Amarok
From Mandriva Community Wiki
Amarok is a music management application for KDE which seems on its way to becoming (is already?) a standard. Amarok is a complete music management solution which enables you to listen to your music (in a variety of formats: mp3, ogg, flac, wav, etc.) as well as organize your collection, publish tag (information) files, access album artwork and information on the Internet, listen to radio streams, catch podcasts, synchronize your personal music player, and more. Users may also access scripts and plugins on the kde-apps.org site to extend the functionality of Amarok.
To install amarok, launch  Install and Remove Software and search for the package amarok .
Select it and click on Apply. Help - Package page on Doc4Mandriva
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Interface
Amarok under KDE4 (in French):
Here is a screen capture of Amarok under Mandriva Linux with KDE3.5:
Organization of the interface
- (1) Volume Control. Click directly on the slider to set volume or roll the mouse wheel while hovering over the slider to select the volume. One may also click and drag the volume indicator or roll the mouse wheel while hovering the pointer over the Amarok icon in the system notification area (tray).
- (2) Progress indicator. Displays progress of the track in play. Click and drag the indicator to jump to a point in the track.
- (3) Repeat and Randomization selector. Click on the circular icon to cycle through repeat track, album, or playlist. Click right or left on the die icon to randomize tracks, randomize albums, or randomize nothing.
- (4) Play, Pause, Stop, Jump forward or back.
- (5) Browser Tabs. Select to view Context, Collection, Playlists, Files, the Magnatune store, or connected devices. Right click on these tabs for a context menu to show or hide individual tabs.
- (6) These tabs are visible in Context mode only. The tabs allow access to information about the music queued to play including album art from Amazon.com, information about the artist and album from Wikipedia, as well as lyrics.
- (7) Playlist management. Clear or save the current playlist, undo and redo buttons.
OSD (On Screen Display)
The OSD makes it possible to post information, such as changes of volume or tracks, over the other windows within a frame located in a corner of the screen. To configure it, click Settings - > Configure Amarok… - > OSD. It posts an outline of the OSD which can be dragged to the desired display position. Then, the text to be displayed in the OSD, as well as the duration of display, may be configured.
Here an example of window OSD during a change of track:
During a change of volume:
To change the appearance of Amarok
To change the appearance of the program, click on Settings - > Configure Amarok. - > Appearance. Here, the user can configure the custom icon set, fonts, color scheme settings, and context browser style. You will find many styles on kde-look.org.
To configure the shortcuts
Amarok uses keyboard shortcuts like most other applications. The global shortcuts can be configured by right clicking the Player window and selecting Configure Global Shortcuts... The Amarok shortcuts can be configured by right clicking the Player window and selecting Configure Shortcuts...
You can assign your multimedia keys to work as Amarok shortcuts making your keyboard an Amarok control center.
Using the Amarok Icon
When Amarok is minimized to the taskbar, it is possible to control it by using the icon with your mouse. You can:
- left click: open/iconify the interface
- middle click: will pause or play the current selection
- right click: access to the context menu (play, pause, jump ahead, jump back,…)
- Scrolling the mouse scroll wheel up/down: increases/decreases volume
- Control + scroll wheel up/down: Select previous/next the song in the playlist
- Shift + scroll wheel up/down: skip forward/back in the current track
Lastly, it is possible to drop music files directly on the Amarok icon to add them to the playlist.
To manage the collection
To create a collection
To select the files with the scanner to create the collection, click on Configuration - > Configure Amarok. - > Collection, then select the directory to be scanned (The collection file will be saved in /home/<your_user/.kde/share/apps/amarok/collection.db). Check the Scan Folders Recursively to add files in subdirectories under the directory you set. The Watch Folders for Changes option makes it possible to update the collection automatically when music is added or deleted.
For Very Large Collection
The Database selection should probably be kept at its default (SQlite) unless you know what you're doing. By default, Amarok uses a SQLite database to manage your collection. It is simple to configure (there is nothing to make) but less powerful than MySQL for large collections. If your collection is very large, it may be better to use a MySQL database. Here is some information on how to set that up:
Install the MySQL server
Users are strongly advised to see this page for details about installing and configuring MySQL under Mandriva.
Install MySQLwith drakrpm or with urpmi:
It will start automatically when the system is restarted. You can check it by looking at 
drakconf -> System > Manage system services by enabling or disabling them.
Configure the MySQL server
Launch mysql in a console:
Then as indicated, configure (make safe) mysql:
and follow the instructions.
If you encounter problems creating this database, consult the Mandriva Forum.
Create the Amarok database
You connect to the MySQL console by using the user root and the password entered previously, then create a database named "amarok", and a user amarok having all the rights on the amarok basis. For that, type in a console as root (one line at a time!):
mysql - p - U root CREATE DATABASE amarok; USE mysql; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ONE amarok.* TO amarok@localhost IDENTIFIED BY “xxxxxxx”; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; quit
Replace xxxxxxx with the password of your choice, which will be required by Amarok below.
To configure Amarok to use MySQL
In Configuration → configure Amarok → Collection, choose MySQL in the list database, specify the user amarok and enter the password chosen above.
Then click on Tools → Rescan Collection, or restart Amarok to (Re) build the collection and populate the database.
The efficiency of MySQL compared to SQLite with a large collection is notable.
Managing Playlists
To Create A New Playlist and Save It
To go in the Collection tab, then right click on a track or a “file”, and select "Append to Playlist". The track(s) selected (S) will appear in the list on the right of the screen. To save this list, click above the list, on the "Save Playlist As" button which looks a little like a diskette. You can then choose a name to save it to.
