Page:

Lets you do this:

Settings

• Check for updates to QCD

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

• Set per-user settings if more than one user will be using the same install of QCD

• Set QCD priority relative to other applications

Language & Fonts

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

• 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).

File Associations

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

Media Loading

• Control how QCD loads audio files into the playlist

• Set up a folder to use as a "watched folder" :audio files added or removed from that folder are automatically updated in the playlist.

Icons

• Create desktop or Quicklaunch Icons

• Customize Icons that are used by QCD

Display

• Control how QCD displays controls and text

• Control the behavior of the playback progress slider

• Controls when the music browser appears

• Specify what information (Album, Artist, etc.) appears on the QCD icon in the taskbar

Playlists

• Control how QCD maintains the current playlist

• Set up a folder to use as a "Playlist folder" :playlists found under this folder will be listed in the Load Playlist menu.

Playback

• Control how QCD plays tracks in the playlist.

Encoding

• Select an Encoding format.

• Set up encoded filenames and locations.

Tray Icon

• Controls the display of the QCD icon in the Windows system tray (icons by clock in taskbar)

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

QuickTrack

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

Visual Effects

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

• Set up fullscreen visual effects resolution

Gracenote CDDB

• Displays status and settings for the Gracenote CDDB service, which is what provides the Artist and Title information to QCD.

• Set folder where CDDB control will store its cached information

• 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 advanced 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

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

Playback

• Select which playback plug-in QCD uses for playing audio

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

Encoders

• Select which encoding plug-ins QCD uses 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 uses for retrieving information about the loaded music or for editing music information

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

• Change the order in which the library plug-ins are used

General

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

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

Skins

• Set the folder to use for storing skins

• 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

• Download and install skins

Skin Options

• Control how and when QCD automatically changes the displayed skin

• Control skin effects and positioning