# Basics

Like all &kde; applications, &kplayer; is highly configurable. The default settings have been chosen for optimal performance and maximum compatibility. This chapter describes how &kplayer; behaves with these default settings.

## Starting &kplayer;

There are several ways to start &kplayer;. Which one you use is your personal preference, and may depend on what type of media you are going to play.

- From the &kmenu;, select Multimedia &kplayer;

- Or you can put &kplayer; icon on the desktop or on the &kicker; panel. Then you can left click it to start &kplayer;.

- &Alt;F2 will open a Run Command dialog box, type ``kplayer`` (lower case) and press &Enter; or click the Run button.

- In a terminal program like &konsole; type ``kplayer`` and press &Enter;.

- Depending on the type of content you are going to play, there may be other ways to start &kplayer;. They are described in the sections about playing local files and remote addresses.

## Playing multimedia

&kplayer; can play multimedia from many different sources. In addition to local files, it can play remote network addresses or URLs, various devices like disks and cards, and many other sources like network locations and compressed files using &kde; feature known as I/O Slaves.

### Local files

Use any of the following ways to start playing local files from your hard drive or any other device mounted as a directory on your system.

- When &kplayer; is running, select Library Go Home Directory. &kplayer; will open your home directory in the multimedia library and list any multimedia files you have in it. Then you can select the file or files you want to play or look for multimedia files in other directories.

- The multimedia library allows you to organize your multimedia collection for easier access. For example, once you create some playlists, playing one of them becomes as easy as selecting File Play List and then selecting the playlist name from the submenu.

- If your file does not show up in the library, select File Play..., or click the Play button on the main toolbar. The standard Play files dialog will appear, letting you choose a local file or several files. After you click the Open button or press &Enter;, &kplayer; will put your selection on the current playlist and start playing it.

- &kplayer; is associated with all media file types it can play. If a type has more than one program associated to it, you need to move &kplayer; to the top of the list on the File Associations page in the &konqueror; configuration dialog. Then you can simply execute a media file in &konqueror; File Manager with the left mouse button, and it will open &kplayer; if it is not yet running and start playing the file.

- Right click context menu in &konqueror; File Manager will show the Play command when a multimedia file or files are selected. Selecting the command will open &kplayer;, put all the selected files on the current playlist and play them. You can also right click a directory and play all multimedia files contained in it and in all of its subdirectories.

- You can also drag files and directories from &konqueror; File Manager and drop them on the &kplayer; window. &kplayer; will then put them on the current playlist and start playing them.

- In a terminal program like &konsole; type

  ``kplayer` `filename``

  where `filename` can be an absolute or relative path to the file or directory you want to play, or just the name if the file or directory is in the current directory. You can give multiple file and directory names separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the files and directories to the current playlist and start playing them.

### Remote URLs

Use any of the following ways to start playing a remote file or stream with a remote URL using a network protocol like HTTP, FTP, Samba, MMS, RTSP, PNM, etc.

- Once &kplayer; starts, select File Play URL..., or click the Play URL button on the main toolbar. The standard Play URL dialog will appear, letting you type or paste in a remote URL. After you click the Open button or press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start playing the URL you entered.

- &kplayer; is associated with all media types it can play. If a type has more than one program associated to it, you need to move &kplayer; to the top of the list on the File Associations page in the &konqueror; configuration dialog. Then you can simply left click a link to a media file or stream of that type in &konqueror; Web Browser, and it will open &kplayer; if it is not yet running, put the link on the current playlist and start playing it.

- Sometimes a web page will have a media object embedded in it. If &kplayer; is at the top of the list of programs associated with the media type of the object, when you open the page in &konqueror; Web Browser it will embed &kplayer; into the web page and start playing the media. However, it is recommended that you right click the media object and choose Start &kplayer; so that the full &kplayer; opens up and starts playing the media. This will give you a better interface and more options than an embedded &kplayer;.

- Just like with local files, you can start &kplayer; from a terminal program like &konsole; with the URL you want to play. This is useful for example if you copied the URL to the clipboard in a text editor. In the terminal program type

  ``kplayer` `mediaurl``

  where `mediaurl` can be any of the many URL types &kplayer; supports. You have to give the full URL, and if it has spaces or other special characters in it, you need to enclose the URL in single quotes so your shell does not try to interpret them. You can give multiple URLs separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, put the URLs on the current playlist and start playing them.

- And of course you can keep your favorite multimedia links in the multimedia library and include them on your playlists. Then you can play a playlist by choosing its name from the File Play List submenu.

### Disk and tuner devices

&kplayer; finds any disk and tuner devices you have on your computer and shows them on the File menu and in the Devices section of the multimedia library.

When you insert a disk into a DVD or CD device, &kplayer; finds the titles or tracks on the disk and shows them on the device submenu under the File menu as well as in the multimedia library.

To play the whole disk:

- Select Play Disk from the device submenu under the File menu, or

- Right click the device node in the Devices section of the multimedia library and select Play, or

- Left click the disk icon when it shows in the Devices applet in the &kde; task bar and select Play from the menu, or

- Right click the disk icon when it shows on the desktop and select Play from the menu.

To play a title or track:

- Select the title or track from the device submenu under the File menu, or

- Open the device node in the Devices section of the multimedia library and execute the title or track with the left mouse button or right click it and select Play.

For tuner devices like TV or DVB &kplayer; shows the available channels on the device submenu under the File menu as well as under the device node in the Devices section of the multimedia library.

To play a channel:

- Select the channel from the device submenu under the File menu, or

- Open the device node in the Devices section of the multimedia library and execute the channel with the left mouse button or right click it and select Play.

