Procedure 19.1. Subscribing and Listening to Podcasts

Podcasts are series of audio (or video) files that are released periodically and can be downloaded automatically by subscribing to a Web feed. You can add and manage podcasts on the Playlist tab of the browser pane. If the Podcast Directory Web service is configured for Amarok, you can also access a huge number of podcasts from there.

1. To add a podcast channel that you already know the URL of, switch to the Playlists tab and click Add Podcast.

2. Copy or enter the podcast URL into the next dialog and confirm with OK.

3. Right-click a podcast channel to open a context-menu allowing you to append or load the podcast to the playlist, to download an episode, to configure the podcast, to remove your subscription or to update the podcast channel.

4. If you want Amarok to automatically scan for updates on this podcast channel or to automatically download new episodes, right-click the podcast channel and select Configure. In the podcast configuration dialog you can also define the location to where Amarok should save this podcast or limit the number of episodes stored.

5. To use the integrated Web service to browse for available podcasts, switch to the Internet tab and click Podcast Directory. For more information about the Amarok Web services, refer to Procedure 19.7, “Defining Basic Amarok Settings”.

   When clicking Podcast Directory for the first time, Amarok automatically fetches the list of podcasts, which takes a few seconds. Otherwise click Update to enforce a reload of the list. The available podcasts are sorted into categories.

6. Browse the list of podcasts or enter a term in the search field to filter for certain podcasts.

7. To get automatic updates for a podcast, select the podcast and click Subscribe.

8. View and manage the podcasts that you have subscribed to as described in steps Step 1 to Step 1 above.

Procedure 19.2. Listening to Web Radio

When listening to Web radio streams, Amarok also displays the current title and track played by the station.

1. To listen to a certain stream (like for example, a Web radio channel), select Playlist+Add Stream.

2. Copy or enter the stream URL into the next dialog and confirm with OK. The stream is automatically added to the playlist pane on the right.

3. Double-click the stream entry in the playlist to start listening. Alternatively, use the control buttons in the upper part of the Amarok main window to play, pause, or stop the stream.

Procedure 19.3. Saving and Exporting Playlists

If you save a playlist, it can be played again later with Amarok by accessing it from the Playlists tab. In contrast to this, exporting a playlist allows you to store and use it also outside of Amarok.

1. To save a playlist, either click the Save Playlist icon at the bottom of the playlist pane.

   The browser pane automatically switches to the Playlists tab. It shows the newly added playlist below My Playlists and prompts you to enter a name for the playlist. If you do not enter a name, date and time of creation are automatically set as name for the playlist.

2. To create folders in My Playlists, click the Add Folder icon.

3. You can also modify an already saved playlist by dragging and dropping new items from the playlist pane on the right onto the playlist entry shown below My Playlists.

4. To load, rename or delete a playlist, right-click the playlist and select the appropriate menu item from the context menu.

5. To use a playlist in players other than Amarok, click the Export Playlist icon at the bottom of the playlist pane.

   	Sharing Playlists with Other Players
   Save playlists in m3u format, so you can share them with any other players using this format.

6. Select or enter a location and filename for your playlist and click Save.

Procedure 19.4. Creating Dynamic Playlists

With dynamic playlists, Amarok lets you either play tracks from your collection in a random order or lets you create biased playlists according to probability-driven criteria (“biases”). You can create weighted random playlists that adhere to certain criteria exactly (Proportional Bias) and to certain criteria approximately (Fuzzy Bias). It is possible to mix both types of biases when configuring a dynamic playlist.

1. Click the Playlists tab at the left side of the Amarok main window and select Dynamic Playlist.

2. To create a random playlist without matching any criteria, set the Playlist drop-down list to Random (which is the default value) and activate the On check-box. A randomly created list of tracks appears in the playlist pane.

3. To add a criterion that should be matched exactly:

   1. Click the Add icon in the Proportional Bias category.

   2. Select the desired criterion from the Match drop-down list.

   3. From the With drop-down list, select the value that you want to set for this criterion.

   4. With the Proportion slider, define which portion of the playlist should match this criterion.

4. To add a criterion that should be matched approximately:

   1. Click the Add icon in the Fuzzy Bias category.

   2. Select the desired criterion from the Match drop-down list.

   3. From the With drop-down list, select the value that you want to set for this criterion.

   4. With the Strictness slider, define how strictly to match this criterion.

5. Add further proportional or fuzzy biases as desired.

6. To remove a bias, click the Remove icon in front of this bias.

7. To save the current configuration for the dynamic playlist, click the Save icon at the upper right corner of the Dynamic Playlist category and enter a name.

   The saved dynamic playlist configuration can now be accessed from the Playlist drop-down list at any time.

8. To use the selected dynamic playlist, activate the On check-box.

9. Click Repopulate if you want to replace the current tracks in the playlist area with the newly generated dynamic playlist.

Procedure 19.5. Assigning Album Covers

Amarok's Cover Manager lets you comfortably add, correct or fetch any missing covers for your music collection. If automatic cover retrieval is configured, Amarok tries to fetch any album covers from an Amazon Web server. If Amarok cannot find an album cover (which is sometimes the case if the collection is not tagged properly or if the album is only available via a direct sales channel), you can also manually assign a cover or custom picture.

If not configured otherwise, album covers are displayed on the Collection tab, in the context view and on the on-screen display (or on external widgets like PlayWolf).

Retrieval of covers relies on the tags of your music collection: Amarok uses the Artist - Album query to search Amazon for covers. The better your collection is tagged, the better the hit rate when automatically retrieving covers.

1. If you want Amarok to automatically retrieve cover artwork for each album, select Settings+Configure Amarok+General and activate the respective option in the configuration dialog.

