# &application; Window

## Overview

The &application; window enables you to display and play your favorite music. Figure 1 shows the &application; window displaying the library.

### The Library in the &application; Window

Show the &application; window showing Library. Callouts: Menubar, Toolbar, Player area, View pane, Side pane, Statusbar.

Table 1 describes the components of &application; window.

### &application; Window Components

Component | Description
--- | ---
Menubar | Contains menus that you use to perform tasks in &application;.
Toolbar | Contains buttons that you use to perform quick tasks in &application;.
Side pane | Enable you to switch between Library and Groups.
Player area | Provides access to details about the currently playing track and, in Library, enable you to search for a particular word or phrase.

View pane

Displays a list of available tracks from:

- Library

- Music groups

Statusbar | Displays global informations about tracks in View Pane.

## The Toolbar

Shows default &application; toolbar.

The &application; toolbar provides easy access to functions used for playing tracks. From here it is possible to Play the currently selected track, Skip to a previous or next track, Pause a playing track, or select 'shuffle' play.

It also shows the volume control, which is described later.

The layout of the toolbar can be customized, see

## The Side Pane

Shows side pane with library and group icons.

The side pane is where you can access your music library and your groups .The side pane can contain the following icons:

- The &application; library, where all of the imported songs will appear.
- Any groups that have been created from imported songs.

## The Player Area

Shows player area

The 'player' area provides access to details about the currently playing track. When a track is not being played, this area shows no information. When 'Play' is selected, the track name is displayed, and underneath, the artist and the album names.

A tracker is also displays, showing the progress of the playing. When tracker has focus, the arrow keys can be used to Fast-Forward or Rewind the playing track.

Clicking on the 'played time' will toggle between 'played time, 'time left' and 'total time'.

Clicking on the artist or album name (where they are underlined) will load the appropriate 'allmusic.com' page.

# Using &application;

## Playing Music

To play a track, either select the track and press the Play button on the toolbar, or simply double-click on the track to start playing.

When track ends, &application; jump to play next track in the list showed in view pane.

In Library you can play all song from an artist or a single album simply select Album or Artist entry in library browser.

### Shuffle

Shows shuffle button in toolbar.

When this button is pressed, the tracks in the browser are played in 'random' order.

### Next/Previous

Shows repeat button in toolbar.

These buttons can be used to skip between tracks whilst playing. The previous button will restart the song if it's been playing for a while, or skip to previous if at the start of a track (within first 2 seconds).

### Volume Control

Shows volume slider in toolbar.

The volume of playback can be adjusted using the volume slider in the top right hand of the view. Sliding the to the right will increase the volume, whilst to the left will reduce it. The loudspeaker icon will change to indicate the relative volume.

To mute the sound, click on the loudspeaker icon, and to restore the muted sound, do likewise.

## The Library

The &application; Library is an organized view of your music files. You can browse the Library by artist or by album. Once you have added a song to your Library you can play it directly or add it to a group to be played as part of a playlist.

When &application; is first started, there will be no entries Library. Choose Organize Add to Library... to add music files to &application; Library. If you select a folder, all music file in all subfolders will be added to Library.

The library is located in the `.gnome2/rhythmbox` directory in your home directory. It is unique for each user on your system.

If you delete or move this directory a new, empty library will be created when the application is next opened.

### Adding Songs

A song can be added to the library in a few ways, as shown below;

- Choose Organize Add to Library...
- Drag and drop from other applications. eg. Nautilus
- Opening a song/directory from Nautilus with &application;

### Deleting Songs

To delete songs from the library, simply select the song then choose Edit Delete item or press the Delete key.

Once the last entry of an album (or artist) is deleted, the appropriate entry is also deleted from Library browser.

### Using the Browser

The Browser allows the library to be easily browsed, showing the artist, then album of the current track. It is not shown when viewing a group. Choose View Browser to change browser visibility.

