annotate README.bmp @ 2301:1db6ecbedb27 trunk

[svn] Change /home/js/.audacious to /home/js/.config/audacious

BMP - Beep Media Player (c) GPL 2003-2004

BMP Development Team (see AUTHORS)


Based on:

  XMMS - X Multimedia System (c)1997-2001

  A Cross platform Multimedia Player

  Peter Alm, Thomas Nilsson, Olle Hallnas, Håvard Kvålen


NOTE: This document is hardly maintained. Please check the Users' Guide on
the BMP website.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
*****************

1. Disclaimer
2. Installation
   2.1 Basic Installation
   2.2 Border less Installation
   2.3 Skin Installation
3. Documentation
   3.1 Controlling BMP
       3.1.1 Key bindings
   3.2 Playlist Editor
   3.3 Equalizer
   3.4 Menu
   3.5 Preferences
      3.5.1 Audio I/O Plugins
      3.5.2 Effect/General Plugins
      3.5.3 Visualization Plugins
      3.5.4 Options
      3.5.5 Fonts
      3.5.6 Title
   3.6 Plugins
      3.6.1 Input plugins
            3.6.1.1 Cd Audio Player
            3.6.1.2 MPEG Layer 1/2/3 player
            3.6.1.3 Ogg Vorbis player
            3.6.1.4 WAV player
      3.6.2 Output plugins
            3.6.2.1 OSS Driver
            3.6.2.2 eSound Output
            3.6.2.3 BSD Sun Output
      3.6.3 Effect plugins
      3.6.4 General plugins
      3.6.5 Visualization plugins
            3.6.5.1 Blur scope
4. Command Line Options
5. Features
   5.1 Supported File formats
   5.2 Supported Features
6. Obtaining BMP
7. Misc
   7.1 Shoutcast support
   7.2 Tips and tricks
8. Bugs
9. Contact Email




1. Disclaimer
-------------

We are not liable for any damage caused by the use of this program.

BMP is NOT a port of WinAmp (http://www.winamp.com). BMP is a fork of
XMMS (http://xmms.org) which borrowed the WinAmp GUI.


2. Installation
---------------

BMP requires the following libraries and their development
packages installed:

  Glib 2.4
  (http://www.gtk.org/download/)

  GTK+ 2.4
  (http://www.gtk.org/download/)

  libglade >= 2.3.1
  (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libglade/2.3/)

The following packages are required for optional features:

  Vorbis input plugin:
    libvorbis >= 1.0
    (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/download.html)

  ESD output plugin:
    esound >= 0.2.3
    (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/desktop/2.6/2.6.0/sources/)

  ALSA output plugin:
    alsa-lib >= 1.0
    (http://www.alsa-project.org)

  GNOME VFS support:
    gnome-vfs >= 2.6.0  
    (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/desktop/2.6/2.6.0/sources/)

  GConf support:
    GConf >= 2.6.0  
    (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/desktop/2.6/2.6.0/sources/)

If you compile BMP from a fresh CVS checkout, you will also need
the following tools:

  automake >= 1.7
  autoconf >= 2.5

Note that these tools and libraries are bundled with major Linux
distributions. Use the packages provided with them where possible. If
those packages are not sufficiently new, you may need to search
third-party repositories for them.


2.1 Basic Installation
----------------------

cd bmp-0.9.7
./configure
make
make install

This will put the binary in /usr/local/bin and plugins in
/usr/local/lib/bmp/

Note for packagers: The gnome-vfs option is VERY EXPERIMENTAL. We suggest you
do not use it in your official distribution packages.


2.2 Borderless Installation
---------------------------

As far as I know most WM's accepts GTK decoration hints so it will
not have borders.  But some WM's can't handle this so you have to
set in manually.

