5 Paraslash is an acronym for
7 _Play, archive, rate and stream large audio sets happily_
9 It contains the following programs:
15 para_server streams binary audio data (mp3/oggvorbis/m4a files)
16 over local and/or remote networks. It listens on a tcp port and
17 accepts commands such as play, stop, pause, next from authenticated
18 clients. However, there are many more commands.
20 It supports three built-in network streaming methods (senders): http, dccp,
23 * The http sender is recommended for public streams that can be played
24 by any player like mpg123, xmms, itunes, winamp...
26 * The dccp sender requires kernel support for the datagram congestion
29 * The ortp sender is recommended for multicast LAN streaming.
31 It is possible to activate more than one sender simultaneously.
33 The built-in audio file selector of paraslash is used to manage your
34 audio files. It maintains statistics on the usage of all available audio
35 files such as last played time, and the number of times each file was
40 * attributes. Allow fine-grained audio file selection.
42 * image table. For storing e.g. album cover art.
44 * lyrics table. For storing lyrics.
46 * playlist table. Stores arbitrary many playlists for later use.
48 * mood mode. Audio file selection works by specifying mood
49 methods involving attributes, pattern matching for file names
50 and more. This allows rather sophisticated configurations
51 and is explained in more detail in
53 <a href="README.afs.html"> README.afs </a>
56 * rename detection. If files are moved or renamed, afs will
57 recognize them despite of this change.
59 Despite of all these features, paraslash is lightweight. The
60 stripped binary of para_server with all its features compiled in
61 mp3/ogg/aac support, http/dccp/ortp support) is about 160K on i386
62 under Linux. para_audiod (see below) is even smaller.
68 The client program to connect to para_server. paraslash commands
69 are sent to para_server and the response is dumped to stdout. This
70 can be used by any scripting language to produce user interfaces with
71 little programming effort.
73 All connections between para_server and para_client are encrypted by
74 default. For each user of paraslash you must create a public/secret
75 RSA key pair for authentication. The authenticated connection is
76 encrypted with a symmetric rc4 session key.
82 A command line http/dccp/ortp stream grabber. The http mode of this
83 tool can be used to receive data from any http streaming source.
89 A filter program that converts from stdin and writes to stdout.
91 para_filter combines several decoders (mp3, oggvorbis, aac) and a
92 volume normalizer. New filters can be added easily. It is possible
93 to "chain" any number of filters, like UNIX pipes.
95 para_filter does not depend on other parts of paraslash, so it can
96 be used as a stand-alone command line tool for audio decoding and
103 A small stand-alone program that prints tech info about the given
104 audio file to stdout. It can be instructed to print a "chunk table",
105 an array of offsets within the audio file. This allows third-party
106 streaming software that is unaware of the particular audio format
107 to send complete frames in real time. Currently, mp3, ogg vorbis and
114 A modular audio stream writer. It supports a simple file writer
115 output plug-in and optional wav/raw players for ALSA (Linux) and for
116 coreaudio (Mac OS). para_write can also be used as a stand-alone wav
123 The local daemon that collects information from para_server.
125 It runs on the client side and connects to para_server. As soon as
126 para_server announces the availability of an audio stream, para_audiod
127 starts an appropriate receiver, any number of filters and a paraslash
128 writer to play the stream. It is possible to capture the stream at
129 any position in the filter chain.
131 Moreover, para_audiod listens on a local socket and sends status
132 information about para_server and para_audiod to local clients on
133 request. Access via this local socket may be restricted by using Unix
134 socket credentials, if available.
140 The client program which talks to para_audiod. Used to control
141 para_audiod, to receive status info, or to grab the stream at any
142 point in the filter chain.
144 para_audioc (hence para_audiod) is needed by para_gui see below.
150 Themable ncurses-based gui. It calls para_audioc and presents
151 the obtained information in an ncurses window. para_gui provides
152 key-bindings for the most common commands and new key-bindings can
159 A (Linux-only) alarm clock and volume-fader.
165 A small bash script for inclusion in ~/.bashrc. It gives you command
166 line completion for some paraslash commands.
172 Distribution of paraslash is covered by the GNU GPL, version 2. See file
179 Andre Noll <maan@systemlinux.org>
180 Comments and bug reports are welcome.