2. Confirm your changes and close the configuration dialog.

3. To define from which Amazon Web server Amarok should get the covers, click Tools+Cover Manager.

   Figure 19.3. Amarok—Cover Editor
   
   

4. From the Amazon Locale drop-down list choose the location of the Web server that suits your needs best.

5. If Amarok could not retrieve all covers automatically, you can check for any missing covers by setting the View to Albums Without Cover.

6. If necessary, change the Amazon Locale, then click Fetch Missing Covers.

7. If retrieval is still not successful or if you are not satisfied with a certain cover, right-click the cover and select Fetch Cover to manually refine the search by editing the search string.

8. To remove a cover, right-click the respective cover and select Unset Cover.

9. If you already have your own cover images, you can assign them by right-clicking an album cover and choosing Set Custom Cover.

Procedure 19.6. Editing Tags, Statistics and Ratings

Although tags are usually created automatically when ripping your music, it is sometimes necessary to edit or correct tags. Apart from editing tags, Amarok also lets you manually edit statistics for a track like the rating or score. Amarok automatically assigns a score to a song (ranging from 0-100), based on how many times you have played that song and if you have played it completely (or skipped it). Every time the song finishes playing, the score is changed.

1. To edit or set tags for an artist, a complete album or individual tracks, right-click the respective entry on the Collection tab and select Edit Track Details.

2. On the Tags tab, add or adjust the information as desired.

3. To set a custom rating for a track or to change the score, switch to the Statistics tab.

4. Move your mouse pointer over the star symbols until they change color. The more stars appear in yellow, the higher the rating. Click the mouse button to set the rating.

5. If desired, also adjust the track's Score.

6. Confirm your changes with Save & Close.

Procedure 19.7. Defining Basic Amarok Settings

1. Select Settings+Configure Amarok to access the Amarok configuration dialog.

2. Click Collection and in the tree view, select the folder (or multiple folders) where Amarok should scan for your music files.

3. Activate the respective options to make Amarok scan the folders recursively or watch for changes in your music folders.

4. If you want to import an existing music collection (for example, from an older Amarok version), click Import Collection and follow the steps on the screen.

5. From the Playback category of the configuration dialog, you can also adjust the back-end and the output device for playing music, if necessary. To do so, click Configure to open the Sound and Video Configuration module (also accessible from the KDE Personal Settings). For more details about the output devices available from the list, hover your mouse pointer over the respective entries.

6. To discover the Web services integrated with Amarok, click the Internet Services category. From there, you can activate, deactivate or configure access to several services like Ampache Web media server, Jamendo legal and free music download, Last.fm music community, Magnatune Store, MP3tunes music locker or podcasts and shoutcasts directories.

   Some of the services require registration. To sign up for a service or to enter your data for an already existing account, click the wrench icon next to the service.

7. To use and customize the appearance of an On Screen Display showing information like cover and artist of the currently played track, activate Use On-Screen Display.

8. Set the appearance options as desired and drag the preview to the desired place to define the position where the on-screen display should appear.

9. Confirm your changes with Apply .

Procedure 19.8. Customizing the Collection Tab

1. To change the criteria according to which your collection is sorted and displayed, click the Sort Options icon at the upper right corner of the Collection tab.

2. Select one of the predefined criteria that are displayed at the top of the menu.

3. Alternatively, create your own sort options by using First Level, Second Level, and Third Level.

4. Define if you want publication year and cover art of the albums to be displayed in the collection.

Procedure 19.9. Customizing the Context View

You can choose from a number of applets to be displayed in the context view. These allow you to access different types of information about the currently played track by clicking the respective applet. For example, the Wikipedia applet searches for the artist's name and displays the corresponding Wikipedia article in the context browser. Current Track shows the album cover (if available) and the listening statistics related to the current track. To automatically search for the Lyrics of a track and display them in the context view, add the Lyrics applet. This applet depends on one or more lyrics scripts configured for Amarok. To add any scripts, use the Script Manager that is available from the Tools menu in the Amarok main window.

1. To configure which applets should be displayed, click the wrench icon at the bottom right corner of the context view. The panel at the bottom of the context view changes and shows its configurations options.

2. To add an applet, click any of the Add icons.

3. Use the arrow icons to scroll through the list of available applets.

4. Click an entry to add the respective applet.

5. To move applets to a different place within the panel, hover the mouse pointer over the respective applet until the cursor turns into a crosslines-like form. Move the cursor to the desired position in the panel, then click again to insert the applet.

6. To remove an applet, click the applet's Remove icon.

7. To leave the configuration mode and to lock the applets in their position, click the wrench icon.

Procedure 19.10. Customizing the Playlist

Amarok comes with several predefined layout settings for the playlist pane on the right, but you can also choose to create your own layout from scratch (or based on one of the default layouts).

1. To select one of the predefined layouts, click the wrench icon at the bottom of the playlist and select Default, No Grouping or Verbose.

2. To create your own layout, click the wrench icon and select Configure Playlist Layouts.

3. Click the default layouts in Available Layouts to see the options configured for each layout on the Head, Body and Single tabs on the right side.

4. Use the icons below Available Layouts to create a new playlist layout from scratch or to copy an existing layout as a basis for a new layout. Enter a name for the new layout.

5. On each of the tabs on the right, configure the elements Amarok should display by dragging and dropping the desired elements from the top row onto the respective tab.

6. Change the position of an element on a tab by clicking it and moving it around.

7. To set format options like Italic or Bold or Left, Center, or Right, right-click an element and select the respective option.

8. To remove an element from a tab, drag it back to the top row.

9. If all options are set according to your wishes, leave the Playlist Layout Editor with OK to save the newly defined layout.

   You can now switch to the new playlist layout at any time by clicking the wrench icon and selecting the layout's name from the context menu.