AfterStep 1.0 ~/.steprc
Style "XMMS_Player" NoTitle, NoHandles
Style "XMMS_Playlist" NoTitle, NoHandles
Style "XMMS_Equalizer" NoTitle, NoHandles

AfterStep 1.4 ~/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep/database
Style "XMMS_Player" NoTitle, NoHandles
Style "XMMS_Playlist" NoTitle, NoHandles
Style "XMMS_Equalizer" NoTitle, NoHandles

Fvwm's ~/.fvwm95rc
Style "XMMS_Player" NoTitle
Style "XMMS_Playlist" NoTitle
Style "XMMS_Equalizer" NoTitle

CTWM's ~/.ctwmrc
NoTitle and NoBorder sections:
NoTitle {
    "xmms"
}

NoBorder {
    "xmms"
}

2.3 Skin Installation
---------------------

BMP will create a directory called ~/.bmp/Skins/. You can unarchive
the skins the same way as you do for WinAmp.

However, you don't need to as BMP supports archived skins. BMP
currently reads the following formats: zip, wsz, tar, tar.gz and
tar.bz2

Just copy the archive to one of the skin path's and BMP will take care
of the rest.

In order to support zipped skins you will need to have unzip. Unzip
is bundled with most Linux distributions.

BMP looks for skins in these directories (in listing order):

<prefix>/share/bmp/Skins
~/.bmp/Skins

You can set the environment variable SKINSDIR to another location of
your choice:

For BASH: 
  export SKINSDIR=/path/to/Skins:/more/paths/to/other/locations/of/Skins

For CSH:
  setenv SKINSDIR /path/to/Skins:/more/paths/to/other/locations/of/Skins


3. Documentation
----------------

This file or http://beepmp.sf.net


3.1 Controlling BMP
--------------------

When you start up BMP, you will get a console very similar to that of
WinAmp.

- On the top is the window title bar. To the right you will see 3 buttons,
   Left button will minimize BMP.
   Middle button will make BMP only display the title bar.
   Right button will end the BMP session.

- The area in the upper left part displays the following:
   - Play state: Paused, Stopped, or Playing
   - Time elapsed in the current song or if you click on it, the reversed.
   - Spectrum analyzer of the sound being played. Right mouse click will
     bring up the Visualization menu. Left mouse button will change the
     analyzer to an oscilloscope and/or none.

- To the right of the Spectrum analyzer is the title of the file being played.
  This also contains the length of the song being played, as well as its
  position in the [unsorted] playlist. Right clicking in this window will bring
  up a new menu with some more options that are self explaining.

- In the left part of the Spectrum analyzer you'll have letters (at least if
  you use the default skin) O A I D V. This is known as the
  "clutterbar'. Left-clicking on these will open up menus or perform the
  listed actions.
  O : Options menu
  A : Always on top
  I : File info box
  D : Double size mode
  V : Visualization menu

- Underneath the track title are the following static informational data:
   - bit rate in KBps (usually 128 or 112)
   - Sample Rate in KHz (usually 44)
   - Stereo or Mono channel mixing

- Underneath the informational data are a few controls you can play with:
   - The first slider controls the volume
   - The second slider controls the balance between speakers
   - The button marked "EQ" loads up the graphic equalizer
   - The button marked "PL" loads up the playlist editor
   - The LARGE slide bar moves from left to right as the song plays. You can
     drag this to jump to another location in the current file.

- On the bottom of the console are the standard buttons you would see on a CD
  player: Previous track, Play, Pause, Stop, Next track, eject, shuffle
  and repeat.

   - The eject button doesn't REALLY eject, of course. :) It opens up the
     file requester. The File Requester builds a playlist for the current
     BMP session. You can use it to load files, add files to the list, or
     load all mp3s in a directory.

   - The shuffle button randomizes the sequence of the playlist.

   - The repeat button when enabled makes the playlist loop when it reaches the
     end of the playlist.


