The Rockbox Manual For Ipod Mini: September 24, 2008

The Rockbox Manual
for
Ipod Mini
rockbox.org
September 24, 2008
2
Rockbox
http://www.rockbox.org/
Open Source Jukebox Firmware
Rockbox and this manual is the collaborative effort of the Rockbox team and
its contributors. See the appendix for a complete list of contributors.
c 2003-2008 The Rockbox Team and its contributors, c 2004 Christi Alice
Scarborough, c 2003 José Maria Garcia-Valdecasas Bernal & Peter Schlenker.
Version r18615-3.0-080923. Built using pdfLATEX.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document un-

der the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invari-
ant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of
the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation
License”.
T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

C ONTENTS 3
Contents
1 Introduction 9
1.1 Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Getting more help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Naming conventions and marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Installation 11
2.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Installing Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 Automated Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.2 Manual Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.3 Enabling Speech Support (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 Running Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.5 Updating Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.6 Uninstalling Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.6.1 Automatic Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.6.2 Manual Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3 Quick Start 19
3.1 Basic Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.1 The player’s controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.2 Turning the player on and off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.3 Starting the original firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.4 Putting music on your player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.5 The first contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.6 Basic controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.7 Basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 Customising Rockbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.3 Charging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4 Browsing and playing 23

4.1 File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.1.1 File Browser Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.1.2 Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.1.3 Virtual Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2 Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

C ONTENTS 4
4.2.2 Initializing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4.2.3 The Database Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2.4 Using the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.3 While Playing Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3.1 WPS Key Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.3.2 Peak Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3.3 The WPS Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4 Working with Playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4.1 Playlist terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4.2 Creating playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4.3 Adding music to playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4.4 Modifying playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4.5 Saving playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.6 Loading saved playlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.7 Helpful Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5 The Main Menu 38

5.1 Introducing the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.2 Navigating the Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.3 Recent Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.4 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.5 Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.6 Now Playing/Resume Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.1 Sound Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.2 General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.3 Manage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.7.4 Theme Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.8 Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.9 Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.10 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.11 Quick Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6 Sound Settings 43
6.1 Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.2 Bass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.3 Treble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.4 Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.5 Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.6 Stereo Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.7 Crossfeed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.8 Equalizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.9 Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

C ONTENTS 5
7 General Settings 49
7.1 Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
7.2 Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.3 File View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.4 Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.5 Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.6 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7.6.1 Start Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
7.6.2 Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
7.6.3 Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
7.6.4 Time and Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
7.6.5 Idle Poweroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7.6.6 Wake-Up Alarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7.6.7 Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7.7 Bookmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7.8 Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.9 Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8 Theme Settings 63
9 Plugins 64
9.1 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9.1.1 Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9.1.2 BrickMania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
9.1.3 Bubbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
9.1.4 Chessbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
9.1.5 Chopper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
9.1.6 Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
9.1.7 Doom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
9.1.8 Flipit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
9.1.9 Jewels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
9.1.10 MazezaM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
9.1.11 Minesweeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
9.1.12 Pegbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
9.1.13 Pong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
9.1.14 Robotfindskitten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9.1.15 Rockblox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
9.1.16 Rockblox1d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
9.1.17 Sliding Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.1.18 Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.1.19 Snake 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.1.20 Sokoban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.1.21 Solitaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9.1.22 Spacerocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

C ONTENTS 6
9.1.23 Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
9.1.24 Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
9.1.25 Wormlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.1.26 Xobox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
9.2 Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
9.2.1 Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
9.2.2 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
9.2.3 Cube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9.2.4 Demystify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9.2.5 Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
9.2.6 Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
9.2.7 Mandelbrot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
9.2.8 Mosaique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
9.2.9 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
9.2.10 Plasma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
9.2.11 Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
9.2.12 Starfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
9.2.13 VU meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
9.3 Viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
9.3.1 Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
9.3.2 Chip-8 Emulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
9.3.3 JPEG viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
9.3.4 Midiplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
9.3.5 MPEG Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9.3.6 Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9.3.7 Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9.3.8 Text Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
9.3.9 VBRfix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
9.3.10 ZXBox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
9.4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
9.4.1 Battery Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
9.4.2 Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
9.4.3 Chess Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
9.4.4 Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
9.4.5 Disk Tidy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
9.4.6 Keybox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
9.4.7 Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
9.4.8 Metronome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9.4.9 Random Folder Advance Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9.4.10 Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
9.4.11 Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
9.4.12 Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
10 Advanced Topics 113

C ONTENTS 7
10.1 Customising the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

10.1.1 Getting Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.1.2 Loading Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.1.3 Loading Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.1.4 Loading Backdrops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.2 Configuring the WPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
10.2.1 WPS – General Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
10.2.2 WPS – Build Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
10.3 Managing Rockbox Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
10.3.1 Introduction to .cfg Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
10.3.2 Specifications for .cfg Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
10.3.3 The M ANAGE S ETTINGS menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
10.4 Firmware Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
10.4.1 Using ROLO (Rockbox Loader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
A File formats 120

A.1 Supported file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
A.2 Supported audio formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
B WPS Tags 122

B.1 Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
B.2 ID3 Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
B.3 Power Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
B.4 File Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
B.5 Playlist/Song Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
B.6 Runtime Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
B.7 Sound (DSP) settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
B.8 Virtual LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
B.9 Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
B.10 Playback Mode Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
B.11 Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
B.12 Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
B.13 Conditional Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
B.14 Real Time Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
B.15 Other Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
C Config file options 129
D User feedback 133

D.1 Bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
D.1.1 Rules for submitting new bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
D.2 Feature ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
D.2.1 Rules for submitting a new feature idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
D.2.2 Features we will not implement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

C ONTENTS 8
E Changelog 135
E.1 What is new since v2.5? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
E.1.1 New features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
E.1.2 Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
E.1.3 New codecs supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
F Credits 138
G Licenses 141
G.1 GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
G.2 The GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

C HAPTER 1. I NTRODUCTION 9
1 Introduction
1.1 Welcome
This is the manual for Rockbox. Rockbox is an open source firmware replacement for
a growing number of digital audio players. Rockbox aims to be considerably more
functional and efficient than your device’s stock firmware while remaining easy to use
and customisable. Rockbox is written by users, for users. Not only is it free to use, it
is also released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which means that it will
always remain free both to use and to change.
Rockbox has been in development since 2001, and receives new features, tweaks and
fixes each day to provide you with the best possible experience on your digital audio
player. A major goal of Rockbox is to be simple and easy to use, yet remain very cus-
tomisable and configurable. We believe that you should never need to go through a
series of menus for an action you perform frequently. We also believe that you should
be able to configure almost anything about Rockbox you could want, pertaining to
functionality. Another top priority of Rockbox is audio playback quality – Rockbox,
for most models, includes a wider range of sound settings than the device’s original
firmware. A lot of work has been put into making Rockbox sound the best it can, and
improvements are constantly being made. All models have access to a large number
of plugins, including many games, applications, and graphical “demos”. You can load
different configurations quickly for different purposes (e.g. a large font for in your car,
different sound settings for at home). Rockbox features a very wide range of languages,
and all supported models also have the ability to talk to you – menus can be voiced and
filenames spelled out or spoken.
1.2 Getting more help

This manual is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the Rockbox firmware.
There is, however, more help available. The Rockbox website at http://www.rockbox.org/
contains very extensive documentation and guides written by members of the Rockbox
community and this should be your first port of call when looking for further help.
If you cannot find the information you are searching for on the Rockbox website there
are a number of support channels you should have a look at. You can try the Rockbox
forums located at http://forums.rockbox.org/. Another option are the mailing lists which
can be found at http://www.rockbox.org/mail/. From that page you can subscribe to the
lists and browse the archives. For searching the list archives simply use the search field
that is located on the left side of the website. Also you can ask on IRC. The main channel

C HAPTER 1. I NTRODUCTION 10
for Rockbox is #rockbox on irc://irc.freenode.net. A bunch of helpful developers and

users are usually around. Just join and ask – if someone knows the answer you’ll usu-
ally get an answer pretty quickly. More information including IRC logs can be found
at http://www.rockbox.org/irc/. We also have a web client for joining the rockbox IRC
channel so there is no need for you to install additional software to your computer.
If you think you have found a bug please make sure it actually is a bug and is still
present in the most recent version of rockbox. You should try to confirm that by using
the above mentioned support channels first. After that you can submit that issue to our
tracker. Refer to section D (page 133) for details on how to use the tracker.
1.3 Naming conventions and marks

We have some conventions especially on naming that are intended to be consistent
throughout this manual.
Manufacturer and product names are formatted in accordance with the standard
rules of English grammar, e.g. “Ipod playback is currently unsupported”. Manufac-
turer and model names are proper nouns, and thus are written beginning with a capital
letter.
This manual has some parts that are marked with icons on the margin to help you
finding important parts or parts you could skip. The following icons are used:
Note: This indicates a note. A note starts always with the text “Note”. For easier finding
of notes we have put this an icon in the margin like here. Notes are used to mark infor-
b
mation that could help you or indicate a possible “weirdness” in rockbox that would
be explained.
Warning: This is a warning. In contrast to notes mentioned above, a warning should be

taken more seriously. While ignoring notes will not cause any serious damage ignoring
!
warnings could cause serious damage. If you are new to rockbox you should really read
the warnings before doing anything that is warned about.
This icon marks a section that is intended especially for the blind and visually im-
paired. As they cannot read the manual in the same way sighted people do we have
¸
added some additional descriptions. If you are not blind or visually impaired you most
likely can completely skip these blocks. To make this easier, there is an icon shown in
the margin on the right.
Links to the wiki are abbreviated by the name of the wiki page. Those names are still
linked so you can simply follow them like any other link in this manual. If you want
to access a wiki page manually go to Z http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ and type the
page name in the “Go” box at the top of the page. Links to wiki pages are also indicated
by the symbol Z in front of the page name.

C HAPTER 2. I NSTALLATION 11
2 Installation
2.1 Overview
There are two ways of installing Rockbox: automated and manual. While the manual
way is older, more tested and proven to work correctly, the automated installation is
based on a nice graphical application that does almost everything for you. It is still
important that you have an overview of the installation process to be able to select the
correct installation options.
There are three separate components, two of which need to be installed in order to
run Rockbox.
The Ipod bootloader. The Ipod bootloader is the program that tells your player how
to load and start the firmware from disk. It is also responsible for the disk mode
on your player.
This bootloader is stored in special flash memory in your Ipod. It is already in-
stalled on your player, so it is never necessary to modify this in order to install
Rockbox.
The Rockbox bootloader. The Rockbox bootloader is loaded from disk by the Ipod
bootloader. It is responsible for loading the Rockbox firmware and for providing
the dual boot function. It directly replaces the Ipod firmware in the player’s boot
sequence.
The Rockbox firmware. Similar to the Ipod firmware, most of the Rockbox code is
contained in a “build” that resides on your player’s drive. This makes it easy
to update Rockbox. The build consists of a directory called .rockbox which
contains all of the Rockbox files, and is located in the root of your player’s drive.
Apart from the required parts there are some addons you might be interested in in-
stalling.
Fonts. Rockbox can load custom fonts. The fonts are distributed as a separate package
and thus need to be installed separately. They are not required to run Rockbox
itself but a lot of themes require the fonts package to be installed.
Themes. The view of Rockbox can be customized by themes. Depending on your taste
you might want to install additional themes to change the look of Rockbox.

2.2 Prerequisites
Before installing Rockbox you should make sure you meet the prerequisites. You may
need some additional tools for installation. In most cases these will already be available
on your computer, but if not, installing some additional software might be necessary.
USB connection. To transfer Rockbox to your player you need to connect it to your
computer. For manual installation/uninstallation, or should autodetection fail
during automatic installation, you need to know where to access the player. On
Windows this means you need to figure out the drive letter associated with the
player. On Linux you need to know the mount point of your player.
Your player should enter disk mode automatically when connected to a computer
via USB. If your computer does not recognise your player, you may need to enter
the disk mode manually. Disconnect your player from the computer. Hard reset
the player by pressing and holding the Menu and Select buttons simultaneously.
As soon as the player resets, press and hold the Select and Play buttons simulta-
neously. Your player should enter disk mode and you can try reconnecting to the
computer.
Note: Firewire detection is not supported in Rockbox at the moment. Please use
USB only.
b
For manual installation and customization additional software is required.
ZIP utility. Rockbox is distributed as a compressed archive using the .zip format.
Your computer will normally already have a means of handling such archive
files. Windows XP has built-in support for .zip files and presents them to you
as directories unless you have installed a third party program that handles com-
pressed files. For other operating systems this may vary. If the .zip file for-
mat is not recognised on your computer you can find a program to handle them
at http://www.info-zip.org/ or http://sevenzip.sf.net/, both of which can be down-
loaded and used free of charge.
Text editor. As you will see in the following chapters, Rockbox is highly configurable.
In addition to saving configurations, Rockbox also allows you to create customised
configuration files. If you would like to edit custom configuration files on your
computer, you will need a text editor like Windows’ “Wordpad”.
Note: In addition to the requirements described above, Rockbox only works on Ipods
formatted with the FAT32 filesystem (i.e. Ipods initialized by Itunes for Windows). It
b
does not work with the HFS+ filesystem (i.e. Ipods initialized by Itunes for the Mac).
More information and instructions for converting an Ipod to FAT32 can be found on the
ZIpodConversionToFAT32 wiki page on the Rockbox website. Note that after conver-
sion, you can still use a FAT32 Ipod on a Mac.

2.3 Installing Rockbox

2.3.1 Automated Installation
To automatically install Rockbox, download the official installer and housekeeping tool
R OCKBOX U TILITY. It allows you to:
• Automatically install all needed components for using Rockbox (“Small Installa-
tion”)
• Automatically install all suggested components (“Full Installation”)
• Selectively install optional components
• Install additional themes
• Install voice files and generate talk clips
• Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility
Prebuilt binaries for Windows, Linux and MacOS X are available at the ZRockboxUtility
wiki page.
Warning: When first starting R OCKBOX U TILITY run “Autodetect”, found in the con-
figuration dialog (File → Configure). Autodetection can detect most player types. If
!
autodetection fails or is unable to detect the mountpoint, make sure to enter the correct
values. The mountpoint indicates the location of the player in your filesystem. On Win-
dows, this is the drive letter the player gets assigned, on other systems this is a path in
the filesystem.
Note: Rockbox Utility currently lacks some guiding messages. Please have a look at the
manual installation instructions if you are stuck during installation.
b
2.3.2 Manual Installation
Choosing a Rockbox version
There are three different types of firmware binaries available from the Rockbox website:
Release version, current build and daily build. You need to decide which one you want
to install and get the appropriate version for your player.
Release. The release version is the latest stable release, free of known critical bugs. The
current stable release of Rockbox, version 3.0, is available at http://www.rockbox.
org/download/.
Current Build. The current build is built at each source code change to the Rockbox
SVN repository and represents the current state of Rockbox development. This
means that the build could contain bugs but most of the time is safe to use. You
can download the current build from http://build.rockbox.org/.

Archived Build. In addition to the release version and the current build, there is also
an archive of daily builds available for download. These are built once a day from
the latest source code in the SVN repository. You can download archived builds
from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.
Warning: Because current builds and daily builds are development versions which
change frequently, they may behave differently than described in this manual, or they
!
may introduce new (and maybe annoying) bugs. If you do not want to get undefined
behaviour from your player, you should stick to the current stable release if there is
one for your player. If you want to help with project development, you can try devel-
opment builds and help by reporting bugs. Just be aware that these are development
builds that are highly functional but not perfect!
Installing the firmware

1. Download your chosen version of Rockbox from the links in the previous section.
2. Connect your player to the computer via USB or Firewire as described in the
manual that came with your player.
3. Take the .zip file that you downloaded and use the “Extract all” command of
your unzip program to extract the files onto your player.
Note: The entire contents of the .zip file should be extracted directly to the root
of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate directory on your player
b
for the Rockbox files! The .zip file already contains the internal structure that
Rockbox needs.
Note: If the contents of the .zip file are extracted correctly, you will have a directory
called .rockbox, which contains all the files needed by Rockbox, in the main directory
b
of your player’s drive. If you receive a “-1” error when you start Rockbox, you have
not extracted the contents of the .zip file to the proper location.
Installing the fonts package

Rockbox has a fonts package that is available at http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml or
from the extras link in the menu on the Rockbox website. While the current builds and
daily builds change frequently, the fonts package rarely changes and is therefore not
included in these builds. When installing Rockbox for the first time, you should install
the fonts package. The release version, on the other hand, does not change, so fonts are
included with it.
1. Download the fonts package from the link above.
2. Take the file that you downloaded above, and use the “Extract all” command of
your unzip program to extract the files in the .zip file onto your player. As

with the firmware installation, the entire contents of the fonts .zip should be
extracted directly to the root of your player’s drive. Do not try to create a separate
directory on your player for the fonts! The .zip already contains the correct
internal structure.
Installing the bootloader

In order to make your player load and execute the Rockbox firmware you have just
installed, you will need to install the Rockbox bootloader. Unless bugs are found in the
bootloader code, or significant new feature are added, you will only have to perform
this step once.
Bootloader installation from Windows

1. Make sure you are logged into your computer as Administrator, or a user with
Administrator privileges and connect your player.
2. Download ipodpatcher.exe from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/

win32/ipodpatcher.exe and run it.
3. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your ipod
and a message asking you if you wish to install the Rockbox bootloader. Press
i followed by ENTER, and ipodpatcher will now install the bootloader. After
a short time you should see the message “[INFO] Bootloader installed success-
fully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher.
4. Make sure that you have correctly extracted a build of Rockbox so that you have
a /.rockbox, which contains all the files needed by Rockbox in the root of your
player’s drive and that you have also installed the fonts package – see section 2.3.2
(page 14) for more information.
5. Disconnect your player in the usual way. The bootloader is now installed.
Bootloader installation from Mac OS X

1. Attach your player to your Mac and wait for its icon to appear in Finder. If you
have configured itunes to open automatically when your player is attached (the
default behaviour), then wait for it to open and then quit it. You also need to
ensure the “Enable use as disk” option is enabled for your player in itunes.
2. Open up Disk Utility (in Applications → Utilities) and click on the name of your
player (e.g. DAVES IPOD) in the list on the left pane. Then click on the “un-
mount” icon at the top.
Warning: Do not click on the “eject” icon.
!

3. Download and open ipodpatcher.dmg from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/

ipod/ipodpatcher/macosx/ipodpatcher.dmg and then double-click on the ipodpatcher
icon inside.
4. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your player
fully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher and then quit the Terminal appli-
cation.
5. Warning: If you received a “Resource busy” error from ipodpatcher, then this
means you did not complete step 2. Go back to Disk Utility, unmount your player
!
and then run ipodpatcher again.
6. Your player will now automatically reconnect itself to your Mac. Wait for it to
connect, and then eject and unplug it in the normal way.
Note: You should unplug your ipod immediately after ejecting it to prevent Rock-
box immediately rebooting your player into disk mode when it detects that your
b
player is attached to a computer.
Bootloader installation from Linux

1. Download ipodpatcher from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/
linux32x86/ipodpatcher (32-bit x86 binary) or http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/
ipod/ipodpatcher/linux64amd64/ipodpatcher (64-bit amd64 binary). You can save
this anywhere you wish, but the next steps will assume you have saved it in your
home directory.
2. Attach your player to your computer.
3. Open up a terminal window and type the following commands:

C ODE
cd $HOME
chmod +x ipodpatcher
./ipodpatcher
Warning: You may need to be the root user in order for ipodpatcher to have suf-
ficient permission to perform raw disk access to your player.
!

4. If all has gone well, you should see some information displayed about your ipod
fully.” Press ENTER again to exit ipodpatcher.
6. Disconnect your player in the usual way. The bootloader is now installed.
2.3.3 Enabling Speech Support (optional)

If you wish to use speech support you will also need a voice file, English ones are
available from http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml. Download the “voice” package for
your player and unzip it directly to the root of your player. You should now find an
english.voice in the /.rockbox/langs directory on your player. Voice menus
are enabled by default and will come into effect after a reboot. See section 7.9 (page 61)
for details on voice settings.
2.4 Running Rockbox

Remove your player from the computer’s USB port. Hard resetting the Ipod by holding
Menu+Select for a couple of seconds until the player resets. Now Rockbox should load.
When you see the Rockbox splash screen, Rockbox is loaded and ready for use.
Note: If you have loaded music onto your player using Itunes, you will not be able
to see your music properly in the F ILE B ROWSER. This is because Itunes changes
b
your files’ names and hides them in directories in the Ipod Control directory. Files
placed on your player using Itunes can be viewed by initializing and using Rockbox’s
database. See section 4.2 (page 27) for more information.
2.5 Updating Rockbox

Updating Rockbox is easy even if you do not use the Rockbox Utility. Download a
Rockbox build. (The latest release of the Rockbox software will always be available
from http://www.rockbox.org/download/). Unzip the build to the root directory of your
player like you did in the installation stage. If your unzip program asks you whether
to overwrite files, choose the “Yes to all” option. The new build will be installed over
your current build.
Note: If you use Rockbox Utility be aware that it cannot detect manually installed com-
ponents.
b

2.6 Uninstalling Rockbox

Note: The Rockbox bootloader allows you to choose between Rockbox and the original
firmware. (See section 3.1.3 (page 20) for more information.)
b
2.6.1 Automatic Uninstallation
You can uninstall Rockbox automatically by using Rockbox Utility. If you installed
Rockbox manually you can still use Rockbox Utility for uninstallation but will not be
able to do this selectively.
2.6.2 Manual Uninstallation

To uninstall Rockbox and go back to using just the original Ipod software, connect the
player to your computer and follow the instructions to install the bootloader but, when
prompted by ipodpatcher, enter u for uninstall instead of i for install.
If you wish to clean up your disk, you may also wish to delete the .rockbox direc-
tory and its contents. Turn the Ipod off. Turn the player back on and the original Ipod
software will load.

C HAPTER 3. Q UICK S TART 19
3 Quick Start
3.1 Basic Overview
3.1.1 The player’s controls
Throughout this manual, the buttons on the player are labelled according to the pic-
ture above. Whenever a button name is prefixed by “Long”, a long press of approxi-
mately one second should be performed on that button. The buttons are described in
detail in the following paragraph.
Additional information for blind users is available on the Rockbox website at ZBlindFAQ.
The main controls on the player are a slightly indented scroll wheel with a flat round
¸
button in the center. Hold the player with these controls facing you.
The top of the player will have the following, from left to right: Hold switch, remote
connector, headphone jack.
The dock connector that is used to connect your player to your computer is on the
bottom panel of the player.
The button in the middle of the wheel is called Select. You can operate the wheel
by pressing the top, bottom, left or right sections, or by sliding your finger around it.
The top is Menu, the bottom is Play, the left is Prev, and the right is Next. When
the manual says to Scroll Forward, it means to slide your finger clockwise around the

wheel. Scroll Backward means to slide your finger counterclockwise. Note that the
wheel is sensitive, so you will need to move slowly at first and get a feel for how it
works.
Note that when the Hold switch is pushed toward the center of the player, hold is
on, and none of the other controls do anything. Be sure Hold is off before trying to use
your player.
3.1.2 Turning the player on and off

To turn on and off your Rockbox enabled player use the following keys:
Key Action
Menu / Select Start Rockbox
Long Play Shutdown Rockbox
On shutdown, Rockbox automatically saves its settings.

If you have problems with your settings, such as accidentally having set the colours
to black on black, they can be reset at boot time. See the Reset Settings in section 10.3.3
(page 118) for details.
In the unlikely event of a software failure, hardware poweroff or reset can be per-
formed by holding down Menu+ Select until the player shuts off or reboots.
3.1.3 Starting the original firmware

Rockbox has a dual-boot feature. To boot into the original firmware, shut down the
device as described above. Turn on the Hold switch immediately after turning the
player on. The Apple logo will display for a few seconds as Rockbox loads the original
firmware.
You can also load the original firmware by shutting down the device, then clicking
the Hold switch on and connecting the iPod to your computer.
Regardless of which method you use to boot to the original firmware, you can return
to Rockbox by pressing and holding Menu and Select simultaneously until the player
hard resets.
3.1.4 Putting music on your player

With the player connected to the computer as an MSC/UMS device (like a USB Drive),
music files can be put on the player via any standard file transfer method that you
would use to copy files between drives (e.g. Drag ’n’ Drop). The default directory
structure that is assumed by some parts of Rockbox (album art searching, WPS missing-
tag fallback) is: /ArtistName/AlbumName/*.ext. See section A.2 (page 121) for a list
of supported audio formats.

