FAQ update

[Emilio Castro González]

Hi all, finally I finished the little update for the FAQ. I'm sending
it here in case you want to check the different entries and correct
any of them. If anybody has a suggestion just write here.
Here is it:

==What is Amarok?==
:Amarok is a music player. More information can be found in [[What is
Amarok?|a summary of its features]] and the
[http://amarok.kde.org/en/screenshots screenshot gallery].

===What are the differences between Amarok 2 and the previous versions?===
:Amarok 2 is a nearly complete rewrite so it has nothing to do with
Amarok 1.4. That's why all features of the old Amarok are not
available in the new Amarok 2, althoug there are many new features,
and many others that will be available soon.

:Here you have a short list of some new features:

* Maybe the biggest new feature is the Service Framework, which
integrates networked music sources directly into Amarok. This includes
online music stores, media servers, Web music lockers, and more.
Thanks to it you'll get easy access to music provided by Magnatune,
Jamendo, Last.fm, MP3Tunes Locker, Ampache and many others. Expect
more big (and small) names to join during the 2.x lifecycle.

* Another biggie is the Context View, occupying the central place of
the Amarok's window, replacing the old Context Browser from the 1.x
series. It displays contextual information about the music you play,
like the album cover, track rating, labels, lyrics, artist
information, related songs and artists, track mood and others. Thanks
to the Plasma technology it uses, Context View can provide very rich
content, like AJAX, video and animations, all in eye catching fashion.

* To accompany the Context View, we developed new, space efficient
playlist. In order to preserve the horizontal space it groups the
track name, artist, album name and cover art together, and allows
further grouping by album names. It works great in practice!

* Another great gem is the video support. Watching your music videos
inside Amarok feels great! An you can watch your video podcasts too.

* we can't forget the Biased Playlists, which extends the old Dynamic
Playlists. They allow you to define an automatically populated
playlist, based on specific probability driven criteria called
"biases".

:There are many more great features like advanced scripting, dynamic
collections, usability improvements, improved media devices handling,
new podcast manager, support for more software platforms, and others.

==Installation==
===Can I use Amarok without KDE?===
: Amarok requires parts of kde to be installed to run, but will run
fine in gnome or other desktop environments.  For Amarok to run,
kdelibs and kdebase-runtime need to be installed.

:For some features to work correctly, such as the on-screen display,
your window manager must be configured to support the relevant
freedesktop.org standards.

===Why does Amarok use kdelibs?===
:We are committed to supporting Amarok on all platforms. We use
KDElibs and Qt because they provide an excellent development
environment. Aside from Linux and BSD, Amarok works on Windows and
MacOS, and there are installers available, but unfortunately we don't
have (yet) the resources to offer full support for those operating
systems. Almost all of our developers use free operating systems, and
those have priority for us. We do however welcome Windows and OS X
developers willing to help, and improve Amarok on those platforms.

==General usage==
===Where can I get support for Amarok?===
:There are several options. Often times problems you have with the
initial install of Amarok are best answered by experts of your
particular Unix or Linux distribution. You may seek help from fellow
users and developers at the [http://amarok.kde.org/forum Amarok forum]
and the [irc://irc.freenode.net/amarok IRC channel] at
irc.freenode.net channel #amarok.
:Note that the [http://bugs.kde.org bugzilla] is not a place to seek
support. Please do enter a bug if you are serious about helping fix a
bug in Amarok itself.

===When I start Amarok, I see an empty playlist. How do I actually get
tracks in there?===
:Use the Collection on the left side to navigate to the desired
artist/album/track. Then drag the files into the Playlist part on the
right. You can also drag the files from any file manager, such as
Dolphin.

===How do I remove tracks from the Playlist?===
::Select the track(s) you want to remove, and press the ''Delete''
key. Or right-click the selection and choose ''Remove From Playlist''.

===How can I load a playlist?===
:Just drag and drop the playlist file into the Playlist, like you
would do with any other file. It's that simple!

===How can I save the current playlist?===
:Use the ''Save Playlist As'' button in the Playlist Toolbar.

