Revision as of 01:51, 16 August 2010

Congratulations on installing Amarok, the most advanced music discovery software available. Amarok will help you explore your music, and enjoy it as never before. Also, you can tour different sources of music, radio stations and audio books online. In this guide, we'll show you how to let Amarok find your collection, play it for you, and also how to use Amarok to find things online. We'll assume that you know nothing about Amarok, but do know how to use menus, a mouse, and your keyboard.

Starting Amarok

To start Amarok, either:

In the KDE menu -> Multimedia section, click on the Amarok entry
Using Krunner: type Alt+F2 and type amarok

The first time you use Amarok, a First Start User interface will come up asking you to specify where your Music is located. The default location is $HOME/Music.

If you select "No" in this dialog, you will be presented with another one which allows you to select your music folder:

See #Telling_Amarok_where_your_music_files_are_located

Once you have selected the folder where your music is, Amarok will scan the folder and sub-folders, creating the collection. Depending on the amount of tracks and the speed of the location this can take some time.

Closing Amarok

If you want to close Amarok:

Type Ctrl+Q when you are in the Amarok window, or
Select the "Quit" option in the "Amarok menu, or
Right-click on the blue wolf icon in the System Tray at the bottom of your screen. You will be presented with the following:

If you close the Amarok window by clicking on the window, Amarok will continue to run in the background and only show the blue wolf icon in the System Tray:

If you log out of your session or shut down your computer without quitting Amarok, some of your settings will not be saved.

The Amarok window

The Amarok window is the default User interface designed to let you rediscover your music. In addition, it is also designed to give you as much visual information about your music as possible. While many users will find the default layout suitable for their needs, the layout is fully customizable if you prefer another layout.

Default layout of the Amarok window

Upon installation, Amarok will look like this

The Amarok window has four main components:

right under the top-level menus is the Toolbar that lies above three panes:
your Media Sources (music collection and other media) in the left pane,
the Context pane in the center, and
the Playlist in the right-hand pane

Using the Amarok window to manage and play your music

Playing music using Amarok usually takes two steps:

Create a playlist by selecting some of the music in your collection you wish to listen to in the Playlist pane.
Play the music in your playlist, using the Playlist pane and/or the Toolbar.

Additionally, you may wish to transfer some of your music to a mobile music player, such as an iPod.

The following sections will help you with these tasks.

Creating and manipulating your music Collection

The Media Sources pane

The Media Sources pane is the place where you browse and display your total collection of music. This includes the tracks on your local hard disk, as well as those on any external devices or media connected to your computer, e.g. audio CD, USB devices, media players, network disks or Internet sources.

Telling Amarok where your music files are located

Do you have music tracks in mp3, ogg or FLAC form on your computer? The first thing you will want to do is tell Amarok where to find those files, so it can begin creating your collection. Click Settings in the top-level menu, and choose Configure Amarok, then Collection.

A tree-view of your Home directory is shown (see image above). Click the checkbox where your music is stored; usually ~/Music. Then click 'Fully Rescan Entire Collection'. This will take some time, so don't be alarmed if Amarok seems slow for a while. Once the scan is complete, it's best to quit Amarok using the top-level Amarok menu, or Control-Q, and then restart it. Now you should see your collection in the left pane. You newly added music should show up under the Local Collection.

Adding external media devices to your Collection

Underneath the search bar near the top of the Media Sources pane you see the different devices and/or content categories within the Content Browser. If you insert an Audio CD in the CD drive it will appear in the Media Sources pane, along with Media Players, thumb drives, and other USB devices. After an external device has been mounted, it should show automatically within the Media Sources pane. You do not need to go through any additional actions to see the external devices in your Media Sources pane, as long as they have been successfully mounted by your computer. Below is a screenshot showing three connected sources with music: Audio CD, mp3 player, and the Local Collection.