The &application; browser

When started, the browser defaults to viewing all artists, and all tracks. Selecting an individual artist will change the Album list to show all albums by this artist, and the track list changes to show all tracks for these albums. Selecting an album will change the track list to show only the contents of this album.

### Properties

Choose Edit Properties to view the properties of a particular track .

The Basic tab shows the details of the song, as Title, Artist, Date. Basic song properties

The Details tab of the dialog shows more detailed information about the file itself and its encoding. It also shows the associated with the file. Details song properties

### Searching

To search the &application; library for a particular word or phrase, type into the search field, and the view will show all the entries that have the search criteria will be shown the in the tracks list.

#### Search name entry

## Statistics

&application; can maintain statistics on the use of the library. &application; automatically records the number of plays, the last played date and allows you to rating each track. You can access this information through Additional tab in dialog for each song or directly in the View Pane for all songs displayed in Library or groups; you can add proper columns via the dialog.

### application; statistic in View Pane

Show all statistic FIXME

### Ratings

This allows each song in the library to be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. To rate a song:

- Select the song, choose Edit Properties, select Details tab, click in different part of Rating entry [??] to set required rating

- Click in different parts of the Rating column in View Pane to set the required rating.

### Number of plays

Each time a track has completed playing, its play count is incremented by 1. This will allow the most popular songs in the library to be easily identified.

### Last played time

When the play count is incremented, the last played time is also recorded.

## Groups

A group is a 'playlist' that has been created from songs in &application; library, to have a different sorting method from artist/album library default.

It might consist of a groups of songs of a particular 'genre', a specific group of artists, or even songs that are of a particular 'mood', or whatever you want.

To display a group, simply click on the required group's icon in side pane, and the view pane will change to show the contents.

### Adding Songs

To create a group use one of the following methods:

- Drag a 'track', 'album' or 'artist' from library or library browser to the side pane. When the group is created, it will default to either the name of the artist (when dropping an artist), the name of the album (when an album), or when a track is dropped, a dialog is displayed, prompting for the name of the group (which is by default named 'Untitled').
- Choose Organize New Group. Again a dialog is displayed prompting for a name, and if any tracks are selected, tick the Add selected track option box to add them to the group.

To add songs, album or artist to an already existing group just drag and drop it from the library to the group's icon in the side pane.

#### Dialog to create a new group

### Deleting Songs

To delete songs from a group, simply select the song then choose Edit Delete Edit or simply press the Delete key.

### Modifying a Group

Right click on group icon in Side Pane to display the group menu. This will allow the renaming and deletion of the group. Selecting the Rename will display a prompt for the new name of the group. Selecting the Delete will delete the group (note that the 'content' of the group is not removed from the library, just the 'playlist'.

## Panel Applet

The Notification Area is a Gnome feature that allows applications to add a small icon to the panel while the program is running. &application; adds it's icon to the notification area and this allows you to control &application; from your tray.

Using the &application; icon in the notification area, the following commands can be sent to the application:

- Play / Pause — Play or Pause the currently selected song. This item changes depending on whether a song is playing or not.
- Previous — Skip to previous song in playlist.
- Next — Skip to next song in playlist.
- Show Window — choose whether or not the &application; window is visible or not.

### &application; in the Gnome Notification Area

### Notification Area (showing menu)

# Customizing &application;

You can customize &application; to suit your requirements and preferences. This section describes how to customize &application;.

## Preferences

Using the Preferences dialog you can customize how you want &application; to look. To display the Preferences dialog, choose Edit Preferences .

### The Preferences Dialog

Show the &application; preferences dialog.

### Appearance

This section of the dialog allows you to select how the toolbar will be displayed.

### Columns

This section of the dialog allows you to select which columns are displayed in the song list.

## Toolbar editing

The Toolbar editor lets you add, remove and re-order buttons on the &application; toolbar.

You can select an item and move it by clicking on arrows, or simply dran'n'drop items.

### The Toolbar Editor