3.1.1 Key bindings
------------------

Global: (Main, Equalizer and Playlist window)

  z = Previous song
  x = Play
  c = Pause
  v = Stop
  b = Next song
  l = Play file (brings up the Load file(s) dialog)
  j = Jump to file (in the existing playlist)
  r = Toggle Repeat
  s = Toggle Shuffle

  Control + h = Play location (url)
  Control + p = Preferences dialog
  Control + r = Time remaining
  Control + o = Always on top
  Control + w = Winshade mode
  Control + j = Jump to time
  Control + z = Start of list
  Control + n = No Playlist Advance
  Control + 3 = File info dialog

  Control + Alt + w = Toggle Equalizer winshade mode
  Shift + Control + w = Toggle Playlist winshade mode

  Alt + e = Toggle playlist window
  Alt + g = Toggle equalizer window

Main window:

  Arrow key up    = Volume up 2%
  Arrow key down  = Volume down 2%
  Arrow key right = Skip 5 seconds forward in song
  Arrow key left  = Skip 5 seconds back in song

Playlist window:

  Arrow key up    = up one step in playlist
  Arrow key down  = Down one step in playlist

  Delete         = Remove selected songs from playlist
  Page Up        = Move one page up
  Page Down      = Move one page down
  Home           = Go to the first song
  End            = Go to the last song
  Enter          = Play selected song
  Insert         = Add file dialog
  Shift + Insert = Add directory dialog
  Alt + Insert   = Add url dialog

Equalizer shade mode:

  Arrow key up    = Volume up 2%
  Arrow key down  = Volume down 2%
  Arrow key right = Balance 4% to right
  Arrow key left  = Balance 4% to left


3.2 Playlist editor
-------------------

To access the Playlist editor, select the button labeled "PL" on the right
side of the BMP console.

This will bring up the actual playlist window, here you'll find 5 buttons.
All of these buttons can be held down to bring up an extra menu.
From left to right:

file +    : will add a file to current playlist, held down mode you'll have
            2 extra options
dir       : will let you pick a directory (recursive)
url       : will let you add an url for streaming

file -    : will delete the highlighted file, held down mode you'll have 3
            more options
crop      : delete all files except the highlighted in the list
all       : delete all files in the list
misc      : *** NOT FUNCTIONAL ***

sel all   : select all files in current playlist, held down mode you'll have
            2 extra options
sel zero  : select none
inv sel   : invert you selection

misc opts : held down you'll have 2 extra options
fileinfo  : opens the file info dialog.
sort      : release button on this will bring up another menu with sort options

load list : will let you pick a playlist to load, held down you'll have
            2 extra options
save      : will let you save your playlist
new       : will empty the playlist and let you create a new playlist

If you want to select/deselect files in the filrequester/playlist editor use
CTRL for files and SHIFT key for blocks of files. You can also browse the PL
using the cursor keys and enter to select song. Pressing the delete button will
remove the song from the playlist. If your mouse is equipped with a mouse
wheel, you can use this to scroll up and down.

3.3. Equalizer
--------------

To access the Equalizer, select the button labeled "EQ" on the right
side of the BMP console.

That will bring up the Equalizer window. It looks like an equalizer on a stereo
and behaves like one as well. Press the button labeled ON to enable the use of
the equalizer, once you turned it on you use it as a normal equalizer.

EQ presets will be saved in ~/.bmp/config when you close BMP. You can also
have your own presets for different song using the "Preset" button, BMP can
also import/export from WinAmp's preset files.

If 'Auto' is enabled, BMP will try to load equalizer presets like this:

1: Look for a preset file in the directory of the file we are about to play.
2: Look for a directory preset file in the same directory.
3: Look for a preset saved with the "auto-load" feature.
4: Finally, try to load the "default" preset.