Ripping a CD into your collection

If you don't have any music files on your computer, it's easy to "rip" them (copy the tracks from your CDs to your collection). Just pop in a CD, and right-click on the banner of the CD device in the Content Browser to play, or copy to your collection, which will rip and "tag" your tracks (see image below). If you copy music from an audio CD to your Local Collection, the message bar at the bottom of the Amarok screen will indicate that it is busy copying. The ripping may take several minutes. Once the rip is complete, the message in the message bar disappears and the music appears in the content browser of your Local Collection. If the ripped music does not appear in your Media Sources pane it's best to quit Amarok from the Amarok top-level menu, or Control-Q, and then restart it. Now you should see your collection in the left pane (Media Sources). The screenshot below shows how you move tracks from your audio CD, iPod or other device to your collection, using the right-click menu.

File:AmarokripCD.png

In the above context menu, you can also see the the choice to Edit Track Details. Use this option if you have a track that needs a tag edited. This becomes important when you rip music to .WAV format, losing some of the tags. If quite a bit of your collection needs tagging, consider dedicated tagging software, such as

Correct tagging is important to help Amarok show your tracks in the appropriate albums and in the appropriate sort order.

Accessing other media sources: Internet stores, podcasts, etc

You might have wondered why the Media Sources pane is not simply called the 'Collections pane'. The reason is that Amarok gives you access to much more music than what is in your collection. Listen to content on Internet shops, books, podcasts, music files stored in arbitrary places outside your collection and previously stored playlists. The Amarok file system is the key to all of this. The starting icon for accessing the file file system is via the blue home folder icon at the extreme top left of the Media Sources pane. This icon expands and contracts as you browse through the Amarok file system. We call this Breadcrumb bar (indicated in the image below), allowing you to easily navigate the file structure of your Amarok by clicking the folder in the breadcrumb bar you wish to access.

If you click the Amarok home folder you see the Media Sources pane on the left below, containing icons to the various available resources. If you clicked on the Files icon (second from bottom, image below), you might see something similar to the image on the right, below. Notice how the breadcrumb bar expands and how the content of the folder you have selected is shown in the Media Sources pane (image on right, below). Clicking the '>' symbols among the breadcrumbs allows one to view the folders that are available at that level of the folder structure. This facility allows you to access music at any arbitrary place in your file system other than the places that Amarok scans to create your Local Collection.

The Internet category above lets you browse through some of the online services, such as Magnatune.com, Jamendo.org, Last.fm and many others. To use these services, return to Settings > Configure Amarok > Internet Services to enable the services you want. For Last.fm "scrobbling", enter your account information. If you want to use Last.fm streams, you'll need a paid account.

The functions of the icons in the Amarok Home folder (see the image on the left above) are as follows:

Icon	Action
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_20d7382gdh_b>	This icon provides access to your Amarok collection that has already been defined above, probably the main source of your music.
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_21cb7b6hdq_b>	Click here for access to the available Internet shops such as Magnatune, Jamendo and Last.fm. You may first require access rights to the shop you wish to visit. Therefore, before you use this option, ensure that you have configured your internet resources by clicking: Settings > Configure Amarok > Internet Services
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_22g4trj8hj_b>	This icon gives access to any predefined playlists that you have saved and that you wish to recall or use again. Playlists are described and discussed below. It also gives access to playlists on iPods or similar devices.
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_23pb7vf9gx_b>	Click here for access to the file system of your computer. You may browse the file system in an unrestricted way.
><img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_24fmnbt8fh_b>	This icon allows access to Podcasts via RSS feed.

Clicking the Local Music icon above or on the Local Music folder in the Breadcrumbs bar returns you to your collection, showing you a list of all the available resources, artists, albums and tracks that you have previously defined as part of your collection. The Breadcrumbs bar indicates that you are viewing your Local Music.

Manipulating your collection using the Content Browser

The hard disk of your computer, audio CDs, external devices and the Internet are the basic resources for defining your collection. After your collection has been compiled it is likely that your collection will comprise a large number of albums and tracks, much more than can be shown on a single screen. It is therefore necessary to adjust the display of your collection in such a way so as to maximise the efficiency of access. Amarok provides this ability, as follows:

