Midi Aquaintance
Midi Aquaintance Help Contents

Thank you for evaluating Midi Aquaintance.  Online help is available at any time by pressing the F1 key.  This program is shareware.  If you like and intend to use Midi Aquaintance for more than 30 days, please register with the author.

About Midi Aquaintance 1.1

Registering Midi Aquaintance

License Agreement

Getting Started

Playing a Song

Entering a Song's Title

Working With Albums

Menu Commands

Button Commands

Option Check Boxes

 Editing the Data Files

Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation

Midi Aquaintance is copyrighted 1994 by Mike Davis


About Midi Aquaintance
About Midi Aquaintance 1.1

Midi Aquaintance is a jukebox program for playing midi files.  Unlike other similiar programs, however, Midi Aquaintance will maintain a record of a song's actual title, making it easier to identify songs, rather than relying on cryptic 8 character file names.  Midi Aquaintance will also allow you to save albums of your favorite songs for quick and easy playback.


Getting Started

Before you can run Midi Aquaintance, you  must have the MCI Sequencer and Midi Mapper drivers installed.  Midi Aquaintance will check for the presence of these drivers and notify you if either of them is not installed.  See your Windows User Guide for information on installing these drivers.  The album files and the data file (aquaint.dat) containing the song titles are ASCII text files and can be edited with any ASCII editor, such as Windows Notepad.

See also

Manually Editing the Data Files

The Directory List, on the left side, is a listing of ALL midi files in the current directory.  If a title is associated with a file name, the title will be displayed in this box.  If no association has yet been made, the actual file name will be displayed.

Entering a Song Title

When you start Midi Aquaintance for the first time, you will not likely have any associations between midi files and song titles.  To enter a song title and associate it with a midi file name, select the file name in the Directory List. Press and hold the Shift key while double clicking on the file name.  A dialog box will pop up for you to enter a song title.  There is a limit of 45 characters and you cannot use a period in the song's title.  The file name will be replaced with the title, and the song will appear in the Play List box on the right side.

Queuing Songs

Before a song can be played, it must first be queued; that is, added to the Play List.  You can do this by selecting the song in the Directory List and either pressing the Queue button or double clicking on the song.  The Directory List supports multiple selections using a combination of the SHIFT and CTRL keys similiar to selecting multiple files in File Manager.  Once you have added one or more songs to the Play List, the Play button becomes enabled and you can press it to begin playback of all the songs in the Play List.

See also

Button Commands


Registering Midi Aquaintance

Midi Aquaintance is a Shareware product and requires registration after a 30 day evaluation period.  Continued use after 30 days is prohibited.  The registration fee for version 1.1 is $9.95, plus $4.00 shipping.  Ohio residents must also add 5% sales tax.  An online order form can be filled out and printed by selecting  Print Order Form under the Help menu. For multiple orders, please complete a separate order form for each, although all orders may be sent together.  Orders should be sent to the address which appears in the About Box, the online order form, and in the License section of this help file. User Support will be offered only to registered users, with certain exceptions at the author's discretion.

If you are a member of America Online or CompuServe and would like the executable file uploaded directly to you, check the appropriate box near the bottom of the order form and enter your screen name.  I will send the registered version by attaching it to return E-Mail.  You will get the program within 24 - 48 hours after I receive your order AND your check has cleared.  The order form MUST still be completely filled out with your name and address, otherwise, I will send you E-Mail requesting this information before I can upload the file to you.  Using this method does not require the postage to be included.  Any required sales tax must still be included.

Please see also the License section of this help file.


License Agreement

The author reserves the right to make any changes in program content and/or file formats which may or may not render future versions incompatible with the data files created by previous versions without registering the newer version, whether or not a registration fee is required.

This software claims no warranty, implied or otherwise. This software is provided "AS IS".  The author claims no responsibility for any damages that might be caused by the use or abuse of this software.  This software remains the property of the author and may not be modified by the user in any way.

No person other than the author, Mike Davis, may accept payment or royalties for this software.

Registered users are notified of any upgrades and offered the opportunity of receiving new versions at a reduced cost or possibly no cost (with the exception of postage). New users will be sent the most recent version automatically.

Comments, suggestions, complaints, or bug reports are welcomed and encouraged. The preferred method of contacting me is by sending E-Mail to VDG Mike on America Online (Internet address: vdgmike@aol.com) or CompuServe at 73122,1474. You may also write to the address located below and in the About box. You will get a much faster reply through E-Mail, however.

Midi Aquaintance Copyright 1994 by Mike Davis

Mike Davis

MHD Software

1120 21st ST. NW

Canton, OH  44709


Menu Commands

This section explains how to use each of the menu commands.

File Menu Commands


File Menu Commands

ALL COMMANDS UNDER THE FILE MENU EXCEPT THE EXIT COMMAND ARE DISABLED WHILE A SONG IS PLAYING!

Open

Select this command to display the File Open dialog box.  From here you can open any album file from any directory.  The Play List will be cleared prior to loading the album.

Save

Saves changes made in the current Play List.  If an album file has already been opened or saved, changes are saved to the same file.

Save As

Saves changes made in the current Play List to a new or existing album file.

Run Midi Mapper

Starts the Midi Mapper program.  This program allows you to select a midi port and assign midi patches.

Exit

Select this to quit the program.


Option Check Boxes

This section explains the function of each of the Option Check Boxes.

Minimize

Select this option to automatically minimize Midi Aquaintance when you press the Play button.  Checking this option after playback has already begun will have no effect.

Loop

Select this option to continuously loop through the current Play List.

