Linux Dummies 9th

258
Part III: Getting Things Done
✓ Playlists: Here is where you create new playlists and access those that
are already available. The Smart Playlists section offers you a variety
of prebuilt playlists, such as All Collection if you want to listen to
everything you have, 50 Random Tracks to let the player pick them for
you, Genres (if you took the time to assign genre information when ripping
your CDs), and more. Dynamic Playlists are different from Smart
Playlists because they’re constantly changing; the Random Mix dynamic
playlist, for example, chooses music randomly from your collection and
then keeps choosing it as you continue listening. For Suggested Songs,
you put a few key songs in your playlist and then Last.fm (www.last.
fm) builds you a personalized online radio station with music that it
considers similar. If you’re a big fan of online radio or are curious about
it, then check out the Radio Streams section’s Cool-Streams folder. Here
you’ll find lots of radio stations to choose from.
✓ Internet: If you have a connection to the Internet, Amarok lets you connect
to popular Internet radio stations that provide streaming audio,
search for books and audio recordings you can purchase online, or
listen to podcasts.
✓ Collection: Shows your music collection. Above the listing, click the
Search Preferences button to choose features (such as whether the collection
is organized by group, album, and so on). You can search for a
song quickly by entering it in the search text box. Click the Advanced
button, and a Filter dialog box appears; there you can type keywords to
determine what songs are displayed.
No matter how you get music into the playlist on the right, when it’s there,
you can click the Play button at the top-left side of the pane to play the
selected track. You can also double-click a track to play it. The volume slider
is on the top-right side of the pane.
There is much more to Amarok. Take the time to explore this program and
really customize it to your satisfaction. When you close this program, the
Docking In System Tray dialog box appears. It warns you that Amarok will
continue to run and appear as a system tray icon on the panel. You can avoid
this by choosing Actions➪Quit rather than clicking the X in the corner of the
application to close the program. If you leave the program on the panel, you
can open it at any time by clicking the little wolf icon.
If you listen to your digital audio files using a mobile digital audio player (such
as the popular iPod), you may be able to use Amarok to interface with your
digital player. Amarok can detect digital players plugged into the USB port. If a
digital player is detected, Amarok creates a Device tab in the main Amarok
screen (see Figure 13-8). Select that tab to see whether Amarok can interact
with your mobile digital audio player!