MP3 Passport User Manual

See how to take the best advantage of MP3 Passport

Well, I am quite busy these days and I want to put this site online as quick as possible. This section will become more important as soon as I have enough time. For now, I will just speak about the major options. Please read the information about "descript.ion" files if you haven't done it yet.

The program has been made to be as easy to use as possible. Any user familiar with the windows95 interface shouldn't have any problems using it.

3.1. Introduction

The first time you launch MP3 Passport, you get a welcome message and the Preferences dialogbox is displayed. The path to Winplay3.exe must be filled automatically if you have associated .MP3 files with winplay3.exe. You must also provide the path to at least one main "descript.ion" file (root directory of your MP3 files). Since release 1.1, you can configure as much main "descript.ion" files as you want, even on different drives. You can also add the path to a removable media (i.e. cd-rom). At startup, MP3 Passport scans all the directories you specified. If the media is not in the drive at that time, it doesn't matter. You can always refresh the album tree later to include the songs of any media you just inserted.

3.2. The main window

You have tree ways of playing song(s) from the main window :

By double clicking on a song to play only this song.
By double clicking on an album to play the whole album.
By making a playlist of various single songs and/or albums.

Note that double clicking has the same action as selecting and then pressing the "Play" button.

You can choose between three different playmodes :

Sequential mode.
Full random mode.
Local random mode.

The sequential mode speak from itself, but the two random modes need some explanations. The difference between full and local only makes sense when you use the playlist function. The full random mode randomizes each song in the playlist, mixing song from different albums with each other if possible. The local random mode randomizes the songs only between songs of a same album. Incompatible music types are thus not mixed with each other anymore.

3.3. The playlist window

The playlist window allows you to make extremely accurate song selection. You can drag and drop one single song or the whole album. Using the toolbar, you can load/save playlists or play them. Note that the playmode selection applies also to the playlist. This option allows you to play MP3 from several drives/directories in one operation.

3.3. The menu

The program menu contain only a few options. Too few to create an esthetic standard menu bar. Instead, you can press the right mouse button anywhere on the main window to access it.

Refresh album tree : Very useful if you store your MP3 files on a removable media. It rescans the "descript.ion" files and refresh the album view and songs view content.
Preferences : If you want to change the path to your files and other settings.
About : Not much to say.
Exit : Not much to say.

3.4. The search function (not yet fully implemented)

The search function is quite useful if you store your MP3 files on a removable media. It helps you locate the support number on which the desired album is located. By double clicking on one album in the search result window, you can display the detail of the album.

The search function requires that you provided a SearchBase Path in the Preferences dialogbox. If you store your MP3 files on a removable media, the SearchBase path must be different from the MP3 Files path and you must copy every "descript.ion" files of any removable media you make (since they are not accessible from the media).

3.5. How to reach me

If you have any questions, bugreports, suggestions, comments or grammar correction for theses pages (my English is still far from perfect), send me a message to arcadian@mail.dma.be.

Even if you have no bugreports nor suggestions, I would really appreciate if you send me an e-mail to say if you find this program useful or not and why. Don't forget to check the history.txt to learn about some extra features.

3.6. Legal stuff

This software is provided as freeware and cannot be sold. You're free to make unlimited number of copies of this program as long as the content of the files remains unmodified.

The author of this program accepts no responsibility for damages resulting from the use of this product and makes no warranty or representation, either express or implied, including but not limited to, any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This software is provided "AS IS", and you, its user, assume all risks when using it.


MP3 Passport (C) 1996, 1997 Arcadian.
Last updated : April 16, 1997