client <specified
command>" instead of "<specified command>".
----------
-AFS usage
----------
-
-Paraslash comes with a sophisticated audio file selector called afs.
-In the example above, we only used the "dummy" mode of afs which
-gets activated automatically if nothing else was specified. In this
-section the various features of afs are described.
-
-----------
-Attributes
-~~~~~~~~~~
-
-An attribute is simply a bit which can be set for each audio
-file individually. Up to 64 different attributes may be
-defined. For example, "pop", "rock", "blues", "jazz", "instrumental",
-"german_lyrics", "speech", whatever. It's up to you how many attributes
-you define and how you call them.
-
-A new attribute "test" is created by
-
- para_client addatt test
-
-and
- para_client lsatt
-
-lists all available attributes. You can set the "test" attribute for
-an audio file by executing
-
- para_client setatt test+ /path/to/the/audio/file
-
-Similarly, the "test" bit can be removed from a audio file with
-
- para_client setatt test- /path/to/the/audio/file
-
-Instead of a path you can also use a pattern, and the attribute is
-applied to all audio files matching that pattern:
-
- para_client setatt test+ '/test/directory/*'
-
-The command
-
- para_client -- ls -lv
-
-gives you a verbose listing of your audio files which contains also
-which attributes are set.
-
-In case you wonder why the double-dash in the above command is needed:
-It tells para_client to not interpret the options after the dashes. If
-you find this annoying, just say
-
- alias para='para_client --'
-
-and be happy. In the remainder part this alias is being used.
-
-Drop the test attribute entirely from the database with
-
- para rmatt test
-
-Read the output of
-
- para help ls
- para help setatt
-
-for more information and a complete list of command line options to
-these commands.
-
-
-----------------------
-Abstract mood nonsense
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-[skip this part if you don't like formal definitions]
-
-A mood consists of a unique name and its *mood definition*, which is a set of
-*mood lines* containing expressions in terms of attributes and other data
-contained in the database.
-
-A mood defines a subset of audio files called the *admissible audio files*
-for that mood. A mood can be *active* which means that para_server
-is going to select only files from that subset of admissible files.
-
-So in order to create a mood definition one has to write a set of
-mood lines. Mood lines come in three flavours: Accept lines, deny
-lines and score lines.
-
-The general syntax of the three types of mood lines is
-
-
- accept [with score <score>] [if] [not] <mood_method> [options]
- deny [with score <score>] [if] [not] <mood_method> [options]
- score <score> [if] [not] <mood_method> [options]
-
-
-Here <score> is either an integer or the string "random" which assigns
-a random score to all matching files. The score value changes the
-order in which admissible files are going to be selected, but is of
-minor importance for this introduction.
-
-So we concentrate on the first two forms, that is accept and deny
-lines. As usual, everything in square brackets is optional, i.e.
-accept/deny lines take the following form when ignoring scores:
-
- accept [if] [not] <mood_method> [options]
-
-and analogously for the deny case. The "if" keyword is purely cosmetic
-and has no function. The "not" keyword just inverts the result, so
-the essence of a mood line is the mood method part and the options
-following thereafter.
-
-A *mood method* is realized as function which takes an audio file
-and computes a number from the data contained in the database.
-If this number is non-negative, we say the file *matches* the mood
-method. The file matches the full mood line if it either
-
- - matches the mood method and the "not" keyword is not given,
-or
- - does not match the mood method, but the "not" keyword is given.
-
-The set of admissible files for the whole mood is now defined as those
-files which match at least one accept mood line, but no deny mood line.
-More formally, a file is admissible if and only if
-
- (F ~ AL1 or F ~ AL2...) and not (F ~ DL1 or F ~ DN2 ...)
-
-where F is the file, AL1, AL2... are the accept lines, DL1, DL2... are
-the deny lines and "~" means "matches".
-
-The cases where no mood lines of accept/deny type are defined need
-special treatment:
-
- - Neither accept nor deny lines: This treats all files as admissible
- (in fact, that is the definition of the dummy mood which is activated
- automatically if no moods are available).
-
- - Only accept lines: A file is admissible iff it matches at least one
- accept line:
-
- F ~ AL1 or F ~ AL2 or ...
-
- - Only deny lines: A file is admissible iff it matches no deny line:
-
- not (F ~ DL1 or F ~ DN2 ...)
-
-
-
---------------------
-List of mood_methods
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
- no_attributes_set()
-
-Takes no arguments and matches an audio file if and only if no
-attributes are set.
-
- played_rarely()
-
-Takes no arguments and matches all audio files where the number of
-times this audio file was selected is below the average.
-
- is_set(attribute_name)
-
-Takes the name of an attribute and matches iff that attribute is set.
-
- name_like(pattern)
-
-Takes a filename pattern and matches iff the path of the audio file
-matches the pattern.
-
-
-----------
-Mood usage
-~~~~~~~~~~
-
-To create a new mood called "my_mood", write its definition into
-some temporary file, say "tmpfile", and add it to the mood table
-by executing
-
- para addmood my_mood < tmpfile
-
-If the mood definition is really short, you may just pipe it to the
-client instead of using temporary files. Like this:
-
- echo "$MOOD_DEFINITION" | para addmood my_mood
-
-There is no need to keep the temporary file since you can always use
-the catmood command to get it back:
-
- para catmood my_mood
-
-A mood can be activated by executing
-
- para chmood my_mood
-
-Once active, the list of admissible files is shown by the ls command
-if the "-a" switch is given:
-
- para ls -a
-
------------------------
-Example mood definition
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-Suppose you have defined attributes "punk" and "rock" and want to define
-a mood containing only Punk-Rock songs. That is, an audio file should be
-admissible if and only if both attributes are set. Since
-
- punk and rock
-
-is obviously the same as
-
- not (not punk or not rock)
-
-(de Morgan's rule), a mood definition that selects only Punk-Rock
-songs is
-
- deny if not is_set punk
- deny if not is_set rock
-
-
----------
-Troubles?
----------
-If something went wrong, look at the output. If that does not give
-you a clue, use loglevel one (option -l 1 for most commands) to show
-debugging info. Almost all paraslash executables have a brief online
-help which is displayed by using the -h switch.
-
-Still not working? Mail the author Andre Noll <maan@systemlinux.org>
-(english, german, or spanish language). Please provide enough info
-such as the version of paraslash you are using and relevant parts of
-the logs.
+This concludes the installation notes. Next thing you might to have a look
+at is how to use paraslash's audio file selector. See README.afs.
projects / paraslash.git / blobdiff