Quick Load

A large album file may take a minute or longer to load.  This is due to the time it takes to retrieve a midi file's playing time.  Select this option to bypass retrieving this information and load the album file extremely fast.  However, the total time of all the songs in the Play List cannot then be determined.  This affects ONLY the loading of album files.  If you load an album and then queue additional songs, the total time will reflect the songs that were queued AFTER the album file was loaded.  The Total Time display is not visible when this option is selected.  The Elapsed Time display will function normally regardless of this setting.

File Name

During playback, the current song's title normally appears in Midi Aquaintance's title bar.   Select this option to display the song's file name instead.


Button Commands

This section explains how to use each of the button commands.

Play

Click this button to begin playback of the current Play List.  Playback continues sequentially to the end of the Play List.  You can highlight any song and then click this button to begin playback at the highlighted song instead of the first song in the list.  During playback this button is disabled.

Next

Click this button to skip to a different song in the Play List.  Clicking Next with the highlighted song playing will skip to the next song in the list.  You can also select any other song in the Play List and clicking Next will jump directly to that song, skipping any songs in between the currently playing song and the highlighted song.  Playback will then continue sequentially from that song. You can jump forwards or backwards in the Play List.

Pause

Click this button to pause playback then click again to resume.

Stop

Click this button to stop playback.

Queue

Click this button to copy a highlighted song from the Directory List to the Play List.  A song must be queued before it can be played.  You can select multiple files from the Directory List by holding down the SHIFT or CTRL keys, and queue them all at the same time by clicking the Queue button. You can also queue a song by double clicking on it.  A song can be removed from the Play List by double clicking on that song from within the Play List.  This button is disabled during playback.

Queue All

Click this button to queue ALL songs in the current directory.  This button is disabled during playback.

Clear List

Click this button to clear the current Play List.  If the Play List was loaded from an album file or previously saved to an album file, and changes were since made, you will be prompted to save the list before it is cleared. This button is disabled during playback.

Exit

Click this button to stop playback and exit the program.  If the Play List was loaded from an album file or previously saved to an album file, and changes were since made, you will be prompted to save the list before exiting.


Editing the Data Files
Manually Editing the Data Files

This section explains how you can manually edit the data file containing the file name associations and the album files.

The file which contains the associations between the file names and the song titles is called AQUAINT.DAT and should be located in the same directory as the executable file.  Any time that you delete or move this file from that location, the file will be re-created and all associations will be lost, so DON'T MOVE THIS FILE.

If you discover that you've made a typing error while entering a song title and did not catch it in time (i.e. you already pressed ENTER), you can open this file using any ASCII editor such as Notepad.  Simply find the incorrect title and make the neccessary changes and save the file to the same directory.  You can also make the associations manually in this same manner.  The format to use should be obvious after glancing through the file.  Each entry should appear on a separate line with NO blank lines.

You can also use Notepad to edit the album files if you desire, as they too are just ASCII text files.  Simply type the FULL path of the midi FILE NAME.  DO NOT USE the song title that is associated with the file name.  You must also include an extension of .mid.  Each entry should appear on a separate line with NO blank lines.


Entering a Song's Title

This section explains how to associate a file name with a song's actual title.

In the Directory List, highlight the file name you want to make an association with. Press and hold the SHIFT key while double clicking on the file name.  A dialog box will pop up for you to type in the title.  There is a limit of 45 characters and periods are NOT permitted.  Any other character is valid.  Press Enter or click the OK button.  The dialog box will disappear, the file name in the Directory List will be replaced with the song title, and the song will be added to the Play List.  The association will also be written to the file AQUAINT.DAT (located in the same directory as the AQUAINT.EXE file), so this step only needs to be done once for each file.

The data file is only read once each time Midi Aquaintance is started and the associations are then stored in memory.  The allows the Directory List to be updated much faster whenever you change directories since retrieving the associations from memory is considerably faster than retrieving them from disk.

Once an association has been made, the only way to remove it or edit it is to manually edit the AQUAINT.DAT file.

See Also

Manually Editing the Data Files


Queuing a Song
Playing a Song

This section explains how to queue and play a song.

Before a song can be played, it must first be queued; that is, added to the Play List.  You can do this by selecting the song in the Directory List and either pressing the Queue button or else double clicking on the song.  The Directory List supports multiple selections using a combination of the SHIFT and CTRL keys similiar to selecting multiple files in File Manager.  Once you have added one or more songs to the Play List, the Play button becomes enabled and you can press it to begin playback of all the songs in the Play List.  A song can be removed from Play List by double clicking on it.

During playback, the Next, Pause, and Stop buttons become enabled and all other buttons are disabled, with the exception of the Exit button, which is always enabled.  You cannot queue additional songs or remove songs during playback.

See Also

Button Commands


Working with Albums

This section explains how to create and use album files.

To create and album, first queue all the songs which you wish to place in the album. Select Save As... from the File menu and type a standard file name.  The default extension is .alb.  The current Play List will be saved to this file and you may re-open this file at any time to load your album.  Whenever an album is loaded, the current Play List is first cleared.  Whenever an album is saved or opened, and changes are subsequently made to the Play List, you will be prompted whether or not to save these changes if you open a different album or exit the program.  You will NOT get this prompt if you have only queued songs from the Directory List and have not saved the Play List as an album.

Loading an album and subsequently clicking the Clear List button will clear the album from memory only.  The file remains intact.  This is reflected by the word UNTITLED in Midi Aquaintance's title bar.

See Also

Manually Editing the Data Files