1Overview 2======== 3 4The Fundamentals 5---------------- 6 7Explanation of the GUI elements 8^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 9 10When you start up Quod Libet for the first time, and have configured your 11library, it should look something a little like the screenshot here, which 12is show with annotations. These are all explained below. 13 14.. figure:: images/main_overview.png 15 :align: right 16 :width: 400px 17 :figwidth: 400px 18 19 A basic view of Quod Libet, and its GUI elements 20 21 221. Player Controls 23^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 24 25Provides buttons for seeking, changing volume and changing the currently played song. 26 27By right-clicking, they also provide context menus with advanced options: 28 29 * The volume button lets you choose the active replaygain mode 30 (album, track, automatic). 31 * The seek button can display the remaining instead of the elapsed time 32 and provides options for interacting with bookmarks. 33 * The context menu of the play button has an option to pause playback after 34 the current song. 35 36 372. Current Song Information 38^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 39 40Displays information about the currently playing song. 41 42Again, the context menu contains more options, like rating and tag editing 43for the current song. 44 45There is also an entry called *Edit Display...* which lets you change 46the :ref:`tag pattern<TagPatterns>` used for display. 47This typically includes the people, title, album and maybe file format, 48bitrate etc (including :ref:`internal tags<InternalTags>`). 49This also allows :ref:`text markup<TextMarkup>` for styling of your display area. 50 51 523. The Song List & Browser 53^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 54 55As the name suggests, the song list is a list of matching songs presented 56by the current browser. Double-clicking a song in the song list will start 57playing it immediately. 58 59The browser consists of a way to filter your 60library (songs), e.g. a simple search or by a list of albums. In the image 61above, no browser is active so only the current song list is shown. You can 62change the active browser by selecting one in the *View* menu. 63 64 654. Playback Order 66^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 67 68The active playback order affects the selection of the next song or what 69happens if you manually switch to a new song. 70 71Note that Play Order Plugins add to this list allowing QL new ways of 72ordering songs, like following your selection or adding songs to the queue 73instead of playing them immediately. 74 75The *Repeat* checkbox can be used in conjunction with the playback orders, 76to repeat the currently selected view of songs after all song have been 77played or skipped. 78 79It's important to note that the playback order will not affect the queue, 80which has its own playback settings. 81 82 835. Song Information 84^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 85 86The area in the bottom-right corner shows information about all songs in 87the song list *or* about your song selection if more than one song is 88selected. 89 90It also shows progress information of background operations like importing 91music. 92 93.. _Queue_Overview: 94 95The Queue 96--------- 97 98.. image:: images/queue.png 99 :width: 350px 100 :align: right 101 102The play queue and the song list determine what's played next. Unlike the 103song list the queue consumes songs (from the queue not your library) as 104they are played. That is, once a song starts playing it disappears from the 105queue. 106 107The queue however, takes precedence whenever it has songs. After it's empty, 108playback will continue in the main song list where it left off. 109 110To add songs to the queue, right-click and *Add to Queue*, use the shortcut 111``CTRL+Return`` or select songs in a different browser window. 112 113For more information, see the :ref:`Queue Guide <Queue>`. 114 115 116More Browsers 117------------- 118 119.. image:: images/browser_window.png 120 :width: 350px 121 :align: right 122 123 124Besides the active browser in the main window, you can open as many 125different browser windows as you want by selecting one under *Browse* > 126*Open Browser* or in the tray icon plugin context menu. 127 128In a separate browser, double-clicking a song will result in it being 129added to the queue rather than played immediately (as per the main browser). 130 131See the :ref:`Browsers Guide <Browse>` for full details on browsers and the 132various implementations. 133 134Example usage: 135 136 * Manage playlists by dragging songs across browsers (eg Search browser to Playlist browser) 137 * Edit the tags of some songs while the ones in the main song list get played etc. 138 * Check out other songs by the artist currently playing without disturbing that list. 139 140 141The Library 142----------- 143 144If all your music lives in one folder on your computer, adding your entire 145music collection in Quod Libet is easy. 146 147From the main menu bar, select *File* > *Add a Folder* and browse to the 148top-most folder containing your music. By default Quod Libet will scan 149your selected folder recursively, adding all the songs found to your 150library automatically. Add more folders if you wish. 151 152Depending on the size of your music collection, it may take a few minutes 153to perform the initial scan. 154 155 156Plugins 157------- 158 159.. image:: images/plugins.png 160 :width: 450px 161 162 163The image above shows the plugin manager, from where you can enable / 164disable / configure all available plugins. 165