3.1.5 The first contact

After you have first started the player you’ll be presented by the M AIN M ENU. From
this menu you can reach every function of Rockbox, for more information (see sec-
tion 5.1 (page 38)). To browse the files on you player select F ILES (see section 4.1
(page 23)), and to browse in a view that is based on the meta-data1 of your audio files,
select D ATABASE (see section 4.2 (page 27)).
3.1.6 Basic controls

When browsing files and moving through menus you usually get a list view presented.
The navigation in these lists are usually the same and should be pretty intuitive. In
the tree view use Scroll Forward and Scroll Backward to move around the selection.
Use Select or Next to select an item. When browsing the file system selecting an audio
file plays it. The view switches to the “While playing screen”, usually abbreviated as
“WPS” (see section 4.3 (page 29). The dynamic playlist gets replaced with the contents
of the current directory. This way you can easily treat directories as playlists. The
created dynamic playlist can be extended or modified while playing. This is also known
as “on-the-fly playlist”. To go back to the F ILE B ROWSER stop the playback with the
Long Play button or return to the file browser while keeping playback running using
Select. In list views you can go back one step with Prev.
3.1.7 Basic concepts

Playlists
Rockbox is playlist oriented. This means that every time you play an audio file, a so-
called “dynamic playlist” is generated, unless you play a saved playlist. You can mod-
ify the dynamic playlist while playing and also save it to a file. If you do not want to
use playlists you can simply play your files directory based. Playlists are covered in
detail in section 4.4 (page 34).
Menu
From the menu you can customise Rockbox. Rockbox itself is very customisable. Also
there are some special menus for quick access to frequently used functions.
Context Menu
Some views, especially the file browser and the WPS have a context menu. From the
file browser this can be accessed with Long Select. The contents of the context menu
vary, depending on the situation it gets called. The context menu itself presents you
with some operations you can perform with the currently highlighted file. In the file
browser this is the file (or directory) that is highlighted by the cursor. From the WPS this
1
ID3 Tags, Vorbis comments, etc.

is the currently playing file. Also there are some actions that do not apply to the current
file but refer to the screen from which the context menu gets called. One example is the
playback menu, which can be called using the context menu from within the WPS.
3.2 Customising Rockbox

Rockbox’ User Interface can be customised using “Themes”. Themes usually only affect
the visual appearance, but an advanced user can create a theme that also changes vari-
ous other settings like file view, LCD settings and all other settings that can be modified
using .cfg files. This topic is discussed in more detail in section 10.3 (page 117). The
Rockbox distribution comes with some themes that should look nice on your player.
Note: Some of the themes shipped with Rockbox need additional fonts from the fonts
package, so make sure you installed them. Also, if you downloaded additional themes
b
from the Internet make sure you have the needed fonts installed as otherwise the theme
may get displayed garbled.
3.3 Charging
The player can be powered over USB without connecting to your computer by holding
Menu while plugging in. This allows you to continue using the player normally.

C HAPTER 4. B ROWSING AND PLAYING 23
4 Browsing and playing

4.1 File Browser
Figure 4.1: The file browser
Rockbox lets you browse your music in either of two ways. The F ILE B ROWSER lets
you navigate through the files and directories on your player, entering directories and
executing the default action on each file. To help differentiate files, each file format is
displayed with an icon.
The D ATABASE B ROWSER, on the other hand, allows you to navigate through the
music on your player using categories like album, artist, genre, etc.
You can select whether to browse using the F ILE B ROWSER or the D ATABASE B ROWSER
by selecting either F ILES or D ATABASE in the M AIN M ENU. If you choose the F ILE
B ROWSER, the S HOW F ILES setting lets you select what types of files you wish to view.
See section 7.3 (page 54) for more information on the S HOW F ILES setting.
Note: The F ILE B ROWSER allows you to manipulate your files in ways that are not
available within the D ATABASE B ROWSER. Read more about D ATABASE in section 4.2
b
(page 27). The remainder of this section deals with the F ILE B ROWSER.

4.1.1 File Browser Controls
Key Action
Scroll Go to previous/next item in list. If you
Backward/Scroll are on the first/last entry, the cursor will
Forward wrap to the last/first entry.
Prev Go to the parent directory.
Select or Next Executes the default action on the se-
lected file or enters a directory.
Play If there is an audio file playing, returns
to the W HILE P LAYING S CREEN (WPS)
without stopping playback.
Long Play Stops audio playback.
Long Select Enter the C ONTEXT M ENU
Menu Enter the M AIN M ENU
Long Menu Switches to the Q UICK S CREEN (see sec-
tion 5.11 (page 42))
4.1.2 Context Menu
Figure 4.2: The Context Menu
The C ONTEXT M ENU allows you to perform certain operations on files or directories.
To access the C ONTEXT M ENU, position the selector over a file or directory and access
the context menu with Long Select.
Note: The C ONTEXT M ENU is a context sensitive menu. If the C ONTEXT M ENU is in-
voked on a file, it will display options available for files. If the C ONTEXT M ENU is
b
invoked on a directory, it will display options for directories.
The C ONTEXT M ENU contains the following options (unless otherwise noted, each
option pertains both to files and directories):
Playlist. Enters the P LAYLIST S UBMENU (see section 4.4.3 (page 35)).

Playlist Catalog. Enters the P LAYLIST C ATALOG S UBMENU (see section 4.4.2 (page 35)).
Rename. This function lets the user modify the name of a file or directory.
Cut. Copies the name of the currently selected file or directory to the clipboard and
marks it to be ‘cut’.
Copy. Copies the name of the currently selected file or directory to the clipboard and
marks it to be ‘copied’.
Paste. Only visible if a file or directory name is on the clipboard. When selected it will
move or copy the clipboard to the current directory.
Delete. Deletes the currently selected file. This option applies only to files, and not to
directories. Rockbox will ask for confirmation before deleting a file. Press Play to
confirm deletion or any other key to cancel.
Delete Directory. Deletes the currently selected directory and all of the files and subdi-
rectories it may contain. Deleted directories cannot be recovered. Use this feature
with caution!
Set As Backdrop. Set the selected bmp file as background image. The bitmaps need to
meet the conditions explained in section 10.1.4 (page 113).
Open with. Runs a viewer plugin on the file. Normally, when a file is selected in Rock-
box, Rockbox automatically detects the file type and runs the appropriate plugin.
The O PEN W ITH function can be used to override the default action and select a
viewer by hand. For example, this function can be used to view a text file even if
the file has a non-standard extension (i.e., the file has an extension of something
other than .txt). See section 9.3 (page 93) for more details on viewers.
Create Directory. Create a new directory in the current directory on the disk.
Properties. Shows properties such as size and the time and date of the last modifica-
tion for the selected file. If used on a directory, the number of files and subdirec-
tories will be shown, as well as the total size.
Add to Shortcuts. Adds a link to the selected item in the shortcuts.link file. If
the file does not already exist it will be created in the root directory. Note that if
you create a shortcut to a file, Rockbox will not open it upon selecting, but simply
bring you to it’s location in the F ILE B ROWSER.

4.1.3 Virtual Keyboard
Figure 4.3: The virtual keyboard
This is the virtual keyboard that is used when entering text in Rockbox, for example
when renaming a file or creating a new directory. The virtual keyboard can be easily
changed by making a text file with the required layout. More information on how to
achieve this can be found on the Rockbox website at ZLoadableKeyboardLayouts.
Picker area
Key Action
Scroll Move about the virtual keyboard. If you
Backward/Scroll move out of the picker area, you get to
Forward the Line edit mode.
Prev/Next (moves the solid cursor).
Select Inserts the currently selected keyboard
letter at the current filename cursor po-
sition
Play Exits the virtual keyboard and saves any
changes
Menu Exits the virtual keyboard without sav-
ing any changes
Long Menu Enters Morse input mode
Select Tap to select a character in Morse input
mode
Line edit mode

Key Action
Prev/Next Move left and right
Select Deletes the letter to the left of the cursor
Scroll Returns to the picker area
Backward/Scroll
Forward
4.2 Database
4.2.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the Rockbox music database system. Using the information con-
tained in the tags (ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis Comments, Apev2, etc.) in your audio files,
Rockbox builds and maintains a database of the music files on your player and allows
you to browse them by Artist, Album, Genre, Song Name, etc. The criteria the database
uses to sort the songs can be completely customised. More information on how to
achieve this can be found on the Rockbox website at ZDataBase.
4.2.2 Initializing the Database

The first time you use the database, Rockbox will scan your disk for audio files. This can
take quite a while depending on the number of files on your player. This scan happens
in the background, so you can choose to return to the Main Menu and continue to listen
to music. If you shut down your player, the scan will continue next time you turn it on.
After the scan is finished you may be prompted to restart your player before you can
use the database.
Ignoring Directories During Database Initialization

You may have directories on your player whose contents should not be added to the
database. Placing a file named database.ignore in a directory will exclude the files
in that directory and all its subdirectories from scanning their tags and adding them to
the database. This will speed up the database initialization.
If a subdirectory of an ’ignored’ directory should still be scanned, place a file named
database.unignore in it. The files in that directory and its subdirectories will be
scanned and added to the database.
4.2.3 The Database Menu

Load To RAM The database can either be kept on disk (to save memory), or loaded
into RAM (for fast browsing). Setting this to Y ES loads the database to RAM,
allowing faster browsing and searching. Setting this option to N O keeps the

database on the disk, meaning slower browsing but it does not use extra RAM
and saves some battery on boot up.
Note: If you browse your music frequently using the database, you should load
to RAM, as this will reduce the overall battery consumption because the disk will
b
not need to spin on each search.
Auto Update If A UTO UPDATE is set to ON, each time the player boots, the database
will automatically be updated.
Note: The A UTO U PDATE will only check for deleted files if the D IRECTORY C ACHE
(S ETTINGS → G ENERAL S ETTINGS → S YSTEM → D ISK → D IRECTORY C ACHE) is
b
enabled. U PDATE NOW includes that check whether dircache has been enabled or
not.
Initialize Now You can force Rockbox to rescan your disk for tagged files by using the
I NITIALIZE N OW function in the D ATABASE M ENU.
Warning: I NITIALIZE N OW removes all database files (removing runtimedb data
also) and rebuilds the database from scratch.
!
Update Now U PDATE NOW causes the database to detect new and deleted files
Note: Unlike the A UTO U PDATE function, U PDATE N OW will update the database
regardless of whether the D IRECTORY C ACHE is enabled. Thus, an update using
b
U PDATE NOW may take a long time.
Unlike I NITIALIZE N OW, the U PDATE N OW function does not remove runtime
database information.
Gather Runtime Data When enabled, rockbox will record how often and how long a
track is being played, when it was last played and its rating. This information
can be displayed in the WPS and is used in the database browser to, for example,
show the most played, unplayed and most recently played tracks.
Export Modifications This allows for the runtime data to be exported to the file
/.rockbox/database changelog.txt, which backs up the runtime data in
ASCII format. This is needed when database structures change, because new code
cannot read old database code. But, all modifications exported to ASCII format
should be readable by all database versions.
Import Modifications. Allows the /.rockbox/database changelog.txt backup

to be conveniently loaded into the database. If A UTO U PDATE is enabled this is
performed automatically when the database is initialized.
4.2.4 Using the Database

Once the database has been initialized, you can browse your music by Artist, Album,
Genre, Song Name, etc. To use the database, go to the M AIN M ENU and select D ATABASE.

Note: You may need to increase the value of the M AX FILES IN DIR BROWSER setting
(S ETTINGS → G ENERAL S ETTINGS → S YSTEM → L IMITS) in order to view long lists of
b
tracks in the ID3 database browser.
There is no option to turn off database completely. If you do not want to use it just
do not do the initial build of the database and do not load it to RAM.
Tag Type Origin

filename string system
album string id tag
albumartist string id tag
artist string id tag
comment string id tag
composer string id tag
genre string id tag
grouping string id tag
title string id tag
bitrate numeric id tag
discnum numeric id tag
year numeric id tag
tracknum numeric id tag/filename
autoscore numeric runtime db
lastplayed numeric runtime db
playcount numeric runtime db
Pm (play time - numeric runtime db
min)
Ps (play time - sec) numeric runtime db
rating numeric runtime db
commitid numeric system
entryage numeric system
length numeric system
Lm (track len - numeric system
min)
Ls (track len - sec) numeric system
4.3 While Playing Screen

The While Playing Screen (WPS) displays various pieces of information about the cur-
rently playing audio file. The appearance of the WPS can be configured using WPS
configuration files. The items shown depend on your configuration – all item can be
turned on or off independently. Refer to section B (page 122) for details on how to

change the display of the WPS.

• Status bar: The Status bar shows Battery level, charger status, volume, play mode,
repeat mode, shuffle mode and clock. In contrast to all other items, the status bar
is always at the top of the screen.
• (Scrolling) path and filename of the current song.
• The ID3 track name.
• The ID3 album name.
• The ID3 artist name.
• Bit rate. VBR files display average bitrate and “(avg)”
• Elapsed and total time.
• A slidebar progress meter representing where in the song you are.
• Peak meter.
See section 10.2 (page 114) for details of customising your WPS (While Playing Screen).
4.3.1 WPS Key Controls
Key Action
Scroll Forward / Volume up/down.
Scroll Backward
Prev Go to beginning of track, or if pressed
while in the first seconds of a track, go
to previous track.
Long Prev Rewind in track.
Next Go to next track.
Long Next Fast forward in track.
Play Toggle play/pause.
Long Play Stop playback.
Select Return to the F ILE B ROWSER.
Long Select Enter WPS C ONTEXT M ENU.
Menu Enter M AIN M ENU.
Long Menu Switches to the Q UICK S CREEN. (see sec-
tion 5.11 (page 42))
Short Next + Long Skip to the next directory.
Next
Short Prev + Long Skip to the previous directory.
Prev

4.3.2 Peak Meter

The peak meter can be displayed on the While Playing Screen and consists of several
indicators.
The bar: This is the wide horizontal bar. It represents the current volume value.
The peak indicator: This is a little vertical line at the right end of the bar. It indicates
the peak volume value that occurred recently.
The clip indicator: This is a little black block that is displayed at the very right of
the scale when an overflow occurs. It usually does not show up during normal
playback unless you play an audio file that is distorted heavily.
Note: Note that the clip detection is not very precise. Clipping might occur with-
out being indicated.
b
The scale: Between the indicators of the right and left channel there are little dots.
These dots represent important volume values. In linear mode each dot is a 10%
mark. In dbfs mode the dots represent the following values (from right to left):
0db, -3db, -6db, -9db, -12db, -18db, -24db, -30db, -40db, -50db, -60db.
4.3.3 The WPS Context Menu

Like the context menu for the F ILE B ROWSER, the WPS C ONTEXT M ENU allows you
quick access to some often used functions:
Playlist
The P LAYLIST submenu allows you to view, save, search and reshuffle the current
playlist. To change settings for the P LAYLIST V IEWER press Menu while viewing the
playlist to bring up the P LAYLIST V IEWER M ENU.
Playlist Viewer Menu

Show Icons. This toggles display of the icon for the currently selected playlist entry
and the icon for moving a playlist entry
Show Indicies. This toggles display of the line numbering for the playlist
Track Display. This toggles between filename only and full path for playlist entries
Save Current Playlist. Allows the current playlist to be saved as a .m3u playlist file

Playlist catalog
View catalog. This lists all playlists that are part of the Playlist catalog. You can load
a new playlist directly from this list.
Add to playlist. Adds the currently playing file to a playlist. Select the playlist you
want the file to be added to and it will get appended to that playlist.
Add to new playlist. Similar to the previous entry this will add the currently playing
track to a playlist. You need to enter a name for the new playlist first.
Sound Settings
This is a shortcut to the S OUND S ETTINGS M ENU, where you can configure volume,
bass, treble, and other settings affecting the sound of your music. See section 6 (page 43)
for more information.
Playback Settings
This is a shortcut to the P LAYBACK S ETTINGS M ENU, where you can configure shuf-
fle, repeat, party mode, study mode and other settings affecting the playback of your
music.
Rating
The menu entry is only shown if G ATHER R UNTIME I NFORMATION is enabled. It allows
the asignment of a personal rating value (0 – 10) to a track which can be displayed in
the WPS and used in the Database browser. Press Next to increment the value. The
value wraps at 10.
Bookmarks
This allows you to create a bookmark in the currently-playing track.
Show Track Info
Figure 4.4: The track info viewer

This screen is accessible from the WPS screen, and provides a detailed view of all the
identity information about the current track. This info is known as meta data and is
stored in audio file formats to keep information on artist, album etc. To access this
screen, press Long Select to access the WPS C ONTEXT M ENU and select S HOW T RACK
I NFO.
Open With...
This O PEN W ITH function is the same as the O PEN W ITH function in the file browser’s
C ONTEXT M ENU.
Delete
Delete the currently playing file.
Pitch
The P ITCH S CREEN allows you to change the pitch and (at the same time) the playback
speed of your player. The pitch value can be adjusted between 50% and 200%. 50%
means half the normal playback speed and the pitch that is an octave lower than the
normal pitch. 200% means double playback speed and the pitch that is an octave higher
than the normal pitch. It is not possible to change the pitch without changing the play-
back speed and vice versa. Changing the pitch can be done in two modes: procentual
and semitone. Initially (after the player is switched on), procentual mode is active.
Key Action
Play Toggle pitch changing mode
Scroll Forward / Increase / Decrease pitch by 0.1% (in pro-
Scroll Backward centual mode) or a semitone (in semitone
mode)
Long Scroll Increase / Decrease pitch by 1% (in pro-
Forward / Long centual mode) or a semitone (in semitone
Scroll Backward mode)
Next / Prev Temporarily increase / decrease pitch by
2.0%
Menu Reset pitch to 100%
Select Leave the Pitch Screen

4.4 Working with Playlists

4.4.1 Playlist terminology
Some common terms that are used in Rockbox when referring to playlists:
Directory. A playlist! One of the keys to getting the most out of Rockbox is under-
standing that Rockbox always considers the song that it is playing to be part of a
playlist, and in some situations, Rockbox will create a playlist automatically. For
example, if you are playing the contents of a directory, Rockbox will automatically
create a playlist containing all songs in it. This means that just about anything that
is described in this chapter with respect to playlists also applies to directories.
Dynamic playlist. A dynamic playlist is a playlist that is created “On the fly.” Any
time you insert or queue tracks using the P LAYLIST SUBMENU (see section 4.4.3
(page 35)), you are creating (or adding to) a dynamic playlist.
Insert. In Rockbox, to I NSERT an item into a playlist means putting an item into a
playlist and leaving it there, even after it is played. As you will see later in this
chapter, Rockbox can I NSERT into a playlist in several places.
Queue. In Rockbox, to Q UEUE a song means to put the song into a playlist and then
to remove the song from the playlist once it has been played. The only difference
between I NSERT and Q UEUE is that the Q UEUE option removes the song from the
playlist once it has been played, and the I NSERT option does not.
4.4.2 Creating playlists

Rockbox can create playlists in four different ways.
By selecting (“playing”) a song from the File Browser

Whenever a song is selected from the F ILE B ROWSER with Select or Next, Rockbox will
automatically create a playlist containing all of the songs in that directory and start
playback with the selected song.
Note: If you already have created a dynamic playlist, playing a new song will erase the
current dynamic playlist and create a new one. If you want to add a song to the current
b
playlist rather than erasing the current playlist, see the section below on how to add
music to a playlist.
By using Insert and Queue functions

If playback is stopped, the I NSERT and Q UEUE functions can be used as described in
4.4.3 to create a new playlist instead of adding to an existing one. This will erase any
dynamic playlist.

By using the Playlist catalog

The P LAYLIST CATALOG makes it possible to modify and create playlists that are not
currently playing. To do this select P LAYLIST CATALOG in the C ONTEXT M ENU. There
you will have two choices, A DD TO PLAYLIST adds the selected track or directory to
an existing playlist and A DD TO A NEW PLAYLIST creates a new playlist containing the
selected track or directory.
Note: All playlists in the P LAYLIST CATALOG are stored by default in the /Playlists
directory in the root of your player’s disk and playlists stored in other locations are
b
not included in the catalog. It is however possible to move existing playlists there (see
section 4.1.2 (page 24)).
By using the Main Menu

To create a playlist containing all music on your player, you can use the C REATE P LAYLIST
command in the P LAYLIST O PTIONS menu found in the M AIN M ENU. The created
playlist will be named root.m3u and saved in the root of your player’s disk.
4.4.3 Adding music to playlists

Adding music to a dynamic playlist
Figure 4.5: The Playlist Submenu
The P LAYLIST S UBMENU is a submenu in the C ONTEXT M ENU (see section 4.1.2 (page 24)),
it allows you to put tracks into a “dynamic playlist”. If there is no music currently play-
ing, Rockbox will create a new dynamic playlist and put the selected track(s) into it. If
there is music currently playing, Rockbox will put the selected track(s) into the cur-
rent playlist. The place in which the newly selected tracks are added to the playlist is
determined by the following options:
Insert. Add track(s) immediately after any tracks added via the most recent I NSERT
operation. If no tracks have yet been added via an I NSERT, new tracks will be
added immediately after the current playing track. If playback is stopped a new
dynamic playlist will get created with the selected tracks.

Insert Next. Add track(s) immediately after current playing track, no matter what else
has been inserted.
Insert Last. Add track(s) to end of playlist.
Insert Shuffled. Add track(s) to the playlist in a random order.
Queue. Queue is the same as Insert except queued tracks are deleted immediately from
the playlist after they have been played. Also, queued tracks are not saved to the
playlist file (see section 5.8 (page 40)).
Queue Next. Queue track(s) immediately after current playing track.
Queue Last. Queue track(s) at end of playlist.
Queue Shuffled. Queue track(s) in a random order.
Play Next. Replaces all but the current playing track with track(s). Current playing
track is queued.
The P LAYLIST S UBMENU can be used to add either single tracks or entire directories
to a playlist. If the P LAYLIST S UBMENU is invoked on a single track, it will put only that
track into the playlist. On the other hand, if the P LAYLIST S UBMENU is invoked on a
directory, Rockbox adds all of the tracks in that directory to the playlist.
Note: You can control whether or not Rockbox includes the contents of subdirectories
when adding an entire directory to a playlists. Set the S ETTINGS → G ENERAL S ETTINGS
b
→ P LAYLIST → R ECURSIVELY I NSERT D IRECTORIES setting to Y ES if you would like
Rockbox to include tracks in subdirectories as well as tracks in the currently-selected
directory.
Dynamic playlists are saved so resume will restore them exactly as they were before
shutdown.
Note: To view, save or reshuffle the current dynamic playlist use the P LAYLIST sub
menu in the WPS context menu or in the M AIN M ENU.
b
4.4.4 Modifying playlists
Reshuffling
Reshuffeling the current playlist is easily done from the P LAYLIST sub menu in the WPS,
just select R ESHUFFLE.
Moving and removing tracks

To move or remove a track from the current playlist enter the P LAYLIST V IEWER by
selecting V IEW C URRENT P LAYLIST in the P LAYLIST submenu in the WPS context menu
or the M AIN M ENU. Once in the P LAYLIST V IEWER open the context menu on the track
you want to move or remove. If you want to move the track, select M OVE in the context

menu and then move the blinking cursor to the place where you want the track to be
moved and confirm with Select or Next. To remove a track, simply select R EMOVE in
the context menu.
4.4.5 Saving playlists

To save the current playlist either enter the P LAYLIST submenu in the WPS C ONTEXT
M ENU (see section 4.3.3 (page 31)) and select S AVE C URRENT P LAYLIST or enter the
P LAYLIST O PTIONS menu in the M AIN M ENU and select S AVE C URRENT P LAYLIST.
Either method will bring you to the V IRTUAL K EYBOARD (see section 4.1.3 (page 26)),
enter a filename for your playlist and accept it and you are done.
4.4.6 Loading saved playlists

Through the F ILE B ROWSER
Playlist files, like regular music tracks, can be selected through the F ILE B ROWSER.
When loading a playlist from disk it will replace the current dynamic playlist.
Through the P LAYLIST CATALOG

The P LAYLIST CATALOG offers a shortcut to all playlists in your player’s specified
playlist directory. It can be used like the F ILE B ROWSER.
4.4.7 Helpful Hints

Including subdirectories in playlists
You can control whether or not Rockbox includes the contents of subdirectories when
adding an entire directory to a playlists. Set the M AIN M ENU → S ETTINGS → P LAYLIST
→ R ECURSIVELY I NSERT D IRECTORIES setting to Y ES if you would like to include tracks
in subdirectories as well as tracks in the currently selected directory.

C HAPTER 5. T HE M AIN M ENU 38
5 The Main Menu

5.1 Introducing the Main Menu
Figure 5.1: The main menu
The M AIN M ENU is the screen from which all of the Rockbox functions can be accessed.
This is the first screen you will see when starting Rockbox. To return to the M AIN
M ENU, press the Menu button.
All settings are stored on the unit. However, Rockbox does not spin up the disk solely
for the purpose of saving settings. Instead, Rockbox will save settings when it spins up
the disk the next time, for example when refilling the MP3 buffer or navigating through
the F ILE B ROWSER. Changes to settings may therefore not be saved unless the player is
shut down safely (see section 3.1.2 (page 20)).