The 'preset' button will open up a menu with the following options:

Load
   Preset               : Will open a window with all available presets.
   Auto-load preset     : Will open a window with all available auto-load
                          presets.
   Default              : Will load the default preset.
   Zero                 : Will reset the equalizer to zero.
   From file            : Will load from a .preset file
   From WinAMP EQF file : Will load from a WinAMP equalizer file. If you
                          choose a library file only the first entry will
                          be loaded.
Import
   WinAMP presets       : Imports the presets contained in an WinAMP equalizer
                          library file (often named WINAMP.q1) and add all
                          the entries to the Preset window.
Save
   Preset               : Let you name the current preset and save it.
   Auto-load preset     : Saves the current settings as a preset for the song
                          currently playing.
   Default              : Saves the default value for the equalizer.
   From file            : Saves the current settings in a preset file.
   From WinAMP EQF file : Exports the current settings to a file readable by
                          WinAMP.
Delete
   Preset               : Let you delete a preset from the list.
   Auto-load preset     : Let you delete a auto-load preset from the list.

Configure Equalizer     : Change the default names of directory based
                          preset files.

3.4. Menu
---------

There are several menu hot spots on the BMP window. One place is at the left
hand side of the visual window described in sections 3.1 If you click the right
mouse button in the main window, the menus will also pop up (same as clicking
the button on the top left corner).

3.5. Preferences
----------------

Use the menu to open Options / Preferences or press CTRL-P to bring the
preferences dialog up.

3.5.1. Appearance
-----------------

Skins
In the skinlist you can choose a skin. How to install skins is described above.
Click on a skin in the list to change to it.

Fonts
You can set the font in the main window by setting the 'Player' font. You can
change the playlist font by setting the 'Playlist' font.

Miscellaneous
Show track numbers in playlist - Enable/disable displaying of track numbers in
                                 the playlist.
Use custom cursors             - Enable/disable custom cursors set by the skin.


3.5.2. Mouse
------------

Mouse wheel
Change how BMP handles scroll behaviours.

3.5.3. Playlist
---------------

Filename
Convert underscores to blanks - Converts '_' (underscores) to ' ' in the
                                playlist.
Convert %20 to blanks         - Converts '%20' to ' ' in the
                                playlist.

Metadata
Load metadata from playlists and files - Loads metadata from files and
                                         playlists (e.g. ID3 tags).

Playback
Don't advance in playlist - Don't advance to the next song in the playlist when
                            the current song ends.
Pause between songs       - Set the time (in secons) to pause on songchange

Song display
Title format  - Choose the format to display the song names in the playlist.
Custom string - When the above option is set to 'Custom' insert a string of
                substitutes here.

3.5.6. Plugins
--------------

Enable/disable and configure plugins in this section.

Choose a tab to list one of the types of plugins:
  - Media (filetype/device support)
  - General (general plugins)
  - Visualization (visualization plugins)
  - Effects (effect plugins)
  - Output (output plugins)

3.6 Plugins
-----------
Plugins is what makes BMP work, by moving most of the code out of BMP and
into a plugin architecture it's possible to change almost everything in BMP.
There are today 5 different types of plugins. Only a few plugins are
distributed with BMP, you can find information on more of them at:

  http://beepmp.sf.net


3.6.1 Input plugins
-------------------
The input plugins is what you use to play mp3, mod, wav and even movies with.


3.6.1.1 Cd Audio Player
-----------------------
Plays audio cd's on Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. This plugin does not pass
the sound through BMP, so no visualization can be made nor will the
equalizer settings have any effect.

Before I explain the usage we better have a look on the configuration
first.

In the device tab you should set Device to your cdrom unit. /dev/cdrom
is generally a good choice on Linux systems. Set 'Directory' to where a
directory which will be used by BMP to present the available cd tracks in.
Using the normal mount point for the cdrom is recommended unless the
cdrom is automounted if it contains a data track.

  Example:
  --------
     Device: /dev/cdrom (which on my system is symlinked to /dev/hdc)
  Directory: /mnt/cdrom

The next setting is used to decide what volume is to be changed, it's either
the OSS Mixer for CD Audio or the actual volume on the CDROM.

In the CD Info tab you can choose if the plugin should try and get the
track names from a Internet database server.

You can either use the CDDB protocol or CD Index. CDDB defaults to a free
version of CDDB, but it will work with the infamous cddb servers as well.

