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 modular audio stream writer. It supports a simple file writer
104 output plug-in and optional wav/raw players for ALSA (Linux) and for
105 coreaudio (Mac OS). para_write can also be used as a stand-alone wav
112 The local daemon that collects information from para_server.
114 It runs on the client side and connects to para_server. As soon as
115 para_server announces the availability of an audio stream, para_audiod
116 starts an appropriate receiver, any number of filters and a paraslash
117 writer to play the stream. It is possible to capture the stream at
118 any position in the filter chain.
120 Moreover, para_audiod listens on a local socket and sends status
121 information about para_server and para_audiod to local clients on
122 request. Access via this local socket may be restricted by using Unix
123 socket credentials, if available.
129 The client program which talks to para_audiod. Used to control
130 para_audiod, to receive status info, or to grab the stream at any
131 point in the filter chain.
133 para_audioc (hence para_audiod) is needed by para_gui see below.
139 Themable ncurses-based gui. It calls para_audioc and presents
140 the obtained information in an ncurses window. para_gui provides
141 key-bindings for the most common commands and new key-bindings can
148 A (Linux-only) alarm clock and volume-fader.
154 A small bash script for inclusion in ~/.bashrc. It gives you command
155 line completion for some paraslash commands.
161 Distribution of paraslash is covered by the GNU GPL, version 2. See file
168 Andre Noll <maan@systemlinux.org>
169 Comments and bug reports are welcome.