Hiding or expanding information in the Content Browser

The area of the Media Sources pane below the search bar is called the Content Browser. Three media sources are indicated in the image of a Content Browser below: CD, iPod and Local Collection. Clicking the banner for a device (e.g. the blue bar for Audio CD above) shows or hides the content of that device. The direction of the green arrow on the right indicates whether the contents for that device is hidden or shown. The content on a particular device can, in turn, be hidden or shown using the same principle, i.e. clicking on the appropriate artist or album. A '-' symbol on the left of an artist or an album indicates that the contents has been expanded. A '+' symbol indicates more contents for that category is available, that is, it is currently hidden. In the image below, the information for Beethoven has been expanded, indicating the individual tracks. On the other hand, the albums and tracks for Jacques Brel are hidden. The information for music on the iPod device is hidden, whereas the artists on the CD are shown, but the different tracks on the CD are hidden. By clicking these '+' or '-' symbols you also can expand or hide information.

Changing the order of tracks and albums in your collection

The order in which tracks are sorted in the Content Browser can be customised by using the Sort Options button at the top of the Media Sources pane:

The sort order is indicated on the top left of the Media Sources pane, just below the Search text box. The default order is Artist / Year - Album. The display order of the content Browser can be temporarily switched between the user-defined sort order (described under the previous heading) and a Merged view in which which artists are listed alphabetically, irrespective of the media where the music is stored. This is achieved by clicking the arrow to the right of the sort order indication or by clicking the Merge icon at the top righthand of the Media Sources pane:

To search your collection, simply type your search term into the search bar at the top of the Local Music section. Not only can you search by artist, album or track name, but any part. You might created a nice playlist by searching for 'winter', for instance, or merely find a track when you only remember one word of the title. You can also search by rating, playcount, even filetype. See [Amarok Insider Issue 14] for more detail.

Deleting items from your collection

You can delete any item from you collection by right-clicking on it an choosing the bottom item "Delete Tracks". A confirmation panel will appear, preventing the inadvertent deletion of any tracks. More than one item can be selected with Ctrl-click. Naturally the deletion of tracks is not possible for an audio CD.

Playlists

The Playlist pane

Having created a collection of music, you will wish to listen to it. In order to do this you need to create a Playlist containing the selection of tracks you wish to listen to. The playlist is created in the Playlist Pane. This is where you play your music, streams, or podcasts. You can sort your playlist by title, by album, by artist and by genre and many others. For instance you can sort your tracks by year first, then by artist and so on.

The search box lets you search or filter your tracks in a way that you can choose only to listen to tracks that, for instance, contains the letters “red”. The two big grey arrows at the top of the Playlist pane lets you skip to the next or previous track containing the letters you have chosen. The wrench to the right lets you filter your tracks by artist, album, etc. The layout of the Playlist pane can be changed through the top-level Amarok menu: click Playlist > Playlist Layouts.

Adding music to a playlist

There are four ways to add music to the playlist in the Playlist pane.

Choose some of your music in the Content Browser, and drag it to the right. If you drag it over the Context pane you'll see the "Pop-up Dropper," aka PUD. The image below shows PUD in action. The red arrow indicates a musician that is being dragged from the Collection onto the Context pane in the central part of the Amarok screen. PUD provides three options: Add to Playlist, Replace Playlist, and More.... The option highlighted in a grey area ("Add to Playlist" in this image) is the active one. Dropping the album there adds it to the playlist in the Playlist pane. Choose one of the other options to do something else with your selection. Dragging it over More.. brings up a new menu of choices in PUD.(here goes image)

Drag your selection all the way onto the Playlist pane on the righthand side of the Amarok screen.
Double-click the album/track you wish to transfer to the Playlist.
Right-click the album or track. In your right-click menu, you'll find similar choices. The image below shows the popup menu that appears after an item (1993 - Beethoven in this case) has been right-clicked. Click "Add to Playlist".

Using the Toolbar to play tracks in the Playlist

The toolbar at the top of the Amarok screen provides a simple interface to control the playing of music in the Playlist. Click the round icon on the left to start your music playing, and click it again to pause. On the right is the volume and mute control: click on the centre of the icon to mute. Use your mouse scroll wheel to control the volume, or drag/click your mouse on the outside ring of the volume icon. Once a track or stream begins to play, the (artist)/(album name)/(track title) slowly alternates in bold in the center. On the right is the next track, which you can click to start it playing immediately. Once a track has played it will be on the left, so you can click on the title to go back to it. The progress bar in the middle of the toolbar indicates the time elapsed (left hand) and time remaining (right hand) for the track that is currently playing. If you'd rather see a more traditional toolbar, you can select Slim Toolbar from the View top-level menu.

