# Configuring &kplayer;

Like other &kde; programs, &kplayer; is highly configurable. When you install &kplayer; and its multimedia playing backend &mplayer;, the default settings should enable your system to play multimedia content without any additional configuration. This chapter describes ways to make &kplayer;'s user interface best fit your tastes and configure media playback for optimal quality and performance.

## Toolbars

When &kplayer; is first installed, its window contains a menu bar, a main toolbar, a playlist toolbar and a status bar. Additionally, a progress toolbar will usually appear when you start playing a file.

On the Settings menu you will find options to hide toolbars that you do not need and to show other available toolbars. Some of them will only be available for video files, while the progress toolbar is available when &kplayer; can detect the time length of the current file.

The menu bar itself can be toggled on and off with the shortcut key combination &Ctrl;M. You can also hide the status bar if you do not need the information it displays, or show the message log detailing internal operation of &mplayer; backend as well as &kde; I/O Slaves.

Each toolbar has a small area on one of its sides where you can press and hold the &LMB; to drag the toolbar into a new position. You can place most toolbars either horizontally at the top or bottom of &kplayer; window or vertically at the left or right side of it, while the playlist toolbar can only be positioned horizontally.

If you right click a toolbar, you will get a menu to configure it. You can choose the toolbar orientation, text position and icon size.

&kplayer; will of course remember all the settings you choose and the positions where you put your toolbars. It will remember visibility settings for full screen mode and for normal mode separately.

## Playlist

&kplayer;'s playlist stores items that have been played and let you easily play them again, arrange them and set individual item properties. For a full list of commands and options see the sections about the Playlist menu and the Playlist popup menu in Command Reference, the Playlist section in the Configuration Dialog chapter. The Playlist micro-HOWTO gives details on playlist support in &kplayer;. Following is a description of options that affect the playlist behavior.

- Show Playlist option is available from the Playlist menu and the general popup menu. It shows or hides the playlist toolbar that contains the playlist itself in a combo box, as well as Next and Previous commands and Loop and Shuffle options.

- Show Editor option is available from the Playlist menu and the general popup menu. It shows or hides the playlists editor that you can use to move items up and down the list, remove them or change their properties.

- Show Toolbar option is available from the Playlist menu. It shows or hides the playlist editor toolbar that contains commands that work on items in the editor, as well as the option to lock the main playlist.

- Loop option is available from the Playlist menu and the playlist toolbar. When enabled, it makes &kplayer; start playing items from the beginning of the list after it finishes playing the last item on the list.

- Shuffle option is available from the Playlist menu and the playlist toolbar. When enabled, it makes &kplayer; play items in a random order. When the Loop option is also enabled, items will be reshuffled every time &kplayer; restarts playback from the top of the list. To reshuffle immediately, disable the Shuffle option and then enable it again.

- Temporary List For New Entries option is available from the Playlist menu, the playlist popup menu and the playlist editor toolbar. When enabled, it locks the main playlist, so when you load new items using File Open or File Open URL commands, by dragging and dropping files onto &kplayer; window, or by starting &kplayer; with file arguments, it creates a temporary playlist, puts the new items on it and starts playing them. To start playing items from the main playlist again, choose Playlist Play From Playlist.

- Play Selection Only option is available from the Playlist menu and the playlist popup menu. When enabled, it makes &kplayer; play only the items selected in the playlist editor.

- Clear Before Adding Entries option is available from the Playlist menu. When it is enabled, all items are removed from the current playlist before adding new items to it. The current playlist can be either the main playlist or the temporary playlist when the Temporary List For New Entries option is enabled.

- More advanced playlist option are available in the Playlist section of &kplayer; Settings dialog.

## Shortcuts

To change the shortcut key arrangements used by &kplayer; select Settings Configure Shortcuts.... This will open a dialog box as shown below.

Shortcut configuration dialog

If you change the key bindings, make sure not to duplicate an existing shortcut and also not to use the &Shift; key for your new shortcuts, because the &Shift; key has a special function in &kplayer;.

Search through the list to find the action for which you want to add or change the shortcut keys and select it by left clicking the name. You will then be able to change the shortcut by selecting the None, Default or Custom radio button or by clicking the large button in the Shortcut for Selected Action area. The Define Shortcut dialog box will then open.

Define Shortcut dialog

Choose whether you want to change the Primary or Alternate shortcut, then press the key or key combination you want to act as the shortcut. If the Auto-Close box is checked, the dialog will vanish as soon as you enter the key combination, else it will remain until you press OK or Cancel. Clicking the little black icon with a white cross in it clears the shortcut.

### User defined menus

You can add your own pop up menu to &kplayer;, so that pressing one key combination will make the menu appear, then pressing a second key, or using the Up arrow and Down arrow keys and pressing Enter, will select an item from it.

To do this add a Custom shortcut for each of the actions you want to appear in the menu and in the Define Shortcut dialog check the Multi-Key box, press the key combination that you want to bring up your new menu, then, separately, press the key that will choose that item from the menu.

## Other settings

&kde; is known as the most flexible and configurable desktop environment, and &kplayer; is no exception. In addition to the configuration options described in previous sections, there are many more options, most of which are accessible through the &kplayer; configuration dialog. Select Settings Configure &kplayer;... to open it.

The dialog is divided into several sections. Some of them affect &kplayer; behavior, including general options and options that affect the playlist and message log specifically. The Controls section tells &kplayer; which changes it should remember globally and which ones it should store in individual file properties, and its subsections allow you to fine tune individual &kplayer; controls, including progress, volume, contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, and slider controls in general. Other sections affect option &kplayer; uses for interaction with &mplayer; and control various aspect of multimedia playback, including video, audio, subtitles and advanced options.

The Configuration dialog chapter gives complete details on each section and all the available options. Also the Advanced configuration micro-HOWTO describes some of the more advanced options in more detail.

Some additional options that apply to the main &kplayer; window are available from the title bar popup menu that you can get by right clicking the title bar or left clicking the little button in the top left corner of &kplayer; window or by pressing &Alt;F3.

## File properties

&kplayer; has a unique feature that lets you choose many different options on per-file basis. These options are called File Properties and are stored along with the URL of each individual file or network location.

There are two ways to set a file property. The easiest one is by holding down the &Shift; key when changing a setting like video size or aspect, sound volume, video contrast or brightness, etc. &kplayer; will apply the change to the currently loaded file and remember it in the corresponding file property. When it loads another file, it will revert the setting back to where it was before the change (unless the other file also has the same property set). When you load and play that first file again, &kplayer; will again apply the change you made to the setting and keep it until you load another file or URL.

The other way to set a file property is through the File Properties dialog. The properties in the dialog are arranged according to their function. General properties like Name, Length and others, including properties that control the video size are in the General section. Other sections contain properties that affect &kplayer; interaction with &mplayer; and control multimedia playback, including video, audio, subtitles and advanced properties.

Select File Properties... to open the properties of the current file or URL. You can also right click an item in the Playlist Editor and select the Properties... command to open the File Properties dialog for that item.

The File properties dialog chapter gives complete details on each section and all the available properties. Also the File properties micro-HOWTO describes this feature in more detail and gives some examples.