Show network window will display some useful information if something goes
wrong, but you'll have to close and re-open it to update the content of it.

If a CDDB server is too slow for your taste, you can press 'Get server list'
to receive a list of alternate servers.

CD Index is another type of database, but works in a similar manner. If
you don't have libxml installed when you compiled the plugin, this will be
grayed out.

In the "Track names" box you can decide on how the plugin presents the
tracks to you. This is normally handled by the 'Title' (section 3.5.6) setting
in the main preferences, but you can choose to override them here.

Available variables are:

   %p = Performer/Artist   %t = Track name
   %a = Album              %n = Track number

So "%n. %t / %p (%a)" would display something like:

  1. New Life / Depeche Mode (Speak & Spell)

Now to add your CDROM tracks to the playlist. Insert an audio cd into the
CDROM drive and press the Eject button. Go to the directory which you defined
earlier ( /mnt/cdrom ) and you should see a list of tracks. They will be named
Track XX.cda, select the tracks you want to play and press OK. If you had
choosed an Internet database and the CD exists in it, BMP will now display
the tracks you have chosen with their names according to the 'Name format'
configuration.

Now, that wasn't hard now was it?

If you want BMP to identify as something else when speaking with servers, you
can set the environmental variable "XMMS_CDDB_CLIENT_NAME", and BMP will use
that instead.


3.6.1.2 MPEG Layer 1/2/3 player
-------------------------------
The main reason why this player exists today is mp3 files, so what could be
better than a plugin that plays them?.

It's based off the mpg123 engine and handles MPEG Layer 1/2/3 files and
VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 files.

The first configuration tab is just like the MikMod one, and again, if you
have an older soundcard and the music is going half speed, change the
'Resolution' setting.

If you have mp3 files named something else than .mp3, you might want to enable
'Detect files by content' so BMP will know that they are supported. Although
I'd recommend that you rename the files (or just beat the person who burned his
high-school bands music with in proper file extensions into giving you a new
cd) since this is rather slow.

In the streaming tab you can choose a 'Buffer size' in kilobytes which BMP
will keep while streaming. This ranges from 4 -> 4096kb (which should be
sufficient for most people. The 'Pre-buffer' value is how much of the buffer
BMP should fill before starting to play the stream. (0%-90%)

I'll let Chad Armstrong describe the two following options.

"As streaming becomes more popular, there is rising demand for better
information about the current track being played. This 'Now Playing'
information (also known as 'Title Streaming') allows for more information to be
passed back to the listener. In the past, there was a method started by the
Shoutcast group, which embedded this information in the stream itself. The mp3
standard was never designed to allow for text information to be interleaved
with audio data, and it is this design which can cause errors in playback. The
Icecast Team has taken this data completely out of the mp3 data, and has
provided it in a side channel (via UDP)."

- Chad Armstrong (icemonk)

You're better off having both these options enabled. :)

In the 'Title' tab you can change the way BMP presents the mp3 files to the
playlist.

ID3 is data stored in the mp3 file and can include Artist, Album etc. If you
uncheck 'Use ID3 tags' BMP will display the filename instead of the ID3
information.

ID3V2 allows for a lot of extra data to be stored in the mp3 file, and don't
suffer from the limitations of ID3V1, BMP supports the same data that are
available in ID3V1 but not the extra data. If a mp3 file contains both ID3V1
and ID3V2 tags, you might see something different that the 'file info' editor
displays. If this happens, you might want to turn on 'Disable ID3V2 tags'.

'Override generic titles' is used if you do not want to use the generic titles
defined in the preferences. See section 3.5.6.

The 'ID3 format:' box allows you to alter in which order the information about
the current song is displayed.

