# Basics

Like all &kde; applications, &kplayer; is highly configurable. The default settings have been chosen for optimal performance and maximum compatibility. This chapter describes how &kplayer; behaves with these default settings.

## Starting &kplayer;

There are several ways to start &kplayer;. Which one you use is your personal preference, and may depend on what type of media you are going to play.

- From the &kmenu;, select Multimedia &kplayer;

- Or you can put &kplayer; icon on the desktop or on the &kicker; panel. Then you can left click it to start &kplayer;.

- &Alt;F2 will open a Run Command dialog box, type ``kplayer`` (lower case) and press &Enter; or click the Run button.

- In a terminal program like &konsole; type ``kplayer`` and press &Enter;.

- Depending on the type of content you are going to play, there may be other ways to start &kplayer;. They are described in the sections about playing local files and remote addresses.

## Playing multimedia

&kplayer; can play multimedia from many different sources. In addition to local files, it can play remote network addresses or URLs, various devices like disks and cards, and many other sources like network locations and compressed files using &kde; feature known as I/O Slaves.

### Local files

Use any of the following ways to start playing local files from your hard drive or any other device mounted as a directory on your system.

- Once &kplayer; started, select File Open, or click the Open button on the main toolbar. The standard Open File dialog will appear, letting you choose a local file or several files. After you click the Open button or press &Enter;, &kplayer; will put your selection on the playlist and start playing it.

- &kplayer; is associated with all media file types it can play. If a type has more than one program associated to it, you need to move &kplayer; to the top of the list on the File Associations page in the &konqueror; configuration dialog. Then you can simply left click a media file in &konqueror; File Manager, and it will open &kplayer; if it is not yet running and start playing the file.

- You can also drag files from &konqueror; File Manager and drop them on the &kplayer; window. &kplayer; will then add the files to the playlist and start playing them.

- In a terminal program like &konsole; type

  ``kplayer` `filename``

  where `filename` can be an absolute or relative path to the file you want to play, or just the file name if the file is in the current directory. You can give multiple file names separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the files to the playlist and start playing them.

### Remote URLs

Use any of the following ways to start playing a remote file or stream with a remote URL using a network protocol like HTTP, FTP, Samba, MMS, RTSP, PNM, etc.

- Once &kplayer; started, select File Open URL, or click the Open URL button on the main toolbar. The standard Open URL dialog will appear, letting you type or paste in a remote URL. After you click the Open button or press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start playing the URL you entered.

- &kplayer; is associated with all media types it can play. If a type has more than one program associated to it, you need to move &kplayer; to the top of the list on the File Associations page in the &konqueror; configuration dialog. Then you can simply left click a link to a media file or stream of that type in &konqueror; Web Browser, and it will open &kplayer; if it is not yet running, add the link to the playlist and start playing it.

- Sometimes a web page will have a media object embedded in it. If &kplayer; is at the top of the list of programs associated with the media type of the object, when you open the page in &konqueror; Web Browser it will embed &kplayer; into the web page and start playing the media. However, it is recommended that you right click the media object and choose Start &kplayer; so that the full &kplayer; opens up and starts playing the media. This will give you a better interface and more options than an embedded &kplayer;.

- Just like with local files, you can start &kplayer; from a terminal program like &konsole; with the URL you want to play. This is useful for example if you copied the URL to the clipboard in a text editor. In the terminal program type

  ``kplayer` `mediaurl``

  where `mediaurl` can be any of the many URL types &kplayer; supports. You have to give the full URL, and if it has spaces or other special characters in it, you need to enclose the URL in single quotes so your shell does not try to interpret them. You can give multiple URLs separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the URLs to the playlist and start playing them.

### DVDs, video CDs, audio CDs, TV and DVB channels

Just like with remote URLs, select File Open URL, or click the Open URL button on the main toolbar. Type one of the following special URLs into the Open URL dialog box, then click the Open button or press &Enter;.

- To play a DVD, use `dvd://1` as the URL. This will play the first title of the DVD. To play a different title, change `1` to the title number you want to play.

- To play a video CD, use `vcd://1`, where `1` is the track number.

- To play an audio CD, use `cdda://1`, where `1` is the track number. Another way to play an audio CD is by using the `audiocd` I/O Slave.

- To play from a TV card, use `tv://1`, where `1` is the TV channel number, or `tv://channelname` to refer to the channel by name.

- To play from a DVB card, use `dvb://channelname`, where `channelname` is one of the channel names defined in `channels.conf` file for &mplayer;.

As always, you can start &kplayer; from a terminal program like &konsole; with the URL you want to play. In the terminal program type

``kplayer` `mediaurl``

where `mediaurl` can be any of the URL types described above. If the URL has spaces, you need to enclose it in single quotes so your shell does not try to interpret them. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the URL to the playlist and start playing the media.

### &kde; I/O slaves: fish, sftp, webdav, tar, zip, audiocd, etc.

&kde; has a great way to access all kinds of data through a system known as I/O Slaves. They are little programs that let you represent many different sources of data as URL like addresses, and open them in &kde; programs like &konqueror; and &kplayer;. For example you can access a network host over SSH with a URL like `fish:/host/path`, or a zip file with a URL like `zip:/home/cooldude/my.zip`.

