Special notes with this distribution.

This is the 'slim' distribution of Rotation Song Manager.  It does NOT 
include Visual Basic 6 runtime library (msvbvm60.dll) and the MSFlexGrid 
6.0 and Common Dialog ActiveX components (msflxgrd.ocx and comdlg32.ocx).  
The 'full' distribution can befound at http://mypage.goplay.com/rotation/



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October 2, 2000, rnewsham

License Agreement and Disclaimer:

This product ("Rotation Song Manager") is provided "As Is".  No warrantee 
expressed or implied exists for the software and system that comprises, 
in whole or in part, any distribution of this product.  The author and 
distributor(s) are wholly unresponsible for any damages or liabilities 
resulting from the use of this product.  The product is accompanied by 
no technical support and no rights to updates, upgrades, or expectations 
of current or future functionality or performance.

Usage of this product is to comply with existing law within the jurisdiction 
of its use regarding, but not limited to, copyright of materials viewed 
through this product (i.e. mp3 files listened to) and the copyright of 
this software itself, with all rights reserved by the author.

This product is an original work and is copyrighted by the author.  The 
software and accompanying documentation or other files may NOT be altered 
in any way, under penalty of the law.

This product may be distributed freely, persuant to the conditions that it 
be distributed in whole, as an install program, and including this license, 
and not being altered or abridged.

This product is shareware.  The user has 30 days to evaluate the software, 
at which point the software must be either removed or registered and payment 
sent to the author.

The cost or registration is US$5 per installation.  This product may be 
shared by any number of users on the same computer.  Payment should be 
sent to

	Robert Newsham
	328 Spode Way
	San Jose, CA  95123

By installing and/or using this product, the user agrees to all of the 
conditions above.

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Now with the legal B.S. out of the way, let me say thanks for trying 
this product.  

If you can't send $5, then try to send maybe a buck or two.  And if not 
that, then maybe just send a piece of mail to the address above or email 
to rotation_manager@hotmail.com telling me how this software has changed 
or ruined your life. 

Bugs?  Enhancements?  send to rotation_manager@hotmail.com, with something 
like "BUG: such and such broken" in the subject heading.

-rob

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A description of the product:


I. Overview
The Rotation Manager is a standalone program that works with Winamp (Nullsoft's 
MP3 player for MS Windows) to  organize your audio files by your preferences.
By using a simple feedback mechanism, Rotation lets you listen to your songs 
played in a weighted random rotation.  The feedback you provide is in the form 
of either increasing or decreasing the file's "score".  The score you give a song 
is arbitrary and can correspond to whatever conceptual system you choose;  the 
files' relative scores are used by the Rotation Manager to select songs randomly, 
yet in a way that emphasizes the selections you like more.

The user may set a value, in hours, that limits all songs' play to once in that 
period.



II. Songlists
  A. Overview
Songlists are ordered lists of files in the rotation (not to be confused with 
Winamp's playlists).  Only one songlist is active (loaded) at a time.  You may 
have multiple songlists to correspond to whatever organization and inclusion 
of files that suits you, i.e. themed songlists, songlists of a genre, songlists 
for different users of the same files, etc.  Songlist content is managed 
completely by you, the user.

The contents of the current songlist can be shown or hidden when the user 
selects the Hide/Show List icon in the system tray.  

  B. Adding/removing songs from a songlist.
To add songs to the songlist, right click on the list grid or the systray 
icons, or left click the Mode ("M") icon in the systray, and select Add Files.  
This opens a file dialog, with selectable filters for file extensions.  An 
alternative is to drag and drop files or directories onto the grid.  Dragging 
a directory will recursively add files to the list.  Drag and drop only adds 
files with extensions like mp1, mp2, mp3, wav, mod, it, stm, s3m, 669, and a 
few other supported types, BUT NOT PLAYLIST FILES like m3u or pls.

To delete a file (or files), select the file(s) from the grid and press the 
delete key.  The grid only supports contiguous range multi-selects.



III. Preferences
  A.  Add on +, Add on -.  
This feature tells the Rotation Manager to add the song being currently played 
by winamp to the current songlist if that song is not currently in the list.

  B.  Winamp directory 
The winamp directory is the directory where the winamp.exe executable and the 
winamp playlist winamp.m3u can be found.  You may type in the location of the 
winamp directory or choose from the Browse dialog.



IV. Providing feedback.  
  A. Systray Icons
The + and - icons will increment or decrement by 1 the current song 
selected/being played by the winamp executable, if any.  Clicking on these 
icons doesn't trigger a sound or anything, so you'll just have to trust that 
something happened.  Will likely add something in the future.

  B. Increment and Decrement buttons on the Songlist dialog
The increment and decrement buttons on the songlist dialog, unlike the systray 
icons, increment or decrement the song(s) that are SELECTED in the grid.  
You can also use the - and + keys (_ is a synonym for - as = is for +) to 
achieve the same results.



V.  Modes
  A. Non-mode play
The simplest way to play a song is non-mode.  A song in the songlist may be 
double clicked or selected prior to hitting the Enter key to play that song 
in winamp.

  B. Random mode
If random mode (All or Top 20) is selected from the Mode menu, songs will be 
chosen in a weighted random fashion (from the entire list or only the top 20 
items).  Pressing the Skip (->) icon in the systray or pressing stop in the 
winamp interface will skip to the next random song.  To stop random playback, 
select Stop Winamp from the Mode menu.

Clicking the Next icon when no mode is playing will begin the random mode, 
selecting from the entire playlist.

  C. Ordered modes, countdown and countup
Countdown and Countup are ordered (non-random) modes supported by Rotation.  
Songs in the range chosen (All or Top 20) are played in order, either 
ascending or descending.  The Skip icon can be used with these modes.

  D. To playlist
While the above modes play songs one-by-one (the winamp playlist will only 
show the current song, with no indication of the next song), the user can 
also have Rotation post song files to the winamp playlist.  Both the random 
and ordered modes are available.  This feature can be used to generate a 
playlist that can be saved or navigated through within the winamp interface.



VI. Songlist management
Users do not have to save their current songlist.  Any add or delete operations, 
or changes in song scores, automatically save the current songlist.

The Mode menu has a submenu of functions that allow the user to create and use 
multiple songlist files.  These functions can save the current songlist as 
another songlist (creating a new songlist with the same contents, and 
switching to that songlist), create a blank new songlist, and open an 
existing songlist.


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Revision log:

v1.0, 09/25/2000 - Brand spankin' new.


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Bugs/Enhancement requests:

10/1/2000 - ENHANCE: give user feedback when + or - icons in the systray 
	are pressed.