Example: %p - %t (%a) [%y]
will display something like "Laibach - Alle Gegen Alle (Nato) [1994]"

available fields are:

%p - Artist          (ex: Laibach)
%a - Album           (ex: Nato)
%f - File name       (ex: laibach-allegegenalle)
%F - File path       (ex: /home/thomas/mp3)
%e - File extension  (ex: mp3)

%t - Track name      (ex: Alle Gegen Alle)
%n - Track number    (ex: 6)
%y - Year            (ex: 1994)
%g - Genre           (ex: Electronic)
%c - Comment         (ex: Cover of D.A.F)


3.6.1.3 Ogg Vorbis Player
-------------------------

Plays OGG Vorbis encoded files, see http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/index.html
for more information.


3.6.1.4 WAV player
-------------------
This plugin plays as suggested, wave files. It supports 16bit and 8bit PCM wave
files.


3.6.2 Output plugins
--------------------
This type of plugins is what is used to send the audio data to your soundcard
or alternative devices.


3.6.2.1 OSS Driver
------------------
This plugin is probably what most of you will use if your system is equipped
with the OpenSoundSystem (www.opensound.com) drivers or compatible.
Compatible drivers are ALSA with their OSS emulation, and Linux kernel sound
drivers.

In the 'Devices' tab you can change the soundcard which BMP is going to use.
If your driver have more than one dsp, you can change the one BMP uses by
enabling 'Use alternate device' and changing the '/dev/dsp' to suit your needs.

If you have changed your Audio Device to another soundcard (if you for some
reason have two cards) don't forget to change the 'Mixer device' setting to the
soundcard you want to use.

In the 'Buffering' tab you can change how much data the OSS plugin will buffer.
The 'Buffer size' ranges from 200 - 10000ms. If you want the plugin to wait for
the buffer to be filled before it starts playing the music change the 'Pre-
buffer' value, this ranges from 0% - 90% of the 'Buffer size' value.

In the 'Mixer' tab you can change which volume setting BMP should change when
you alter the volume from BMP. Enable 'Volume controls Master not PCM' if you
want BMP to change the volume of all sounds instead of only PCM/wave sound.


3.6.2.2 eSound Output
---------------------
The 'ESD' plugin will use the 'Enlightened Sound Daemon' to playback the audio.
It's useful if you want to be able to have sound effects in your programs and
still be able to listen to music with BMP.

In the 'Server' tab of the configuration, you can tell the plugin where to send
the audio data. Enable 'Use remote host' and enter the name/ip of the server
and port to send to. This is probably only useful in a LAN environment, since
the audio data is sent uncompressed to the remote ESD.

The 'Buffering' tab works just like the 'OSS Driver' one.


3.6.2.3 BSD Sun Output
----------------------
The 'Sun' output plugin will use the native audio(4) interface provided
by OpenBSD and NetBSD for playback and mixing.

The $AUDIODEVICE and $MIXERDEVICE environment variables will override the
current configuration settings. Defaults are /dev/audio and /dev/mixer.

In the 'Devices' tab you can change the audio, audioctl and mixer devices
BMP is going to use. The audioctl device is used for ioctl(2) calls
independent of audio data I/O.

In the 'Buffering' tab you can change how much data the Sun plugin will
buffer. The 'Buffer size' ranges from 200 - 10000ms. If you want the plugin
to wait for the buffer to be filled before it starts playing the music,
change the 'Pre-buffer' value, this ranges from 0% - 90% of the 'Buffer size'
value.

In the 'Mixer' tab you can select the volume device to be affected when you
alter the volume from BMP. `BMP uses mixer exclusively' causes BMP to
keep the mixer device open instead of re-opening it for each operation.

There may also be some more options depending on what your audio mixer
device supports (eg. loudness, spatial, surround, preamp).

In the 'Status' tab you can see audio device information and real-time
playback status.


3.6.3 Effect plugins
--------------------
Effect plugins can alter the sound of the music you are listening to.


3.6.4 General plugins
---------------------
Mostly used for controlling BMP and passing data to other programs.


3.6.5 Visualization plugins
---------------------------
Eye candy plugins.


3.6.5.1 Blur scope
-------------------
A simple blurring oscilloscope, in the configuration you can change the color
with the standard GTK color dialog.