5.2 Navigating the Main Menu
Key Action
Scroll Forward Moves up in the menu.
Inside a setting, increases the value or
chooses next option
Scroll Backward Moves down in the menu.
Inside a setting, decreases the value or
chooses previous option
Next Selects option
Prev Exits menu, setting or moves to parent
menu
5.3 Recent Bookmarks
Figure 5.2: The list bookmarks screen
If the S AVE A LIST OF RECENTLY CREATED BOOKMARKS option is enabled then you can
view a list of several recent bookmarks here and select one to jump straight to that track.
See section 7.7 (page 59) for more details on configuring bookmarking in Rockbox.
Note: This entry is not shown in the M AIN M ENU when the option is off and the option
is off by default.
b
5.4 Files
Browse the files on your player (see section 4.1 (page 23)).
5.5 Database
Browse by the meta-data in your audio files (see section 4.2 (page 27)).

5.6 Now Playing/Resume Playback

Go to the W HILE P LAYING S CREEN and resume if music playback is stopped or paused
and there is something to resume (see section 4.3 (page 29)).
5.7 Settings
The S ETTINGS menu allows to set or adjust many parameters that affect the way your
player works. There are many submenus for different parameter areas. Every time
you are setting a value of a parameter, and that value is selected from a list of some
predefined available values, you can press Long Select, and the selection cursor will
jump to the default value for the parameter. You can then confirm or cancel the value.
This is useful if you have changed the value of the parameter from the default to some
other value and would like to restore the default value.
5.7.1 Sound Settings

The S OUND S ETTINGS menu offers a selection of sound properties you may change to
customise your listening experience. The details of this menu are covered in section 6
(page 43).
5.7.2 General Settings

The G ENERAL S ETTINGS menu allows you to customise the way Rockbox looks and the
way it plays music. The details of this menu are covered in section 7 (page 49).
5.7.3 Manage Settings

The M ANAGE S ETTINGS option allows the saving and re-loading of user configuration
settings, browsing the hard drive for alternate firmwares, and finally resetting your
player back to initial configuration. The details of this menu are covered in section 10.3
(page 117).
5.7.4 Theme Settings

The T HEME S ETTINGS menu contains options that control the visual apperance of Rock-
box. The details of this menu are covered in section 8 (page 63).
5.8 Playlist
This menu allows you to work with playlists. Playlists can be created in three ways.
Playing a file in a directory causes all the files in it to be placed in a playlist. Playlists can
be created manually by either using the C ONTEXT M ENU (see section 4.1.2 (page 24))

or using the P LAYLIST menu. Both automatically and manually created playlists can be
edited using this menu.
Create Playlist: Rockbox will create a playlist with all tracks in the current directory
and all sub-directories. The playlist will be created one directory level “up” from
where you currently are.
View Current Playlist: Displays the contents of the playlist currently stored in mem-
ory.
Save Current Playlist: Saves the current dynamic playlist, excluding queued tracks,
to the specified file. If no path is provided then playlist is saved to the current
directory.
Playlist Catalog: The P LAYLIST C ATALOG provides a simple interface to maintain sev-
eral playlists (see section 4.4 (page 34)).
5.9 Plugins
With this option you can load and run various plugins that have been written for Rock-
box. There are a wide variety of these supplied with Rockbox, including several games,
some impressive demos and a number of utilities. A detailed description of the differ-
ent plugins is to be found in section 9 (page 64).
5.10 System
This option shows RAM buffer size, battery voltage level and estimated time remain-
ing, disk total space and disk free space.
Rockbox Info: Displays some basic system information. This is, from top to bottom,
the amount of memory Rockbox has available for storing music (the buffer). The
battery status. Hard disk size and the amount of free space on the disk.
Version: Software version and credits display.
Sleep Timer: The S LEEP T IMER powers off your player after playing for a given time.
It can be set from O FF to 5 hours in 5 minute steps. The S LEEP T IMER is reset on
boot. Using this option disables the WAKE UP ALARM.
Debug (Keep Out!): This sub menu is intended to be used only by Rockbox develop-
ers. It shows hardware, disk, battery status and other technical information.
Warning: It is not recommended that users access this menu unless instructed
to do so in the course of fixing a problem with Rockbox. If you think you have
!
messed up your settings by use of this menu please try to reset all settings before
asking for help.

5.11 Quick Screen

Whilst not strictly part of the M AIN M ENU, it is worth noting that a few of the more
commonly used settings are available from the Q UICK S CREEN. The Q UICK S CREEN
screen is accessed with Long Menu and exited with Menu. It allows rapid access to
the S HUFFLE and R EPEAT modes (section 7.1 (page 49)) and the S HOW F ILES option
(section 7.3 (page 54)).

C HAPTER 6. S OUND S ETTINGS 43
6 Sound Settings
Figure 6.1: The sound settings screen
The sound settings menu offers a selection of sound settings you may change to cus-
tomise your listening experience.
6.1 Volume
This setting adjusts the volume of your music. Like most professional audio gear and
many consumer audio products, Rockbox uses a decibel scale where 0 dB is a refer-
ence that indicates the maximum volume that the player can produce without possible
distortion (clipping). All values lower than this reference will be negative and yield a
progressively softer volume. The volume can be adjusted from a
6.2 Bass
This setting emphasises or suppresses the lower (bass) frequencies in the sound. A
value of 0 dB means that bass sounds are unaltered (flat response).
6.3 Treble
This setting emphasises or suppresses the higher (treble) frequencies in the sound. A
value of 0 dB means that treble sounds are unaltered (flat response).

6.4 Balance
This setting controls the balance between the left and right channels. The default, 0,
means that the left and right outputs are equal in volume. Negative numbers increase
the volume of the left channel relative to the right, positive numbers increase the vol-
ume of the right channel relative to the left.
6.5 Channels
A stereo audio signal consists of two channels, left and right. The C HANNELS setting
determines if these channels are to be combined in any way, and if so, in what manner
they will be combined. Available options are:
Setting Description
Stereo Leave the audio signal unmodified.
Mono Combine both channels and send the resulting signal to both stereo
channels, resulting in a monophonic output.
Custom Allows you to manually specify a stereo width with the S TEREO
W IDTH setting described later in this chapter.
Mono Left Plays the left channel in both stereo channels.
Mono Right Plays the right channel in both stereo channels.
Karaoke Removes all sound that is common to both channels. Since most music
is recorded with vocals being equally present in both channels to make
the singer sound centrally placed, this often (but not always) has the
effect of removing the voice track from a song. This setting also very
often has other undesirable effects on the sound.
6.6 Stereo Width

Stereo width allows you to manually specify the effect that is applied when the C HAN -
NELS setting is set to “custom”. All values below 100% will progressively mix the con-
tents of one channel into the other. This has the effect of gradually centering the stereo
image, until you have monophonic sound at 0%. Values above 100% will progressively
remove components in one channel that is also present in the other. This has the effect
of widening the stereo field. A value of 100% will leave the stereo field unaltered.
6.7 Crossfeed
Crossfeed attempts to make the experience of listening to music on headphones more
similar to listening to music with stereo speakers. When you listen to music through

speakers, each ear will hear sound originating from both speakers. However, the sound
from the left speaker reaches your right ear slightly later than it does your left ear, and
vice versa.
The human ear and brain together are very good at interpreting the time differences
between direct sounds and reflected sounds and using that information to identify the
direction that the sound is coming from. On the other hand, when listening to head-
phones, each ear hears only the stereo channel corresponding to it. The left ear hears
only the left channel and the right ear hears only the right channel. The result is that
sound from headphones does not provide the same spatial cues to your ear and brain
as speakers, and might for that reason sound unnatural to some listeners.
The crossfeed function uses an algorithm to feed a delayed and filtered portion of the
signal from the right channel into the left channel and vice versa in order to simulate
the spatial cues that the ear and brain receive when listening to a set of loudspeakers
placed in front of the listener. The result is a more natural stereo image that can be
especially appreciated in older rock and jazz records, where one instrument is often
hard-panned to just one of the speakers. Many people will find such records tiring to
listen to using earphones and no crossfeed effect.
Crossfeed has the following settings:
Crossfeed: Selects whether the crossfeed effect is to be enabled or not.
Direct Gain: How much the level of the audio that travels the direct path from a speaker
to the corresponding ear is supposed to be decreased.
Cross Gain: How much the level of the audio that travels the cross path from a speaker
to the opposite ear is to be decreased.
High-Frequency Attenuation: How much the upper frequencies of the cross path au-
dio will be dampened. Note that the total level of the higher frequencies will be a
combination of both this setting and the C ROSS G AIN setting.
High-Frequency Cutoff Decides at which frequency the cross path audio will start to
be cut by the amount described by the H IGH -F REQUENCY ATTENUATION setting.
Most users will find the default settings to yield satisfactory results, but for the more
adventurous user the settings can be fine-tuned to provide a virtual speaker placement
suited to ones preference.
Beware that the crossfeed function is capable of making the audio distort if you
choose settings which result in a too high output level.

6.8 Equalizer
Figure 6.2: The graphical equalizer
Rockbox features a parametric equalizer (EQ). As the name suggests, a parametric EQ

lets you control several different parameters for each band of the EQ. In some ways the
EQ is similar to the B ASS and T REBLE settings described earlier, but the EQ allows you
to control the sound much more carefully.
Rockbox’s parametric EQ is composed of five different bands:
Band 0: Low shelf filter The low shelf filter boosts or lowers all frequencies below a
certain frequency limit, much like what a “bass” control found on ordinary stereo
systems does. Adjust the “cutoff” frequency parameter to decide where the shelv-
ing starts to take effect. For example, a cutoff frequency of 50 Hz will adjust only
very low frequencies. A cutoff frequency of 200 Hz, on the other hand, will ad-
just a much wider range of bass frequencies. The “gain” parameter controls how
much the loudness of the band is adjusted. Positive numbers make the EQ band
louder, while negative numbers make that EQ band quieter. The “Q” parameter
should always be set to 0.7 for the shelving filters. Higher values will add a small
boost around the cutoff frequency that is almost always undesirable.
Bands 1-3: Peaking filters Peaking EQ filters boost or lower a frequency range cen-
tered at the center frequency chosen. Graphic equalizers in home stereos are usu-
ally peaking filters. The peaking filters in Rockbox’s EQ lets you adjust three
different parameters for EQ bands 1 through 3. The “center” parameter controls
the center frequency of the frequency range that is affected as described above.
The “gain” parameter controls how much each band is adjusted, and works as
for the low shelf filter. Finally, the “Q” parameter controls how wide or narrow
the affected frequency range is. Higher Q values will affect a narrower band of
frequencies, while lower Q values will affect a wider band of frequencies.
Band 4: High shelf filter A high shelf filter boosts or lowers all frequencies above a
certain frequency limit, much like what a “treble” control found on ordinary
stereo systems does. The high shelf filter is adjusted the same way as the low
shelf filter, except that it works on the high end of the frequency spectrum rather
than the low end.

As a general guide, EQ band 0 should be used for low frequencies, EQ bands 1 through
3 should be used for mids, and EQ band 4 should be used for highs.
Enable EQ: This option controls whether the EQ is on or off.
Graphical EQ: This option brings up a graphic EQ screen, which allows adjustment of
each of the three parameters described above (gain, center frequency, and Q) for
each of the five EQ bands.
Key Action
Scroll Forward Raises the highlighted parameter.
Scroll Backward Lowers the highlighted parameter.
Prev Moves to the previous EQ band.
Next Moves to the next EQ band.
Select Toggles the cursor among the three pa-
rameters (gain, center frequency, Q) for
the selected EQ band.
Menu Exits the graphic EQ screen.
Pre-cut: If too much gain is added through the graphical EQ, your music may distort.
The P RECUT setting allows you to adjust the overall gain of the EQ.
If your music distorts when using the EQ, trying changing this setting to a nega-
tive value.
Simple EQ: This option provides an easier alternative for those who are daunted by all
of the parameters that can be adjusted using the graphical EQ. With the S IMPLE
EQ, the only parameter that can be adjusted is the gain.
Advanced EQ: This sub menu provides options for adjusting the same parameters
as the G RAPHICAL EQ. The only difference is that the parameters are adjusted
through textual menus rather than through a graphic interface.
Save EQ Preset: This option saves the current EQ configuration in a .cfg file.
Browse EQ Presets: This menu displays a list of EQ presets, as well as any EQ con-
figurations saved using the S AVE EQ P RESET option. Users unfamiliar with the
operation of a parametric EQ may wish to use the presets instead of trying to
configure the EQ, or use the presets for designing their own custom EQ settings.
6.9 Dithering
This setting controls the dithering and noise shaping functionality of Rockbox.

Most of Rockbox’ audio file decoders work at a higher bit depth than the 16 bits
used for output on the player’s audio connectors. The simplest way to convert from
one bit depth to another is simply discarding all the surplus bits. This is the default
behaviour, and adds distortion to the signal that will vary in character along with the
desired sound.
Dithering adds low-level noise to the signal prior to throwing away the surplus bits,
which gives the resulting signal a uniform noise floor which is independent of the sig-
nal. Most people find this noise preferable to the time-varying noise heard when not
performing dithering.
After dithering, noise shaping is performed. This basically just pushes the dithering
noise to the parts of the frequency spectrum humans cannot hear so easily. In Rockbox’
case, some of the noise is pushed up to above 10 kHz.
This setting will be put to its best use when listening to dynamic music with fre-
quently occuring quiet parts, classical music being a typical example. It is worth noting
that the effects of dithering and noise shaping are very subtle, and not easily noticable.
Rockbox uses highpass triangular distribution noise as the dithering noise source,
and a third order noise shaper.

C HAPTER 7. G ENERAL S ETTINGS 49
7 General Settings
Figure 7.1: The general settings screen
7.1 Playback
The P LAYBACK sub menu allows you to configure settings related to audio playback.
Shuffle Turning shuffle on will cause Rockbox to randomly re-order the playlist. Thus,
to shuffle all of the audio files on the player, you first need to create a playlist con-
taining all of them. For more information on creating playlists refer to section 4.4
(page 34).
Options: Y ES/N O.
Repeat Configures settings related to repeating of directories or playlists.
Options: O FF / A LL / O NE / S HUFFLE / A-B:
Off The current playlist will not repeat when it is finished.
Note: If you have the A UTO -C HANGE D IRECTORY option set to Y ES, Rock-
box will move on to the next directory on your hard drive. If the A UTO -
b
C HANGE D IRECTORY option is set to N O, playback will stop when the cur-
rent directory or playlist is finished.
All The current playlist will repeat when it is finished.
One Repeat one track over and over.
Shuffle When the current playlist has finished playing, it will be shuffled and
then repeated.
A-B Repeats between two user defined points within a track, typically used by
musicians when attempting to learn a piece of music. This option is more
complicated to use than the others as the player must first be placed into A-
B repeat mode and then the start and end points defined.

To set the Start Point (A) press Select. The following press of Select will set
the End Point (B), and a third successive Select will reset the markers.
Play Selected First This setting controls what happens when you select a file for play-
back while shuffle mode is on. If the P LAY S ELECTED F IRST setting is Y ES, the file
you selected will be played first. If this setting is N O, a random file in the direc-
tory will be played first.
Fast-Forward/Rewind These settings control the speed and acceleration during fast
forward and rewind. The setting FF/RW M IN S TEP controls the initial speed and
FF/RW A CCEL controls the acceleration.
Anti-Skip Buffer This setting allows you to control how much music is stored in the
player’s memory whilst playing a song, acting as a buffer against shock or play-
back problems. The player transfers the selected amount of the forthcoming song
into its memory at high speed whilst you are playing the song. It keeps a “rolling”
buffer, which keeps feeding more of the forthcoming song into memory as it goes
along. If the player is knocked, shaken or jogged heavily while Rockbox is trying
to read the hard drive, Rockbox might not be able to read the drive. Rockbox will
retry over and over again until it succeeds, but may eventually reach the end of
the memory buffer. When that happens, Rockbox must stop playing and wait for
more data from the disk, which causes your music to skip. The anti-skip setting
tells Rockbox how much extra buffer memory to spare to handle this situation.
This setting therefore allows you to reduce the chances of there being a gap or
pause during playback of songs.
The anti-skip buffer can be set to various values between 5 seconds and 10 min-
utes.
Note: Having a large anti-skip buffer tends to use more power, and may reduce
your battery life. It is recommended to always use the lowest possible setting that
b
allows correct and continuous playback.
Fade on Stop/Pause Enables and disables a fade effect when you pause or stop play-
ing a song. If the Fade on Stop/Pause option is set to Y ES, your music will fade
out when you stop or pause playback, and fade in when you resume playback.
Party Mode Enables unstoppable music playback. When new songs are selected, they
are queued at the end of the current dynamic playlist instead of being played im-
mediately. Pausing and stopping playback is disabled as well as skipping songs
and launching plugins.
Crossfade This setting enables a cross-fader. At the end of a song, the song will fade
out as the next song fades in, creating a smooth transition between songs. The
crossfade setting is particularly effective when the player is set on shuffle.
Options for crossfade settings are:

Enable Crossfade If set to O FF, crossfade is disabled. If set to A LWAYS, songs

will always crossfade into one another. If set to S HUFFLE, crossfade is en-
abled when the shuffle feature is set to Y ES, but disabled otherwise. If set to
track skip only, tracks will only crossfade when you manually change tracks.
Fade In Delay The “fade in delay” is the length of time between when the cross-
fade process begins and when the new track begins to fade in.
Fade In Duration The length of time, in seconds, that it takes your music to fade
in once the FADE I N D ELAY has ended.
Fade Out Delay The “fade out delay” is the length of time between when the
crossfade process begins and when the old track begins to fade out.
Fade Out Duration The length of time, in seconds, that it takes your music to
fade out once the FADE O UT D ELAY has ended.
Fade Out Mode If set to C ROSSFADE, one song will fade out and the next song
will simultaneously fade in. If set to M IX, the ending song will continue to
play as normal until its end, while the starting song will fade in from under
it. M IX mode is not used for manual track skips, even if it is selected here.
Note: The rules above apply except in the instance where FADE O UT D ELAY plus
FADE O UT D URATION is less then FADE I N D ELAY (which would create a gap in
b
the audio). In this case, the FADE I N D ELAY is reduced to eliminate the gap.
The graphic below illustrates how the different settings work in practice.
Replaygain This allows you to control the replaygain function. The purpose of replay-
gain is to adjust the volume of the music played so that all songs (or albums, de-
pending on your settings) have the same apparent volume. This prevents sudden

changes in volume when changing between songs recorded at different volume

levels. For replaygain to work, the songs must have been processed by a program
that adds replaygain information to the ID3 tags (or Vorbis tags).
Note: APEv2 tags are not currently supported.
Options for replaygain are:
b
Enable Replaygain This turns on/off the replaygain function.
Prevent Clipping Avoid clipping of a song’s waveform. If a song would clip dur-
ing playback, the volume is lowered for that song. Replaygain information
is needed for this to work.
Replaygain Type Choose the type of replaygain to apply:
Album Gain Maintain a constant volume level between albums, but keep
any intentional volume variations between songs in an album. (If album
gain value is not available, uses track gain information).
Track Gain Maintain a constant volume level between tracks. If track gain
value is not available, no replaygain is applied.
Track Gain If Shuffling Maintains a constant volume between tracks if S HUF -
FLE is set to Y ES . Reverts to album mode if S HUFFLE is set to N O .
Pre-amp This allows you to adjust the volume when replaygain is applied. Re-
playgain often lowers the volume, sometimes quite much, so here you can
compensate for that. Please note that a (large) positive pre-amp setting can
cause clipping, unless prevent clipping is enabled. The pre-amp can be set
to any decibel (dB) value between -12dB and +12dB, in increments of 0.1dB.
Beep Volume Controls the volume of the beep that is heard when skipping forward
or backward between tracks. The beep is disabled when set to O FF.
Auto-Change Directory Control what Rockbox does when it reaches the end of a di-
rectory. If A UTO -C HANGE D IRECTORY is set to Y ES, Rockbox will continue to the
next directory. If A UTO -C HANGE D IRECTORY is set to N O, playback will stop at
the end of the current playlist. Using the R ANDOM feature requires you to first
generate a folder list via the Random Folder Advance Configuration plugin (see
section 9.4.9 (page 110)).
Note: You must have the R EPEAT option set to N O for A UTO -C HANGE D IREC -
TORY to function properly.
b
Note: This feature only works when songs have been played from the file browser.
Using it with the database may cause unexpected behavior.
b
Pause on Headphone Unplug Enables and disables automatic pausing of playback
when the headphones are disconnected from the player’s headphone socket.
Pause on Headphone Unplug Options for automatic pause:
Off. Disables automatic pause.
Pause. Pauses the player when the headphones are removed.

Pause and Resume. Pauses when the headphones are removed, and re-
sumes playback when they are reconnected.
Duration to Rewind Number of seconds (between 0 and 15) to rewind playback
when the headphones are removed.
Disable Auto-Resume If Phones Not Present This option will disable the au-
tomatic resumption of playback at startup if the headphones are not con-
nected to the player.
Note: This requires R ESUME ON S TARTUP to be enabled.
b
Last.fm Log Enables logging of your played tracks for submittal to http://www.last.fm.
This service was formely known as Audioscrobbler. When you enable this option,
you’ll have to reboot to start the logging. The log-file is called .scrobbler.log,and
is to be found in the root directory of your player.
Note: See ZLastFMLog for a further description, and for tools you can use to
submit your Last.fm log.
b
Cuesheet Support Enables reading of cuesheet files for played tracks. If a cuesheet is
found for a track, track markers are displayed on the progressbar and it is possible
to skip between the tracks within the cuesheet. Also the information found in the
cuesheet file will replace the information from the ID3 tags. When you enable this
option, you’ll have to reboot for it to come into effect.
Skip Length Designed to speed up navigation and prevent unintentional track skip-
ping when listening to long audio tracks, S KIP L ENGTH changes the behavior of
the Prev and Next buttons so that they skip by a given number of minutes instead
of skipping to a new track.
Note: To skip tracks with this setting set to a time interval, press Short Prev +
Long Next to go forward and Short Next + Long Prev to go back.
b
7.2 Playlist
The P LAYLIST sub menu allows you to configure settings related to playlists.
Recursively Insert Directories. If set to O N, then when a directory is inserted or
queued into a dynamic playlist, all subdirectories will also be inserted. If set to
A SK, Rockbox will prompt the user about whether to include sub-directories.
Warn When Erasing Dynamic Playlist. If set to Y ES, Rockbox will provide a warn-
ing if the user attempts to take an action that will cause Rockbox to erase the
current dynamic playlist.
7.3 File View

The File View menu deals with options relating to how the File Browser displays files.

Sort Case Sensitive: If this option is set to Y ES, all files that start with upper case
letters will be listed first, followed by all files that begin with lower case letters. If
this option is set to NO, then case will be ignored when sorting files.
Sort Directories: This option controls how Rockbox sorts directories. The default is
to sort them alphabetically. B Y DATE sorts them with the oldest directory first. B Y
NEWEST DATE sorts them with the newest directory first.
Sort Files: This option controls how Rockbox sorts files. All of the options for S ORT
D IRECTORIES are available in this option. In addition, there is a B Y TYPE option
which sorts files alphabetically by their type (such as .mp3) then alphabetically
within each type.
Show Files: This option controls which files are displayed in the File Browser.
All: The F ILE B ROWSER displays all files and directories. Extensions are shown.
No files or directories are hidden.
Supported: The F ILE B ROWSER displays all directories and files supported by
Rockbox (see section A.1 (page 120)). Files and directories starting with .
(dot) or with the hidden flag set are hidden.
Music: The F ILE B ROWSER displays only directories, playlists and the supported
audio file formats. Extensions are stripped. Files and directories starting with
. or with the “hidden” flag set are hidden.
Playlists: The F ILE B ROWSER displays only directories and playlists, for simpli-
fied navigation.
Show Filename Extensions: This option controls how file extensions are shown in
the File Browser.
Off: The file extensions are never shown.
On: The file extensions are always shown.
Only unknown types: Only the extensions of unknown filetypes are shown.
Only when viewing all types: Only show file extensions when S HOW F ILES is
set to A LL.
Follow Playlist: This option determines what directory the F ILE B ROWSER displays
first. If F OLLOW P LAYLIST is set to Y ES, when you enter the F ILE B ROWSER from
the WPS, you will find yourself in the same directory as the currently playing file.
If F OLLOW P LAYLIST is set to N O, when you enter the F ILE B ROWSER from the
WPS, you will find yourself in the directory you were in when you last left the
F ILE B ROWSER.
Show Path: If this setting is set to F ULL PATH the full path to the current directory will
be displayed on the first line in the F ILE B ROWSER. If set to C URRENT D IRECTORY
O NLY only the name of the current directory will be displayed.