### &kde; I/O slaves: fish, sftp, webdav, tar, zip, audiocd, etc.

&kde; has a great way to access all kinds of data through a system known as I/O Slaves. They are little programs that let you represent many different sources of data as URL like addresses, and open them in &kde; programs like &konqueror; and &kplayer;. For example you can access a network host over SSH with a URL like `fish:/host/path`, or a zip file with a URL like `zip:/home/cooldude/my.zip`.

So you paste a URL like that in &konqueror; address bar, hit &Enter; and see the data source as if it was a usual file or a directory with files and subdirectories in it. If one of those files happens to be a multimedia file like an MP3 file for example, you can execute it with the left mouse button so that &kplayer; opens up and starts playing the file, just like with plain local files. As usual, for this to work &kplayer; needs to be the top program for that file type on the File Associations page in &konqueror; or &kcontrolcenter;.

Those same URLs will work in the Play files dialog that you get when you select File Play..., or click the Play button in &kplayer;. Or if you have the full URL to the media file itself, like `fish:/host/path/song.mp3` or `zip:/home/cooldude/my.zip/subdir/song.mp3`, you can paste it into the Play URL dialog that you get by selecting File Play URL... or clicking the Play URL button in &kplayer;.

Just like with local files and remote addresses, you can start &kplayer; from a terminal program like &konsole; with the URL you want to play. This is useful for example if you copied the URL to the clipboard in a text editor. In the terminal program type

``kplayer` `mediaurl``

where `mediaurl` can be any of the many URL types &kplayer; supports. You have to give the full URL, and if it has spaces or other special characters in it, you need to enclose the URL in single quotes so your shell does not try to interpret them. You can give multiple URLs separated with spaces. After you press &Enter;, &kplayer; will start if it is not already running, add the URLs to the playlist and start playing them.

## Parts of &kplayer;

Here is a brief look at the main parts of &kplayer; window:

A screenshot of &kplayer;

&kplayer; lets you choose what parts of it you want to be visible and position them exactly where you want. You can use the Settings menu to choose whether to show or hide the menu bar, toolbars, the multimedia library, the message log and the status bar. The title bar as well as the window borders will be hidden when you choose the Full Screen option from the View menu.

### Title bar

Title bar is the strip across the top of &kplayer; window, and operates in the same way as for other &kde; applications. Right click the central portion to bring up the title bar popup menu.

### Menu bar

Menu bar is the strip containing names of drop-down menus. Left click a name to alternately show and hide that menu, or use &Alt;the underlined letter in the name as a hot key, for example &Alt;F to show the File menu. The various menus are described in the Menu bar section of this document.

### Main toolbar

Main toolbar contains buttons for commonly used operations. Left clicking an icon will activate the corresponding action. If you have enabled tooltips in the &kcontrolcenter; Appearance & Themes Style dialog, a brief description of what that icon does will appear when you hover the mouse pointer over it. Some of the main toolbar buttons will pop up slider controls when clicked. The sliders let you change various player controls: sound volume, video contrast, brightness, hue and saturation. The video controls will only be available for video files. See the Toolbars section of this manual for a full description of the buttons and their actions.

### Playlist toolbar

Playlist toolbar shows the multimedia title currently loaded or being played, offers commands to go to the next or previous items on the playlist, and also lets you see the entire playlist that consists of items that are currently being played or have been played recently. If you select a different item from the list, &kplayer; will load and start playing it. The toolbar also contains options to loop and shuffle the playlist. See the Playlist toolbar section of the Command reference chapter of this manual for a full description of the buttons and their actions.

### Video area

Video area is the central part of &kplayer;. When playing a file that has video, it will display the video and optionally subtitles. Normally it will be hidden when playing an audio only file. Right clicking the video area brings up the general popup menu.

### Slider toolbars

Slider toolbars contain a slider and one or more related buttons. The progress and seeking toolbar is shown when the time length of a media file is known. It displays the playback progress and also allows seeking, that is, moving the playback point back and forth within the file. To seek to a specific position, drag the slider thumb to that position with the &LMB;, or simply click at that position with the &MMB;. To move forward or backward in steps, left click the slider to the left or right of the thumb, or click the Forward and Backward buttons.

Other slider toolbars show sliders for volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation. These are the same sliders you get from the pop-up slider buttons on the main toolbar, but they will not disappear when you click elsewhere. The sliders show the current setting and allow you to change it. You can get these toolbars using options on the Settings menu.

### Status bar

Status bar runs across the bottom of the &kplayer; window and shows general information about the player status and progress.

If an error occurs during playback, the left portion of the status bar will show the word Error, and then you can left click it to show the message log and see the error messages.

The middle portion displays the current player state, whether it is Idle, Running, Playing or Paused. The right portion displays the current playback time, as well as the total time if it is known.

### Multimedia library

A screenshot of the multimedia library

Multimedia library allows you to easily access the multimedia available to you from your computer. In the multimedia library window you can browse directories mounted on your system for multimedia files, which include all video, audio and playlist files. A separate section shows your CD and DVD drives, disks you insert in them, titles or tracks on those disks, as well as tuner devices like TV or DVB cards you have on your system and channels available on those devices.

Other sections allow you to organize your multimedia files and links to Internet media in a multimedia collection, create playlists, and view the currently and recently played multimedia. You can use the commands on the Library menu or the right click menu to add entries to the collection and playlists, move them around, and play your selection. Additional commands allow you to show or change various information about the media and its properties.

For details on the available commands and options see the Library menu and the library popup menu sections of this manual. For a detailed description of the multimedia library feature see the Multimedia library micro-HOWTO.

### Message log

A screenshot of the message log

Message log is a window where &kplayer; shows messages it receives from &mplayer; and &kde; I/O Slaves. Right clicking the message log brings up the message log popup menu that allows you to select all messages, copy the current selection or remove all messages.