This document provides brief explanations of all of the configurable options available within Rave. Options can be configured directly within the HTML code or raveConfigs.xml file or through the Rave Customizer Tool, which is a tool that writes the HTML or Config file code.
For extended details on the configuration options, and how they are used within the code, please refer to the Rave API.
The Display Panel allows you to control the appearance of your Wimpy Rave player. A variety of Skins are available for you to use, and advanced users may choose to create their own. Click here for more information on Skins.
By default, the Rave download package includes a number of pre-built skins. When you launch the Customizer, all the skins currently available within your Rave installation folder will appear within the drop down list.
You can download new skins. You can also use Wimpy MP3 Player skins with Rave. Once you've downloaded a skin, unzip the package and upload all of the files to your Rave installation folder, then refresh the Customizer by clicking your browser's refresh button. The new skins should now be available in the drop down list.
Use Skin
Check this box to use a pre-built Skin (XML file) from the rave/skins folder. Your choice will be displayed in the Preview Panel. To use a Skin located somewhere else on your web server, enter the full URL into the box beneath the drop down. NOTE: The URL entered must be located on your web server. If not (or if there is a typo in the URL) an error message will appear when the Rave player is launched, helping you to diagnose the problem.
Size
Controls the overall size of the Skin (not necessarily the size of the movie or the player controls). Choose "Auto Detect" to use the natural size of the Skin graphics. Choose "Set Size Manually" to "stretch" or "squish" the Skin to fit your desired dimensions. (NOTE: The quality of appearance achieved when manually sizing a Skin can be highly variable, and some Skins are more "stretchable" than others. In other words, your mileage may vary.)
Background Color
If you know the hexadecimal value of the background color you want for the page surrounding the player, enter it into this box (pound sign optional), and click "Set" to view your results in the Preview Panel. Otherwise, click "Choose" to bring up a dynamic color picker. Check "Transparent background" to allow the page background to show through the player.
NOTE: If you are using the "Transparent Background" option, the skin you've selected must have the background's transparency value set to "0".
Page Title
Controls the text which appears in the <TITLE> tag of the finished HTML document.
Video Aspect Ratio
Controls the ratio of width to height for the video (not the Skin). Your choices are:
- Maintain Dimensions - Stretch/Shrink the width and height proportionally, keeping the same overall ratio.
- Fit to Window - Stretch/Shrink the width and height independently, achieving the best fit for the window even if that means distorting the images
The Start Up Panel controls the initial (startup) parameters of the Flash object in your Wimpy Rave player.
Startup Volume
This control allows you to set the audio volume level on startup, from 1 to 100 (percent).
Sort Playlist By:
Determines the order in which videos are displayed. Your options are:
- title
- time (seconds)
- date
- artist
- album
- other
- Don't Sort
Sort Order
Unless you chose "Don't Sort" above, the sort order may be ascending or descending.
- A-Z (ascending)
- Z-A (descending)
Fullscreen Button Action
This control determines what happens when the user clicks the Fullscreen button in the Rave player. Your options are:
- Detach Player - Launch the player in a popup window
- Fullscreen - Expand the player to fill the screen
Turn on "Loop Track" button
Check this box to provide a "Loop Track" button on the player (not available for all Skins).
Turn on "Random" button
Check this box to provide a "Random Play" button on the player (not available for all Skins).
Turn on "Repeat Playlist" button
Check this box to provide a "Repeat" button on the player (not available for all Skins).
Select random track at startup
Check this box to load the player on startup with a random file from your Playlist.
Start playing immediately
Check this box to make your video begin playing as soon as the page loads (i.e., the user will not have to click the Play button).
Play this track at startup
Check this box to load the player on startup with a specific file from your Playlist. Enter the track number that corresponds to the item you wish to start on. Example: to play the second track in the playlist, enter: 2. To play the third track, enter: 3.
Automatically advance to next track
Check this box to make the player advance through your playlist as each file finishes. If left unchecked, the player will only play one track -- user interaction is required to advance to the next track.
Pop Up help enabled
By default, pop up help is enabled, causing little yellow "tool tips" to appear whenever the mouse hovers over a control. You can disable tool tips at startup by un-checking this box.