This has a similar effect on the Database browser. If set to C URRENT D IRECTORY
O NLY or F ULL PATH, then the title of each menu will be displayed on the first line
in the D ATABASE B ROWSER.
7.4 Database
This sub menu allows you to configure the database. See section 4.2 (page 27) for more
information about using the database.
7.5 Display
LCD Settings: This sub menu contains settings that relate to the display of the player.
Backlight: The amount of time the backlight shines after a key press. If set to
O FF, the backlight will not light when a button is pressed. If set to O N, the
backlight will never shut off. If set to a time (1 to 90 seconds), the backlight
will stay lit for that amount of time after a button press.
Backlight (While Plugged In): This setting is equivalent to the B ACKLIGHT set-
ting except it applies when the player is plugged into the charger.
Backlight on Hold: This setting controls the behavior of the backlight when the
Hold switch is toggled. If set to N ORMAL the backlight will behave as usual.
If set to O FF the backlight will be turned off immediately when the Hold
switch is engaged and if set to O N the backlight will be turned on and stay
on while the Hold switch is engaged.
Caption Backlight: This option turns on the backlight a number of seconds be-
fore the start of a new track, and keeps it on for the same number of seconds
after the beginning so that the display can be read to see song information.
The amount of time is determined by the value of the backlight timeout set-
ting, but is no less than 5 seconds.
Backlight Fade In: The amount of time that the backlight will take to fade from
off to on after a button is pressed. If set to O FF the backlight will turn on
immediately, with no fade in. Can also be set to 500 MS, 1 S or 2 S.
Backlight Fade Out: Like Backlight fade in, this controls the amount of time that
the backlight will take to fade from on to off after a button is pressed. If set
to O FF the backlight will turn off immediately, with no fade out. Other valid
values: 500 MS, 1 S, 2 S, 3 S, 4 S, 5 S or 10 S.
First Keypress Enables Backlight Only: With this option enabled the first key-
press while the backlight is turned off will only turn the backlight on without
having any other effect. When disabled the first keypress will also perform
its appropriate action.
Contrast: Changes the contrast of your LCD display.
Warning: Setting the contrast too dark or too light can make it hard to find
this menu option again!
!

LCD Mode: This setting lets you invert the colours of the display.
Upside Down: Displays the screen so that the top of the display is nearest the
buttons. This is sometimes useful when carrying the player in a pocket for
easy access to the headphone socket.
Scrolling This feature controls how text will scroll in Rockbox. You can configure the
following parameters:
Scroll Speed: Sets how many times per second the automatic horizontal scrolling
text will move a step.
Scroll Start Delay: Controls how many milliseconds Rockbox should wait be-
fore a new text begins automatically scrolling.
Scroll Step Size: Defines the number of pixels the text should move for each
step, as used by the Scroll Speed setting.
Bidirectional Scroll Limit: Rockbox has two different automatic horizontal scrolling
methods: 1) always scrolling the text to the left until the line has ended and
then beginning again at the start, and 2) moving to the left until you can read
the end of the line and then scrolling right until you see the beginning again.
Rockbox chooses which method it should use depending of how much it
has to scroll to the left. This setting lets you tell Rockbox where that limit is,
expressed in percentage of the line length.
Screen Scrolls Out of View: Screens can be manually scrolled horizontally by
pressing Long Next/Prev. Setting this option to Y ES will keep the list
entries at their fixed positions and allow them to be scrolled out of view,
whereas N O will only scroll those entries which surpass the right margin.
Screen Scroll Step Size: Defines the number of pixels the horizontal manual
screen scroll should move for each step.
Paged Scrolling: When set to Y ES scrolling vertically on pages that surpass the
screen size will page up/down instead of simply changing lines. This can be
useful on slow displays.
Status/Scrollbar: Settings related to on screen status display and the scrollbar.

Scroll Bar: Enables or disables the scroll bar at the left.
Status Bar: Enables or disables the status bar at the upper side.
Volume Display: Controls whether the volume is displayed as a graphic or a
numeric value on the Status Bar. If you select a numeric display, volume
is displayed in decibels. See section 6.1 (page 43) for more on the volume
setting.
Battery Display: Controls whether the battery charge status is displayed as a
graphic or numerical percentage value on the Status Bar.
Peak Meter: The peak meter can be configured with a number of parameters.

Peak Release: This determines how fast the bar shrinks when the music be-
comes softer. Lower values make the peak meter look smoother. Expressed
in scale units per 10ms.
Peak Hold Time: Specifies the time after which the peak indicator will reset. For
example, if you set this value to 5s, the peak indicator displays the loudest
volume value that occurred within the last 5 seconds. Larger values are use-
ful if you want to find the peak level of a song, which might be of interest
when copying music from the player via the analogue output to some other
recording device.
Clip Hold Time: The number of seconds that the clipping indicator will be visible
after clipping is detected.
Scale: Select whether the peak meter displays linear or logarithmic values. The
human ear perceives loudness on a logarithmic scale. If the Scale setting is
set to L OGARITHMIC (dB) scale, the volume values are scaled logarithmically.
The volume meters of digital audio devices usually are scaled this way. On
the other hand, if you are interested in the power level that is applied to
your headphones you should choose L INEAR display. This setting cannot
be displayed in units like volts or watts because such units depend on your
headphones.
Minimum and maximum range: These two options define the full value range
that the peak meter displays. Recommended values for the L OGARITHMIC
(dB) setting are -40 dB for minimum and 0 dB for maximum. Recommended
values for L INEAR display are 0 and 100%. Note that -40 dB is approximately
1% in linear value, but if you change the minimum setting in linear mode
slightly and then change to the dB scale, there will be a large change. You
can use these values for ‘zooming’ into the peak meter.
Default Codepage: A codepage describes the way extended characters that are not
available within the ASCII character set are encoded. ID3v1 tags do not have
a codepage encoding contained so Rockbox needs to know what encoding has
been used when generating these tags. This should be “ISO-8859-1” but to sup-
port languages outside Western Europe most applications use the setting of your
operating system instead. If your operating system uses a different codepage and
you are getting garbled extended characters you should adjust this settings. In
most cases sticking to “ISO-8859-1” would be sufficient.
7.6 System
7.6.1 Start Screen
Set the screen that Rockbox will start in. Selecting R ESUME P LAYBACK will resume
playback where it was when the player was shut off if there is a playlist to resume and
will then end up in the WPS. Selecting P REVIOUS S CREEN will make Rockbox start in
the screen it was when the player was shut off.

7.6.2 Battery
Options relating to the battery in the player.
Battery Capacity: This setting can be used to tell Rockbox what capacity (in mAh)
the battery being used has. The default is 400mAh (1G) or 630mAh (2G), which
is the capacity value for the standard battery shipped with the player. Rockbox
uses this value to estimate remaining battery life for the info screen and WPS.
Changing this setting has no effect whatsoever on actual battery life. This setting
only affects the accuracy of the battery life estimation as shown on screen. This
value is fairly meaningless in the Ipod family at present, and work is on-going
into finding a better way to determine battery life.
Charge During USB Connection: This option lets you control whether the player
should charge during the USB connection and hence draw the full 500mA. Turn-
ing it O FF is recommended if the dap is connected through an unpowered USB
hub or a laptop port.
7.6.3 Disk
Options relating to the hard disk.
Disk Spindown: Rockbox has a timer that makes it spin down the hard disk after
it is idle for a certain amount of time. This setting controls the amount of time
between the last user activity and the time that the disk spins down. This idle
time is only affected by user activity, like navigating through the F ILE B ROWSER.
When the hard disk spins up to fill the audio buffer, it automatically spins down
afterwards.
Directory Cache: Rockbox has the ability to cache the contents of your drive in RAM.
The D IRECTORY C ACHE takes a small amount of memory away from Rockbox
that would otherwise be used to buffer music, but it speeds up navigation in the
file browser by eliminating the slight pause between the time a navigation button
is pressed and the time Rockbox responds. Turning this setting on activates the
directory cache, and turning it off deactivates the directory cache.
Note: The first time you enable the directory cache, Rockbox will request a reboot
of the player and upon restarting take a few minutes to scan the drive. After this,
b
the directory cache will work in the background.
7.6.4 Time and Date

Time related menu options.
Set Time/Date: Set current time and date.
Time Format: Choose 12 or 24 hour clock.

7.6.5 Idle Poweroff

Rockbox can be configured to turn off power after the unit has been idle for a defined
number of minutes. The player is idle when playback is stopped or paused. It is not
idle while the USB or charger is connected . Settings are either O FF or 1 to 10 minutes
in 1 minute steps. Then 15,30,45 and 60 minutes are available.
7.6.6 Wake-Up Alarm

This option turns the player off and then starts it up again at the specified time. Use
Scroll Forward and Scroll Backward to adjust the minutes setting, Prev and Next to
adjust the hours. Select confirms the alarm and shuts the player down, and Menu
cancels setting an alarm. If the player is turned on again before the alarm occurs, the
alarm will be cancelled. Using this option disables the S LEEP T IMER.
7.6.7 Limits
This sub menu relates to limits in the Rockbox operating system.
Max Entries in File Browser: This setting controls the limit on the number of files
that you can put in any particular directory in the file browser. You can configure
the size to be between 50 and 10,000 files in steps of 50. The default is 400. Higher
values will shorten the music buffer, so you should increase this setting only if
you have directories with a large number of files.
Max Playlist Size: This setting controls the maximum size of a playlist. The playlist
size can be between 1,000 and 32,000 files, in steps of 1,000 (default is 10,000).
Higher values will shorten the music buffer, so you should increase this setting
only if you have very large playlists.
7.7 Bookmarking
Bookmarks allow you to save your current position within a track so that you can return
to it at a later time. Bookmarks are saved on a per directory basis (for dynamic playlists)
or for individual (saved) playlists. They are stored next to the directory/playlist they
reference. You can store multiple bookmarks for the same track.
Bookmark on Stop. This option controls whether Rockbox writes a bookmark to the
disk when playback is stopped. Setting this to N O turns automatic bookmarking
completely off. In contrast Y ES turns automatic bookmarking on while A SK asks
on stopping the track if a bookmark should be created. With the above options
Y ES and A SK if there is an existing .bmark file the current position information
will be added to the front of the existing list, up to the maximum number of
allowed bookmarks per file (currently 10). If no .bmark file exists, one will be
created with the new bookmark information. Finally, if the M AINTAIN A LIST OF

R ECENTLY U SED B OOKMARKS option is enabled, the bookmarking information

will be added to recent bookmarks list.
Yes – Recent Only. Turns on automatic bookmarking – One bookmark only
Ask – Recent Only. Asks if a bookmark should be created when stopping track
– One bookmark only
With the two R ECENT O NLY options, nothing is written to the .bmark file. If
the M AINTAIN A LIST OF R ECENTLY U SED B OOKMARKS option is enabled, the
bookmarking information will however be added to recent bookmarks list.
Note: The R ESUME function remembers your position in the most recently ac-
cessed track regardless of how the B OOKMARK ON S TOP option is set.
b
Load Last Bookmark. When the L OAD L AST B OOKMARK option is set to Y ES, Rock-
box automatically returns to the position of the last bookmark within a file when
that file is played.
When the L OAD L AST B OOKMARK option is set to A SK, Rockbox will give the user
the option of starting from the beginning of the track of or from the bookmark.
When the L OAD L AST B OOKMARK option is set to N O, playback always starts
from the beginning of the track, and the user must play the bookmark or use the
L OAD B OOKMARK function in the Main Menu, while the file is playing, to resume
at the bookmarked location.
Maintain a list of Recently Used Bookmarks. This list of Most Recent Bookmarks
(MRB’s) may be accessed through the R ECENT B OOKMARKS option of the B OOK -
MARKS sub menu of the Main Menu. When set to Y ES each new bookmark will
be added to the MRB list. Setting this to N O disables the addition of bookmarks
to the MRB list. U NIQUE O NLY behaves like the Y ES setting but in addition all
older entries for the current (dynamic) playlist will be removed from the MRB
whenever a new entry is added.
Bookmark Actions context menu. When viewing any bookmark list, pressing the stan-
dard context menu key (Long Select) will bring up the Bookmark Actions context
menu.
R ESUME will commence playback of the currently-selected bookmark entry.
D ELETE will remove just the currently-selected bookmark entry from the list.
7.8 Language
This setting controls the language of the Rockbox user interface. Selecting a language
will activate it. The language files must be in the /.rockbox/langs/ directory. See
section 10.1.3 (page 113) for further details about languages.

7.9 Voice
Voice Menus. This option controls the voicing of menus/settings as they are selected
by the cursor. In order for this to work, a voice file must be present in the /.rockbox/langs/
directory on the player. Voice files are large and are not shipped with Rockbox by
default. The voice file is the name of the language for which it is made, followed
by the extension .voice. So for English, the file name would be english.voice.
This option is on by default, but will do nothing unless the appropriate voice file
is installed in the correct place on the player. The Voice Menus have several limi-
tations:
• Setting the Sound Option C HANNELS to K ARAOKE may disable voice menus.
• Plugins and the wake up alarm do not support voice features.
Voice Directories. This option controls voicing of directory names. A voice file must
be present for this to work. Several options are available.
Spell. Speak the directory name by spelling it out letter by letter. Support is
provided only for the most common letters, numbers and punctuation.
Numbers. Each directory is assigned a number based upon its position in the file
list. They are then announced as “Directory 1”, “Directory 2” etc.
Off. No attempt will be made to speak directory names.
You can use pre-generated .talk clips to have directory names spoken properly,
but you must enable this explicitly (see below).
Use Directory .talk Clips. This option turns on the use of .talk clips for directories.
On. Use special pre-recorded MP3 files ( dirname.talk) in each directory. These
must be generated in advance, and are typically produced synthetically us-
ing a text-to-speech engine on a PC.
Off. No checking is made for directory .talk clips; they are not used even if present.
This can reduce disk activity.
Use of a .talk clip takes precedence over other directory name voicing. Otherwise
(e.g. if a .talk clip is not available), voicing uses the method set under V OICE
D IRECTORIES above.
Voice Filenames. This option controls voicing of filenames. Again, a voice file must
be present for this to work. The options provided are S PELL, N UMBERS, and O FF
which function the same as for V OICE D IRECTORIES. You can use pre-generated
.talk clips to have filenames spoken properly, but you must enable this explicitly
(see below).
Use File .talk Clips. This option turns on the use of .talk clips for files.
On. Use special pre-recorded MP3 files for each file. This functions the same as
for directories except that the .talk clip file must have the same name as the
described file with an extra .talk extension (e.g. Punkadiddle.mp3 would
require a file called Punkadiddle.mp3.talk).

Off. No checking is made for file .talk clips; they are not used even if present.
This can reduce disk activity.
Use of a .talk clip takes precedence over other filename voicing. Otherwise (e.g. if
a .talk clip is not available), voicing uses the method set under V OICE F ILENAMES
above.
Say File Type. This option turns on voicing of file types when V OICE F ILENAMES is
set to S PELL or N UMBERS. When V OICE D IRECTORIES is set to S PELL, “Directory”
will be voiced after each spelled out directory.
Announce Battery Level. When this option is enabled the battery level is announced
when it falls under 50%, 30% and 15%.
See ZVoiceHowto for more details on configuring speech support in Rockbox.

C HAPTER 8. T HEME S ETTINGS 63
8 Theme Settings
The T HEME S ETTINGS menu offers options that you can change to customize the visual
apperance of Rockbox.
Browse Themes. This option will display all the currently installed themes on the
player, press Select or Next to load the chosen theme and apply it.
A theme is a configuration file, stored in a specific directory, that typically changes
the WPS , font used and on some platforms additional information such as back-
ground image and text colours.
There are a number of themes that ship with Rockbox. If none of these suit your
needs, many more can be downloaded from ZWpsIpodMini. Some of the down-
loads from this website will actually be standalone WPS files, others will be full-
blown themes.
Note: Themes do not have to be purely visual. It is quite possible to create a theme
that switches between audio configurations for use in the car, with headphones
b
and when connected to an external amplifier. See section 10.2.2 (page 114) for
more details.
Browse Fonts. Browse the installed fonts on your player. Selecting one will activate
it. See section 10.1.2 (page 113) for further details about fonts.
Browse WPS files. Opens the F ILE B ROWSER in the /.rockbox/wps directory and
displays all .wps files. Selecting one will activate it, stop will exit back to the
menu. For further information about the WPS see section 4.3 (page 29). For infor-
mation about editing a .wps file see section 10.2 (page 114).
Show Icons. Rockbox has the ability to display an icon to the left of the file in the F ILE
B ROWSER. For details of these icons, see section A.1 (page 120). These icons can
also be customised. See the ZIconSets and ZCustomIcons Wiki pages for details.
Clear Backdrop: Rockbox allows you to select bitmap pictures to use as backdrops,
see section 10.1.4 (page 113) for further information. This option allows you to
clear the backdrops that you set.
Line Selector Type. This option allows you to select which type of line selector to use.
Pointer: A small arrow to the left of the menu text.
Bar (inverse): A bar with inverted foreground and background colour.

C HAPTER 9. P LUGINS 64
9 Plugins
Plugins are programs that Rockbox can load and run. Only one plugin can be loaded at
a time. Plugins have exclusive control over the user interface. This means you cannot
switch back and forth between a plugin and Rockbox. When a plugin is loaded, you
need to exit it to return to the Rockbox interface. Most plugins will not interfere with
music playback but some of them will stop playback while running. Plugins have the
file extension .rock. Most of them can be started from B ROWSE P LUGINS in the M AIN
M ENU.
Viewer plugins get started automatically by opening an associated file (i.e. text files,
chip8 games), or from the O PEN WITH option on the C ONTEXT M ENU.
9.1 Games
See also the Chip-8 emulator in section 9.3.2 (page 95) .
9.1.1 Blackjack
Figure 9.1: Blackjack
Blackjack, a game played in casinos around the world, is now available in the palm of
your hand! The rules are simple: try to get as close to 21 without going over or simply
beat out the dealer for the best hand. Although this may not seem difficult, blackjack
is a game renowned for the strategy involved. This version includes the ability to split,
buy insurance, and double down.
For the full set of rules to the game, and other facinating information visit
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/blackjack-rules.php

Key Action
In menu
Select Start new game
Play Resume saved game
Next Show high scores
Menu Quit
In game
Prev / Next /
Scroll Forward / Enter betting amount
Scroll Backward
Select Hit (Draw new card)
Next Stay (End hand)
Prev Double down
Play Save game
Menu Return to menu or cancel
9.1.2 BrickMania
Figure 9.2: BrickMania
BrickMania is a clone of the classic game Breakout. The aim of the game is to destroy
all the bricks by hitting them with the ball once or more. Sometimes a special item falls
down when you destroy a brick. For a special item to take effect, you must catch it with
the paddle. Look out for the bad ones.

Special items
Displayed Name Description

N Normal Returns paddle to normal.
D Die Ball dies; lose a life.
L Life Gain a life.
F Fire Allows you to shoot bricks with pad-
dle.
G Glue Ball sticks to paddle each time it hits.
B Ball Immediately fires another ball.
FL Flip Flip left / right movement.
Key Action
Prev / Next
Scroll Backward / Moves the paddle
Scroll Forward
Select Release the ball / Fire
Menu Open menu / Quit
9.1.3 Bubbles
Figure 9.3: Bubbles
The goal of the game is to beat each level as quickly as possible by clearing the board of
all bubbles. Bubbles are removed from the board when a cluster of three of more of the
same type is formed. The game is over when any bubbles on the board extend below
the bottom line. To make things more difficult, the entire board is shifted down every
time a certain number of shots have been fired. Points are awarded depending on how
quickly the level was completed.

Key Action
In menu
Play Start new game
Prev+Next Resume saved game
Select Show high scores
Scroll Forward / Select starting level
Scroll Backward
Menu Quit
In game
Play Pause game
Scroll Forward / Aim the bubble
Scroll Backward
Select Fire bubble
Prev+Next Save game
Menu Exit to menu
9.1.4 Chessbox
Figure 9.4: Chessbox
Chessbox is a one-person chess game with computer artificial intelligence. The chess
engine is a port of GNU Chess 2 by John Stanback.
It also works as a PGN file viewer. Instead of executing the game from the plugin
menu, look for any file with .pgn extension in the file browser and execute it. Chessbox
will show the list of matches included in the file and allow you to select the one you
want to watch. After that, you can scroll back and forth through the moves of the game.
If the menu is invoked while in the viewer, the user is allowed to select a new match
from the same file or quit the game.
“Force play” while the computer is thinking will cause it to make its move immedi-
ately. If done while it’s your turn, the computer will move for you and flip the board
so that you are playing from the other side. If you want, you can force play an entire
game and watch the artificial intelligence fight against itself.

When you quit the game the current state will be saved and restored when you re-
sume the game. The menu also allows the user to reload the last game saved, save the
current position and start a new game without having to quit the game.
Keys
Key Action
Menu, Play, Prev, Move the cursor
Next
Select Pick up / Drop piece
Select+Next Change level
Select+Play Force play
Select+Menu Show the menu
9.1.5 Chopper
Navigate a cavernous maze without banging into walls, the ceiling, or the floor. How
long can you fly your chopper?
Key Action
Select Make chopper fly
Menu Enter menu
9.1.6 Dice
Dice is a simple dice rolling simulator. Select number and type of dice to roll in a menu
and start by choosing “Roll Dice”. The result is shown as individual numbers as well
as the total of the rolled dice.
Key Action
Play Roll dice again
Menu+Select Quit

9.1.7 Doom
Figure 9.5: Doom
This is the famous Doom game.
Getting started
For the game to run you need .wad game files located in /.rockbox/doom/ on your
player. Create the directory and save the following files there:
rockdoom.wad. The Rockbox .wad, based on prboom.wad from prboom-2.2.6
Your wad files. Copy all Doom wads you wish to play into that directory.
The needed files can be found at ZPluginDoom
To play addon wads create the addons directory within the doom directory. Place
wad files in this directory. Currently doom only supports a maximum number of 10
addons.
A free alternative for Doom 2 is FreeDoom (http://freedoom.sourceforge.net). This
can be used in place of doom2.wad, or it may be used as an addon in Doom, by placing
it in the addons directory.
Menus
Rockdoom Menu. The Rockdoom menu is shown when Doom is first launched. This
is the only time it can be accessed (before starting the game). To re-adjust Rock-
doom options, you will need to quit your current game and restart the plugin.
Main Menu. The Doom plugin has a main menu, which is brought up before a game
is started. It has the following entries:
Game. Select which (official) wad to launch
Addon. Select which unofficial addon wad to launch (From /.rockbox/doom/addons
directory)
Demos. Select which demo file to play on game start
Options. Configure low-level Doom options
Play Game. Launch the wad/addon/Demo chosen

Options Menu. This menu has the following options:

Sound. Enable or Disable sound in Doom
Set Keys. Change the game key configuration
Time Demo. Run a timed demo, to test game speed on a player (Only runs on
Doom Shareware)
Player Bobbing. Enable or Disable player up/Down movement
Translucency. Enable or Disable sprite translucency (Fireballs, Plasma...)
Fake Contrast. Enable or Disable modified game lighting
Always Run. Make the player always run
Headsup Display. Show the player status when in fullscreen
Statusbar Always Red. Disable color response statusbar
InGame Main Menu. This menu can only be accessed from within a running game,
and is displayed by flipping your Hold switch a couple of times
New Game. Start a new game
Options. In game options
Load Game. Load a saved game
Save Game. Save the current game
Quit. Quit the game
InGame Options Menu. This menu has the folloing options:

End Game. Ends the current game
Messages. Enable or Disable in game messages
Screen Size. Shrink or Enlarge the displayed portion of the game
Gamma. Change the brightness (Gamma) of the game
Sound Volume. Change the sound, music and system volume
Note: In game music is not currently supported
b
Keys
Key Action
Menu Move Forward
Prev Turn Left
Next Turn Right
Play Shoot
Menu Open
Hold switch Escape
Select Enter
Select Change Weapon

Playing the game

After installation of the wad files is complete you can start the game.
9.1.8 Flipit
Figure 9.6: Flipit
Flipping the colour of the token under the cursor also flips the tokens above, below, left
and right of the cursor. The aim is to end up with a screen containing tokens of only
one colour.
Key Action
Menu / Play / Move the cursor
Prev / Next
Select Flip
Select+Prev Shuffle
Select+Play Solve
Select+Next Solve step by step
Select+Menu Quit the game
9.1.9 Jewels
Figure 9.7: Jewels

Jewels is a simple yet addicting game which involves swapping pairs of jewels in order
to form connected segments of three or more of the same type.
The goal of the game is to score as many points as possible before running out of
available moves. Higher points are awarded to larger combos. The game advances to
the next level after every one hundred points and randomly clears several jewels.
Key Action
Prev/Next/
Menu/Play Move the cursor around the jewels
Select Select a jewel
Long Select Show the in-game menu
To exit the game, bring up the in-game menu and select E XIT J EWELS.
9.1.10 MazezaM
Figure 9.8: MazezaM
The goal of this puzzle game is to escape a dungeon consisting of ten “mazezams”.
These are rooms containing rows of blocks which can be shifted left or right. You can
move the rows only by pushing them and if you move the rows carelessly, you will get
stuck. You can have another go by selecting “retry level” from the menu, but this will
cost you a life. You start the game with three lives. Luckily, there are checkpoints at
levels four and eight.
Key Action
Menu, Play, Move Character
Prev, Next
Select+Menu Menu

9.1.11 Minesweeper
Figure 9.9: Minesweeper plugin
The classic game of minesweeper. Use Scroll Forward/Scroll Backward to select the
required percentage of mines to set the difficulty then press the Select key to begin.
The aim of the game is to uncover all of the squares on the board. If a mine is un-
covered then the game is over. If a mine is not uncovered, then the number of mines
adjacent to the current square is revealed. The aim is to use the information you are
given to work out where the mines are and avoid them. When the player is certain that
they know the location of a mine, it can be tagged to avoid accidentally “stepping” on
it.
Key Action
Menu / Play / Move the cursor across the minefield
Prev / Next
Scroll Forward / Scroll through the entire minefield
Scroll Backward
Select Toggle flag on / off
Long Select Reveal the contents of the current square
Select+Play Display the current game status
Select+Menu Exit the game

9.1.12 Pegbox
Figure 9.10: pegbox
To beat each level, you must destroy all of the pegs. If two like pegs are pushed into
each other they disappear except for triangles which form a solid block and crosses
which allow you to choose a replacement block.
Key Action
In game
Menu, Play, to move around
Prev, Next
Select+ Next to select/save
Select+ Prev to restart level
Select+ Menu to go up a level
Select+ Play to quit
9.1.13 Pong
Figure 9.11: Pong
Pong is a simple two player “tennis game”. Whenever a player misses the ball the other
scores.