Manipulating playlists

The most important manipulation you will probably perform on your playlist is to delete albums or tracks, to rearrange the displayed items for each track or to rearrange the display order of tracks.

Removing a track from your playlist

You can remove any track or album from your playlist in one of two ways:

Right-click on the item in the playlist and choose the option "Remove from playlist".
Drag the item to be deleted over the Context pane to activate PUD. Several options will appear over the Context pane. Drag the item to the area marked "Delete from playlist". See the image below that shows a track being dragged onto the Remove option in PUD.

You can undo your delete by pressing control-Z or by clicking the appropriate arrow in the Playlist Toolbar at the bottom of the Playlist pane (see below).

Using the Playlist toolbar at the bottom of the Playlist pane

At the bottom of the Playlist pane are six icons, depicted below:

Icon	Action
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_0cg7rn5jh_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Clear the playlist of all albums and tracks
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_1f5z9rnfd_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Save your playlist. If you do not rename it, it defaults to the date as a name.
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_2fr7cr4gf_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Undo your last edit to the playlist
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_3f3gfffgt_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Redo your last undo to the playlist
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_4c9phs9gj_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Highlight the track that is currently playing. Useful if you have a very long playlist
<img src="File?id=ddx3z95p_6hs3tqvc2_b" style="height:32px;width:32px">	Set the play mode: repeat tracks, random order, prefer rarely played, etc

These buttons provide convenient alternatives to several keyboard actions.

Saving and retrieving your favourite playlists

The diskette icon (shown in the table above), visible at the bottom of your Playlist pane, allows you to save the current Amarok playlist. This enables you to recall a particular selection of music from your collection at any time. Playlists only contain pointers to the music you selected, not the music itself. Music on external devices are therefore dependent on these devices being connected and mounted, otherwise the music itself cannot be accessed. The home folder of the Amarok file system has a Playlists option (see the section above: Accessing other media sources: Internet stores, podcasts, etc., containing a table of the options in the Amarok home folder). There are three places to store playlists:

outside Amarok on your computer file system,
in your Amarok playlist database
on an external media device, e.g. an iPod.

Clicking the diskette icon at the bottom of the Playlist pane stores your playlist in the Amarok playlist database. By default, your saved playlist has a name composed of the date and time when you saved it (see image below). By right-clicking the playlist name, you can rename it to something that is more understandable to you. Right-clicking on a playlist name also allows you to add it to your existing playlist in the Playlist pane, or to replace your existing playlist. This is the mechanism that allows you to recall any of your saved playlists. Playlists on an external media device are discussed below (see: Working with external media devices).

Context

The power of Amarok is in the Context pane (in the centre of the default Amarok window), where you can install any of a range of display options to help you enjoy and explore your music. Most of this additional information is obtained from the Internet, so a suitable connection is important to get the most out of your Context pane.

The layout of the default Context pane

The default Context pane searches for the lyrics of the song you are playing. If it finds the lyrics, it displays this in the bottom half of the Context pane, the top banner of the Context pane containing the Album cover and track information for the current music. The lyrics is not always available, because they may not be stored in an appropriate resource on the Internet. In addition, the track information for the current track needs to be stored (tagged) correctly for the lyrics to be found. Common problems are an inappropriate numbering system of the tracks within the same album and the presentation of unusual text, for instance when the title of a track should contain characters with a circumflex, cedille or accent (ê,ç,à).

How to customise your Context pane

At the bottom of the context pane are three buttons. They allow you to display different types of information in the Context pane, different from the default lyrics. You can install individual favourites or remove them with a click on the wrench at the bottom right. You'll see those you have installed all lined up with an X - click that to remove. Click the green + to add more display options (see image below). Drag the labeled buttons to re-order what you have, and click the wrench again to try out your selections. This makes the context pane extremely flexible, maximising the possibility of a custom display that fits your preferences.

