# Neformal Manual

## Table of content

Introduction
Interface
File
View
Functions
Effects
Tune
Notes
Other author's projects

### Introduction

Neformal uses Phonon sound engine to play music. Phonon utilize the power of other sound subsystems such as Gstreamer, Xine, Direct Show etc. The support of audio formats is purely depended on back-end capabilities. To add new codecs to Gstreamer or Xine backends you need to install Gstreamer or Xine plugins. To get the Ogg and Flac support at Windows, download and install the DirectShow filters from http://xiph.org/dshow.

If you have some codec installed, but Neformal refuses to playback files for this codec, use Help > MIME types unknown by Neformal and get the list of MIME types. You can send this list to me (I'll include its data to the next Neformal release), or use it in the MIME-customization file mime.txt. You can create mime.txt at the $HOME/.config/neformal (*nix) or $drive:\Documents and Settings/$username/neformal (Windows) directory. mime.txt must contain lines with the format key=value, where key is a file extension, and value is a MIME type. For example:

    foo=audio/foo-format
    bar=audio/bar-format

### Interface

Neformal is simple. No any playlist, no any collection. Just the file browser and few controls and buttons. To play a file, just double click on it or press Enter. The playing is starting, then Neformal find next playable file at the current directory and play it, and acts like this until the reaching the end of the files list.

You also can open the images and text files in the built-in viewers. Yes, the double click or the Enter key. To navigate through the images at the current directory (with the Image viewer), use Space, PageUp/Down, Home and End keys. Rotate the current image with [ and ] keys. The rotation is virtual, without the changing of a file. To scale, use + and - keys.

At the right of the player's file list you see the Bookmarks panel. Use it for the fast access to favourite directories.

By the way, to navigate quickly to some directory, you can put the path into the directory input field and press Enter.

### File menu

Refresh current directory - Neformal cannot update the file list automatically, so if the directory content was changed, update it manually.

### View menu

Charset - it show a window with the list of available charsets. Select the charset by the double click. The window shall disappear. The selected charset is used at the MP3 tag encoding and with the text files viewing.

Previous charset - set the previous charset as a current one. It is useful when you use two charsets often and need a fast way to switch them.

### Functions menu

Song lyrics - tries to show song lyrics from lyricwiki.org.

File information - shows the information about a selected file (tags data, etc). For the 16 bit PCM WAV's it calculates the RMS value (for the both channels at once).

### Effects

Effects - some backends support the audio-processing effects. You can choose them at the Tune page. To add a new effect into the processing chain, use the "+" button below the effects list. To remove the effect, select it and press the "-" button. You can edit effect parameters by double clicking on the effect name. The effect UI don't have a fancy knobs, but it quite useful.

For example, GStreamer has several effects including the 10-band equalizer. Here is a description of its parameters:

band | Frequency
--- | ---
band0 | 29 Hz
band1 | 59 Hz
band2 | 119 Hz
band3 | 227 Hz
band4 | 474 Hz
band5 | 947 Hz
band6 | 1889 Hz
band7 | 3770 Hz
band8 | 3770 Hz
band9 | 15011 Hz

Each frequency band can hold a gain ranging from -24 dB to +12 dB.

Use the Save as button (under the effects list) to save current settings as a named preset. The presets are available at the Fx presets menu. To apply the preset, select it from the menu. The effects and their parameters from the preset replaces the current effects chain. If you want to change the preset content, do your changes with the current fx chain, and then use Save as button to overwrite the existing preset.

Thus, if you want to make, for example, some EQ preset, you need to add the equalizer into the effect chain, change some parameters at the effect editor (double click on the effect name) and then save the current fx chain as the preset.

When you switch to another backend, the fx chains from previous backend is not vaild and Neformal ignores them. Direct Show plugins currently are not supported.

### Tune

Prefere id3v1 over id3v2 - some MP3-files have two tags - id3v1 and id3v2. By default, Neformal trying to read the id3v2 first and, and, if it fails, reads the old-fashioned id3v1 tag. With this option you can redefine this behavior to read the id3v1 tag first and, if it fails, read the id2v2.

Audio output device - use this list to select a preferred output device.

Do not play next file - if checked, Neformal does not play the next song after the current one is over. It is useful when you are using Neformal as a handy "File open" window for some sound editor.

### Notes

### Natural 44.1 sample rate

Some sound cards (for example, pro- and semi-pro cards from M-Audio and even some cheap CMedia-based devices) have a brilliant ability to play 44.1 kHz sound in a natural way. But ALSA by default resamples all playing data to 48 kHz. There is a way to avoid this.

First of all, turn off all additional stuff like Pulse audio. Then create the file .asoundrc at your $HOME directory and add to that file a following text:

    pcm.44 {
            type plug

            slave {
                   pcm "hw:0,0"
                   rate 44100
                  }

            hint {
                  show on
                  description "pcm.44"
                 }
           }

In a such way we created a new, custom ALSA device pcm.44 that has a properties those we need. Using other player like Audacious, you can set this device directly at the output module options. In Neformal, use the Audio output device at the Tune tab page. If there are no pcm.44 device, just restart Neformal and look again. In some cases you need to restart a whole KDE.

For other Phonon-based players you need to set the output device for the Phonon in a some sort of system-wide way. Go to the KDE4 control centre and open there the Sound System Configuration or Multimedia page. There are the Audio Output list. Choose there a Music item and set to this item a corresponding device. In our case it will be pcm.44 - move it to the top of the available devices list. Apply. UI setting may very from one KDE release to another.

### Licensing

This manual and all Neformal media stuff (icons, images, etc) is the public domain. Neformal source code is licensed under GPL v3.

### Other author's projects

TEA - the legendary multi-platform text editor.

My home page with the prose and other things.

Atomnaya Smena - my one-person music project. Rock/Indietronica/Symphonic/Psytrance. All music is in the public domain.

Nesmeyana - the band where I am one of the members. All music is in the public domain.

Kostny Mozg - the indie/hip-hop/techno band, where I am one of the members. Public domain and Artistic License.

Roxtonegen - MIDP 2 (Java ME) midlet for the guitar tuning via Java-powered cellphone. Public domain.

Drymba studio - the indie film studio that make ultra-low-budget movies and clay/3D cartoons. I'm one of the creators. Public domain.