Page:

Lets you do this:

Setup

• Set the language to use for the QCD user interface (windows and messages);

• Specify where to put shortcuts to launch QCD;

• Check for updates to QCD;

• Set up connection settings, such as LAN connections and proxy settings.

For more information, see Setting General Preferences.

    - Default Player

• Assign QCD as the default application to use to open certain file formats.

    - Display

• Control how QCD displays controls and text (for example scrolling or blinking of text, the behavior of the playback progress slider, etc.);

• Controls when the music browser appears;

• Specify what information (Album, Artist, etc.) appears in tooltips in the taskbar.

    - Tray Icon

• Controls the display of the QCD icon in the Windows system tray (right side of the task bar);

• Set up the QCD functions launched with different mouse clicks (double-click, right-click, etc.) on the icon in the system tray.

    - Media Loading

• Control how QCD loads media files (e.g. MP3 files) into the playlist;

• Set up a folder to use as a "watched folder": media files placed there are automatically loaded by QCD into the playlist.

    - QuickTrack

• Set up how the QuickTrack menu behaves.  (You bring up the QuickTrack menu by right-clicking on the track information area.)

    - CDDB

• Set up QCD's connection to the Gracenote CDDB service, which is what provides the Artist and Title information to QCD;

• Register or edit your registration information with the CDDB service;

• Check for updates to the CDDB software;

• Set the preferred language to use for information downloaded from the CDDB service.

For more information, see Using the CDDB Music Recognition Service.

Plug-ins

• Control general settings for QCD plug-ins, such as the behavior of the plug-in cache;

• Load any new plug-ins you have installed without restarting QCD;

• Control the behavior of visualization plug-ins, such as how much computation priority to allocate to displaying visualizations, or how often the visualizations cycle.

    - Input

• Select which input plug-ins QCD loads for reading different types of media;

• Configure any special settings are available for each input plug-in;

• Change the order in which the input plug-ins are loaded.

    - Output

• Select which output plug-ins QCD loads for writing different types of media files;

• Configure any special settings are available for each output plug-in.

    - Visuals

• Select which visual plug-ins QCD loads for generating animated visual effects;

• Configure any special settings are available for each visual plug-in;

• Start or stop the display of a certain visualization (to see what it is).

For more information, see Working with Visual Effects.

    - DSP

• Select which DSP (digital sound processor) plug-ins QCD loads for special sound effects (if you have any DSP plug-ins installed);

• Configure any special settings are available for each DSP plug-in;

    - Libraries

• Select which library plug-ins QCD loads for organizing your music collection or editing disc information;

• Configure any special settings are available for each library plug-in;

• Change the order in which the library plug-ins are loaded.

    - General

• Select other plug-ins that do not fall into the above categories;

• Configure any special settings are available for each plug-in.

Skin Browser

• Set the folder to use for skins and skin families;

• Get more information about individual skins, skin families, or skin kids;

• Examine the different modes of the selected skin family;

• Delete skins you don't want.

For more information about this page of Preferences, and the two sub-pages below, see Working with Skins.

    - Download Skins

• Get the latest list of available skins for QCD;

• Preview skins and skin families;

• Download and install skins and skin families.

    - Skin & Font Options

• Control how and when QCD changes the displayed skin;

• Set the font to use for text display if you don't want to use the font built into the skin (recommended if you play international CDs or music files that use non-western characters).