Key Action
Menu Left player up
Prev Left player down
Next Right player up
Play Right player down
Select Quit
9.1.14 Robotfindskitten
Figure 9.12: Robotfindskitten
In this game, you are robot (#). Your job is to find kitten. This task is complicated by the
existence of various things which are not kitten. Robot must touch items to determine
if they are kitten or not. The game ends when robotfindskitten.
Key Action
Menu, Play, Move robot
Prev, Next
Select+Menu Quit

9.1.15 Rockblox
Figure 9.13: Rockblox
Rockblox is a rockbox version of the classic falling blocks game. The aim of the game is
to make the falling blocks of different shapes form full rows. Whenever a row is com-
plete it will be cleared and the game score will increase. For every ten lines completed
the game level increases, making the blocks fall faster. If the pile of blocks reach the
ceiling the game is over.
Key Action
Select+Play Restart game
Prev Move left
Next Move right
Play Move down
Scroll Forward Rotate left
Scroll Backward / Rotate right
Menu
Select Drop
Hold switch Pause
Menu+Select Quit
9.1.16 Rockblox1d
Rockblox1d is a game for people who find rockblox too hard. In this version the second
dimension is missing so the user only has to move the bricks down. No horizontal
moving anymore and no need to rotate the brick!
Key Action
Select Move down faster
Menu+Select Quit

9.1.17 Sliding Puzzle
Figure 9.14: Sliding puzzle
The classic sliding puzzle game. Rearrange the pieces so that you can see the whole
picture, or switch to number tiles if you like it a little easier
Key controls:
Key Action
Prev / Next / Move Tile
Menu / Play
Select+Prev Shuffle
Select+Next Change between picture and numbered
tiles
Select+Menu Stop the game
9.1.18 Snake
Figure 9.15: Snake
This is the popular snake game. The aim is to grow your snake as large as possible by
eating the dots that appear on the screen. The game will end when the snake touches
either the borders of the screen or itself.

Key Action
Menu/Play Change levels (1 is slowest, 9 is fastest)
Select Toggle Play/Pause
9.1.19 Snake 2
Figure 9.16: Snake 2 – The Snake Strikes Back
Another version of the Snake game. Move the snake around, and eat the apples that
pop up on the screen. Each time an apple is eaten, the snake gets longer. The game
ends when the snake hits a wall, or runs into itself.
Key Action
In menu
Scroll Forward / Set game speed
Scroll Backward
Next / Prev Select starting maze
Play Select game type (A or B)
Select Start the game
In game
Menu / Play / Steer the snake
Prev / Next
Select Pause and resume the game
Select+Menu Quit
In game A, the maze stays the same, in game B after an increasing number of apples
eaten the maze is replaced by a new one.

9.1.20 Sokoban
Figure 9.17: Sokoban
The object of the game is to push boxes into their correct position in a crowded ware-
house with a minimal number of pushes and moves. The boxes can only be pushed,
never pulled, and only one can be pushed at a time.
Sokoban may be used as a viewer for viewing saved solutions and playing external
level sets with the .sok extension. Level sets should be in the standard Sokoban text
format or RLE (Run Length Encoded). For more information about the level format, see
http://sokobano.de/wiki/index.php?title=Level format
Key Action
In game
Menu, Play, Prev, Move the “sokoban” up, down, left, or
Next right
Select+Menu Menu
Select+Prev Back to previous level
Select+Next Go to next level
Select Undo last movement
Select+Play Redo previously undone move
Solution playback
Select Pause/resume
Menu/Play Increase/decrease playback speed
Prev/Next Go backward/forward (while paused)
Select+Menu Quit
Some places where can you can find level sets:

• http://www.sourcecode.se/sokoban/levels.php
• http://sokobano.de/en/levels.php
Note that some level sets may contain levels that are too large for this version of Sokoban
and are unplayable as a result.

9.1.21 Solitaire
Figure 9.18: Klondike solitaire
This is the classic Klondike solitaire game for Rockbox. This is probably the best-known
solitaire in the world. Many people do not even realize that other games exist. Though
the name may not be familiar, the game itself certainly is. This is due in no small part
to Microsoft’s inclusion of the the game in every version of Windows. Though popular,
the odds of winning are rather low, perhaps one in thirty hands.
For the full set of rules to the game, and other facinating information visit
http://www.solitairecentral.com/rules/klondike.html
Key Action
Scroll Forward / Move Cursor around.
Scroll Backward
/ Prev / Next
Select Select cards, move cards, reveal hidden
cards...
Menu If a card was selected – unselect it, else
Draw 3 new cards from the remains stack
Play Put the card from the top of the remains
stack on top of the cursor
Long Menu Put the card under the cursor on one of
the 4 final colour stacks.
Long Next Put the card on top of the remains stack
on one of the final colour stacks.
Menu + Select Show menu

9.1.22 Spacerocks
Figure 9.19: Spacerocks
Spacerocks is a clone of the old arcade game Asteroids. The goal of the game is to blow
up the asteroids and avoid being hit by them. Once in a while, a UFO will appear –
shoot this for extra points.
Key Action
Select Shoot
Menu Thrust
Scroll Backward/ Turn left/right
Scroll Forward
Play Teleport
Select+Play Pause game
Select+Menu Quit
9.1.23 Star
Figure 9.20: Star game
This is a puzzle game. It is actually a rewrite of Star, a game written by CDK designed
for the hp48 calculator.

Rules: Take all of the “o”s to go to the next level. You can switch control between the
filled circle, which can take “o”s, and the filled square, which is used as a mobile wall
to allow your filled circle to get to places on the screen it could not otherwise reach. The
block cannot take “o”s.
Key Action
Prev Move Left
Next Move Right
Menu Move Up
Play Move Down
Select Switch between circle and square
Select+Prev Previous level
Select+Play Reset level
Select+Next Next level
Select+Menu Exit the game
9.1.24 Sudoku
Figure 9.21: Sudoku
Sudoku in Rockbox is implemented as both a plugin and a viewer. When you start
Sudoku in plugin mode from the B ROWSE P LUGINS menu, a random game will be
generated automatically, and an estimate of its difficulty (very easy, easy, medium, hard
or fiendish) will be displayed on the screen. New games can be generated from the
G ENERATE menu option.
When you use Sudoku as a viewer for playing pre-generated Sudoku games. You
need sudoku games stored (one game per file) in text files with the .ss extension (see
links below). You then browse these games using the normal F ILE B ROWSER, and open
the file to launch Sudoku.
You can create and save your own grids under the N EW menu option. Enter the
menu (as described in the key table below) when you have finished and enter the full
path to save to including the .ss extension (e.g. /sudoku/new.ss).

The thing on the left (AKA the scratchpad)

When you play Sudoku on paper most people like to mark numbers in cells that are
possible candidates for the cells. This can be done with the column on the left. Change
the number under the cursor to a number which might be valid and press the scratch-
pad button, the number will then be added on the left. The column is stored seperatly
for every cell on the board. These are NOT saved when saving the game.
Key Action
Scroll Forward / Move the cursor
Scroll Backward
Prev / Select / Change number under the cursor
Next
Long Prev / Select Constantly changing the number under
/ Next the cursor
Menu Open Menu
Play Add/Remove number to scratchpad
Menu → Quit Quit
Some places where can you can find .ss files:
• Simple Sudoku (Advanced Puzzle Packs 1 and 2 located near the bottom of that
page): http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/
• Kjell’s Sudoku generator/solver: http://kjell.haxx.se/sudoku/
9.1.25 Wormlet
Figure 9.22: Wormlet game
Wormlet is a multi-worm game on a multi-threaded multi-functional Rockbox console.

You navigate a hungry little worm. Help your worm to find food and to avoid poisoned
argh-tiles. The goal is to turn your tiny worm into a big worm for as long as possible.
Menu controls:

Key Action
Prev / Next Controls number of worms in the game
Game controls:
Key Action
Prev Turn left
Next Turn right
Menu Turn Up
Play Turn Down
The game
Use the control keys of your worm to navigate around obstacles and find food. Worms
do not stop moving except when dead. Dead worms are no fun. Be careful as your
worm will try to eat anything that you steer it across. It won’t distinguish whether it is
edible or not.
Food. The small square hollow pieces are food. Move the worm over a food tile to eat
it. After eating the worm grows. Each time a piece of food has been eaten a new
piece of food will pop up somewhere. Unfortunately for each new piece of food
that appears two new “argh” pieces will appear, too.
Argh. An “argh” is a black square poisoned piece - slightly bigger than food - that
makes a worm say “Argh!” when run into. A worm that eats an “argh” is dead.
Thus eating an “argh” must be avoided under any circumstances. “Arghs” have
the annoying tendency to accumulate.
Worms. Thou shall not eat worms. Neither other worms nor thyself. Eating worms is
blasphemous cannibalism, not healthy and causes instant death. And it doesn’t
help anyway: the other worm isn’t hurt by the bite. It will go on creeping happily
and eat all the food you left on the table.
Walls. Don’t crash into the walls. Walls are not edible. Crashing a worm against a wall
causes it a headache it doesn’t survive.
Game over. The game is over when all worms are dead. The longest worm wins the
game.
Pause the game. Press Select to pause the game. Press Select again to resume the
game.
Stop the game. There are two ways to stop a running game.

• If you want to quit Wormlet entirely simply hit Menu+Select . The game
will stop immediately and you will return to the game menu.
• If you want to stop the game and still see the screen hit Select+ButtonPlay
. This freezes the game. If you hit Select+Play button again a new game
starts with the same configuration. To return to the games menu you can hit
Menu+Select . A stopped game can not be resumed.
The scoreboard
On the right side of the game field is the score board. For each worm it displays its
status and its length. The top most entry displays the state of worm 1, the second
worm 2 and the third worm 3. When a worm dies its entry on the score board turns
black.
Len: Here the current length of the worm is displayed. When a worm is eating food it
grows by one pixel for each step it moves.
Hungry: That’s the normal state of a worm. Worms are always hungry and want to
eat. It is good to have a hungry worm since it means that your worm is alive. But
it is better to get your worm growing.
Growing: When a worm has eaten a piece of food it starts growing. For each step it
moves over food it can grow by one pixel. One piece of food lasts for 7 steps.
After your worm has moved 7 steps the food is used up. If another piece of food
is eaten while growing it will increase the size of the worm for another 7 steps.
Crashed: This indicates that a worm has crashed against a wall.
Argh: If the score board entry displays “Argh!” it means the worm is dead because it
tried to eat an “argh”. Until we can make the worm say “Argh!” it is your job to
say “Argh!” aloud.
Wormed: The worm tried to eat another worm or even itself. That’s why it is dead
now. Making traps for other players with a worm is a good way to get them out
of the game.
Hints
• Initially you will be busy with controlling your worm. Try to avoid other worms
and crawl far away from them. Wait until they curl up themselves and collect the
food afterwards. Don’t worry if the other worms grow longer than yours - you
can catch up after they’ve died.
• When you are more experienced watch the tactics of other worms. Those worms
controlled by artificial stupidity head straight for the nearest piece of food. Let the
other worm have its next piece of food and head for the food it would probably

want next. Try to put yourself between the opponent and that food. From now
on you can ’control’ the other worm by blocking it. You could trap it by making
a 1 pixel wide U-turn. You also could move from food to food and make sure
you keep between your opponent and the food. So you can always reach it before
your opponent.
9.1.26 Xobox
Figure 9.23: Xobox
Xobox is a simple clone of the well known arcade game Qix. The aim of the game is
to section off parts of the arena with your trail in order to remove that section from the
game. Be careful not to get in the way of enemy balls because, if they hit you or your
trail, you lose a life. To finish a level you have to section off more than 75%.
Key Action
Menu, Play, Prev, Move around the arena
Next
Select Pause
Select + Menu Open menu

9.2 Demos
9.2.1 Bounce
Figure 9.24: Bounce
This demo is of the word “Rockbox” bouncing across the screen. There is also an ana-
logue clock in the background. In S CROLL MODE the bouncing text is replaced by a
different one scrolling from right to left.
Key Action
Scroll Backward / Moves to next/previous option
Scroll Forward
Prev / Next Increases/decreases option value
Select Toggles Scroll mode
Menu Exits bounce demo
Available options are:
Xdist/Ydist. The distance to X axis and Y axis respectively
Xadd/Yadd. How fast the code moves on the sine curve on each axis
Xsane/Ysane. Changes the appearance of the bouncing.
9.2.2 Credits
The credits plugin scrolls the entire list of the names of all the Rockbox contributors
after displaying the Rockbox logo and version. This plugin is called when selecting
V ERSION from the S YSTEM section of the Rockbox main menu. Exit at any time by
pressing Prev or Long Play.

9.2.3 Cube
Figure 9.25: Cube
This is a rotating cube screen saver in 3D.
Key Action
Select+Play Display at maximum frame rate
Play Pause
Select+Menu Cycle draw mode
Next / Prev Select axis to adjust
Scroll Forward / Change speed/angle (speed can not be
Scroll Backward changed while paused)
Menu Quit
9.2.4 Demystify
Figure 9.26: Demystify
Demystify is a screen saver like demo.

Key Action
Next / Prev Increase / decrease speed
Scroll Forward / Add / remove polygon
Scroll Backward
Menu Quit
9.2.5 Fire
Figure 9.27: Fire
Fire is a demo displaying a fire effect.
Key Action
Scroll Forward / Increase / decrease number of flames
Scroll Backward
Select Toggle flame type
Next Toggle moving flames
Menu Quit
9.2.6 Logo
Demo showing the Rockbox logo bouncing around the screen.
Key Action
Next / Prev Increase / decrease speed on the x-axis
Scroll Forward / Increase / decrease speed on the y-axis
Scroll Backward
Menu Quit

9.2.7 Mandelbrot
Figure 9.28: Mandelbrot
This demonstration draws fractal images from the Mandelbrot set .
Key Action
Direction keys Move about the image
Scroll Forward Zoom in
Scroll Backward Zoom out
Select+Prev Decrease iteration depth (less detail)
Select+Next Increase iteration depth (more detail)
Select+Play Reset and return to the default image
Select+Menu Quit
9.2.8 Mosaique
Figure 9.29: Mosaique
This simple graphics demo draws a mosaic picture on the screen of the player. Press
Menu to quit.

9.2.9 Oscilloscope
Figure 9.30: Oscilloscope
This demo shows the shape of the sound samples that make up the music being played.
At faster speed rates, the player is less responsive to user input and music may start to
skip.
Keys
Key Action
Select+Play Toggle filled / curve / plot
Select+Next Toggle whether to scroll or not
Select+Prev Toggle drawing orientation
Play Pause the demo
Scroll Forward / Increase / decrease volume
Scroll Backward
Next / Prev Increase / decrease speed
Select+Menu Exit demo
9.2.10 Plasma
Figure 9.31: Plasma

Plasma is a demo displaying a 80’s style retro plasma effect.
Key Action
Scroll Forward / Adjust frequency
Scroll Backward
Menu Quit
9.2.11 Snow
Figure 9.32: Have you ever seen snow falling?
This demo replicates snow falling on your screen. If you love winter, you will love this
demo. Or maybe not. Press Menu to quit.
9.2.12 Starfield
Figure 9.33: Starfield
Starfield simulation (like the classic screensaver).

Key Action
Next / Prev Increase / decrease number of stars
Scroll Forward / Increase / decrease speed
Scroll Backward
Menu Quit
9.2.13 VU meter
Figure 9.34: VU-Meter
This is a VU meter, which displays the volume of the left and right audio channels.
There are 3 types of meter selectable. The analogue meter is a classic needle style. The
digital meter is modelled after LED volume displays, and the mini-meter option allows
for the display of small meters in addition to the main display (as above). From the
settings menu the decay time for the meter (its memory), the meter type and the meter
scale can be changed.
Key Action
Menu Save settings and quit
Play Help
Select Settings
Scroll Forward Raise Volume
Scroll Backward Lower Volume
9.3 Viewers
Viewers are plugins which are associated with specific file extensions. They cannot be
run directly but are started by “playing” the associated file. Viewers are stored in the
/.rockbox/rocks/viewers/ directory.

9.3.1 Shortcuts
The Shortcuts Plugin allows you to jump to places within the file browser without hav-
ing to navigate there manually. The plugin works with .link files. A .link file is just
a text file with every line containing the name of the file or the directory you want to
quickly jump to. All names should be full absolute names, i.e. they should start with a
/. Directory names should also end with a /.
How to create .link files

You can use your favourite text editor to create a .link file on the PC an then copy
the file to the player. Or you can use the context menu on either a file or a directory in
the file browser tree, and use the “Add to shortcuts” menu option. This will append
a line with the full name of the file or the directory to the shortcuts.link file in
the root directory of the player. (The file will be created if it does not exist yet.) You
can later rename the automatically created shortcuts.link file or move it to another
directory if you wish. Subsequent calls of the context menu will create it again.
How to use .link files, i.e. jump to desired places

To use a .link file just “play” it from the file browser. This will show you a list with the
entries in the file. Selecting one of them will then exit the plugin and leave you within
the directory selected, or with the file selected in the file browser. You can then play the
file or do with it whatever you want. The file will not be “played” automatically.
If the .link file contains only one entry no list will be shown, you will directly jump
to that location. The file shortcuts.link in the root directory is an exception. After
“playing” it, the list will be shown even if the file contains just one entry.
If the list you are seeing is from shortcuts.link in the root directory, you can
delete the selected entry by pressing Menu. Deleting entries from other .link files is
not possible.
Advanced Usage
Placing the line “#Display last path segments=n” (where n is a number) in the begin-
ning of a .link file will leave just the last n segments of the entries when they are
shown. For example, if n is chosen to be 1, then the entry /MyMusic/collection/song.mp3
will be shown as song.mp3. This allows you to hide common path prefixes.
You can also provide a custom display name for each entry individually. To do so,
append a tabulator character after the entry’s path followed by your custom name. That
name will then be used for showing the entry. For example:
E XAMPLE
/MyMusic/collection/song.mp3<TAB>My favourite song!

9.3.2 Chip-8 Emulator

Chip8 is a kind of assembly language for a long-gone architecture. This plugin runs
games written using the chip8 instructions. To start a game open a .ch8 file in the F ILE
B ROWSER
There are lots of tiny Chip8 games (usually only about 256 bytes to a couple of KB)
which were made popular by the HP48 calculator’s emulator for them. The origi-
nal Chip8 had 64x32 pixel graphics, and the new superchip emulator supports 128x64
graphics.
The only problem is that they are based on a 4x4 keyboard, but since most games do
not use all of the buttons, this can easily be worked around.
To do this, one may put a .c8k file with the same name as the original program
which contains new key mappings (for BLINKY.ch8, one writes a BLINKY.c8k file).
That .c8k file contains 16 characters describing the mapping from the Chip8 keyboard
to the default key mapping (that way, several Chip8 keys can be pressed using only one
Rockbox key). For example, a file containing the single line:
C ODE
0122458469ABCDEF
would correspond to the following non-default mappings:

3 → 2, 6 → 8, 7 →4, 8 → 6.
The default keymappings are:
Chip8 Off 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
Scroll Backward
Scroll Forward
Menu
Next
Prev
Play
Key
Some places where can you can find .ch8 files:
• The PluginChip8 page on www.rockbox.org has several attached: ZPluginChip8
• Check out the HP48 chip games section: http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/games/chip/
• PC emulator by the guy who wrote the HP48 emulator: http://www.pdc.kth.se/

∼lfo/chip8/CHIP8.htm
• Links to other chip8 emulators: http://www.zophar.net/chip8.html

9.3.3 JPEG viewer

Open a JPEG file in the F ILE B ROWSER to view it using Rockbox’s greyscale library.
Note: When an audio file is playing the size of the image is limited as the decoding
process needs to share memory with audio tracks. To be able to view a bigger file you
b
may need to stop playback.
Key Action
Menu / Play / Move around in zoomed in image
Prev / Next
Scroll Forward Zoom in
Scroll Backward Zoom out
Select+Next Next jpeg in directory
Select+Prev Previous jpeg in directory
Select+Menu Show menu
The menu has the following entries.
Quit. Quits the viewer and returns to the F ILE B ROWSER.
Toggle Slideshow Mode. Enables or disables the slideshow mode.
Change Slideshow Timeout. You can set the timeout for the slideshow between 1 sec-
ond and 20 seconds.
Show Playback Menu. From the playback menu you can control the playback of the
currently loaded playlist and change the volume of your player.
Return. Returns you to the image
Note: Progressive scan and other unusual JPEG files are not supported, and will result
in various “unsupported xx” messages. Processing could also fail if the image is too big
b
to decode which will be explained by a respective message.
9.3.4 Midiplay
To get MIDI file playback, a patchset is required. This file contains the instruments
required to synthesize the music. A sample patchset is available through the wiki at
ZPluginMidiPlay, and needs to be extracted to the .rockbox directory in the root
of your player. There should now be a /.rockbox/patchset/ directory, with the
patchset directory containing several .pat files and two .cfg files. Just select a MIDI
file with either the .mid or .midi extension in the file browser to start playback.
Note: Currently playing MIDI files is still in its early stages and you might experience
“Buffer miss!” with many files, except simple ones.
b

Key Action
Scroll Forward/ Volume up/ Volume down
Scroll Backward
Next/ Prev Skip 3 seconds forward/ backward
Play Pause/Resume playback
Select+Menu Stop playback and quit
9.3.5 MPEG Player

The Mpeg Player is a video player plugin capable of playing back MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
video streams with MPEG audio multiplexed into .mpg files.
To play a video file, you just select it in the Rockbox F ILE B ROWSER. If your file does
not have the .mpg extension but is encoded in the supported format, you will need to
use the O PEN W ITH ... context menu option and choose MPEGPLAYER.
Key Action
Play Pause/Resume
Long Play Stop
Scroll Forward / Adjust volume up / down
Scroll Backward
Menu Open the MPEG Player menu
When a video file is selected, the start Menu will be displayed, unless it is disabled
via the option ”start menu” (see below). In the latter case the video will start play-
ing immediately - unless a resume point is found, in which case the resume menu is
presented.
Start Menu
Play from beginning Resume information is discarded and the video plays from the
start.
Resume time (min): x.x Resume video playback at stored resume time x.x (start of
the video if no resume time is found).
Set start time (min) A preview screen is presented consisting of a thumbnail preview
and a progress bar where the user can select a start time by ’seeking’ through the
video. The video playback is started by pressing the select button.
Quit mpegplayer Exit the plugin.
Resume Menu

Yes (min): x.x Resume video playback at stored resume time x.x.
No Play video from the beginning.
Main Menu
Display Options Opens ”Display Options” submenu - see below.
Start Menu (default: on) Enable/disable the start menu.
Clear all resumes: x Discard all x resume points.
Quit mpegplayer Exit the plugin.
Display Options Menu
Dithering (default: off) Prevent banding effects in gradients by blending of colours.

