Sonique2 Beta Quick Reference Guide

What Does What?

The "Death Star" Tool Bar -- Affectionately called the "death-star", clicking this control will open or close a control strip with controls for: repeat mode, shuffle, save stream to disk, write to disk, and transition method. These are better explained in More Icons.
The Status Bar -- The status bar will always tell you what's going on in the player. When Sonique2 plays a file, it will scroll the information. If you hover over a button, the status bar will give you a textual hint as to what it does.
Right-Click -- Right-Click almost anywhere in the interface where there appears to be "blank space" and you will get the basic right-click menu. If you ever get lost, this is a good way to find what you need... or if you are just in a hurry.
Audio Control Center -- This is the main control center for the player. Here, you will find all of the common playback controls such as: play/pause, stop, next, previous, open file, volume, and mute.
Main Navigation -- These are the 5 Main Navigation buttons that determine which "screen" you view.I think you will find these buttons unlike any you have ever seen, because unlike your standard buttons, these buttons are actually just shrunken screens of what the button will open in the main area of the player. You will note that the EQ button actually shows you the EQ shape, and the VIS button actually shows the visual! Here is how the buttons work (from top to bottom)

The top button with the Sonique Logo is the Online Window. We will use this window to provide you with news, updates, new interfaces, plug-ins, tips, tricks, etc.
The second button down will open the Visual Window. As you can see, this button actually is a small version of the visual screen. The small white button within the button will turn off the visual inside the button.
The third button down is the EQ button. It will open the EQ window, and it will also display your EQ settings within the button.
Interface Browser is the third button down, represented by the Mantis graphic. It will launch the Interface Browser, where you may launch a new skin or remote.
The fifth button down, represented by the "nut" graphic is for Settings Window. This will launch the Settings Window, which provides settings for the Sonique application as well as the color themes for the default interface.
The Playlist Button is the sixth and last button, just above the Audio Control Center. It will open the playlist into the main viewing area.

Contextual Navigation and Controls -- Each window will provide you with a smaller set of contextual controls for the window in the main viewing area. The following icons will always be displayed as contextual controls for all active windows:

This is the "Detach Window" icon and it will open whichever window is currently active into a new Sonique window. This is maximum flexibility.

This is the "Background Vis" icon and it will display the active vis in the background of the Sonique behind all other windows and control. It is very cool looking.

The following icons will always be displayed when the playlist is selected as the active window:

This is the "Append Playlist" icon that will appear when you make the playlist active. It will append a new playlist to the active one.

The "Randomize Playlist" icon will appear when you make the playlist active. It will randomly sort your active playlist.

The "Sort Playlist" icon will sort your playlist column in a pre-defined order. This order can be set in the Settings window.

The "Reverse Playlist" icon will reverse the order of the active playlist.

The "Scan" icon will spin when scanning for ID3 information, and you can click on the icon to start or stop scanning files.

The "Full Screen Vis" icon:

will be displayed when the Vis Window is the active window, and this icon will launch the active vis full screen, or over your entire monitor screen. Hit your ESC key to exit this mode.

Playlist Column Headers -- When the play list window is loaded, try clicking on the column headers to sort in a variety of ways. For more flexibility, right-click on the column headers to choose which columns you would like to be displayed on the fly. You can also drag and drop column headers to change the horizontal order of your columns.

More Icons

Here are descriptions for more icons in Sonique2

The following icons are located in the or "Deathstar" toolbar:

Console – This will open the Sonique2 Console window, which is the Sonique2 Command-line window for the Mantis graphics engine

Write to Disk Silently – This will write any file to disk as a wav file silently. It engages and begins to write when clicked.

Write to Disk Audibly – This will write any file to disk without playing the file. It engages and begins to write when clicked.

Save Streams – This will take any stream the Sonique can play and write the stream out to a file in the same format as the stream.

Transition Method – Here you can set the transition time or cross-fade time between tracks

Repeat modes – You can shuffle through the different repeat modes for the playlist: All, Off, or One

Shuffle – turn shuffle on and off. Engaging shuffle will not change the order of your playlist, but it will play the tracks out of order.

Info – Clicking info will open a window with technical information about the file selected or being played.

The window icons () appear in all Sonique2 windows, including detached windows, in the upper right-hand corner:
From left to right, they represent:

Help This will launch HTML help for Sonique2

Always On Top This will cause the window to remain on top of all other windows active on your desktop.

Minimize This will minimize the window to your taskbar or your Systray depending on how you have minimize configured in Settings.

Close Window This will close the window

The following icons appear near the right-hand side of the player near the player controls, and they represent playlist functions.

Add Folder – Clicking this icon will display folders that can be added to the playlist. When a folder is added, all files within that folder are added to the playlist.

Load Playlist – Clicking This Icon will display playlist files to be opened and added to your playlist.

Add CD – Clicking this icon will allow you to add an audio CD to your playlist.

Save Playlist – Clicking this icon will save a playlist file for all the tracks in the active playlist.

Clear Playlist – Clicking this icon will clear your playlist.

	This is the "Detach Window" icon and it will open whichever window is currently active into a new Sonique window. This is maximum flexibility.
	This is the "Background Vis" icon and it will display the active vis in the background of the Sonique behind all other windows and control. It is very cool looking.

	This is the "Append Playlist" icon that will appear when you make the playlist active. It will append a new playlist to the active one.
	The "Randomize Playlist" icon will appear when you make the playlist active. It will randomly sort your active playlist.
	The "Sort Playlist" icon will sort your playlist column in a pre-defined order. This order can be set in the Settings window.
	The "Reverse Playlist" icon will reverse the order of the active playlist.
	The "Scan" icon will spin when scanning for ID3 information, and you can click on the icon to start or stop scanning files.

	Console – This will open the Sonique2 Console window, which is the Sonique2 Command-line window for the Mantis graphics engine
	Write to Disk Silently – This will write any file to disk as a wav file silently. It engages and begins to write when clicked.
	Write to Disk Audibly – This will write any file to disk without playing the file. It engages and begins to write when clicked.
	Save Streams – This will take any stream the Sonique can play and write the stream out to a file in the same format as the stream.
	Transition Method – Here you can set the transition time or cross-fade time between tracks
	Repeat modes – You can shuffle through the different repeat modes for the playlist: All, Off, or One
	Shuffle – turn shuffle on and off. Engaging shuffle will not change the order of your playlist, but it will play the tracks out of order.
	Info – Clicking info will open a window with technical information about the file selected or being played.

Help	This will launch HTML help for Sonique2
Always On Top	This will cause the window to remain on top of all other windows active on your desktop.
Minimize	This will minimize the window to your taskbar or your Systray depending on how you have minimize configured in Settings.
Close Window	This will close the window

	Add Folder – Clicking this icon will display folders that can be added to the playlist. When a folder is added, all files within that folder are added to the playlist.
	Load Playlist – Clicking This Icon will display playlist files to be opened and added to your playlist.
	Add CD – Clicking this icon will allow you to add an audio CD to your playlist.
	Save Playlist – Clicking this icon will save a playlist file for all the tracks in the active playlist.
	Clear Playlist – Clicking this icon will clear your playlist.