CPlay List Editor


CPlay List Editor is a Java application that I wrote to generate play lists for the Cics Play memory player software (or any other music player that supports cue sheets). The application will start at any directory you specify, and add music files to lists so they can be chosen for playlists. Playlists can be saved to be loaded at nother time, or can be sent directly to the CPlay application.

CPlay supports cue sheets, so behind the scenes this application will write to a cue sheet which is then automatically sent to CPlay.

This application is only useful if you have ripped your CDs to individual music files per song, and if you have a directory structure something like
Library Root\Artist 1\Album 1
Library Root\Artist 1\Album 2
Library Root\Artist 2\Album 1...
or
Library Root\Genre\Artist 1\Album 1
Library Root\Genre\Artist 1\Album 2
Library Root\Genre\Artist 2\Album 1...

The program currently supports WAV, FLAC, MP3, and APE file types. You can choose to read embedded tags in FLAC and MP3 files where available instead of having the application attempt to discern the tags from the file system directory structure.

Directions

  1. Set settings accordingly in the Settings menu (see below).
  2. Press the "Set Playlist Directory" button and choose or create a directory to store your play list files.
  3. Next to the empty "Libraries" list, press the "Add" button and browse to the root folder of your music library, then give the library a name. The application will show status as it searches through your music directory. If successful, you can then choose artists / albums to populate into the Album list by selecting the beginning letter of the artist's name in the Alphabet radio button box.
  4. Selecting an item in the Album list will populate the Track list.
  5. Selecting one or more tracks in the Track list will enable the Right Arrow button that will copy any selected tracks into the Playlist list. Double clicking on a track in the track list will also send it to the play list.
  6. Build a playlist of tracks by different artists and albums by repeating the process.
  7. Change the order of tracks in the Playlist list by selecting a track and clicking the Up Arrow or Down Arrow buttons.
  8. When you have all the tracks as you want them in the Playlist list, you can save the playlist by clicking on the Save button and choosing a name for your new play list. The application will automatically give a ".cue" file extension if you type in a name and skip the ".cue" extension. You can also choose to overwrite an existing play list if one exists. The status label will show that the play list has been saved if successful. The play list is now available to be opened in CPlay.
  9. If you have set the setting to send play lists to CPlay (see below), pressing the play button will attempt to open CPlay with the playlist loaded within. Play lists don't have to be saved first, but save the playlist if you will want to load it another time.
    Please note that only one instance of CPlay can be run at a time, so be sure that CPlay is not already running before pressing the play button. If you start CPlay by pressing the Play button, and press Play again after changing the playlist, the current running instance of CPlay will be destroyed and a new instance will be created. This will work as long as you haven't stopped and restarted the CPlayList Editor application or the CPlay application.
  10. Press the Load button to load up an existing play list for editing or playing within CPlay.

Libraries List

If you keep your music under different top-level folders on your hardrive, you can add a Library to the Libraries list for each top-level folder and give each Library its own name. Reasons for keeping separate libraries might be that you want to keep music captured at a 96 kHz separate from music captured at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate, or you might want to keep WAV files separate from FLAC files. To add a library, press the Add button next to the Libraries list. A dialog box will appear, by which you can choose the top-level folder where your music is located. After choosing the folder, another dialog box will appear asking you to name the library.

The program will cache the library between sessions, but if you ever add more music to a library, you can add the new music by selecting that particular library in the Libraries list and pressing the Refresh Library button. The application will reread all the folders in that library add any music found.

You can remove a library by selecting a library from the Libraries list and pressing the Remove button.

You can build a single playlist out of songs from multiple libraries if you wish.

Settings

Notes