(only available on Sansa e200, Sansa c200 and Gigabeat F/X)
Show FPS (default: off) This option displays (once a second - if your video is full-
screen this means it will get overwritten by the video and appear to flash once
per second) the average number of frames decoded per second, the total number
of frames skipped (see the Skip Frames option), the current time (in 100Hz ticks)
and the time the current frame is due to be displayed.
Limit FPS (default: on) With this option disabled, mpegplayer will display the video
as fast as it can. Useful for benchmarking.
Skip frames (default: on) This option causes mpegplayer to attempt to maintain real-
time playback by skipping the display of frames - but these frames are still de-
coded. Disabling this option can cause loss of A/V sync.
See this page in the Rockbox wiki for information on how to encode your videos to
the supported format. ZPluginMpegplayer
9.3.6 Search
This plugin can be used on playlists. It searches through the playlist that it opened
on looking for any occurrences of the string entered by the user. The results of this
search are saved to a new playlist, search results.m3u, within the same directory as the
original playlist.
9.3.7 Sort
This plugin takes a file and sorts it in ascending alphabetical order. Case is ignored.
This is useful for ordering playlists generated by the C REATE P LAYLIST menu option
(see section 5.8 (page 40)).

9.3.8 Text Viewer

This is a Viewer for text files with word wrap. Just open a .txt file to display it. The text
viewer features controls to handle various styles of text formatting, has top-of-file and
bottom-of-file buttons. You can view files without a .txt extension by using Open with
from the Context Menu (see section 4.1.2 (page 24)).
Key Action
Scroll Backward Scroll-up
Scroll Forward Scroll-down
Prev Top of file (Narrow mode) / One screen
left (Wide mode)
Next Bottom of file (Narrow mode) / One
screen right (Wide mode)
Play Toggle autoscroll
Menu Enter menu
Menu Exit text viewer
The Viewer’s Menu

Quit Exits the plugin.
Viewer Options Encoding sets the codepage in the text viewer. Available settings:
UTF-8 (Unicode), BIG5 (Traditional Chinese), KSX-1001 (Korean), GB-2312
(Simple Chinese), SJIS (Japanese), CP1250 (Central European), ISO-8859-2
(Latin Extended), ISO-8859-9 (Turkish), ISO-8859-6 (Arabic), ISO-8859-11
(Thai), CP1251 (Cyrillic), ISO-8859-8 (Hebrew), ISO-8859-7 (Greek), ISO-
8859-1 (Latin 1). This setting only applies to the plugin and is independent
from the D EFAULT C ODEPAGE setting (see section ?? (page ??)).
Word Wrap toggles between Wrap and Chop.
Off (Chop Words) breaks lines at white space or hyphen.
On breaks lines at the maximum column limit.
Line Mode cycles through Normal, Join and Expand and Reflow Lines.
Reflow Lines justifies the text fully.
Expand adds a blank line. Useful for making the paragraphs clearer in some
book style text files.
Join joins lines. Useful for adopting the orphans that occur with e-mail style
(i.e. pre-wrapped) text files.
Normal breaks lines at newline characters.
Wide View toggles between Narrow and Wide.
Yes sets maximum column to 114. Useful for navigating large files. (Cur-
rently, Wide and Join cannot be selected together.)

No (Narrow) sets maximum column to the screen width.

Show Scrollbar toggles scrollbar for the current View mode. If the file fits on
one screen, there is no scrollbar and toggling this setting has no effect.
On has a scrollbar by default, until toggled.
Off has no scrollbar by default, until toggled.
Overlap Pages toggles between Normal and Overlap.
Yes tells page-down/page-up to retain one line from previous screen.
No sets page-down/page-up to one full screen.
Scroll Mode controls the function of the “Scroll-up” and “Scroll-down” buttons.
Scroll by Line
Scroll by Page
Auto-scroll Speed controls the speed of auto-scrolling in number of lines per
scroll step, available options are 1 to 10 lines. As an example, a setting of 4
will scroll up the text four lines per second.
Show Playback Menu controls the playback of the currently loaded playlist and change
the volume of your playerwithout leaving the plugin.
Return to the text view.
Note: The text viewer automatically saves its settings and also stores the current posi-
tion in the viewed text files (up to the last 46 files).
b
Compatibility
• Currently messages are in English
• Does not currently support right-to-left languages.
9.3.9 VBRfix
This function scans a VBR (Variable Bitrate) MP3 file and updates/creates the Xing VBR
header. The Xing header contains information about the VBR stream used to calculate
average bit rate, time information and to more accurately fwd/rew in the stream. This
function is especially useful when the playback of a file skips, fwd/rew does not work
correctly or the time display is incorrect.
Note: VBRfix can only run when music is turned off (since it uses the same memory as
the player) and can take a while to complete if run on big files.
b

9.3.10 ZXBox
Figure 9.35: ZXBox
ZXBox is a port of the “Spectemu” ZX Spectrum 48k emulator for Rockbox (Zproject’s
homepage). To start a game open a tape file or snapshot saved as .tap, .tzx, .z80 or
.sna in the file browser.
Note: As ZXBox is a 48k emulator only loading of 48k z80 snapshots is possible.
b
Default keys
The emulator is set up for 5 different buttons: Up, Down, Left, Right and Jump/Fire.
Each one of these can be mapped to one key of the Spectrum Keyboard or they can be
used like a “Kempston” joystick. Per default the buttons, including an additional but
fixed menu button, are assigned as follows:
Key Action
Menu/Play/ Directional movement
Prev/Next
Select Jump/Fire
Hold switch Open ZXBox menu
ZXBox menu
Vkeyboard. This is a virtual keyboard representing the Spectrum keyboard. Controls
are the same as in standard Rockbox, but you just press one key instead of enter-
ing a phrase.
Play/Pause Tape. Toggles playing of the tape (if it is loaded).
Save Quick Snapshot. Saves snapshot into /.rockbox/zxboxq.z80.
Load Quick Snapshot. Loads snapshot from /.rockbox/zxboxq.z80.

Save Snapshot. Saves a snapshot of the current state. You would enter the full path
and desired name - for example /games/zx/snapshots/chuckie.sna. The
snapshot format will be chosen after the extension you specified, per default .z80
will be taken in case you leave it open.
Toggle Fast Mode. Toggles fastest possible emulation speed (no sound, maximum
frameskip etc.). This is Useful when loading tapes with some specific loaders.
Options. Map Keys To Kempston. Controls whether the player’s buttons should sim-
ulate a “Kempston” joystick or some assigned keys of the Spectrum key-
board.
Display Speed. Toggle displaying the emulation speed (in percent).
Invert Colors. Inverts the Spectum colour palette, sometimes helps visibility.
Frameskip Sets the number of frames to skip before displaying one. With zero
frameskip ZXBox tries to display 50 frames per second.
Sound. Turns sound on or off.
Volume. Controls volume of sound output.
Predefined Keymap Select one of the predefined keymaps. For example 2 W 90 Z
means: map ZXBox’s Up to 2, Down to W, Left to 9, Right to 0 and Jump/Fire
to Z. This example keymap is used in the “Chuckie Egg” game.
Custom Keymap This menu allows you to map one of the Spectrum keys acces-
sible through the plugin’s virtual keyboard to each one of the buttons.
Quit. Quits the emulator..
Hacking graphics
Due to ZXBox’s simple (but fast) scaling to the screen by dropping lines and columns
some games can become unplayable. It is possible to hack graphics to make them better
visible with the help of an utility such as the “Spectrum Graphics Editor”. Useful tools
can be found at the “World of Spectrum” site (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/utilities.
html).
9.4 Applications
9.4.1 Battery Benchmark
The Battery Benchmark Plugin enables you to test your battery’s performance, while
making normal use of your player. Once loaded it will run in the background (TSR plu-
gin), reading various info about your battery while you use it. Once you finish your ses-
sion you can find the benchmark output data in a file on your player /battery bench.txt.
Please submit your results to the Rockbox wiki. ZBatteryRuntime

How it works
After you load the plug-in the operation of your player continues as normal. You can
do whatever you could do before loading the plugin except loading another plugin.
If you happen to load a plugin while benchmarking, a splash screen will inform you
about the termination of the benchmark. While you operate it will log various battery
related information every time the disk is activated by external causes, (buffer refill,
open directory, USB mode) or an hour passes without updating the log file.
The plugin will continue to log info until:
• Another plugin is loaded.
• The player is shut down.
• The battery is empty.
Between disk activity (or an hour), it will log info in memory (every measurement is
captured when the voltage changes). If there are too many measurements older entries
will be deleted and the log file will inform the user about the interval where entries
were lost. Benchmarks can be resumed if you accidentally load a plugin, or turn off
your player, as long as the log file /battery bench.txt is not deleted.
Information explained
On the top of the file you will see various info on how to use the plugin.
Time This column reports the total time of operation of the player. It is not the time
that you started the plug-in. If you have your player on for 5 minutes and then
start the plugin, it will start measuring from 5 minutes.
Seconds As time, it shows time passed in seconds. Nothing special, it is there because
it is free and maybe someone might want to make graphs with seconds.
Level The percent level of the battery estimated by Rockbox. This is an estimation
and not an accurate result. Using the real percentage (current battery voltage /
top battery voltage) * 100) we can calculate the difference between the estima-
tion. Goal of this column is to make the estimation algorithm of Rockbox more
accurate.
Time Left It shows the estimated (by Rockbox) remaining time until shutdown. Again,
as with Level(above), this column can be used to see differences between real time
left and estimated time left. This could help make time left more accurate.
Voltage The battery voltage, the moment the measurement was captured. Measure-
ments are captured when this number changes while benchmarking. This column
can be used to give quite interesting graphs in a spreadsheet program. (Excel,
Calc, e.t.c)

M/DA (Measurements per Disk Activity) The number of measurements stored tem-
porarily in memory, before written on the log file. This can give you an idea
of how many voltage changes there are between disk activity (or one hour).
C Stands for Charger. An ”A” in that column shows if there was the power adapter
attached to the unit, at the time of the measurement.
S The ”S” column shows the state of the device (Charging, or not). The ”C” indicated
that the unit was charging when the measurement was captured.
U USB powered. Only for targets that support this. A ”U” will indicate if the unit was
using the USB port for powering.
Making graphs
While you can tell how long your battery lasted, with a single look at the last line of the
battery log (/battery bench.txt), the most useful purpose of Battery Benchmark
is to make graphs using a spreadsheet program like Excel or Calc. The battery log
(/battery bench.txt) is in CSV format (comma separated) so you can quite easily
import it to a spreadsheet program.
9.4.2 Calculator
Figure 9.36: Calculator
This is a simple scientific calculator for use on the player. It works like a standard
calculator. Pressing the “1st” and “2nd” buttons will toggle between other available
math functions.

Key Action
Prev / Next / Move around the keypad
Scroll Forward /
Scroll Backward
Select Select a button
Play Calculate
Menu Quit
9.4.3 Chess Clock
Figure 9.37: Chess Clock
The chess clock plugin is designed to simulate a chess clock, but it can be used in any
kind of game with up to ten players.
Setup
Key Action
Scroll Backward / Increase / decrease displayed Value
Scroll Forward
Select Move to next screen
Menu Move to previous screen
• First enter the number of players (1–10)

• Then set the total game time in mm:ss
• Then the maximum round time is entered. For example, this could be used to play
Scrabble for a maximum of 15 minutes each, with each round taking no longer
than one minute.
• Done. Player 1 starts in paused mode.

While playing
The number of the current player is displayed on the top line. The time below is the
time remaining for that round (and possibly also the total time left if different).
Keys are as follows:
Key Action
Play Exit plugin
Prev Restart round for the current player
Select Pause the time (press again to continue)
Scroll Backward Switch to next player
Scroll Forward Switch to previous player
Menu Open menu (Select to select.)
From the menu it is possible to delete a player, modify the round time for the current
player or set the total time for the game. When the round time is up for a player the
message “ROUND UP!” is shown (press NEXT to continue). When the total time is up
for a player the message “TIME UP!”is shown. The player will then be removed from
the timer.
9.4.4 Clock
Figure 9.38: Clock
This is a fully featured analogue and digital clock plugin.

Key configuration
Key Action
Prev / Next Cycle through modes
Scroll Forward / Cycle through skins
Scroll Backward
Menu Main Menu
Select Start / Stop Counter
Long Select Reset Counter
Menu+ Select Save Settings (if enabled) and Exit
Clock Menu
View Clock Exits the menu and returns to the current clock mode display.
Mode Selector Opens a menu from which you can select a clock mode to view.
Counter Settings Opens a menu from which you can adjust settings pertaining to the
counter.
Mode Settings Opens a menu from which you can adjust settings pertaining to the
current clock mode (analog, digital, binary).
General Settings Reset Settings Reset all settings to their default values.
Save Settings Save all settings to disk.
Show Counter Toggle Counter display.
Save Choose whether to disable automatic saving, saving to disk on exit, or sav-
ing to disk every settings change.
Backlight Choose whether to disable the backlight, use the user’s timeout set-
ting, or keep the backlight on.
Idle Poweroff Toggle Idle Poweroff.
Note: This setting is not saved to disk.
b
Help Opens a brief help screen with key mappings and functionality.
Credits Displays a credits roll.
Analog mode
Small, round, analog clock is displayed in the middle of the LCD. Time readout, if
enabled, is displayed at the upper left. If Time readout is in 12-hour (“12h”) mode, AM
or PM will be displayed at the upper right. The Date readout, if enabled, is displayed
at the lower left. The Counter, if enabled, is displayed at the lower right. The second

hand, if enabled, is displayed along with the hour and minute hands. Digit display, if
enabled, places “12”, “3”, “6”, and “9” around the face of the clock in their respective
positions.
Digital mode
An imitation of an LCD, this mode shows a Clock comprised of digital “segments”. The
Date readout, if enabled, is displayed at the bottom, center. The Second readout, if in
“Text” mode, is displayed at the top, center; if in “Bar” mode, is displayed as a progress
bar at the top of the LCD; if in “Invert” mode, will invert the LCD left-to-right as the
seconds pass (a fully-inverted LCD means the entire minute has passed). The Counter,
if displayed, is shown at the upper left. The Blinking Colon, if enabled, blinks the colon
once every second. 12-hour mode, if enabled, will display the time in a 12-hour format.
LCD mode
Based on the Digital Mode, the LCD mode is another imitation of an LCD. The settings
available in this mode are exactly the same as Digital Mode, but they are independent
of Digital Mode. For example, you can have the Date Readout enabled in Digital Mode
and disabled in LCD Mode.
Fullscreen
A Fullscreen clock is displayed. Show Border, if enabled, will draw a small box at
every hour position (1 through 12). Invert Seconds, if enabled, will invert the LCD as
the seconds pass. Second Hand, if enabled, will draw a second hand among the hour
and minute hands.
Binary mode
This mode shows a Binary clock. The hour is displayed on the top line, the minute
is displayed on the middle line, and the seconds are on the last line. Circle mode, if
enabled, draws empty and full circles, instead of zeros and ones. For help on reading
binary, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary numeral system
Plain mode
This mode shows a “plain” clock in large text that takes up nearly the whole LCD.
9.4.5 Disk Tidy

Disk Tidy deletes junk files left behind by Windows, Linux or OS X after a USB connec-
tion. Select the OS’s files you want to delete in the ’Files to Clean’ menu and select ’Start
Cleaning’ to begin to process. The settings are stored in .rockbox/rocks/apps/disktidy.config,
in a plain text file that is user-modifiable to allow more entries to be added.

Available Options
All selects all Linux, OS X, and Windows files.
None deselects all file options.
Linux selects Linux files. Default files are .dolphinview, .d3lphinview, and .Trash-*/.
Windows selects Windows files. Default files are Thumbs.db, RECYCLE.BIN, Desktop.ini,
/Recycled and /System Volume Information.
Mac selects OS X files. Default files are . *, .DS Store and /.Trashes.
Other selects additional files added in by the user.
Key Action
Prev or Long Play Exit / Abort
9.4.6 Keybox
Keybox is an encrypted password storage using the “Tiny Encryption Algorithm” with
a key derived using md5.
Using Keybox
To get started, start up the plugin and select E NTER K EYBOX. The first time you enter
Keybox you will be prompted for a master password and for confirmation of the master
password. The master password is the password that you must use to access your
stored passwords.
Once inside, enter the context menu by pressing Long Select. From the context menu
you can create new entries, delete entries and edit entries. Each entry has a “title”, a
“user name” and a “password”.
Selecting R ESET K EYBOX from the main menu will delete the current list of pass-
words and a new, empty list will be created the next time you select E NTER K EYBOX
after prompting for a new master password. Entries are automatically saved when the
plugin is exited.
9.4.7 Lamp
Lamp is a simple plugin to use your player as a lamp (flashlight, torch). You get an
empty screen with maximum brightness.

Key Action
Long Play Quit
9.4.8 Metronome
This plugin can be used as a metronome to keep time during music practice. Adjust the
tempo through the interface or by tapping it out on the appropriate button.
Key Action
Menu Exit plugin
Play Start / Stop
Select Tap tempo
Prev / Next Adjust tempo
Scroll Forward / Adjust volume
Scroll Backward
9.4.9 Random Folder Advance Configuration

This plugin is used to configure the folders which will be considered when the Auto-
Change Directory feature is set to R ANDOM.
Menu
Generate Folder List Generates a list of all folders found on the player. You can filter
the directories which are scanned by creating a file called
/.rockbox/folder advance dir.txt. Only the directories in this file and
any contained directories will be scanned. You can have up to 10 directories ig-
nored by the scan by placing a minus sign before them in the list (i.e. -/CDs will
cause everything in the /CDs directory to be ignored.). If you just want /CDs to
be ignored but want to include the folders within it you need to have both -/CDs
and CDs as entries.
Edit Folder List Enter the folder list editor
Export List To Textfile Exports the list to /.rockbox/folder advance list.txt
Import List From Textfile Imports the list from /.rockbox/folder advance list.txt
Quit

Folder List Editor Keys
Key Action
Select or Next Delete selected folder
Long Select Bring up the context menu which allows
you to remove the selected folder or it’s
entire folder tree
Prev or Long Play Exit
9.4.10 Stats
Figure 9.39: The stats-plugin
The stats-plugin simply counts the number of files, music files and directories on your
player. Press Menu to abort counting and exit the plugin. Press it again to quit after
counting has finished.
9.4.11 Stopwatch
Figure 9.40: Stopwatch
A simple stopwatch program with support for saving times.

Key Action
Menu Quit Plugin
Select Start / stop
Prev Reset timer (only when timer is stopped)
Next Take lap time
Scroll Forward / Scroll through lap times
Scroll Backward
9.4.12 Text Editor

This plugin allows you to view and edit simple text documents on your DAP. You can
view files by using O PEN WITH from the C ONTEXT M ENU (see section 4.1.2 (page 24)).
Usage
If you start the Text Editor from the plugin browser you will be greeted with a blank
screen. When started from the O PEN WITH menu item your file should be shown on
the screen. You can now edit the file. The Text Editor is line based. This means you can
edit one line at a time using the V IRTUAL K EYBOARD (see section 4.1.3 (page 26)).
• Move the selection bar to the line you want to edit.
• Edit the highlighted text line or insert a new one using the Item Menu.
• When finished editing exit the Text Editor. You’ll be shown a list of save options.
Note: When you have not changed the file the Text Editor will quit immediately.
b
Key Action
Select or Next Edit Line / Select Character
Prev or Long Play Exit / Abort Editing
Menu Show Item Menu
Long Select Delete Line

C HAPTER 10. A DVANCED T OPICS 113
10 Advanced Topics
10.1 Customising the User Interface
10.1.1 Getting Extras
Rockbox supports custom fonts. A collection of fonts is available for download in the
font package at http://www.rockbox.org/daily.shtml.
10.1.2 Loading Fonts

Rockbox can load fonts dynamically. Simply copy the .fnt file to the player and “play”
it in the F ILE B ROWSER. If you want a font to be loaded automatically every time you
start up, it must be located in the /.rockbox/fonts directory and the filename must
be at most 24 characters long. You can browse the fonts in /.rockbox/fonts under
S ETTINGS → G ENERAL S ETTINGS → D ISPLAY → B ROWSE F ONTS in the M AIN M ENU.
Warning: Advanced Users Only: Any BDF font file up to 16 pixels high should be
usable with Rockbox. To convert from .bdf to .fnt, use the convbdf tool. This tool
!
can be found in the tools directory of the Rockbox source code.
10.1.3 Loading Languages

Rockbox can load language files at runtime. Simply copy the .lng file (do not use the
.lang file) to the player and “play” it in the Rockbox directory browser or select S ET-
TINGS → G ENERAL S ETTINGS → L ANGUAGES from the M AIN M ENU .
Note: If you want a language to be loaded automatically every time you start up, it must
be located in the /.rockbox/langs directory and the filename must be a maximum
b
of 24 characters long.
If your language is not yet supported and you want to write your own language file
find the instructions on the Rockbox website: ZLangFiles
10.1.4 Loading Backdrops

Rockbox supports showing an image as a backdrop in the F ILE B ROWSER and the
menus. The backdrop image must be a .bmp file of the exact same dimensions as the
display in your player (138x110x2 with the last number giving the colour depth in bits).
To use an image as a backdrop browse to it in the F ILE B ROWSER and open the C ON -
TEXT M ENU (see section 4.1.2 (page 24)) on it and select the option S ET A S B ACKDROP .
If you want rockbox to remember your backdrop the next time you start your player
the backdrop must be placed in the /.rockbox/backdrops directory.

10.2 Configuring the WPS

10.2.1 WPS – General Info
Description: The WPS or While Playing Screen is the name used to describe the in-
formation displayed on the player’s screen whilst an audio track is being played.
The default WPS is a relatively simple screen displaying Track name, Artist, Al-
bum etc. in the default font as a purely text based layout. There are a number
of WPS files included in Rockbox, and you can load one of these at anytime by
selecting it in G ENERAL S ETTINGS → D ISPLAY → B ROWSE . WPS FILES.
Note: “Playing” a .wps from the file browser has the same effect.
b
File Location: Custom WPS files may be located anywhere on the drive. The only
restriction is that they must end in .wps. When you “play” a .wps file, it will
be used for future WPS screens, and if the “played” .wps file is located in the
/.rockbox/wps directory, it will be remembered and used after reboot. The
.wps filename must be no more than 24 characters long for it to be remembered.
10.2.2 WPS – Build Your Own

Quite simply, enter the WPS code in your favourite text editor, Notepad on Windows
works fine. When you save it, instead of saving it as a .txt file, save it as a .wps
file. Example: Instead of Rockbox.txt, save the file as Rockbox.wps. To make sure
non english characters display correctly in your WPS you must save the .wps file with
UTF-8 character encoding. This can be done in most editors, for example Notepad in
Windows 2000 or XP (but not in 9x/ME) can do this. See appendix section B (page 122)
for all the tags that are available.
• All characters not preceded by % are displayed as typed.
• Lines beginning with # are comments and will be ignored.
• Maximum file size used is 1600 bytes. If you have a bigger WPS file, only the first
part of it will be loaded and used.
Note: Keep in mind that your player resolution is 138x110x2 (with the last number
giving the colour depth in bits) when designing your own WPS, or if you use a WPS
b
designed for another target.
Conditional Tags
If/else: Syntax: %?xx<true|false>
If the tag specified by “xx” has a value, the text between the “<” and the “|” is
displayed (the true part), else the text between the “|” and the “>” is displayed
(the false part). The else part is optional, so the “|” does not have to be specified

if no else part is desired. The conditionals nest, so the text in the if and else part
can contain all % commands, including conditionals.
Enumerations: Syntax: %?xx<alt1|alt2|alt3|...|else>

For tags with multiple values, like Play status, the conditional can hold a list of
alternatives, one for each value the tag can have. Example enumeration:
E XAMPLE
%?mp<Stop|%Play|Pause|Ffwd|Rew>
The last else part is optional, and will be displayed if the tag has no value. The
WPS parser will always display the last part if the tag has no value, or if the list
of alternatives is too short.
Next Song Info

You can display information about the next song – the song that is about to play after
the one currently playing (unless you change the plan).
If you use the upper-case versions of the three tags: F, I and D, they will instead refer
to the next song instead of the current one. Example: %Ig is the genre name used in the
next song and %Ff is the mp3 frequency.
Note: The next song information will not be available at all times, but will most likely
be available at the end of a song. We suggest you use the conditional display tag a lot
b
when displaying information about the next song!
Alternating Sublines
It is possible to group items on each line into 2 or more groups or “sublines”. Each
subline will be displayed in succession on the line for a specified time, alternating con-
tinuously through each defined subline.
Items on a line are broken into sublines with the semicolon ’;’ character. The display
time for each subline defaults to 2 seconds unless modified by using the ’%t’ tag to
specify an alternate time (in seconds and optional tenths of a second) for the subline to
be displayed.
Subline related special characters and tags:
; Split items on a line into separate sublines
%t Set the subline display time. The ’%t’ is followed by either integer seconds (%t5),
or seconds and tenths of a second (%t3.5).
Each alternating subline can still be optionally scrolled while it is being displayed,
and scrollable formats can be displayed on the same line with non-scrollable formats
(such as track elapsed time) as long as they are separated into different sublines. Exam-
ple subline definition:

E XAMPLE
%s%t4%ia;%s%it;%t3%pc %pr : Display id3 artist for 4 seconds,
Display id3 title for 2 seconds,
Display current and remaining track time
for 3 seconds,
repeat...
Conditionals can be used with sublines to display a different set and/or number of
sublines on the line depending on the evaluation of the conditional. Example subline
with conditionals:
E XAMPLE
%?it<%t8%s%it|%s%fn>;%?ia<%t3%s%ia|%t0>
The format above will do two different things depending if ID3 tags are present. If
the ID3 artist and title are present:
• Display id3 title for 8 seconds,
• Display id3 artist for 3 seconds,
• repeat. . .
If the ID3 artist and title are not present:
• Display the filename continuously.
Note that by using a subline display time of 0 in one branch of a conditional, a subline
can be skipped (not displayed) when that condition is met.
Using Images
You can have as many as 52 images in your WPS. There are various ways of displaying
images:
1. Load and always show the image, using the %x tag
2. Preload the image with %xl and show it with %xd. This way you can have your
images displayed conditionally.
3. Load an image and show as backdrop using the %X tag. The image must be of the
same exact dimensions as your display.
Example on background image use:
E XAMPLE
%X|background.bmp|
The image with filename background.bmp is loaded and used in the WPS.
Example on bitmap preloading and use:

E XAMPLE
%x|a|static_icon.bmp|50|50|
%xl|b|rep off.bmp|16|64|
%xl|c|rep all.bmp|16|64|
%xl|d|rep one.bmp|16|64|
%xl|e|rep shuffle.bmp|16|64|
%?mm<%xdb|%xdc|%xdd|%xde>
Four images at the same x and y position are preloaded in the example. Which image
to display is determined by the %mm tag (the repeat mode).
Example File
E XAMPLE
%s%?in<%in - >%?it<%it|%fn> %?ia<[%ia%?id<, %id>]>
%pb%pc/%pt
That is, “tracknum – title [artist, album]”, where most fields are only displayed if avail-
able. Could also be rendered as “filename” or “tracknum – title [artist]”.
10.3 Managing Rockbox Settings

10.3.1 Introduction to .cfg Files.
Rockbox allows users to store and load multiple settings through the use of configura-
tion files. A configuration file is simply a text file with the extension .cfg.
A configuration file may reside anywhere on the disk. Multiple configuration files
are permitted. So, for example, you could have a car.cfg file for the settings that you
use while playing your jukebox in your car, and a headphones.cfg file to store the
settings that you use while listening to your player through headphones.
See section 10.3.2 (page 117) below for an explanation of the format for configuration
files. See section 10.3.3 (page 118) for an explanation of how to create, edit and load
configuration files.
10.3.2 Specifications for .cfg Files.

