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Welcome to my humble, frill-free software page, Here you'll find
Clarion, a free MIDI / Audio CD player, and Xnews, a free Usenet newsreader.
Both are 32-bit Windows 9x/NT apps, written in Delphi.
Xnews has moved!
Xnews has a new home at Xnews.3dnews.net. Update your bookmark!
Clarion stuff
Alert!
Want to play mp3 files with Clarion? Download Microsoft's Media Player 6 (it's free) and install it. This will give you the necessary MCI driver for mp3s.
There is a bug in the CDDB submission routine in version 0.9.2. Please upgrade
to version 0.9.5 immediately! You will not be able to make submission to
the CDDB with version 0.9.2 or earlier.
I have published my code to generate the CDDB discid here.
Clarion does not have built-in support for net access behind a firewall.
If you are behind a firewall and wish to access the CDDB, you may want
to look at SocksCap.
This program supposedly allows any winsock program to use the SOCKS protocol.
I'm not affiliated with this company in any way and have no idea if this
would work or not, but you can give it a try.
Both Clarion and Xnews require an updated ComCtl32.dll, which you can
download
from Microsoft.
- CDDB support: lookup CD track titles via the internet.
- Support for MIDI and Audio CD. Plus any media for which the appropriate
MCI driver has been installed.
- Open multiple play lists at once.
- "Sleep" mode -- minimize app to an icon in the system tray.
- Play modes galore -- straight, random, shuffle, repeat, single repeat,
span (across different play lists).
- Registry of CDs. Enter track titles once and have them available at
all time.
- Built-in file browser.
- Easy (read: lazy) file / CD track selection.
- PlayList management / organization.
- Drag and drop files from Explorer (aka File Manager).
- Heck, drag and drop items everywhere!
- Play position control via trackbar.
- Selectable volume control program.
- Floating miniature control panel that gives access to the program's
major function at all time.
- Flexible startup and save options.
- and it's FREE!
Here's a screen shot of the main window. Here's
one of the floating bar and tray icon
- Version 0.9.5: (10-Jun-98)
- Fixed a potentially serious winsock bug.
- Version 0.9.4: (27-Feb-98)
- Bug fixes worth mentioning:
- In version 0.9.3, I left out the trailing \ in the cdl and
pls directories so play lists and CD files were saved in the
wrong directories. Sorry about that.
- Some users had to click twice on the CD button to load the
CD. This has been fixed.
- If you have CD autoplay on and have Clarion set as the default
CD player, it should now start up and add all CD tracks rather
than all files in the current directory.
- Additions:
- You can now drag and drop files onto the floater, not just
the main window.
- I made separate buttons for ejecting and loading the CD.
- If you have a CD linked to a play list and change the play
list's name with the Save As command, it's now smart enough
to change the link.
- In the file browser, there's a button marked > Click it
to bring up the last 10 or so directories from which you have
added a file. Very handy!
- Version 0.9.3: (2-Feb-98)
- Fixed a bug in the CDDB module that caused the program to generate
bad discid with certain CDs.
- Shift+Click (or right click) on the remove button now puts the
currently playing file in the trash. (Previously, you had to highlight
the song first then click the trash icon.)
- Added right click alternatives to Shift+Click. You can now (usually)
right click where you're required to Shift+Click. For example, right
click on the Eject button to load the CD.
- Several people have asked for a print function to print out the
play list. Well, I'm too lazy to bother with printing (formatting
and all that yucky stuff). Instead, I added an export function that
lets you save the play list as a comma separated values (CSV) file
which you can then load into, say, Excel and format to your heart's
content before printing it out. You can also save as a html file
and print it with your web browser. Don't like the way it looks
or want to save in a different format? Just edit the template file
or create a new one. Read templates.txt
for details.
- Fixed several bugs too weird and exotic to remember or mention.
- Version 0.9.2: (7-Oct-97)
- Added confirmation dialog for CDDB lookup. After CD info are retrieved,
you can accept all, some, or none of the returned CD track titles.
- Fixed CDDB lookup mishandling of long lines that have been split.
- The program now allows longer disc and track titles for CDDB submit
(it will automatically split up long lines to conform to CDDB format
specifications).
You can read the long, arduous, and unabridged version
history if you like. (Actually, there are lots of undocumented goodies
to be found there.)
Q: How do I load a different CD or reload the current one?
A: Hold down the Ctrl or Shift key and click on the Eject/Load
icon (the one that looks like a pyramid with a line under it).
Q: How do I load edit / rename a CD track title?
A: Select it then press Return or F2. (This also works in the play
list and file list.)
Clarion is a pretty simple program. If you manage to unzip the file and
run it, you'll have no problem using it. But just in case, here are some
pointers:
- Click on everything in sight! Put the cursor over every element on
the screen and read the popup help or the hint shown on the status bar.
- The help file is never quite up to date, so don't take it too seriously
:)
then please do one or more of the following:
- Shower me with praise and adulation. Or..
- Propagate the program. Upload it to a software library, make a link
to this page, tell a friend, etc.
- Heh, I ain't too proud to take donations :) You can send me an on-line
gift certificate from barnesandnoble.com
or amazon.com. Just make it
out to "Luu Tran" luutran@geocities.com.
Questions, comments, bug reports? send them to mailto:luutran@geocities.com
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