Bemused v1.4 ============ Introduction ------------ Bemused is a system which allows you to control Winamp and several other programs using your Nokia 7650. It consists of two parts: a server program which runs on your PC, and a client program which runs on your phone. It allows you to do the following things: - browse your music collection on your phone - play any song supported by Winamp, including MP3s, CDs, MIDIs and playlists - pause songs, stop them, fast forward and rewind, move around the playlist, and change the volume - add songs to your playlist and use shuffle and repeat - change the look of your player with skins - stop or pause the music when you get an incoming call - download music to your phone (WAV and MIDI formats supported) - control Winamp 3, Windows Media Player 7 and PowerPoint Viewer 97 (experimental) The latest version of Bemused is freely available from http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~ashley/bemused . Requirements ------------ - a Nokia 7650 or 3650 - a PC running Windows 95 or later - a Bluetooth adapter plugged into the PC (supported adapters given below) - Winamp version 1.4 or later *** IMPORTANT NOTE *** From version 1.4, Bemused includes experimental support for controlling several other applications. However, the most fully-featured support is for Winamp 2. Some features (such as adding songs to the playlist and displaying song times) are not available for certain applications. Previous versions of Bemused allowed control of Winamp 3 using a plugin (available separately). This is still possible, but Bemused can now control Winamp 3 directly. If you do decide to use this plugin instead, it is available from http://www.mp3-world.net/d/software/programs/wa3_plugins/2962.shtml Supported Bluetooth adapters ---------------------------- The following Bluetooth adapters are known to work with Bemused. If you experience any problems, and you have one of these adapters, contact the author. - MSI PC2PC USB Bluetooth adapter - Allnet Bluetooth adapter - MITSUMI WIF-0402C - 3COM PCMCIA Bluetooth adapter - Racewood BT-dongle with Acer drivers - Windigo Bluetooth adapter - BTD-2403 USB Bluetooth dongle - Tecom Bluetooth USB dongle - Epox Bluetooth USB dongle - Acer Bluetooth adapter with 3COM software - Billionton USB Bluetooth adapter Installation ------------ The Bemused server on your PC doesn't require any installation; it consists of a single EXE which can be run from anywhere. It will create an INI file in the same directory that it's run from. The Bemused application for your phone is a standard SIS file which should be sent to your phone and installed. Note that there are two SIS files available: one which only contains the "Basic" skin, and one which contains several more. Setup ----- The first stage is to set up a virtual serial port for Bemused on your PC. This process is different for each Bluetooth adapter; the following steps apply to dongles running the Widcomm Bluetooth stack. 1. Right-click on "My Bluetooth Places" and select "Setup". 2. Click on the "Local Services" tab and press the "Add serial service" button. 3. Note down which COM port this new service will use and press "OK". Now you can run the Bemused server application on the PC. You will need to enter the COM port to use, which should be the same as above. You also need to set the location of your music and the path to Winamp and any other applications you'd like to control, if you want them to be started automatically. Hit the "Connect" button in the Bemused server window to start listening for commands. Now you can run the "Bemused" program on your phone. Once the program is started, you can download a list of your music to your phone by selecting "Refresh list" from the Options menu. This will allow you to select songs and play them. Usage ----- The Bemused application on the phone consists of three views: one for browsing your music, one for controlling playback, and one for changing the settings. You can move between them using the arrow keys. In the Browse view, pressing in on the joystick when a file is selected will start playing it; pressing on a folder will enter that folder. You can press left to go up a level. There are also options to add files to the playlist or to download them, and to find files in your music collection. In the Control view, you can move between buttons by pressing left and right on the joystick. Move up and down to change the volume. Shuffle and repeat are turned on and off from this view. Hold down the joystick on the Next and Previous buttons to access fast-forward and rewind. It's also possible to shut down your PC when you've finished listening to music. There are a number of "hotkeys" in these two views which allow you to perform frequently-accessed actions more quickly. Here is a list of them: Browse view hotkeys ------------------- 2: page up by one screen 3: find a song (3 = 'f') 6: find next occurrence of same song (6 = 'n') 7: add selected song to playlist (7 = 'p') 8: page down Control view hotkeys -------------------- 1: previous song (1st button) 2: play song (2nd button) 3: pause song (3rd button) 4: stop song (4th button) 5: next song (5th button) Finally, the Settings view allows you to control many aspects of the behaviour of Bemused. The list of settings here should be self-explanatory. Installing skins ---------------- To install a new skin, send the two skin files (a PNG file and a TXT file) to the phone. Then, while they are still in your Inbox, run Bemused. Select "Install skin" from the Settings view. The name of the skin you want to install should appear in the list of installable skins. Once a skin has been installed, it can be deleted from your Inbox. New skins can be downloaded from the Bemused website. Troubleshooting --------------- > "Bemused claims to have connected to my PC, but the "Refreshing list" dialog stays on screen permanently and no song list is downloaded to my phone!" This problem is usually caused by the Bemused server on the PC not running, or being set up on the wrong COM port. Make sure that the Bemused server is running on the correct COM port before you try to use Bemused on your phone. If you have created an extra COM port for Bemused, try removing it and running Bemused on the same COM port as PC Suite. If you press the "Find" button in the Bemused server window, it will attempt to find which port to use itself. This will only work if your Bluetooth adapter uses the Widcomm Bluetooth stack. If this also doesn't work, from version 1.4 there is a new command in the Settings view called "Find server". If you select this, then Bemused will attempt to find the COM port which the server is using itself. If it succeeds, it will tell you which "channel" the server uses. You can force Bemused to use this channel by selecting it in the "Bluetooth channel" setting on the phone. > "When I download the list of songs to my phone, it crashes! I have a very large music collection." The 7650 doesn't have enough memory to store lists of very large music collections (over roughly 10,000 songs). If this affects you, from version 1.2 you have the ability to only load song lists when they're required. Licence ------- Bemused is free software and is released under the GNU General Public Licence. Full source and binaries are freely available. See "COPYING.txt" for more details. Thanks ------ Many thanks to the following people for contributing to Bemused in one way or another: - David Carson - Jyri Kuparinen - Jim Hoyle - J?rg Walter - David Singleton Thanks also to everyone else who's written skins for Bemused, tested it, and given me suggestions or bug reports. Contact ------- Bemused was written by Ashley Montanaro. If you have any comments or queries, you can contact me at ashley_montanaro@hotmail.com. Even though Bemused is free, gifts of money or beer are always gratefully received :)
schranztech