Browser Dialog

The browser is a special file dialog that appears when you open songs or load patches, samples or REX files, from within a ReFill or from regular file folders. Its appearance varies slightly depending on what type of file you are opening.

Using the browser is much like using a regular file dialog, but there are some additional features:

Navigation pop-up menu and Up button

 

This is a regular navigation pop-up menu, listing all folders hierarchically above the current folder. Select a folder from the pop-up menu to go there, or click the Up button to go the closest folder above the current one.

Desktop button

 

Clicking this button takes you to the desktop of your computer. In the main file display, all available drives (hard disks, floppy drives, CD drives etc.) will be listed. To open a drive or a folder, double click on it in the file display.

Database folder buttons

 

While you can get to the database by starting at the desktop and navigating your way down, the database folder buttons offer a quicker way: Clicking any of these buttons takes you directly to the corresponding database folder (search path 1-4 respectively, as specified in the Preferences-Sound Locations folder). From there, you can open subfolders in the main file display, or navigate to a higher folder using the navigation pop-up.

The folder buttons for which you haven't specified a path are greyed-out (disabled).

Find All ReFills button

 

Clicking this button will make the program look for all available ReFills and list them in the main file display.

If you double click on a ReFill in the list, you can navigate "within" the ReFill and select songs or sounds for opening, just as if they were separate files on disk.

When you click the Find All ReFills button, Reason will look for ReFills in the root folder(s) of the database, in the Reason program folder and on any CD in the CD-ROM drive (regardless of whether the CD-ROM drive is specified as a database search path or not).

Re-scan button

 

Click this button to have Reason re-scan the currently shown folder and update the file display. Use this if you have changed the contents in a folder while the browser was open, if you have added a new disk or CD-ROM, etc.

Getting Info

 

The area to the right of the file display is the info area. This will show information about the item that is currently selected in the file display. Exactly which information is shown depends on the file type. For example, the info area for samples or REX files contains information about the file format and length of the selected file, while the song info area displays comments from the author (Song Information, see File menu), etc. If the selected file is part of a ReFill, this will be indicated regardless of the file type.

The Preview function

 

When browsing REX files or samples, you can audition files before you choose to load one. This is done in the following way:

Select the file in the file list and click the Preview - Play button to the right.

The file is played back. During playback, the Play button is relabeled to "Stop" - click this to stop playback.

You can also activate the Autoplay checkbox and simply select the file you want to audition.

The selected file is automatically played back. Again, click the Stop button to stop playback.

Opening files

When you have navigated to the desired folder (on your hard disk or within a ReFill) and located the desired file, you open it by double clicking it in the file display or by selecting it and clicking the Open button.

The browser will only display files of the relevant type. For example, if you have selected the "Browse Synth Patches" function for a Subtractor synth device, only synth patches will be listed.