- @(#)ANSWERS	1.6 7/1/93 -

COMMON "WORKMAN" QUESTIONS (with answers!)

1. Why doesn't it play through the workstation's speaker?
2. How do I label several tracks in a row as part of the same song?
3. Can different tracks be by different artists?
4. Why does it eat more and more memory as it runs?
5. Why do I have to type all that information in?  Isn't it on the CD?
6. Why doesn't WorkMan recognize a CD I know is in the database?
7. How do I get the controls to stop moving up and down?

---
1. Why doesn't it play through the workstation's speaker?

The short answer: Because it can't.  The CD-ROM drive provides no way to read
the audio data from the CD to the computer.  This is a limitation in the
hardware.  The workaround is to run an audio patch cable (available at any
decent stereo store) from the drive's headphone jack to the workstation's
audio input; then run "cat /dev/audio > /dev/audio" (on Suns; you'll need
to do something else on other machines).

For SPARCstation users, I recommend not bothering with the speakerbox;
instead, pick up a pair of cheap desktop speakers.  Mine were made by a
company called Labtec and cost me $20.  If you do use the speakerbox, you
will probably have to lower the volume on the CD drive to avoid clipping
(which results in lots of distortion when loud sounds are played.)

---
2. How do I label several tracks in a row as part of the same song?

There are several special symbols you can put into a track title to alter
aspects of the main window's display.  The most important is "//" (two
forward slashes in a row.)  This splits the title up into segments.  Usually,
each segment is displayed on its own line in the main window; a common use
is to enter titles that are too big to fit on one line.  For instance,
you might enter a title like:

The really really really really really//really really really long song

That would add a second line of track title information to the main window,
with the text after the "//"; the text before "//" would go on the first
line of the window.  The "//" itself is never displayed.  If you leave out
the "//" and just enter the long song title, the program will do its best
to break the title into separate segments automatically.

If a segment starts with "+", the rest of the text in the segment is displayed
in place of the disc name on the main window.  This is most often used when
several tracks are related in some way (such as movements of a symphony.)
For example, you might enter:

+Symphony No. 2, op. 40//Allegro assai

That title line has two segments.  The second segment is displayed as the
track title.  Since the first segment begins with "+", the CD's title is
replaced with "Symphony No. 2, op. 40" while the track in question is
playing.

As a shortcut, if a segment contains only a "+" character and nothing
else, the "+" segment from the previous track is used.  So you might
have a group of tracks labeled:

+Piano concerto in G//Allegro
+//Andante
Presto//+
+//Allegro assai - Andante -//Moderato marcato

The third line is to demonstrate that the order of segments isn't important;
"+" can come anywhere.  The fourth track has the "Piano concerto in G"
title, as well as a two-line track title.

If you're not sure what the result will look like when you enter a
title with several segments, just click on the track's selector button
on the main window and the title will be displayed, even if the CD isn't
playing.

---
3. Can different tracks be by different artists?

Yes, using the same facilities described in answer #2.  There is a second
special character that can come at the front of a segment, "@".  It causes
the artist name on the main window display to be replaced with the rest of
the text in the segment while the track in question is playing.

"@" behaves in much the same way as "+" (e.g. if it's alone in a segment,
the previous track's "@" segment is used.)

A compilation CD's track titles might look like this:

@Charles Gounod//+Ballet music from "Faust"//Allegretto
@//+//Adagio
@//+//Allegretto
@//+//Moderato maestoso
@//+//Moderato con moto
@//+//Allegretto
@//+//Allegro vivo
@Friedrich Smetana//Symphonic poem "The Moldau"
@Anton Dvorak//Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor
@Adolphe Adam//Overture from "If I were King"

---
4. Why does it eat more and more memory as it runs?

There is a bug in XView 3.0 (fixed in 3.0.1 and higher) that causes the
library to lose a little bit of memory whenever an image is destroyed.
Unfortunately, this happens twice a second while the About popup is
displayed.  If the About popup is left up overnight, the program can get
bigger than you might expect.  WorkMan doesn't update the About popup
unless it's actually displayed onscreen, so unpin (dismiss) it when
you're not using it and the program will stop growing.

---
5. Why do I have to type all that information in?  Isn't it on the CD?

I've heard rumors to that effect, but haven't seen definite proof one way
or the other.  In any case, even if the information _is_ on the CD, the
software interface to the CD-ROM provides no mechanism for getting at it.
So you're stuck typing names in for now.

---
6. Why doesn't WorkMan recognize a CD I know is in the database?

Sometimes you'll put in a CD, and the program won't recognize it even
though you know you saw it in the database.  What's likely happening is
that you have a different pressing (publication run) of the CD than the
person who entered it into the database.  As I understand it, when they
want to make more copies of a CD, they produce a new pressing master from
the audio tape.  Unfortunately, the track timings are different by a
fraction of a second when they do that -- and since WorkMan uses track
timings (down to 1/75 of a second accuracy) to identify a CD, the new
pressing looks like a different disc.

A future version of the program will let you set a control to recognize
close matches; a popup saying "This CD could be XXX by XXX; is it?" will
appear.

---
7. How do I get the controls to stop moving up and down?

The window size changes as the program displays different track titles
and other things.  If you start the program with the "-geometry" option
and give a negative number for the Y coordinate, the bottom of the window
will be fixed in place and the controls won't move around.  Note that
you should specify only the window position, and not the size.  For
example,

workman -geometry -0-500

would pop the window up on the right side of the screen, about halfway
up (on screens of typical resolution.)  "-0-0" will put the window
slightly off the bottom of the screen because there's no way to tell how
tall the window manager's decorations are.  Play with the numbers until
the WorkMan window pops up where you want it; under olwm version 3,
"-0-38" will put the window in the lower right corner.