To Open A Saved Playlist
Click on the PLaylist tab on the left margin of the window, then expand the list which you wish to open, click and drag the playlist into the main Amarok window.
To Download Album Art
As you build your musical collection, you may want to associate music with its album art. Amarok has the ability to do this. Click on Tools then on Cover Manager. With this tool, you can either attach music to an album cover present on your computer or download the album art from Amazon.com. If you choose this method, choose the International localization for Amazon, then click on Fetch Mising Covers. Amarok then will download all the known album covers and will save the images in the various files contained in /home/<user>/.kde/share/apps/amarok/albumcovers/. The covers are not saved in the same directory as your music. You are likely to lose all your artwork if you have to format your partition containing /home.
To Save Your Album Covers in the Same Directory as Your Music
There is a method to save the covers in the same place as the music files. To use this method, it is necessary for each album to reside in a different directory. Open Amarok and enter in the playlist at least one song from each album which you want to associate with a cover (you can list all the songs from teh album, it will be just take longer). Then open a console and type the following code:
All you need do then is to launch the list.
This process can take a relatively long time if the number of covers to be transferred is substantial.
Synchronizing a Portable Media Player
A wide variety of personal music players are available today: Amarok is able to synchronize the music files from your collection with these personal music players. You can of course synchronize various file formats. To authorize the types of desired formats, it is necessary to open the configuration of the peripheral and add the desired format.
There may be a bug in Amarok, which adds an ampersand character (“&”) in front of the format and this format is then ignored. It is necessary to modify the amarokrc file in the directory ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc. In the section [MediaDevice_manual], find the line supportedFiletypes and you remove the "&" in front of the format of file. Amarok can now transfer your format.
You can find your personal music player by opening the Devices tab located on the far left-hand side of the window (if you do not find the tab, look at the #Interface part).
If Amarok posts a message saying that the device is not attached, you can try to open the device with your file manager, like Konqueror, and retry the operation.
You can then copy the files from the collection or one of the playlists, by right clicking on a file, and selecting Transfer to the device from media, then, in the Devices tab while clicking on Transfer.
Connecting an iPod
Complete instructions are available on the amarok.kde.org wiki.
According to the official site, Amarok can manage all models of iPod, except the iPod Touch, which it manages only partially. The iPhone is not supported as of this writing.
Amarok uses libgpod to manage the iPod. This program is in the dependencies of Amarok, and should already be installed.
To connect your iPod, plug in the appropriate ends of the cable, then in Amaroke click Settings -> Configure Amarok… -> Media Devices. Then select Details (Made out: IPOD), to find the peripheral corresponding to the iPod. Then select Plugin -> Media Device Apple iPod. Click Ok. You can now follow the preceding method to transfer files to it.
Known problems
If your iPod was initialized on a Macintosh computer, Amarok will indicate something like “Media Device: Failure of the installation of the socket for Ipod connected on /media/iPod: Accessing filesystem in read only mode.” To solve this problem, it is necessary to have access to a Macintosh. Connect the iPod to the Mac, open the terminal (Terminal.app), then enter the following:
This disables iPod file system journaling which is the root of the problem in this case. The "/Volumes/iPod" statement indicates where the iPod is connected. You can check that it is correct:
Apple seems to have a knack for making changes to their devices which break the Linux programs used to connect them. Consult the Amarok Wiki for more information about connecting Apple devices and a list of currently supported devices.
To Catch a Podcast
To find the address of the podcast
1. To copy the address of the podcast
Often indicated by a small podcast logo on pages Internet.
Example:
Right-click on the podcast logo in your web browser and click "Copy link location".
http://radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast/rss_123456.xml
2. To place the address of the podcast in Amarok
To enter the address in Amarok
- Open Amarok and click on “Playlists” on the left
- In the Playlist panel click “Podcasts”
- Click the “Adding” button in the toolbar and click "Podcast"
- Enter the address of the podcast in the field which appears
To enter the address of the podcast in Amarok
3. Amarok schedules episodes
Amarok schedules last episodes of the podcast available for download.
It is usually quick (a few seconds). If not it is probably because the server is overloaded: Try again later.
4. To listen to the podcast
Click on the podcast's name in Amarok (if necessary, press the button “Play”).
Right click on the podcast's name to configure Amarok to download automatically and play or save the cast, etc.
To listen to the podcast
5. To record the podcast locally
In the left window Playlist, right-click on the podcast which interests you and load media.
Plugins and Scripts
To add scripts in Amarok, you can install the amarok-scripts [aclage. Scripts are managed via Tools -> Script Manager. Other scripts are available by clicking on "Get More Scripts".
For example, the Lyric script manages the recovery of song lyrics on Internet and TransKode allows the easy encoding of audio files.
To see the files .m4a with Amarok
(Subject tackled on the forum)
First, it is necessary to configure PLF repositories, then to install packages for libquicktime-faad, xine-faad and libfaad2_0 (or packages for libquicktime-faad, xine-faad and lib64faad2_0 if you use a 64-bit version), for example withdrakrpm (see Installer and to remove software).To Control Amarok With Your Multimedia Keys
Many keyboards have multimedia keys. It is possible to control Amarok using those keys. To do so, open KControl Center, then click on Keyboard & Mouse. Select Global Keyboard Shortcuts and choose Amarok for the parameter KDE Component. You can now assign a particular key for an action of Amarok (play/pause, stop, following track, preceding track).