Customizing your Amarok: using the View menu

The visibility of each of the three Amarok panes is indicated in the View menu bar (part of the top-level menu, shown below). At the top right-hand of each pane are two clickable boxes, indicated with blue arrows in the image below. These two boxes allow you to rearrange or customize the layout of your Amarok window. Clicking the X closes that particular pane. Having been closed, a pane can be activated again by clicking the appropriate radio button in the View top-level menu bar. Clicking the hollow symbol on the left of the cross causes that panel to be undocked, so it will appear as a separate window on your desktop. Repeating this action on the undocked pane will dock it again inside your Amarok window. You can drag the panes inside your Amarok window, thus reordering them. You can also choose between two layouts of the Toolbar by clicking the appropriate item in the View menu bar. If you are satisfied with the layout inside your Amarok window, you can lock this layout by clicking the appropriate item in the View menu bar. You may stack the panes, or even put one or two of them covering the others, selectable by tabs.

Working with external media devices

One of the important functionalities for a music manager such as Amarok is to interact with a portable music player such as an iPod or iPod-like device. You may perhaps have managed your music collection in Amarok as an archive, from time to time loading different combinations of albums or tracks onto your portable device. In this case you need to have a reliable method to load and organise your music and to load it onto the portable device. Amarok enables you to do this.

Viewing your predefined playlists on a portable player such as an iPod

Many portable devices have predefined playlists. These playlists are separate and different from the playlists in Amarok and most of the time these device-defined playlists do not correspond to your playlists in Amarok. You can view your device-defined playlists in Amarok by using the Amarok file system. Click the Amarok home folder (top left hand corner of the Media Sources pane) and choose Playlists then Saved Playlists. If your portable player is properly connected and mounted, a display similar to the image below should show in the Media Sources pane. The standard techniques for the Content Browser applies here: expanding or hiding titles, viewing of tracks inside a device playlist, etc. If you right-click on a device-defined playlist, a popup menu appears giving you a choice to rename or delete the playlist (see image below). You can also use this popup menu to add a complete device-defined playlist to your Amarok playlist (that is, add it to your Amarok Playlist pane).

Adding items from a portable player to your Local Collection

Normally, a portable player such as an iPod is automatically added to your collection, provided the player is correctly connected and mounted (see the heading above "Adding external media devices to your Collection"). Therefore nothing is required to add the content on a portable player to your collection. However, you may wish to add music from your portable player to your Local Collection on hard disk. Right-click on a track or an album on your portable player and use the popup menu to copy the selected item to your Local Collection (see image below).

Adding music from your Local Collection to a portable player

Adding music to a portable player is as straightforward as adding music to your Local Collection. Right-click on any item (artist, album or track in your Local Collection) and a popup menu appears. Use the Copy to Collection option in the popup menu to copy the selected item to your portable player (see image below). It's very simple, because of the consistent user interface of Amarok.

Adding music from your Local Collection into a predefined playlist on your portable player

Sorry, this feature is not available yet. Wait for the next version of Amarok.

Backing up your music to an external USB device

You may wish to backup your music to an external hard disk or a memory stick. If a USB device is mounted correctly by your computer, it should appear automatically in the Media Sources pane. Although iPods are normally accessed through a music interface, many third party portable music players operate only as USB mass storage devices. In these cases music transfer is performed as below. The image below indicates two USB devices, an external hard drive (SeagateUSB) and a memory stick (vfat). Neither of the USB devices in the image below contain any music.

To copy any composer, album or track to a USB device, one uses the Copy to Collection option (as used above when interaction with an iPod or other mobile player) as indicated in the image on the left, below. Clicking on the destination device opens up a menu such as the image on the right, below. This menu allows you to control the format in which the track and album information is stored. Clicking OK in the menu on the right, below, saves your selection to the USB device.

Clicking the green arrow on the USB device shows that the music has been transferred and is visible to Amarok (see image below). Notice the consistent user interaction, regardless of the type of external device attached to your computer.