Editing the Tool tips:
You can edit the information displayed in the tool tips by editing the Skin. If you have downloaded Skin Machine, open a skin_name.xml file and select an object. At the top of the "inspector" panel, there is a field for "Help Text." Set the text to your liking, then click the "set" button next to the text field. Save the skin_name.xml file and re-upload it to your server. Be sure to empty your browser's cache after updating files on your web site so that your browser knows to retrieve the latest version of the files.
The Advanced Panel is the most complex of all the Customizer panels, including a variety of controls which are totally optional for beginning users and basic installations.
The default settings on these controls should be fine for most purposes, but if you want to customize some of the more advanced features of Wimpy Rave, here's where you'll find them.
NOTE: When entering URLs to files, it is important to use "full URLs." Using full URLs will ensure that Wimpy Rave will work other pages throughout your site. See also "Relative and Absolute."
Info Scroller Speed
This control allows you to set the speed at which the title marquis scrolls, higher values cause the player to scroll faster.
Info Scroller Format
Controls the formatting of the track information in the info display area. The options are:
1 = Artist
2 = Title
3 = Album
4 = Description
5 = Total Time (formatted nicely - e.g.: 3:16)
The Info Scroller Format field will accept letters or punctuation marks, and will replace the numbers shown above with their respective data. For example, all three of the following are valid:
1 - 2
"artist - title"
2 (1) :: 4
"title (artist) :: description"
1 : 3 : 2 - 4 / Running Time: 5
"artist : album : title - description / Running Time: totaltime"
NOTE: Despite the examples shown above, we recommend URL Encoding special characters that may interfere with HTML or XML, such as spaces, quotes, ampersands, question marks, backslashes, etc.
Time Display Format
Controls the formatting of the time information in the info display area. A single integer indicates a time format. The options are:
1 = Display Current Time in Track (default)
2 = Display Remaining Time in Track
3 = Display Total Track Time
The Time Format field will accept any text, and will replace the numbers shown above with the respective time codes. For example, all three of the following are valid:
Now: 1 / Total: 3
Time Remaining: 2 / 3
1 minute out of 3
NOTE: If the skin does not have enough space to display all the time information you need, or if you want to right or left justify the time. To do so, open the skin with Skin Machine and make the adjustments as needed.
Buffer Seconds
This control allows you to indicate how many seconds worth of data the player should buffer (download and store) ahead of the movie. The default is 15 seconds. Note that this is about data, not time. Typically, 1 second's worth of data will take less than 1 second to actually download.
Cover Art Base Name
Enter the filename of a PNG or SWF file to be used for Cover Art if desired. When running Wimpy Rave in "Automatic Mode," the player will look for this file in each folder and sub-folder. If it finds a file with this name, it will use this image as the folder's icon in the playlist. If the sub-folder is opened from within Wimpy Rave, this image will be loaded into the Video Window.
If a file of this name exists in the Rave installation folder, the player will attempt to load this file into the Video Window as your "start up" coverart. This is useful if you've set "Start Playing On Load" to "no" (perhaps because you want users to click "play" to launch a video).
See also: Default Cover Art (below)
Debug Mode
This control determines the amount of feedback displayed during startup. Your options are:
Default - By default, Wimpy will display a single line of light-gray text indicating the current action.
Detailed Info - When launched in this mode, a window will appear covering nearly the entire player, which shows each step of the start up and loading sequence. You can close and / or move this window by "grabbing" it along the edges. A second window will be displayed beneath the main window whenever you launch a track. This second window displays run-time and load details for the current track.
Suppress All Text - No debugging messages are displayed.
Info Button Action
This control determines what happens when the user clicks on the "More Info" button in the player. Your options are:
Link to Page - The "More Info" button acts like a hyperlink, and opens a new browser window using the URL contained in the External Link-to Window (see below).
Show Info - The "More Info" button will open a small window within the player. This small window will display Artist, Album, Title, Description and a Link using the URL contained in the External Link-to Window (see below). The link will be an embedded link that reads "Click here..."