===Where's the equalizer?===
:The equalizer is only available if you are using the Xine backend of
phonon, and you can find it in the Tools menu. You can get more
infofmation about configuring Phonon backends in your distribution in
the download page.

===How do I turn on visualizations?===
:Visualizations are not implemented yet, but they will be very soon.

===How do I play audio-CDs===
:When you insert an audio CD, it will be shown as a local collection.

===How can I add podcasts?===
:Go to ''Podcast'' section in the left toolbar and then select ''Add
Podcast...'' Add the podcast URL where indicated.

===How can I use Amarok to stream to my own radio station?===
:If you want to stream directly to a icecast or shoutcast server the
answer simply is: it is not supported. You could use
[http://www.onlymeok.nildram.co.uk/ IDJC] for that.

==Playback Questions==
===What media types does Amarok support?===
:Amarok does not play music by itself, but lets Phonon do that job,
specifically the GStreamer or Xine backends of Phonon. Therefore,
whatever files they can play, Amarok can play. To analyse file's tags,
Amarok uses Taglib, which supports most file types that contain
metadata.

===What is Phonon? What are Phonon backends?===
:Phonon is the multimedia framework of KDE 4. You can find more
information [[Phonon| here]].
:Usually Xine backend works better than GStreamer one, although it is
not always true. You can find more details on installing backends in
the download page.

===Amarok won't play MP3's, what can I do?===
:Have a look at the [[MP3|MP3 information page]].

===I can't get any media to play in Amarok, why not?===
:You need to test the sound frameworks at the command line:

 %xine-check
:(The Package xine-ui contains xine-check)
:The output from these commands should help you identify the problems
you are having and how to fix them.

===I have a second soundcard and I'm using ALSA. How do I make Amarok
use it instead of the default?===
: Configure this in the phonon system settings module.

==General questions==
===What are scripts?===
:They are little pieces of software that add some functions to Amarok.
There are a lot of scripts, and you can find them in
[http://www.kde-apps.org/index.php?xcontentmode=57 kde-apps.org] or
you can install them inside Amarok using the script manager
:You can find more details [[Scripts|here]].

===Can I use Amarok 1.4 scripts in Amarok 2?===
:No. A new and powerful scripting API has been created, which provides
huge improvementes but won't let you use your old scripts. The new
scripting system is based on QtScript and will significantly reduce
Amarok's dependencies,  (a huge problem for non-technical and
cross-platform users), and will greatly reduce the amount of external
processes launched at runtime.  Another advantage is that the new API
will allow much deeper integration with Amarok than the old scripting
system.

===What are moodbars?===
:Moodbars show the mood of a song in the progress bar. For more info
read [[Moodbar|here]].

===Can I play video files?===
:Amarok is mainly a music player so no video file management,
collection support, DVD playback, subtitles, or any other
sophisticated features are available. However, the video applet let's
you play youtube videoclips inside Amarok

===Is it Amarok, AmaroK or amaroK?===
:It is “Amarok”! The former spelling was "amaroK", but it was changed
due to its strange look.

===How are track scores determined?===
:Amarok assigns a score (a number 0-100) to a song based on how many
times you've listened to it and whether you skip the song without it
finishing.  Every time the song finishes playing, the score is
changed.

:Here you have an example script that can calculate scores:

    if( playcount <= 0 ) # not supposed to be less, but what the hell.
        newscore = ( prevscore + percentage ) / 2
    else
        newscore = ( ( prevscore * playcount ) + percentage ) / (
playcount + 1 )
    end


:You can easily create your own script with your own algorithm. Look
at the [[Script-Writing_HowTo_2.0|Script-Writing-Howto]] for further
information.

===How do I manually change a track's score?===
:You may change the score manually in the Edit File Information
dialog, available by right clicking on a track, and choosing the
Statistics' tab.

===But I also want that stars system like in other players!!===
:Amarok, of course, supports an user-defined rating system, and you
can rate your tracks with a single click using the Current track
applet. You can also do this in the Edit file details dialog -->
Statistics tab.

===Can I drag and drop Plasma applets from the main window to the Desktop??===
:No, but there are many Plasmoids available for your Desktop, which
will let you display information provided by Amarok as well as control
Amarok.