4. Command Line Options
-----------------------

beep-media-player --help will produce:

Usage: beep-media-player [options] [files] ...

Options:
--------

-h, --help              Display this text and exit.
-n, --session           Select BMP/XMMS session (Default: 0)
-r, --rew               Skip backwards in playlist
-p, --play              Start playing current playlist
-u, --pause             Pause current song
-s, --stop              Stop current song
-t, --play-pause        Pause if playing, play otherwise
-f, --fwd               Skip forward in playlist
-e, --enqueue           Don't clear the playlist
-m, --show-main-window  Show the main window
-v, --version           Print version number and exit.

You can specify files on the command line, e.g:

  beep-media-player file1.mp3 file2.mp3 file3.mp3
  beep-media-player *.mp3
  beep-media-player playlist.m3u (note: playlists must be named .m3u)

If you do this while BMP is running the current playlist
will be cleared and the files/playlist specified on the command
line will be used instead.

To keep the current playlist intact use the -e option.


5. Features
-----------

5.1 Supported File formats
-------------------------

OGG Vorbis
MP2 and MP3 streams
WAV/AU samples

Others:

CD audio
Shout/Icecast


5.2 Supported Features
----------------------

Seeking in files
Volume/Balance
Shuffle play
Repeat play
Playlist editor
Spectrum Analyzer
One Line mode al'a WinShade in WinAmp
Oscilloscope
Timer Elapsed/Timer Remaining
Plug-in system Output/Input/Effect/General/Visualization
Equalizer
Double Size option
WinAmp 2.0 skin support (can use wsz files)
GTK Requesters (with theme support)
Streaming/Shoutcast(1.0/1.1)/Icecast support
Auto remove borders if the WM has support for it
Fast jump in playlist
Scroll wheel support
Saves HTTP streams to HD
HTTP authentication
Plays MPEG layer 1/2/3, WAV, Ogg Vorbis
Compiles and works on other Unixes
Proxy authentication support


6. Obtaining BMP
-------------------

Currently, we only provide source tarballs at:

   http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=95272

The CVS snapshots listed are not regularly updated. We encourage you
to download BMP straight from CVS:

  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[e-mail]:/cvsroot/beepmp login
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[e-mail]:/cvsroot/beepmp co bmp
 


FIXME: add links to user made packages


6.1 Obtaining Skins
-------------------

You can find BMP/XMMS skins made by BMP/XMMS users at:

   http://www.xmms.org/skins.html
   http://themes.org/skins/xmms


7. Misc
-------

7.1. Tips and Tricks
-------------------

If you have a windows partition with WinAmp installed, a good idea would be to
set the SKINSDIR variable to that dir.

BMP features some command line options like next/previous songs, those
things can be binded to a key. I use AfterStep and the useless window keys
for this. Here is an example from my .steprc:

Key     Meta_R  A       N       Exec "bmp" beep-media-player -r
Key     Menu    A       N       Exec "bmp" beep-media-player -f

If you want all your mp3's in one playlist an easy way is:
locate .mp3 > /path/to/playlistname

(considering you have a fairly recent updatedb, don't blame us if locate don't
find the file you downloaded 3 minutes ago)


8. Bugs
-------

BMP is under heavy development and as such, has quite a number of
bugs. Our bug tracker page is maintained at:

  http://www.sosdg.org/~larne/bugs/

It will continue to have bugs as we fix and introduce new ones through
rewriting and enhancement. Help us along by reporting new bugs, and
verifying existing ones.

If you have a fix for any of the bugs, please let us know using the
tracker or posting to our development mailing list at:

  [e-mail]


9. Contact Email's
------------------

Project Admins:

  Milosz Derezynski     email: mderezynski at users sourceforge net
  Chong Kai Xiong       email: descender at phreaker net

You can more information about the BMP team from this page:

  http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=95272