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MP3 Boss v0.46
Copyright (c) 1999-2000 OPAL Network.
All Rights Reserved.

NOTICE: As of v0.25 and v0.35, a few field lengths were changes, and a few new fields were added.  You will be told to run the UPDATE program if your database is in the old format.  To run the update program, simply click on the Update item from your Start/Programs/MP3 Boss menu.  In most cases, you will not need to change the path to either the data file or the executable.  Simply click UPDATE and you are done.


This program allows you to easily and fully manage your MP3 files -- including integrated support for the WinAmp MP3 player, automatic scanning of MP3 tags, extensive database functions, and general MP3 management.

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MP3 Boss -- Be the BOSS of your MP3 Files!

What does it DO?
MP3 Boss helps you manage and play your collection of MP3 files.  Using
MP3 Boss, you can:
* LIST all of your MP3 files in a single location.  No longer any need to be
  concerned about drives or directories.  Plus, you'll instantly see how many
  MP3 files you have, and how much space they require.  Full support for
  CD-ROM drives and networks!
* SEARCH for a specific artist, title, album, music category (and more!)
* SORT based on artist, title, album, music category (and more!)
* EDIT information for individual MP3 files or groups of MP3 files -- finally a way
  to change information for an entire album with only a few clicks!
* FIND and DELETE duplicate files.  MP3 Boss will perform partial comparisons, or
  full bit-by-bit comparisons and give you a complete report of exact (and partial)
  matches.  You then simply click the files you want to delete!  You even get a
  report of how many megabytes will be freed up.
* CHANGE the filename, path, or drive by simply changing the information in the
  database (after confirmation of course!).
* PLAY individual or groups of MP3 files -- MP3 Boss directly communicates with
  the WinAmp MP3 player, and includes integrated volume control, prior/next track,
  stop/pause/play and more.  Click a couple of buttons, and you can display or
  edit the complete information about the file.
* CREATE reports showing selected MP3 files -- or a list of all of your MP3 files.
* RATE your MP3 files - Good/Bad/Awful.  Then, just play the songs YOU want!
  Also, you will no longer be limited to short comments -- each MP3 file could include
  a 64KB comment.
* SCAN all your drives for MP3 files -- MP3 Boss will automatically create the
  database based on tag (ID3, Lyric, and ID3v2) and filename information.  If your
  MP3 files are organized into well-defined directories, all of that information is easy
  to incorporate into the database during the scan.    Plus, a single click lets you swap
  title and artist - for those MP3 files that didn't have any tag information, and weren't 
  named in the most common format.  Plus, MP3 Boss is really network ready -- not
  only does it scan network drives, it can even remap the drives for those times you
  want to share an MP3 database among a group of networked users.
* UPDATE your list of MP3 files -- the SCAN is smart enough to ignore any files that
  have already been scanned.  Not only does this speed things up, it also means that
  you won't lose any custom comments.
* HIDE files that have glitches or those that are on removable drives.  Also, you can
  show any files with filenames that are too long for CD-ROM -- a real lifesaver when
  creating an all-MP3 CD-ROM.
* ORGANIZE your files quickly and easily.  With a few clicks, you can change EVERY
  occurrence of PFlyd, PinkFlyd, and PF to Pink Floyd.  A real time-saver!
* COPY/MOVE/DELETE any file.  Don't like the song that is playing?  Simply click FIND, and
  then click DELETE.  No more having to first figure out the name of the file, and then 
  hunting down that file!
* HotScan your playlist.  Play a 10s sample of all of the songs in your playlist.  A great 
  way to quickly review/rate your files.
* MUCH MORE!

STILL TO COME:
If MP3 Boss gets a good reception, there is much more planned:
* An alarm to auto-start the MP3 player at a specified time.
* CD-Caching to make it quick & easy to play the songs from CD.
* Multi-user aware -- each user can individually rate the songs.
* Support for more MP3 players (assuming there are other players beside WinAmp that
  allow nearly complete automation via SendMessage commands).
* Better Lyrics tag support.  This version reads the complete Lyrics information, but won't
   write that information.
* Better ID3 tag support.  This version provides single-click update of ALL modified files,
   but only for ID3v1 tags.
* Read ZIP files during the scan to make sure that ZIPPED MP3 files aren't missed.
* Write WAV and MP3 files to CDR.
* More?  Tell me what you want!

INSTALLATION FROM MP3.EXE:
Simply click on the MP3.EXE application to start the automatic installation program.

Once the setup application is started, follow the on-screen instructions
to install MP3 Boss.

After installation is completed, click Start, Programs, MP3Boss and then
click the MP3Boss menu item to start the program.

INSTALLATION FROM CD-ROM:
To install MP3 Boss, insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive.  The
setup application will automatically start if your CD-ROM drive has
autorun enabled.  If the setup program does not automatically start,
double-click on the Setup.exe file.

Once the setup application is started, follow the on-screen instructions
to install MP3 Boss.

After installation is completed, click Start, Programs, MP3Boss and then
click the MP3Boss menu item to start the program.

OPERATION:
When you first start MP3 Boss, it will ask you to fill in information about the
location of WinAmp (the only MP3 player currently supported).  Although 
WinAmp isn't required, being able to directly control WinAmp via the MP3
Boss interface is very convenient.

After entering the WinAmp player information (and optionally, your name/address/
company information), you will be asked to perform an MP3 scan -- this scan will 
populate your MP3 Boss database with MP3 information.  Normally you should click 
the 'SCAN ALL DRIVES' button, and have MP3 Boss do the work of locating all your 
MP3 files.

After a very quick initial scan, MP3 Boss will ask you to add comments to each drive
volume that contains MP3 files -- adding a comment here is very useful for CD-ROM
scans, but is not normally needed to identify local drives.  After clicking the Close 
button, you will be shown a list of all of the directories that contain MP3 files -- and
you can add Artist, Album and/or Category information for each directory.  Entering
information here isn't needed if all of your MP3 files have embedded tags, but this 
can be useful to identify Artist, Album, and Category information for any files that 
are missing tags (MP3 Boss reads ID3, ID3v2, and Lyrics tags).  Click the Close
button when finished.  MP3 Boss then does a full scan of each MP3 file -- this 
scan includes a CRC32 calculation of a portion of the file (by default, 
256KB -- about 15 seconds), so this scan can take minutes or hours if you have a 
lot of MP3 files (scan rates range from about 5-500songs/minute).

After the scan is complete, you can now click on MP3 list from the main switchboard
to view the song database, or click on Utilities to use the utility functions (which 
includes duplicate checking).

Registration
MP3 Boss Registration is $15, and includes all updates through release 1.0.
If you have any comments or questions, please contact John McCaffrey at 
john.t.mccaffrey@snet.net.  The latest release of MP3 Boss can be found at http://www.mp3-boss.com/index.html

Distribution
This software may be distributed freely on online services, bulletin boards,
or other electronic media as long as the files are distributed in their 
entirety.  This software may not be distributed on CD-ROM, disk, or other 
physical media for a fee without the permission of OPAL Network.

Limitations of Use
You may install this program to test and evaluate for 60 days; after that time
you must either register this program or delete it from your computer hard drive.
Please see License.txt for details.