Click Video Window Action
This control determines what happens when the Video Window itself is clicked. The Video Window will always be "hot", meaning that the Video Window will always behave like a button while a video is playing, or when an MP3 audio track is playing and a cover art graphic is loaded in the Video Window. Your options are:
Play / Pause - The Video Window will display a circular "pause" button when the mouse rolls over the Video Window. If the user clicks the window, the track will stop playing (pause) and the icon will change to a circular "play" button. If the user clicks the Video Window again, the track will resume playing (play). If the user leaves the mouse over the Video Window and does not click, the icon will fade away after a couple of seconds. This is the default setting.
Play / Pause (no icon) - as above with no screen icon.
Show Controls - When the user rolls-over the Video Window, a circular icon will appear indicating that controls will appear. When the Video Window is clicked, a small control bar will appear at the bottom of the Video Window. The control bar contains a play / pause button, a scrubber, volume control and a time indicator. This control bar is identical to the control bar that is displayed during full screen viewing. This version of the control bar is not editable, nor skinnable.
Show Info - Opens a small window within the player. This small window will display Artist, Album, Title, Description and a Link using the URL contained in the External Link-to Window (see below). The link will be an embedded link that reads "Click here..."
Link to Page - Opens a new browser window using the URL contained in the External Link-to Window (see below).
Do Nothing - Nothing will happen when the Video Window is clicked.
External Link-to Window
Determines the window used when links out of the player are clicked. This option is set to _blank by default. When this option is changed, Wimpy directs the 'target" of the link to the defined window name. Other options include: _self, _parent, _top, and any other window name.
On Track Complete
Check this box to determine what happens (if anything) when your playlist finishes. Your options are:
Go to Page - Wimpy will open a new browser window using the URL specified in the text box below. If you would like to specify a particular window to target, set External Link-to Window (see above).
Load Movie / Image - The SWF, PNG or JPG image specified in the text box below will be loaded into the Video Window, replacing the current video or cover art graphic.
Hide Folders
Check this box to suppress the display of folders in the playlist. Separate multiple folder names with commas. Do not use spaces before or after the commas (or else they will be considered part of a folder's name).
Hide Files
Check this box to suppress the display of files in the playlist. Separate multiple filenames with commas. Do not use spaces before or after the commas (or else they will be considered part of a file's name).
Plug Playlist
Check this box to display a secondary playlist used "in-between" your main playlist tracks (like commercials). The Plug Playlist is an external XML file, and does not appear in the main playlist. If the Plug Playlist contains more than one item, these items will fill slots one at a time, alternating between main playlist tracks.
Set the "Plug Every" option to determine the number of tracks that will run between Plug Playlist items. For example, "Plug Every 3" will cause a Plug Playlist item to be played after every 3rd Main Playlist item.
Startup Logo
Check this box to display a custom image when Wimpy loads, instead of the default "W" logo. The Startup Logo may be in JPG or SWF format. When loaded, the image will be centered (not resized) within the player's bounding box.
Default Cover Art
Check this box to place an image behind any loading cover art images, so if there are any "hiccups" while loading a directory-based image or track based image, the image defined for this option will show. Note that Cover Art images (see above) will load "on top of" this image, and if they fails to load, this image will always be visible.
Limit track playback time to
Check this box to limit the amount of time (in seconds) that a file will be played.
Enable Downloads
Check this box to allow users to download your tracks. If checked, a "Download" icon will appear when the mouse hovers over a track in the playlist. Note: This icon is dependant on the Skin being used -- in some skins this icons is very small or invisible.
Extract embedded ID3 info
Check this box to read and display the ID3 information from each MP3 file.
NOTE: This option is only available when the playlist option is set to "Automatic."
Find All Media
When checked, the player will return a playlist containing all media in the Rave installation folder.
NOTE: This option is only available when the playlist option is set to "Automatic."
WARNING: Do not use this option if there are a lot of media files in your Wimpy installation folder. Especially if you have the "Extract ID3 Information" enabled. Attempting to retrieve the info for thousands of tracks could cause Wimpy to "hog" your server and system resources.
Use Localized Characters
*** This option will allow non-roman characters, such as å ö Å Ö, to render in the player. You may have to URL encode double-byte characters, such as Chinese characters, in order for them to display correctly.
Do NOT use Javascript to render the player
*** This option will use standard HTML code to render the player. This option may cause people who use Internet Explorer to have to click on the player to "activate" it before they can interact with the player's controls.
Installation Folder
Enter the URL of your Rave installation folder here.
