/herrie

Herrie: a minimalistic music player

Primary LanguageC

Hello and thanks for downloading Herrie!

This document will discuss a small set of subjects that will help you
install and use Herrie, but also ways to contact the developers to
report bugs and such.

- What is Herrie?
- How should I pronounce it?
- What kind of platforms will it run on?
- What are the dependencies of Herrie?
- How do I compile and install Herrie?
- I've installed it - now what?
- How do I contact you (report bugs, ask questions, etc)?

What is Herrie?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie is a minimalistic music player that uses the command line. It is
written to support a variety of operating systems, audio subsystems and
file formats, including playlists.

Herrie has a split-screen user interface, with a playlist at the top of
the screen and a file browser at the bottom. When tracks are added to
the playlist, Herrie automatically consumes them one by one. It is thus
an application that allows you to batch music for playback.

How should I pronounce it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie is actually a Dutch word. Its meaning is similar to the English
word 'clamour' (loud noise). Just pronounce it as the English given name
'Harry' and you are a long way.

What kind of platforms will it run on?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie should compile without a flaw on the following operating systems:

- Cygwin
- FreeBSD
- Linux
- Mac OS X (Darwin)
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- Solaris

The application has been tested on little and big endian platforms, so
the chances are high it should just work on your obscure hardware as
well. At least Intel x86, SPARC and PowerPC should work.

What are the dependencies of Herrie?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie is written in C and uses a lot of functions found in the GLib
library. It also uses some libraries for audio decompression and such.
Below is a list of libraries you should install prior to compiling
Herrie:

- dbus and dbus-glib (optional)
- gettext (NLS, optional)
- glib (requires 2.32)
- libasound (ALSA, optional)
- libao (AO, optional)
- libcurl (HTTP and AudioScrobbler, optional)
- libid3tag (MP3, optional)
- libmad (MP3, optional)
- libmodplug (optional)
- libsndfile (requires 1.0.18, optional)
- libvorbisfile (optional)
- libxspf (optional)
- ncursesw, ncurses or pdcurses (`XCurses')
- pulseaudio (optional)

All optional dependencies can be disabled using the corresponding
switches below. On Debian-like systems, make sure to install all the
appropriate -dev packages.

How do I compile and install Herrie?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie ships with a shellscript called `configure' which generates a
Makefile for your specific system. Arguments can be passed to the
configure script to change certain parameters:

- no_dbus       Disable DBus integration
- gst           Enable GStreamer format support
- no_http       Disable support for HTTP audio streams
- no_modplug    Disable libmodplug linkage
- no_mp3        Disable MP3 audio file support
- no_nls        Disable native language support
- no_scrobbler  Disable AudioScrobbler support
- no_sndfile    Disable libsndfile linkage (Wave/FLAC support)
- no_vorbis     Disable Ogg Vorbis support
- no_xspf       Disable XSPF (`Spiff') playlist support

- alsa          Use ALSA audio output
- ao            Use libao audio output
- coreaudio     Use Apple's CoreAudio audio output
- oss           Use Open Sound System output
- null          Use placeholder audio output
- pulse         Use PulseAudio audio output

- ncurses       Use ncurses instead of ncursesw (breaks UTF-8 support)
- xcurses       Build application against XCurses (PDCurses)

- no_strip      Don't strip the application binary on installation
- debug         Build with assertions and debug symbols
- strict        Turn on stricter compiler flags for GCC
- verbose       Print commands during compilation

There are also some environment variables which also have influence on
the generated Makefile:

- CC            C compiler
- CFLAGS        Prepend compiler flags
- LDFLAGS       Prepend linkage flags
- LINGUAS       Only install certain languages
- INSTALL       install(1) application used by `make install'
- CONFDIR       Change configuration file directory
- MANDIR        Change Manual page directory
- OS            Override operating system detection (for cross compilation)
- PREFIX        Change installation prefix

After running `./configure', a simple `make; make install' will suffice.
When the DESTDIR variable is set during installation, its contents will
be prepended to the PREFIX. It is also possible to run the `configure'
script from a different directory, which causes all generated data to be
stored in that directory.

I've installed it - now what?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herrie also comes with a manual page. The manual page contains some more
information about its basic usage and a list of configuration file
switches and keyboard bindings. Please take a look at it.

How do I contact you (report bugs, ask questions, etc)?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When something goes wrong or when you have something to tell us, you can
contact us on IRC, but also by email. Please visit our website to obtain
more information on how to contact us:

	http://herrie.info/