===Can I use removable media inside Amarok?===
:Amarok has a greatly improved support for the media devices based on
Solid, the KDE hardware layer, that doesn't need a lot of
configuration. You should be able to just plug in your device and
access it within Amarok. Also, thanks to the Dynamic Collections, your
media devices could become part of your music collection, and be
searchable and accessible within the Collection Browser when it's
connected.
:You can transfer your songs from your local collection by right
clicking --> Copy to collection --> Your device; and you can also do
it in the other way: right click in a song --> Copy to collection -->
Local Collection.

===How can I save a stream?===
:First of all, load the stream into the playlist. There are several
ways to do this: downloading the file, for example from
[http://www.shoutcast.com shoutcast.com], and openning it with Amarok;
 using the menu "Playlist"-->"Add stream"; among others.
:Once the stream is loaded, you can save it by clicking on "Save
current playlist" which is under the Playlist, and giving it a
meaningful name. The Stream will then be added to the "Saved
playlists" view for later reference.

===Can I use the old Amarok's collection in Amarok 2? Will my tags,
score are ratings be lost?===
:A database importer is available. You will be able to keep your
ratings and statistics just fine.

===Where do I find the settings for amarok?===
:`kde4-config --localprefix`/share/apps/amarok

:`kde4-config --localprefix`/share/config/amarokrc

==Troubleshooting==
===How can I obtain a backtrace?===
:If Amarok has crashed and you want to report it, visit the
[[Debugging_(documentation)|Debugging HowTo]]. The bug report must be
sent in http://bugs.kde.org verifying previously if it has already
been reported.

===Amarok just freezes! How can I help get this fixed?===
:You can obtain a backtrace of a frozen instance of Amarok using gdb like so:

 $ gdb -p 'pidof amarok'

 (gdb) thread apply full bt all

:Then just post the backtrace to [http://amarok.pastebin.com/
PasteBin], as described in the [[Debugging_(documentation)|Debugging
HowTo]].

===Collection importer fails with ''''Driver not loaded'''' error ===
:Make sure you have install the Qt4 database backend drivers for your
distribution. On ubuntu, you would install one of the following
packages, depending on your configuration:
* libqt4-sql-sqlite
* libqt4-sql-mysql
* libqt4-sql-psql
:If unsure, install the sqlite binding, as this is the default
configuration of Amarok 1.4.

===Amarok takes a lot of time to start===
:If this happens you have to check what scripts have you installed and
what internet services are running, because some of them may slow down
the startup. Also, if you have streams in the playlist when you open
Amarok, the startup can take a little longer.
:On the other hand, if you don't use KDE, but a different desktop
environment, startup time can be increased very slightly because there
are more libraries to be loaded, although it shouldn't be relevant.

==Development questions==
===How do I get a GIT version of Amarok?===
:[[2.0_Development_HowTo|How to obtain and build Amarok Git]]

===Why isn't Amarok part of KDEmultimedia?===
:The developers don't want ''the man'' telling them when they can
release. (Meaning, packages in KDE proper have a release schedule that
doesn't fit with Amarok's fast-paced development).

===I've found a bug / I've got a great idea for Amarok!===
:Please report it at http://bugs.kde.org, if you have a list of
suggestions/wishes it may be best to send them to our mailing list:
<[mailto:amarok at kde.org amarok at kde.org]>. Simply posting the idea to
our IRC channels or on an obscure wiki page won't help much as the
given information will get lost.

===Do you accept patches?===
:Happily! Your best course of action is to let us know what you plan
to do before you do any work so we can discuss it, but don't fret we
haven't turned down a patch yet! Discussion is mostly to help you
patch the correct bits of Amarok. Then either submit a patch to the
mailing list, or create a Merge Request in gitorious. If you have a
bug fix then just go ahead, this is open source after all :)

===Why did you choose the name Amarok?===
:Amarok is an album by British composer Mike Oldfield. Project founder
Mark Kretschmann happens to like it a lot, and he thought the name's
got a nice
sound. Plus, of course, it contains the all important “K”.. :)