The Rockbox configuration file is a plain text file, so once you use the S AVE . CFG FILE
option to create the file, you can edit the file on your computer using any text editor
program. See Appendix section C (page 129) for available settings. Configuration files
use the following formatting rules:
1. Each setting must be on a separate line.
2. Each line has the format “setting: value”.
3. Values must be within the ranges specified in this manual for each setting.

4. Lines starting with # are ignored. This lets you write comments into your config-
uration files.
Example of a configuration file:

E XAMPLE
Example configuration file
volume: 70
bass: 11
treble: 12
balance: 0
time format: 12hour
volume display: numeric
show files: supported
wps: /.rockbox/car.wps
lang: /.rockbox/afrikaans.lng
Note: As you can see from the example, configuration files do not need to contain all
of the Rockbox options. You can create configuration files that change only certain set-
b
tings. So, for example, supppose you typically use the player at one volume in the car,
and another when using headphones. Further, suppose you like to use an inverse LCD
when you are in the car, and a regular LCD setting when you are using headphones.
You could create configuration files that control only the volume and LCD settings.
Create a few different files with different settings, give each file a different name (such
as car.cfg, headphones.cfg, etc.), and you can then use the B ROWSE . CFG FILES
option to quickly change settings.
A special case configuration file can be used to force a particular setting or settings
every time Rockbox starts up (e.g. to set the volume to a safe level). Format a new
configuration file as above with the required setting(s) and save it into the /.rockbox
directory with the filename fixed.cfg.
10.3.3 The M ANAGE S ETTINGS menu

The M ANAGE S ETTINGS menu can be found in the M AIN M ENU. The M ANAGE S ET-
TINGS menu allows you to save and load .cfg files.
Browse .cfg Files Opens the file browser in the /.rockbox directory and displays
all .cfg (configuration) files. Selecting a .cfg file will cause Rockbox to load
the settings contained in that file. Pressing Prev will exit back to the M ANAGE
S ETTINGS menu. See the W RITE . CFG FILES option on the M ANAGE S ETTINGS
menu for details of how to save and edit a configuration file.
Reset Settings This wipes the saved settings in the player and resets all settings to
their default values.
Note: You can also reset all settings to their default values by turning off the
player, turning it back on, and activating the Hold button immediately after the
b
backlight comes on.

Save .cfg File This option writes a .cfg file to your player’s disk. The configuration
file has the .cfg extension and is used to store all of the user settings that are
described throughout this manual.
Hint: Use the S AVE . CFG F ILE feature (M AIN M ENU → G ENERAL S ETTINGS) to
save the current settings, then use a text editor to customize the settings file. See
Appendix section C (page 129) for the full reference of available options.
Save Sound Settings This option writes a .cfg file to your player’s disk. The con-
figuration file has the .cfg extension and is used to store all of the sound related
settings.
Save Theme Settings This option writes a .cfg file to your player’s disk. The con-
figuration file has the .cfg extension and is used to store all of the theme related
settings.
10.4 Firmware Loading

10.4.1 Using ROLO (Rockbox Loader)
Rockbox is able to load and start another firmware file without rebooting. You just
“play” a file with the extension .ipod. This can be used to test new firmware
versions without deleting your current version.

A PPENDIX A. F ILE FORMATS 120
A File formats
A.1 Supported file formats
Icon File Type Extension Action when selected

Directory none The browser enters that
directory
Audio file various (see section A.2 Rockbox takes you to the
(page 121)) WPS and starts playing
the file
Cuesheet .cue View a cuesheet file
Playlist .m3u, .m3u8 Rockbox loads the
playlist and starts play-
ing the first file
Rockbox firmware .ipod ROLO will load the new
firmware
While Playing Screen .wps The new WPS display
configuration will be
loaded
Language File .lng Loads a language file
Text File .txt This will display the text
file using Rockbox text
browser plugin
Configuration File .cfg The settings file will be
loaded
Font .fnt This font will replace the
current one
Plugin .rock Starts a Rockbox plugin
Chip8 game .ch8 Play a Chip8 game
Image .jpg View a JPEG image

A PPENDIX A. F ILE FORMATS 121
A.2 Supported audio formats
Format Extension Notes

Lossy codecs
MPEG audio .mp1, .mpa, .mp2,
.mp3
OGG/Vorbis .ogg Some old “floor 0” files
may crash Rockbox.
Musepack .mpc
Advanced Audio Coding .m4a, .m4b, .mp4
Windows Media Audio .wma, .wmv, .asf
ATSC A/52 .a52, .ac3 Supports downmixing
for playback of 5.1
streams in stereo.
ADX .adx
Speex .spx
Lossless codecs
Waveform audio format .wav
Audio Interchange File Format .aif, .aiff
Free Lossless Audio .flac
Apple Lossless .m4a, .mp4
Wavpack .wv
Shorten .shn Seeking not supported.
Other codecs
Sound Interface Device .sid
MOD .mod
NES Sound Format .nsf, .nsfe
SPC700 .spc
Atari SAP .sap

A PPENDIX B. WPS TAGS 122
B WPS Tags
B.1 Status Bar
Tag Description
%we Status Bar Enabled
%wd Status Bar Disabled
These tags override the player setting for the display of the status bar. They must be
noted on their own line.
B.2 ID3 Info
Tag Description
%ia ID3 Artist
%ic ID3 Composer
%id ID3 Album Name
%ig ID3 Genre Name
%in ID3 Track Number
%it ID3 Track Title
%iv ID3 Version (1.0, 1.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 or empty if no id3 tag)
%iy ID3 Year
Remember that this information is not always available, so use the conditionals to show
alternate information in preference to assuming.

B.3 Power Related Information
Tag Description
%bl Show numeric battery level in percent.
Can also be used in a conditional: %?bl<-1|0|1|2|...|N>
Where the -1 value is used when the battery level isn’t known (it usually is).
%bv Show the battery level in volts
%bt Show estimated battery time left
%bp “p” if the charger is connected
(only on targets that can charge batteries)
%bc “c” if the unit is currently charging the battery
(only on targets that have software charge control or monitoring)
%bs Sleep timer. Shows the remaining time if the sleeptimer is set
B.4 File Info
Tag Description
%fb File Bitrate (in kbps)
%fc File Codec (e.g. “MP3” or “FLAC”). This tag can also be used in a conditional
tag, %?fc<mp1|mp2|mp3|aiff|wav|vorbis|flac|mpc|a52|wavpack|alac-
|aac|shn|sid|adx|unknown>.
The codec order is as follows: MP1, MP2, MP3, AIFF, WAV,Ogg Vorbis (OGG),
FLAC, MPC, AC3, WavPack (WV), ALAC, AAC,Shorten (SHN), SID, ADX,
NSF, Speex, SPC, APE.
%ff File Frequency (in Hz)
%fm File Name
%fn File Name (without extension)
%fp File Path
%fs File Size (In Kilobytes)
%fv “(avg)” if variable bit rate or “” if constant bit rate
%d1 First directory from end of file path.
%d2 Second directory from end of file path.
%d3 Third directory from end of file path.
Example for the %dN commands: If the path is “/Rock/Kent/Isola/11 - 747.mp3”, %d1
is “Isola”, %d2 is “Kent” . . . You get the picture.

B.5 Playlist/Song Info
Tag Description
%pb Progress Bar
This will replace the entire line with a progress bar.
You can set the height, position and width of the progressbar (in pixels):
%pb|height|leftpos|rightpos|toppos|
%px Percentage Played In Song
%pc Current Time In Song
%pe Total Number of Playlist Entries
%pm Peak Meter. The entire line is used as volume peak meter.
%pn Playlist Name (Without path or extension)
%pp Playlist Position
%pr Remaining Time In Song
%ps Shuffle. Shows ’s’ if shuffle mode is enabled.
%pt Total Track Time
%pv Current volume (x dB). Can also be used in a conditional:
%?pv<0|1|2|...|N>
B.6 Runtime Database
Tag Description
%rp Song playcount
%rr Song rating (0-10). This tag can also be used in a conditional tag,
%?rr<0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10>
B.7 Sound (DSP) settings
Tag Description
%Sp Display current playback pitch
%xf Crossfade setting, in the order: Off, Shuffle, Skip, Always
%rg ReplayGain value in use (x.y dB). If used as a conditional, Replaygain type in
use: %?rg<Off|Track|Album|TrackShuffle|AlbumShuffle|No tag>

B.8 Virtual LED
Tag Description
%lh “h” if the hard disk is accessed
B.9 Repeat Mode
Tag Description
%mm Repeat mode, 0-4, in the order: Off, All, One, Shuffle
Example: %?mm<Off|All|One|Shuffle|A-B>
B.10 Playback Mode Tags
Tag Description
%mp Play status, 0-4, in the order: Stop, Play, Pause, Fast forward, Rewind
Example: %?mp<Stop|Play|Pause|Ffwd|Rew>

B.11 Images
Tag Description
%X|filename.bmp| Load and set a backdrop image for the WPS.
This image must be exactly the same size as
your LCD.
%P|filename.bmp| Load a Progress bar image for the WPS. Use
%pb tag to show the progress bar
%x|n|filename|x|y| Load and display an image
n: image ID (a-z and A-Z) for later referencing
in %xd
filename: filename relative to /.rockbox/
and including .bmp
x: x coordinate
y: y coordinate.
%xl|n|filename|x|y|[nimages|] Preload an image for later display (useful for
when your images are displayed condition-
ally)
n: image ID (a-z and A-Z) for later referencing
in %xd
filename: filename relative to /.rockbox/
and including .bmp
x: x coordinate
y: y coordinate.
nimages: (optional) number of sub-images
(tiled vertically, of the same height) contained
in the bitmap. Default is 1.
%xdn[i] Display a preloaded image
n: image ID (a-z and A-Z) as it was specified in
%x or %xl
i: (optional) number of the sub-image to dis-
play (a-z for 1-26 and A-Z for 27-52). By de-
fault the first (i.e. top most) sub-image will be
used.
Examples:
1. Load and display the image /.rockbox/bg.bmp with ID “a” at 37, 109:
%x|a|bg.bmp|37|109|
2. Load a bitmap strip containing 5 volume icon images (all the same size) with
image ID “M”, and then reference the individual sub-images in a conditional:

%xl|M|volume.bmp|134|153|5|
%?pv<%xdMa|%xdMb|%xdMc|%xdMd|%xdMe>
Note:
b
• The images must be in a rockbox compatible format (1 bit per pixel BMP)
• The image tag must be on its own line
• The ID is case sensitive, giving 52 different ID’s
• The size of the LCD screen for each player varies. See table below for appropriate
sizes of each device. The x and y coordinates must repect each of the players’
limits.
B.12 Alignment
Tag Description
%al Text is left aligned
%ac Text is center aligned
%ar Text is right aligned
All alignment tags may be present in one line, but they need to be in the order left –
center – right. If the aligned texts overlap, they are merged.
B.13 Conditional Tags
Tag Description
%?xx<true|false> If / Else: Evaluate for true or false case
%?xx<alt1|alt2|alt3|...|else> Enumerations: Evaluate for first / second /
third / . . . / last condition

B.14 Real Time Clock
Tag Description
%cd Day of month
%ce Zero padded day of month
%cH Zero padded hour from 00 to 24
%ck Hour from 0 to 24
%cI Zero padded hour from 12 to 12
%cl Hour from 12 to 12
%cm Month
%cM Minutes
%cS Seconds
%cy 2-digit year
%cY 4-digit year
%cP Capital AM/PM
%cp Lowercase am/pm
%ca Weekday name
%cb Month name
%cu Day of week from 1 to 7, 1 is Monday
%cw Day of week from 0 to 6, 0 is Sunday
B.15 Other Tags
Tag Description
%% Display a ‘%’
%< Display a ‘<’
%| Display a ‘|’
%> Display a ‘>’
%; Display a ‘;’
%s Indicate that the line should scroll. Can occur anywhere in a line (given that the
text is displayed; see conditionals above). You can specify up to 10 scrolling
lines. Scrolling lines can not contain dynamic content such as timers, peak
meters or progress bars.

A PPENDIX C. C ONFIG FILE OPTIONS 129
C Config file options
Setting Allowed Values Unit

volume dB
bass -6 to +9 dB
treble -6 to +9 dB
balance -100 to +100 %
channels stereo, mono, custom, mono left, N/A
mono right, karaoke
stereo width 0 to 250 %
shuffle on, off N/A
repeat off, all, one, shuffle, ab N/A
play selected on, off N/A
party mode on, off N/A
scan min step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, seconds
45, 60
seek acceleration very fast, fast, normal, slow, very N/A
slow
antiskip 5s, 15s, 30s, 1min, 2min, 3min, N/A
5min, 10min
volume fade on, off N/A
id3 tag priority v2-v1, v1-v2 N/A
sort case on, off N/A
show files all, supported, music, playlists N/A
show filename exts off, on, unknown, view all N/A
follow playlist on, off N/A
playlist viewer icons on, off N/A
playlist viewer indices on, off N/A
playlist viewer track display track name,full path N/A
recursive directory insert on, off, ask N/A
scroll speed 1 to 25 Hz
scroll delay 0 to 2500 ms
scroll step pixels
screen scroll step pixels
Screen Scrolls Out Of View on, off N/A
bidir limit 0 to 200 % screen
scroll paginated on, off N/A
hold lr for scroll in list on, off N/A


show path in browser off, current directory, full path N/A
contrast 0 to 63 N/A
backlight timeout off, on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, seconds
20, 25, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120
backlight timeout plugged off, on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, seconds
20, 25, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120
backlight filters first keypress on, off N/A
backlight on button hold normal, off, on N/A
caption backlight on, off N/A
brightness N/A
disk spindown 3 to 254 seconds
battery capacity mAh
idle poweroff off, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 30, minutes
45, 60
max files in playlist 1000 - 32000 N/A
max files in dir 50 - 10000 N/A
lang /path/filename.lng N/A
wps /path/filename.wps N/A
autocreate bookmarks off, on N/A
autoload bookmarks off, on N/A
use most-recent-bookmarks off, on N/A
pause on headphone unplug off, pause, pause and resume N/A
rewind duration on pause 0 to 15 seconds
disable autoresume if phones off, on N/A
not present
Last.fm Logging off, on N/A
talk dir off, number, spell N/A
talk dir clip off, on N/A
talk file off, number, spell N/A
talk file clip off, on N/A
talk filetype off, on N/A
talk menu off, on N/A
Announce Battery Level off, on N/A
sort files alpha, oldest, newest, type N/A
sort dirs alpha, oldest, newest N/A
tagcache autoupdate on, off N/A
warn when erasing dynamic on, off N/A
playlist
cuesheet support on, off N/A
folder navigation off, on, random N/A
gather runtime data off, on N/A
usb charging on, off N/A


skip length track, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15 minutes
start in screen previous, root, files, db, wps, N/A
menu, bookmarks
playlist catalog directory /path/to/dir N/A
list accel start delay 0 to 10 ms
list accel wait 1 to 10 seconds
replaygain on, off N/A
replaygain type track, album, track shuffle N/A
replaygain noclip on, off N/A
replaygain preamp -120 to 120 0.1dB
crossfade off, shuffle, track skip, always N/A
crossfade fade in delay 0 to 7 seconds
crossfade fade out delay 0 to 7 seconds
crossfade fade in duration 0 to 15 seconds
crossfade fade out duration 0 to 15 seconds
crossfade fade out mode crossfade, mix N/A
crossfeed on, off N/A
crossfeed direct gain 0 to 60 0.1dB
crossfeed cross gain 30 to 120 0.1dB
crossfeed hf attenuation 60 to 240 0.1dB
crossfeed hf cutoff 500 to 2000 Hz
eq enabled on, off N/A
eq precut 0 to 240 0.1dB
eq band 0 cutoff 0 to 32768 Hz
eq band 0 q 0 to 64 N/A
eq band 0 gain -240 to 240 0.1dB
dithering enabled on, off N/A
beep off, weak, moderate, strong N/A
keyclick off, weak, moderate, strong N/A
keyclick repeats on, off N/A


dircache on, off N/A
tagcache ram on, off N/A
peak meter release 1 to 126 ?
peak meter hold off, 200ms, 300ms, 500ms, 1, 2, 3, N/A
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 30, 1min
peak meter clip hold on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, N/A
25, 30, 45, 60, 90, 2min, 3min,
5min, 10min, 20min, 45min, 90min
peak meter busy on, off N/A
peak meter dbfs on, off on: dbfs, off: linear
peak meter min 0 to 89 (dB) or 0 to 100 (%) dB or %
peak meter max 0 to 89 /(dB) or 0 to 100 (%) dB or %
statusbar on, off N/A
scrollbar on, off N/A
volume display graphic, numeric N/A
battery display graphic, numeric N/A
font /path/filename.fnt N/A
kbd /path/filename.kbd N/A
invert on, off N/A
flip display on, off N/A
selector type pointer, bar (inverse) N/A
show icons on, off N/A
iconset /path/filename.bmp N/A
viewers iconset /path/filename.bmp N/A
backdrop /path/filename.bmp N/A
time format 12hour, 24hour N/A

A PPENDIX D. U SER FEEDBACK 133
D User feedback
D.1 Bug reports
If you experience inappropriate performance from any supported feature, please file a
bug report on our web page. Do not report missing features as bugs, instead file them
as feature ideas (see below).
For open bug reports refer to http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/index.php?type=2
D.1.1 Rules for submitting new bug reports

1. Check that the bug has not already been reported
2. Always include the following information in your bug report:
• Which exact player you have.

• Which exact Rockbox version you are using (Menu->Info -> Version)
• A step-by-step description of what you did and what happened
• Whether the problem is repeatable or a one-time occurrence
• All relevant data regarding the problem, such as playlists, MP3 files etc. (IMPOR-
TANT!)
D.2 Feature ideas

To suggest an idea for a feature or to read those made by others, see http://forums.
rockbox.org/index.php?board=49.0. Please keep in mind that this forum is for the dis-
cussion of feature ideas - they are not requests and there is no guarantee they will be
acted upon.
D.2.1 Rules for submitting a new feature idea

1. Check that the feature has not already been suggested. Duplicates are really bor-
ing!
2. Check that the feature has not already been implemented. Download the latest
current/daily build and/or search the mail list archive.
3. Check that the feature is possible to implement (see section D.2.2 (page 134)).

A PPENDIX D. U SER FEEDBACK 134
D.2.2 Features we will not implement

This is a list of Feature Requests we get repeatedly that we simply cannot do. View it
as the opposite of a TODO!
• Interfacing with other USB devices (like cameras) or 2 player games over USB
The USB system demands that there is a master that talks to a slave. The player
can only serve as a slave, as most other USB devices such as cameras can. Thus,
without a master no communication between the slaves can take place. If that
is not enough, we have no ways of actually controlling the communication per-
formed over USB since the USB circuit in the player is strictly made for disk-access
and does not allow us to play with it the way we’d need for any good communi-
cation to work.
• Support other file systems than FAT32 (like NTFS or ext2 or whatever)!
No. support for more file systems will just take away valuable ram for unneces-
sary features. You can partition your player fine, just make sure the first one is
FAT32 and then make the other ones whatever file system you want. Just do not
expect Rockbox to understand them.
• Add scandisk-like features!

It would be a very slow operation that would drain the batteries and take a lot of
useful ram for something that is much better and faster done when connected to
a host computer.

