Tracker - Help
Tracker is a small app. for playing music and other sound tracks. This is the Help document for Tracker.
Menus
File
The File Menu contains up to three items.
Open,
Save &
Exit.
Open
Open a track to play. A file chooser will guide you through selecting a track.
If supported, the track will be opened and begin playing. If not supported, a message will be shown in the plot panel. See Supported Formats for more details of formats supported by Tracker.
Url
Open a track to play, specified by URL. The URL can be relative to the web page, or if the applet is trusted, to any place on the internet that serves compatible sound tracks.
If supported, the track will be opened and begin playing. If not supported, a message will be shown in the plot panel. See Supported Formats for more details of formats supported by Tracker.
Exit
Exit's the Tracker software. Only relevant to the application form of Tracker.
To close the applet form of Tracker, browse to a new page or close the tab or browser.
Trace Configuration
Most of the trace configuration options are described in the help for
Audio Trace, but Tracker also adds the ability to send the
trace to full-screen using Ctrl+F-11.
Information
The Information menu has two items,
About &
Help.
About
Pops a dialog giving the application title, vendor and version.
Help
You're looking at it! Opens this page in the default browser.
Logging
Provides access to the Log. This has a separate help page (currently under development).
Controls
The general controls for configuring Tracker are typical of those on most media players.
Volume
The vertical slider on the right of Tracker sets the volume of the track currently playing.
Rewind
Rewinds the current track to the beginning, and start play.
Fast Rewind
Jumps backward in the current track. Hold to continuously rewind.
Another way to move to a different part of a track is to click the progress bar at the top of Tracker.
Start (Play) & Stop (Pause)
If playing, stops the track. If stopped, resumes play at the current point. If finished, rewinds and plays the track.
Fast Forward
Jumps forward in the current track. Hold to continuously fast forward.
Another way to move to a different part of a track is to click the progress bar at the top of Tracker.
Applet Parameters
There are a couple of parameters that are specific to the applet.
media.load
The media.load parameter determines if the given URL should be pre-loaded.
media.play
The media.play parameter determines if the media should start playing as soon as
it is loaded.
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Key | Button | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ↑ | - | Volume up |
| ↓ | - | Volume down |
| ← | Fast rewind | |
| → | Fast forward | |
| r | Rewind | |
| space bar |
| Toggle stop (pause)/start (play). |
| v | - | Toggle show volume |
| b | - | Toggle volume boost |
| m | - | Toggle volume match trace colors |
| c | - | Pop the color options dialog |
| t | - | Pop the trace options dialog |
Related Tools
Access to some other tools might be very handy for the sound enthusiast.
Track repair tools
Not all sound tracks are equal. In fact, many do not comply to the file format they aim (or claim) to implement. Many players put considerable resources into correcting such tracks, or simply skip them. For our small player, we skip them.
As such, it would be handy to run checking tools on our treasured sound tracks. It would be especially handy if they detect and correct any number of aspects of malformed files. We are still investigating such tools (having a voluminous collection of MP3s that include many invalid ones). If you have any specific suggestions about tools that you have used and been happy with, please get in contact.