So you paste a URL like that in &konqueror; address bar, hit &Enter; and see the data source as if it was a usual file or a directory with files and subdirectories in it. If one of those files happens to be a multimedia file like an MP3 file for example, you can left click it so that &kplayer; opens up and starts playing the file, just like with plain local files. As usual, for this to work &kplayer; needs to be the top program for that file type on the File Associations page in &konqueror; or &kcontrolcenter;.

Those same URLs will work in the Open File dialog that you get when you select File Open, or click the Open button in &kplayer;. Or if you have the full URL to the media file itself, like `fish:/host/path/song.mp3` or `zip:/home/cooldude/my.zip/subdir/song.mp3`, you can paste it into the Open URL dialog that you get by selecting File Open URL or clicking the Open URL button in &kplayer;.

Just like with local files and remote addresses, you can start &kplayer; from a terminal program like &konsole; with the URL you want to play. This is useful for example if you copied the URL to the clipboard in a text editor. In the terminal program type

``kplayer` `mediaurl``

where `mediaurl` can be any of the many URL types &kplayer; supports. You have to give the full URL, and if it has spaces or other special characters in it, you need to enclose the URL in single quotes so your shell does not try to interpret them. You can give multiple URLs separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the URLs to the playlist and start playing them.

## Parts of &kplayer;

Here is a brief look at the main parts of &kplayer; window:

A screenshot of &kplayer;

&kplayer; lets you choose what parts of it you want to be visible and position them exactly where you want. You can use the Settings menu to choose whether to show or hide the menu bar, toolbars, playlist editor, message log and status bar. The title bar as well as the window borders will be hidden when you choose the Full Screen option from the View menu.

### Title bar

Title bar is the strip across the top of &kplayer; window, and operates in the same way as for other &kde; applications. Right click the central portion to bring up the title bar popup menu.

### Menu bar

Menu bar is the strip containing names of drop-down menus. Left click a name to alternately show and hide that menu, or use &Alt;the underlined letter in the name as a hot key, for example &Alt;F to show the File menu. The various menus are described in the Menu bar section of this document.

### Main toolbar

Main toolbar contains buttons for commonly used operations. Left clicking an icon will activate the corresponding action. If you have enabled tooltips in the &kcontrolcenter; Appearance & Themes Style dialog, a brief description of what that icon does will appear when you hover the mouse pointer over it. Some of the main toolbar buttons will pop up slider controls when clicked. The sliders let you change various player controls: sound volume, video contrast, brightness, hue and saturation. The video controls will only be available for video files. See the Toolbars section of this manual for a full description of the buttons and their actions.

### Playlist toolbar

Playlist toolbar shows the multimedia title currently loaded or being played, offers commands to go to the next or previous items on the playlist, and also lets you see the entire playlist that consists of items that are currently being played or have been played recently. If you select a different item from the list, &kplayer; will load and start playing it. The toolbar also contains options to loop and shuffle the playlist. See the Playlist toolbar section of the Command reference chapter of this manual for a full description of the buttons and their actions.

### Video area

Video area is the central part of &kplayer;. When playing a file that has video, it will display the video and optionally subtitles. Normally it will be hidden when playing an audio only file. Right clicking the video area brings up the general popup menu.

### Playlist editor

Playlist editor is a window where &kplayer; remembers files and URLs you played and shows various pieces of information about them, lets you play existing items, rename them and set their properties, add new entries, move entries around, remove them and choose several options. For details on the available commands and options see the Playlist menu section of this manual. Right clicking an entry in the playlist editor brings up the playlist popup menu. For a detailed description of the playlist feature see the Playlist micro-HOWTO.

### Playlist editor toolbar

This toolbar is embedded into the Playlist editor and contains buttons that activate commands that apply to the editor and the items selected in it. See the Playlist editor toolbar section of the Command reference chapter of this manual for a full description of the buttons and their actions.

### Slider toolbars

Slider toolbars contain a slider and one or more related buttons. The progress and seeking toolbar is shown when the time length of a media file is known. It displays the playback progress and also allows seeking, that is, moving the playback point back and forth within the file. To seek to a specific position, drag the slider thumb to that position with the &LMB;, or simply click at that position with the &MMB;. To move forward or backward in steps, left click the slider to the left or right of the thumb, or click the Forward and Backward buttons.

Other slider toolbars show sliders for volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation. These are the same sliders you get from the pop-up slider buttons on the main toolbar, but they will not disappear when you click elsewhere. The sliders show the current setting and allow you to change it. You can get these toolbars using options on the Settings menu.

### Message log

Message log is a window where &kplayer; shows messages it receives from &mplayer;. This window is initially hidden but &kplayer; can show it automatically when it detects an &mplayer; error if that option is selected in &kplayer; Settings. Right clicking the message log brings up the message log popup menu.

### Status bar

Status bar runs across the bottom of the &kplayer; window and shows general information about the player status and progress.

If and error occurs during playback, the left portion of the status bar will show the word Error, and then you can left click it to show the message log and see the error messages.

The middle portion displays the current player state, whether it is Idle, Running, Playing or Paused. The right portion displays the current playback time, as well as the total time if it is known.