How to deal with problems

Some of my music is being rapidly skipped over

You may not have installed the proper codecs. More about that here [FAQ: What Media Types Does Amarok Support]

I installed the latest version of Amarok on Kubuntu/Ubuntu but the tracks are being rapidly skipped over

You probably do not have the phonon-xine backend installed. Follow these 3 steps to install the required packages:

Press Alt + F2 and check the 'Run in terminal' option. Then type in the following command without the quotes 'sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg phonon-backend-xine'
A window will open up asking for your administrative password. Enter your password.[learn more about sudo]
After entering your password just type 'Y' without to quotes to install the packages. Restart Amarok and your music should start playing.

After my iPod has been mounted, it is not shown in the Content Browser

This should not happen with the later versions of Amarok and Kubuntu/Ubuntu. Check that the device has been properly mounted by your operating system.

Amarok cannot see the predefined playlists on my portable music player

Wait for the next version of Amarok.

After I have updated my collection, the additions are not shown in the Content Browser

Quit Amarok from the Amarok menu, or use Control Q to quit. Once you restart Amarok, your collection should show your updates.

Amarok cannot find the lyrics of the songs that I play

A number of possibilities exist:

The lyrics are not available in the sites checked on the Internet. You may wish to add more sites via the script menu (Tools > Script Manager)
Your track numbering system within an album in your collection is not correct as Amarok would expect.
The title of your song contains special characters with a cedille, accent, etc. that do not show in your track title. Therefore Amarok cannot find a match for your title to search for the lyrics. You may wish to check your tags and track numbering system with a tagger such as [Picard]. Also see [Amarok FAQ ]

GLOSSARY

Breadcrumbs: This is a way of navigating a hierarchical file structure on a computer, located near the top of the Amarok Media Sources pane. Starting at the Home folder level, it shows how deep one has navigated into the file system. Assuming one has navigated to an arbitrary depth into the file system, it shows all folders that are at a higher level than you are at a particular moment. In Amarok the '>' links between folder levels allow one to find out what alternative folders are available at a particular level. The breadcrumbs comprise an efficient mechanism to navigate the whole file system on your computer.

Collection: All your music that Amarok can see at a particular point in time. Your collection may vary in size and composition of music tracks, depending which external devices (e.g. audio CDs or portable players with music) are connected and mounted on your computer.

Content Browser: This is the central part of the Media Sources pane that allows you to list the music that you have in your collection. The Content browser allows you to select the sort order of your track lists as well as the detail in which you wish to see your music.

Daemon: Software that runs continuously in the background, responding to particular user requests when services are needed, e.g playing a music track.

Playlist: A selection of tracks from your collection that you wish to play. Some portable music players, e.g. iPods have predefined playlists that are likely to differ from your Amarok playlists

Script: Amarok plugin to extend functionality. Scripts are available from Tools > Script Manager. Add more lyrics sources, more streaming stations, save covers to your album folders, burn CDs from playlists, etc.

Scrobble To scrobble a track means that as you listen to it, the title of the track and artist are sent to a Web site such Last.fm, where the information is added to your profile.

Streams, streaming: Like 20th-century radio stations, Internet radio stations send out "streams" of content. One can find music, news, commentary and opinion. Many streams can be accessed through Amarok, either through scripts such as Cool Streams, or individually added by menu (Playlist > Add Stream).

Tags: The information about each of the tracks you listen to, e.g. album name, track title, composer, artist, year, etc. There is a standard called ID3 for including this information on audio CDs. You can edit the tags of individual tracks within Amarok if the file permissions are correct.

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 = The Amarok window =
-The Amarok window is the default User interface designed to let you rediscover your music. In addition, it is also designed to give you as much visual information about your music as possible. While many user will find the default layout suitable for their needs, the layout is fully customizable if you prefer another layout
+The Amarok window is the default User interface designed to let you rediscover your music. In addition, it is also designed to give you as much visual information about your music as possible. While many users will find the default layout suitable for their needs, the layout is fully customizable if you prefer another layout.
 == Default layout of the Amarok window ==
@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 # your <i>Media Sources </i>(music collection and other media) in the left pane,
 # the <i>Context</i> pane in the center, and
-# the <i>Playlist</i> in the right-hand pane.
+# the <i>Playlist</i> in the right-hand pane
 == Using the Amarok window to manage and play your music ==