A PPENDIX E. C HANGELOG 135
E Changelog
E.1 What is new since v2.5?
E.1.1 New features
? 2008-07-07: Added keybox plugin
? 2008-05-04: Added study mode
? 2008-04-23: Lamp (originally ”flashlight”) plugin
? 2008-03-23: New bitmap strips feature in the WPS
? 2008-03-21: Viewport tag added for WPS
? 2008-03-18: The Olympus m:robe 100 is now a supported target
? 2007-12-09: PictureFlow: A nice animated visualization for album art
? 2007-11-26: Matrix Demo
? 2007-11-11: Rockbox can now display album art
? 2007-09-06: Sound on Sansa c200
? 2007-09-04: The SanDisk Sansa e200R models are now Rockboxed!
? 2007-08-06: Make several splashes and confirmation screens speak
? 2007-08-03: iPod 3rd gen is now officially a supported target
? 2007-08-02: Superdom game
? 2007-07-27: Sound on iPod 2nd Gen
? 2007-07-25: Jackpot support for bitmap targets
? 2007-06-30: Reversi game
? 2007-06-29: Rocklife plugin
? 2007-06-28: Maze game
? 2007-06-17: Custom filetype colour feature introduced
? 2007-05-23: The 80GB Ipod Video is now supported by Rockbox
? 2007-04-09: WAV file viewer
? 2007-03-11: Sound on the Sansa e200
? 2007-03-04: Rockbox runs and plays music on the iAudio M5
? 2007-03-01: Add the Rockbox Menu
? 2007-02-16: Chopper game
? 2007-02-14: Cuesheet support
? 2007-02-14: Icons in the menus
? 2007-02-10: Album Artist and Comment Tag Support
? 2007-02-09: Speex Codec Support
? 2007-01-31: Invadrox, a Space Invaders clone
? 2007-01-16: BlackJack plugin
? 2007-01-02: Mazezam, a puzzle game for all bitmap lcd targets

? 2006-12-29: Toshiba Gigabeat X and F series support

? 2006-11-30: File properties in context menu
? 2006-11-06: Samplerate and format selection added to recording settings. En-
coders can be configured individually on a menu specific to the encoder in the
recording menu
? 2006-11-06: Pitch adjustment in semitone steps
? 2006-10-27: Audio dithering option
? 2006-10-19: last.fm (audioscrobbler) logging support
? 2006-10-05: FM radio region setting
? 2006-09-15: ZX spectrum emulator plugin - zxbox
? 2006-08-28: Encoder Codec Interface for recording with additional FM recording
support
? 2006-08-07: Initial version of mpegplayer plugin
? 2006-07-19: Rockpaint plugin
? 2006-07-18: Playlist catalog
? 2006-04-19: Rockbox is functional and plays audio on the iPod Mini 1G
? 2006-03-30: Rockbox is functional and plays audio on the iPod Mini 2G
? 2006-03-28: DOOM
? 2006-03-28: Sound on the iAudio X5 , X5L and X5V
? 2006-03-26: Experimental WAV playback plugin for Archos Recorder/Ondio
? 2006-03-26: Initial version of Tag Cache
? 2006-03-20: Bubbles, a bubble game
? 2006-03-19: Tetrox, a Tetris clone
? 2006-03-12: Xobox, a Xonix/Qix clone
? 2006-03-11: Pacbox, a pacman arcade machine emulator
? 2006-02-22: ”Chessbox” chess game plugin
? 2006-02-13: iPod 5G audio playback
? 2006-01-28: Color bitmap support in the WPS (for color models)
? 2006-01-23: Brickmania game plugin
? 2005-12-06: Unicode support
? 2005-11-05: Jewels game plugin - a Bejeweled clone.
E.1.2 Enhancements
? 2008-08-06: Redesigned recording screen
? 2008-02-23: New default theme: cabbie 2.0
? 2008-01-04: All new greyscale library with improved performance
? 2007-08-08: Added support for grouping tags
? 2007-08-06: Organise the plugins into categories
? 2007-08-05: Voice file changes. Older voices no longer work, now all voice files
are target-specific.
? 2007-08-03: Added support for the disc number tag
? 2007-04-04: WPS tokenizer: Rewritten WPS code
? 2007-03-20: rockbox.* file moved inside /.rockbox directory

? 2007-01-23: Settings are now saved to /.rockbox/config.cfg and the hidden config
sector is not used anymore
? 2006-11-29: Playlists are saved with the extension .m3u8, extension .m3u is now
read using the chosen codepage
? 2006-09-16: New scheduler. Audio playback is now prioritised over other tasks
? 2006-09-02: Enhanced statusbar in recording screen
? 2006-08-15: Support for displaying the path in the file browser
? 2006-02-07: Equalizer configuration for software codec platforms
? 2006-02-06: The Rockbox manual is available in LATEXformat
? 2005-12-05: New wps’ added. Engineeer2, marquee, and DancePuffDuo
E.1.3 New codecs supported

Lossy codecs
? Ogg/vorbis
? MPC
? A/52 (AC3)
? AAC (MP4)
? WMA
? ADX
? Speex
Lossless codecs
? WAV
? AIFF
? FLAC
? ALAC
? Wavpack
? Shorten
? Monkey’s Audio
Other codecs
? SID
? MOD
? NSF, NSFE
? SPC
? MIDI
? SAP

A PPENDIX F. C REDITS 138
F Credits
People that have contributed to the project, one way or another. Friends!
· B J ÖRN S TENBERG · L INUS N IELSEN F ELTZ - · F RANCOIS B OUCHER · M ATTHIAS W IEN -

ING · A NDY C HOI · A NDREW J AMIESON TAPPER · B RENT C OUTTS · J ENS A RNOLD
· PAUL S UADE · J OACHIM S CHIFFER · G ERALD VANBAREN · C HRISTI S CARBOR -
· D ANIEL S TENBERG · A LAN K ORR · G ARY OUGH · S TEVE C UNDARI · M AT H OLTON
C ZVITKOVICZ · S TUART M ARTIN · F E - · J AN G AJDOS · A NTOINE C ELLERIER
LIX A RENDS · U LF R ALBERG · D AVID · B RIAN K ING · J IRI J URECEK · J ACOB E RL -
H ÄRDEMAN · T HOMAS S AEYS · G RANT BECK · J EAN -P HILIPPE B ERNARDY · D AVE
W IER · J ULIEN L ABRUY ÉRE · N ICOLAS H OOPER · J ONAS H ÄGGQVIST · T HOM
S AUZEDE · R OBERT H AK · D AVE C HAP - J OHANSEN · R INAT Z AKIROV · M ANUEL
MAN · S TEFAN M EYER · E RIC L INENBERG D EJONGHE · M ARCOEN H IRSCHBERG
· T OM C VITAN · M AGNUS Ö MAN · J EROME · M ICHIEL VAN DER K OLK · T ONY M O -
K UPTZ · J ULIEN B OISSINOT · N UUTTI K O - TAKIS · A NDY Y OUNG · A LEXANDRE B OUR -
TIVUORI · H EIKKI H ANNIKAINEN · H ARD - GET · R ICHARD S. L A C HARIT É III · C HRIS -
EEP S IDHU · M ARKUS B RAUN · J USTIN TIAN G MEINER · T OMAS S ALFISCHBERGER
H EINER · M AGNUS H OLMGREN · B ILL · M IIKA P EKKARINEN · TAPIO K ARPPINEN
N APIER · G EORGE S TYLES · M ATS L IDELL · R ICHARD O TT Ó O’B RIEN · L UCA B U -
· L EE M ARLOW · N ATE N YSTROM · N ICK RELLI · A LESSIO L ENZI · D AVID B RYANT
R OBINSON · C HAD L OCKWOOD · J OHN · M ARTIN A RVER · A LEXANDER S PYRIDAKIS
P YBUS · U WE F REESE · R ANDY W OOD · P EDRO B ALTAZAR VASCONCELOS · R AY
· G REGORY H AERR · P HILIPP P ERTER - L AMBERT · D AVE W IARD · P IETER B OS
MANN · G ILLES R OUX · M ARK H ILLEBRAND · K ONSTANTIN I SAKOV · B RYAN VANDYKE
· D AMIEN T ENEY · A NDREAS Z WIRTES · H RISTO K OVACHEV · S ANDER S WEERS
· K JELL E RICSON · J IM H AGANI · L U - · A NTONIUS H ELLMAN · RYAN J ACK -
DOVIC L ANGE · M IKE H OLDEN · S IMON SON · P ER H OLM ÄNG · F REDERIC D EV-
E L ÉN · M ATTHEW P. OR EILLY · C HRISTIAN ERNAY · J OS É M. FANDI ÑO · G ADI C O -
S CH ÖNBERGER · H ENRIK B ACKE · C RAIG HEN · N AFTALI G OLDSTEIN · D AVID D ENT
S ATHER · J OS É M ARIA G ARCIA -VALDECASAS · F RANK D ISCHNER · L IBERMAN S HACHAR
B ERNAL · S TEVIE O H · J ÖRG H OHENSOHN · S TEPHAN W EZEL · A LYSSA M ILBURN
· D AVE J ONES · T HOMAS PAUL D IFFEN - · K EVIN F ERRARE · A NTON O LEYNIKOV
BACH · R OLAND K LETZING · I TAI S HAKED · M ARK A RIGO · M AGNUS W ESTER -
· K EITH H UBBARD · B ENJAMIN M ETZLER LUND · J AKE O WEN · M USTAPHA S ENHAJI
· F REDERIC D ANG N GOC · P IERRE D E - · A DAM B OOT · J ONATHAN G ORDON · TAT
LORE · H UW S MITH · G ARRETT D ERNER TANG · T OSHIHIKO I TOH · D AVID J. S ONG
· B ARRY M C I NTOSH · L ESLIE D ONALD - · J EONG TAEK I N · A NDERS K AGERIN · P E -
SON · L EE P ILGRIM · Z AKK R OBERTS TER D’H OYE · B EN B ASHA · B RANDON L OW

· N ATHAN H AND · N ICK L ANHAM · S E - · S T ÉPHANE D OYON · A USTIN A PPEL · A N -

BASTIAN H ENRIKSEN · M ARTIN S CARRATT DRE S MITH · T RAVIS H YYPPA · I AN W EBBER
· K ARL K URBJUN · T OMASZ M ALESINSKI · PAVEL G NELITSA · L UTZ B ÖHNE · W ILL
· A NDREW P ILLEY · M ATT V. D . W EST- R OBERTSON · R OBERT C ARBONEAU · Y E W EI
HUIZEN · T IM C RIST · J VO S TUDER · D AN · B RYAN C HILDS · M IKE S CHMITT · C HRIS
E VERTON · I MRE H ERCEG · S EVEN L E M ESLE TAYLOR · T OBIAS L ANGHOFF · S TEVE
· C RAIG B ACHELOR · N IKOLAJ C HRIS - G OTTHARDT · G REG W HITE · M ATTIEU
TENSEN · M IKAEL M AGNUSSON · D OMINIK FAVR ÉAUX · M ALCOLM T YRRELL · P IOTR
W ENGER · H ENRICO W ITVLIET · A NDREW J AFISZOW · G ARY A LLEN · J OHN B OU A N -
S COTT · M IGUEL A. A R ÉVALO · A ARON F. TOUN · T OMASZ M ON · J AKUB M ATOU ŠEK
G ONZALEZ · A LEKSEY K OZYULIN · J ANI · A LBERT V ELI · C HRIS D OHAN · TAKASHI
K INNUNEN · R UI M ARINHO · A LUN O BARA · R ENE P EINTHOR · R OAN H ORN -
T HOMAS · N ILS WALLM ÉNIUS · N AOAKI ING · B EN K EROACK · S EAN M ORRISEY
O KAZAKI · W ILL D YSON · M ATTHIAS · S HAY G REEN · N ICK VANDERWEIT · S I -
M OHR · C HRISTIAN M ARG · E LI S HERER MON M ENZEL · T IMO H ORSTSCH ÄFER
· F REDRIK Ö HRN · N ICOLAS P ENNEQUIN · J ACCO K ONING · C HRIS H AM · J OSE
· R ALF H ERZ · M ICHAEL D I F EBBO · D AVID R AMON G ARCIA · S IMON D ESCARPEN -
R OTHENBERGER · R OBERT K EEVIL · M ARK TRIES · D OUGLAS VALENTINE · J ACOB
B RIGHT · D OMINIK R IEBELING · A LEXAN - G ARDNER · PASCAL B RIEHL · D ENIS
DER B ONDAR · P ETER C AWLEY · R ANI S TANISHEVSKIY · E DDY C OMAN · L UKE
H OD · T OM R OSS · A NTON R OMANOV B LANEY · M ARK R EICHE · M ICHAL J EV-
· J EAN -L UC O HL · S TEVE B AVIN · M ARI - JAK · P HILIPPE L ATULIPPE · M AURICIO
ANNE A RNOLD · G AETANO V OCCA · F RED - P ECCORINI · N ATHAN H EPTING · A KIO
ERIK V ESTRE · W ENBIN L EO · T OM E VANS I DEHARA · D AGNI M C P HEE · A LEX G ER -
· E WAN D AVIES · F R ÉD ÉRIC F RANÇOIS CHANOVSKY · G ERHARD D IRSCHL · I VAN
· M ARC -A NDR É M OREAU · I OANNIS Z UPAN · A LEXANDER PAPST · C HRISTOPH
K OUTOULAKIS · A LISTAIR M ARSHALL R EITER · R HINO B ANGA · PAUL J ONES
· K ARL O VE H UFTHAMMER · V ÍCTOR Z A - · M ICHAEL G IACOMELLI · A LEX W ENGER
BALZA · U LRICH P EGELOW · A NDREAS · A NDREE B USCHMANN · J OHNATHON M I -
M ATTSSON · D ANIEL A NKERS · PAUL HALOP · R ENE A LLKIVI · T OBIAS S CHLADT
L OUDEN · R AINER S INSCH · P L ÁCIDO R E - · J OHN Z HOU · C HARLES V OELGER · G ER -
VILLA · M ICHAEL S EVAKIS · L UKAS S AB - RITT G ONZALES · D IETER P ELLKOFER · E V-
OTA · E MANUEL Z EPHIR · A LEXANDER GENIY K ACHALIN · L ENNY K OEPSELL
L EVIN · B ARRY WARDELL · L ARS VAN DE · H ARRY T U · PAWEL W YSOCKI · X INLU
K LOMP · P HILIPPE M IOSSEC · J OCHEN K EM - H UANG · D ANIEL D ALTON · B ORIS G JEN -
NADE · C ORRY L AZAROWITZ · T OM M EYER ERO · S YLVAIN F OURMANOIT · A LEX
· L AURENT B AUM · J AMES T EH · L IAM PARKER · M ARIO L ANG · J USTIN F OELL
N ATTRASS · C HRISTIAN H ACK · WADE · I GOR K UZMIN · A DILSON V ICENTE X AVIER
B ROWN · VADIM C HEKAN · C HRISTOPHER · J ESSE L OCKWOOD · J ONATHAN B ACKER
B ORCSOK · V ICTOR C ARDENAS · A NDREW · S OFIAN B ABAI · C OSTAS C ALAMVOKIS
M ELVILLE · P ENGXUAN L IU · A NDREW C UP - · C ATALIN PATULEA · P ETER H ARLEY
PER · T HILO -A LEXANDER G INKEL · A DAM · M AX K ELLEY · A LEXANDER E ICKHOFF
G ASHLIN · R OBERT K UKLA · D AVID Q UE - · P INITNUN S HANASABANG · K EN FAZ -
SADA · J ARED S TAFFORD · M ARTIN H ENSEL ZONE · D AVID B ISHOP · H EIN -P IETER

VAN B RAAM · P RZEMYSŁAW H OŁUBOWSKI · D AVIDE G ENTILE · J AMES VASILE · M O -

· S TEPAN M OSKOVCHENKO · J OHN S. HAMED TAREK · M IKE B URKE · M ICHAEL
G WYNNE · B RIAN J. M OREY · S TIJN H ISKEN C HICOINE · M ACIEJ A DAMCZAK · T OMER
· B ERTRIK S IKKEN · K ARIM B OUCHER S HALEV · T HIBAUT G IRKA · R ASMUS RY
· J AMES E SPINOZA · F RANZ R ÜHMLAND · W ILLIAM P OETRA Y OGA H ADISOESENO
· J ORDAN A NDERSON · M AURUS C UELE - · A DRIAN O SOIANU · M ARTIN PAHL · O RI
NAERE · C HRIS A LLEGRETTA · A LASTAIR AVTALION · T HOMAS S CHOTT · D ENNIS
S · M ARTIN C RKOVSK Ý · A RIYA H IDAYAT I VANOV · TAKUMI S UZUKI · S HUNSUKE
· J ONAS H URRELMANN · L EE K ANG H YUK S HIMIZU · TADAYUKI N ISHIZONO · J UN G U
· C LEMENS W ERTHER · R OBERT M ENES · D ANIEL W ECK · C L ÉMENT P IT-C LAUDEL
· H ENRI VALTA · M ELBA S ITJAR · M EHMET · J ELLE G EERTS · TADEUSZ P Y Ś · R OSTISLAV
Ş. Ç ATALBAŞ · S COTT T INMAN · A LEXAN - C HEKAN · F LORIN P OPESCU · V OLKER M IS -
DER K UZMENKOV · T HOMAS M ARTITZ CHE · F RANCISCO V ILA · T HE LIBMAD
· P RAKARN S AHASOONTORNVUTE · G EORGE TEAM · T HE WAVPACK TEAM · T HE FFM -
TAMPLARU · A POORVA M AHAJAN · V UONG PEG TEAM · T HE O GG V ORBIS TEAM · T HE
M INH H IEP · M ATEUSZ K UBICA · F RANK LIBA 52 TEAM · T HE S PEEX TEAM · T HE
G EVAERTS · C HELO S ACRIST ÁN · S ASCHA LIBFAAD TEAM · T HE D OOM TEAM · T HE
W OLF · N ICKOLAY J ORDANOV · J OHANNES GNUCHESS TEAM · T HE GNUBOY TEAM · T HE
V OGGENTHALER · M ARC G UAY · A LEX PACMAN I NSTRUCTIONAL E MULATOR TEAM
VANDERPOL · J ERRY L ANGE · Y OHANN · T HE S PECTEMU TEAM · T HE LIBMPEG 2
M ISQUITTA · K EITH P ERRI · M ARK FAW- TEAM · T HE G AME M USIC E MU TEAM · T HE
CUS · I VAN P ESIC · M ARCEL B ARBULESCU O PEN SPC DSP EMULATOR TEAM · T HE
· P HIL L IGHT · R OB P URCHASE · A NDREAS ALAC DECODER TEAM · T HE UCL TEAM
M ÜLLER · C HRISTOPHER W ILLIAMS · M AR - · T HE I P OD L INUX TEAM · T HE V ISION -8
TIN R ITTER · J USTIN H ANNIGAN · T OMASZ E MULATOR TEAM · T HE ROBOTFINDSKITTEN
WASILCZYK · K ENJIRO A RAI · J OHN K AM - TEAM · T HE LIBMTP TEAM · T HE ASAP TEAM
INAR · J ORIS G OOSEN · M ARK G ANSON

A PPENDIX G. L ICENSES 141
G Licenses
G.1 GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.2, November 2002
Copyright 2000,2001,2002
c Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license

document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and use-
ful document ”free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom
to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or non-
commercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way
to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications
made by others.
This License is a kind of ”copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the doc-
ument must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General
Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because
free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals
providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to
software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for
works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice
placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this
License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration,
to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The ”Document”, below, refers to
any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed
as ”you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way
requiring permission under copyright law.

A ”Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document
or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into
another language.
A ”Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Doc-
ument that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the
Document to the Document’s overall subject (or to related matters) and contains noth-
ing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part
a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The
relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related
matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
them.
The ”Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated,
as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released
under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is
not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant
Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.
The ”Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover
Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under
this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may
be at most 25 words.
A ”Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented
in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for
revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images com-
posed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available draw-
ing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to
a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise
Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to
thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image
format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not
”Transparent” is called ”Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without
markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly
available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed
for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF
and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only
by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing
tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF
produced by some word processors for output purposes only.
The ”Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following
pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the
title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, ”Title Page”
means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s title, preceding the
beginning of the body of the text.
A section ”Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either

is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in
another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such
as ”Acknowledgements”, ”Dedications”, ”Endorsements”, or ”History”.) To ”Pre-
serve the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains
a section ”Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that
this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be
included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any
other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect
on the meaning of this License.
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or
noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license no-
tice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that
you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use tech-
nical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you
make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If
you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in
section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may
publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of
the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires
Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all
these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the
back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of
these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally
prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying
with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document
and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put
the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest
onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than
100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each
Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from
which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard
network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added mate-
rial. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you

begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy
will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last
time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of
that edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well
before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you
with an updated version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the condi-
tions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under
precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus
licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a
copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the
Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any,
be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a
previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for
authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least
five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has
fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the
publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other
copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public
permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the
form shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required
Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled ”History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item
stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version
as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled ”History” in the Docu-
ment, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document

as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as
stated in the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to
a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given
in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in
the ”History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was pub-
lished at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of
the version it refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled ”Acknowledgements” or ”Dedications”, Preserve the Ti-

tle of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of
the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and
in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the
section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled ”Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included
in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled ”Endorsements” or to conflict in

title with any Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify
as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at
your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their
titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These
titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled ”Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but
endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties–for example, statements of
peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative
definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up
to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified
Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be
added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement
made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you
may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added
the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permis-
sion to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Mod-
ified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License,
under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you
include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents,
unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license
notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identi-
cal Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant
Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section
unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or
publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment
to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined
work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled ”History” in the vari-
ous original documents, forming one section Entitled ”History”; likewise combine any
sections Entitled ”Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled ”Dedications”. You
must delete all sections Entitled ”Endorsements”.
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released
under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various doc-
uments with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow
the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other
respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individ-
ually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted
document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of
that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent
documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an
”aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal
rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the
Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works
in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Docu-
ment, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s
Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate,
or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise
they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of
the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with trans-
lations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these
Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license no-
tices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include
the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices
and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original
version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled ”Acknowledgements”, ”Dedications”, or
”History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically re-
quire changing the actual title.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly
provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or dis-
tribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this
License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this
License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full
compliance.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free
Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit
to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Docu-
ment specifies that a particular numbered version of this License ”or any later version”
applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that
specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by
the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free
Software Foundation.
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the
document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

Copyright YEAR
c YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute
and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documen-
tation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Soft-
ware Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no
Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
”GNU Free Documentation License”.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the
”with...Texts.” line with this:
with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover
Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the
three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend re-
leasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as
the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

G.2 The GNU General Public License

Version 2, June 1991
Copyright
c 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license

document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and
change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your
freedom to share and change free software—to make sure the software is free for all its
users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation’s
software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free
Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License
instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our Gen-
eral Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute
copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source
code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in
new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you
these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain
responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee,
you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they,
too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they
know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you
this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the
software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone
understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified
by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have
is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the
original authors’ reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to
avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent
licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it
clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

GNU G ENERAL P UBLIC L ICENSE

T ERMS AND C ONDITIONS F OR C OPYING , D ISTRIBUTION AND
M ODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed
by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Gen-
eral Public License. The “Program”, below, refers to any such program or work,
and a “work based on the Program” means either the Program or any deriva-
tive work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program
or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into
another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the
term “modification”.) Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by
this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not re-
stricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute
a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the
Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately
publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty;
keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any war-
ranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along
with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at
your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus
forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifica-
tions or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all
of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or
in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be
licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this
License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run,
you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most
ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate
copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that
you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License.

(Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print
such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to
print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections
of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms,
do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But
when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License,
whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each
and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to
work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control
the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with
the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage
or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this
License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section
2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any
third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing
source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding
source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on
a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute
corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncom-
mercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or
executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all
the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface defi-
nition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the
executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form)
with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating sys-

tem on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the
executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from
a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from
the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties
are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as ex-
pressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sub-
license or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your
rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights,
from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as
such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However,
nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its
derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this
License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based
on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all
its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or
works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program),
the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy,
distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may
not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted
herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this
License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or

for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions
of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If
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or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this
License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular
circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a
whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other
property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the

sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system,
which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made gen-
erous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system
in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor
to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system
and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a conse-
quence of the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries ei-
ther by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who
places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribu-
tion limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in
or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the
limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the
General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in
spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or
concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies
a version number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you
have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or
of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program
does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version
ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose
distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For
software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free
Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will
be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our
free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
N O WARRANTY
11. B ECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE , THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM , TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. E XCEPT
WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND / OR OTHER
PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “ AS IS ” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND , EI -
THER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED , INCLUDING , BUT NOT LIMITED TO , THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .
T HE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS
WITH YOU . S HOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE , YOU ASSUME THE COST
OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING , REPAIR OR CORRECTION .

12. I N NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRIT-

ING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER , OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY
AND / OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE , BE LIABLE TO YOU
FOR DAMAGES , INCLUDING ANY GENERAL , SPECIAL , INCIDENTAL OR CONSE -
QUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRO -
GRAM ( INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING REN -
DERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A
FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS ), EVEN
IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGES .
E ND OF T ERMS AND C ONDITIONS
Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to
the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can
redistribute and change under these terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the
start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each
file should have at least the “copyright” line and a pointer to where the full notice is
found.
<one line to give the program’s name and a brief idea of what it does.>
Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it un-
der the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABIL-
ITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51
Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in
an interactive mode:

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>

Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type
‘show w’.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
conditions; type ‘show c’ for details.
The hypothetical commands show w and show c should show the appropriate parts
of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called some-
thing other than show w and show c; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items—
whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if
any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample;
alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program

‘Gnomovision’ (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989

Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into pro-
prietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more
useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you
want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.

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The Rockbox Manual

Version r18615-3.0-080923. Built using pdfLATEX.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document un-

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

4 Browsing and playing 23

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

4.2.2 Initializing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5 The Main Menu 38

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

10 Advanced Topics 113

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

10.1 Customising the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

A File formats 120

B WPS Tags 122

C Config file options 129

D User feedback 133

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

1.2 Getting more help

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

for Rockbox is #rockbox on irc://irc.freenode.net. A bunch of helpful developers and

1.3 Naming conventions and marks

Warning: This is a warning. In contrast to notes mentioned above, a warning should be

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

2.3 Installing Rockbox

• Automatically install all suggested components (“Full Installation”)

• Selectively install optional components

• Install additional themes

• Install voice files and generate talk clips

• Uninstall all components you installed using Rockbox Utility

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

Installing the firmware

Installing the fonts package

1. Download the fonts package from the link above.

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

Installing the bootloader

Bootloader installation from Windows

2. Download ipodpatcher.exe from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/ipod/ipodpatcher/

Bootloader installation from Mac OS X

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

3. Download and open ipodpatcher.dmg from http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/

Bootloader installation from Linux

2. Attach your player to your computer.

3. Open up a terminal window and type the following commands:

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

2.3.3 Enabling Speech Support (optional)

2.4 Running Rockbox

2.5 Updating Rockbox

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

2.6 Uninstalling Rockbox

2.6.2 Manual Uninstallation

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

T HE R OCKBOX MANUAL I POD M INI

3.1.2 Turning the player on and off

On shutdown, Rockbox automatically saves its settings.

3.1.3 Starting the original firmware