The controller window provides two appearances styles that can be chosen using the Player Skin Appearance option in the context menu. The two available styles are the Oceanic skin and the Brushed Metal skin. Both provide the same functionality, but have different ways of presenting it to the user. You can choose which style to use, according to your preference.
Both skin styles are compromised of two major sections, which are the status display and the control buttons. The status display can be found in the upper half of the window. This displays certain parameters of the currently playing audio stream, such as current time position, sampling rate, number of channels, bit rate and a visual indication whether this is an mp3PRO enhanced file or not. The visual indication of the mp3PRO enhancement is different for the two skin types.
mp3PRO Display/Control: In the Oceanic skin, the large PRO button located in the upper-right hand corner of the window will visually appear to change from a disabled state to enabled 'glowing' state when playing mp3PRO enhanced files. If this button is pressed, it will turn mp3PRO enhancement off, which is the output a standard mp3 player would produce. In the Brushed Metal skin, this functionality is provided using a small button located on the status display. When playing mp3PRO-enhanced files, this button will read 'PRO' in red. The enhancement can be toggled on and off by pressing this button. For both skin types, this functionality is only present when playing songs that have been encoded with mp3PRO enhancement. If playing back a standard mp3 or a WAV file, the PRO button will appear disabled for the Oceanic skin, or will not appear at all in the case of the Brushed Metal skin. When decoding an mp3PRO file using the Write Decoded PCM File option in the context menu, the decoded song file will include or exclude the enhancement depending on the state of this button.
The playback of the audio stream can be controlled using a standard set of buttons that can be found on both skin types. The buttons are as follows:
Play/Stop: Starts playback of currently opened song. During playback the button turns into a Stop button. If pressed during playback the song will be stopped and rewinded to the beginning, the button turns back into the Play button. It must be pressed again to resume playback. If the button is pressed and no input file is selected, a select window will pop up.
Pause: Pauses playback of currently opened song.
Next: Advances to the next song when playing multiple song files. See the Audio File Library information for instructions on how to do this. When playing only one file, this button does nothing.
Previous: Return to the previous song when playing multiple song files. See the Audio File Library information for instructions on how to do this. When playing only one file, this button does nothing.
Additional functionality is provided, but is different depending on which skin is being used. When using the Brushed Metal skin, this additional information is hidden with an 'extended' view. You can switch from basic to extended view and back, either by clicking the small triangle on the right or selecting the corresponding function from the context menu. The 'extended' view holds additional controls that are already present in the main window of the Oceanic skin.
These additional controls include the following:
Playback Position: A horizontal slider that allows for changing the position
in time of the currently playing song. At the same time the slider also indicates the
position of the currently played audio within the song.
Volume Slider: Allows for changing the output volume. This is presented as a pop-up slider panel in the Brushed Metal skin. In the Oceanic skin, the slider is always shown, and is located above the playback control buttons mentioned above.
Graphical Equalizer (Brushed Metal skin only): The graphical equalizer can only be found in the 'extended' view of the Brushed Metal skin. It allows for the fine-tuning of the sound of mp3PRO files. It will only work when playing mp3PRO files, and not plain mp3 or wav formats.
Additional information for these controls is provided via tooltips whenever it is available. The tooltips will appear when the mouse cursor is placed over an item in the main window, such as the status display or a button, for a small length of time.