The audio file selector
=======================
-Paraslash comes with a sophisticated audio file selector called afs.
+Paraslash comes with a sophisticated audio file selector called *afs*.
In the
<<
<a href="INSTALL.html">installation notes</a>,
para_client setatt test+ /path/to/the/audio/file
-Similarly, the "test" bit can be removed from a audio file with
+Similarly, the "test" bit can be removed from an audio file with
para_client setatt test- /path/to/the/audio/file
-Instead of a path you can also use a pattern, and the attribute is
-applied to all audio files matching that pattern:
+Instead of a path you may use a shell wildcard pattern. The attribute
+is applied to all audio files matching that pattern:
para_client setatt test+ '/test/directory/*'
alias para='para_client --'
-and be happy. In the remainder part this alias is being used.
+and be happy. In what follows we shall use this alias.
-Drop the test attribute entirely from the database with
+The "test" attribute can be dropped from the database with
para rmatt test
[skip this part if you don't like formal definitions]
-A mood consists of a unique name and its *mood definition*, which is a set of
-*mood lines* containing expressions in terms of attributes and other data
-contained in the database.
+A mood consists of a unique name and its *mood definition*, which is
+a set of *mood lines* containing expressions in terms of attributes
+and other data contained in the database.
-A mood defines a subset of audio files called the *admissible audio files*
-for that mood. A mood can be *active* which means that para_server
-is going to select only files from that subset of admissible files.
+A mood defines a subset of audio files called the *admissible audio
+files* for that mood. At any time, at most one mood can be *active*
+which means that para_server is going to select only files from that
+subset of admissible files.
So in order to create a mood definition one has to write a set of
mood lines. Mood lines come in three flavours: Accept lines, deny
order in which admissible files are going to be selected, but is of
minor importance for this introduction.
-So we concentrate on the first two forms, that is accept and deny
+So we concentrate on the first two forms, i.e. accept and deny
lines. As usual, everything in square brackets is optional, i.e.
accept/deny lines take the following form when ignoring scores:
The set of admissible files for the whole mood is now defined as those
files which match at least one accept mood line, but no deny mood line.
-More formally, a file is admissible if and only if
+More formally, an audio file F is admissible if and only if
(F ~ AL1 or F ~ AL2...) and not (F ~ DL1 or F ~ DN2 ...)
-where F is the file, AL1, AL2... are the accept lines, DL1, DL2... are
-the deny lines and "~" means "matches".
+where AL1, AL2... are the accept lines, DL1, DL2... are the deny
+lines and "~" means "matches".
The cases where no mood lines of accept/deny type are defined need
special treatment:
A mood can be activated by executing
- para chmood my_mood
+ para select m/my_mood
Once active, the list of admissible files is shown by the ls command
if the "-a" switch is given:
Use loglevel one (option -l 1 for most commands) to show debugging
info. Almost all paraslash executables have a brief online help which
-is displayed by using the -h switch.
+is displayed by using the -h switch. The --detailed-help option prints
+the full help text.
para_fsck tries to fix your database. Use --force (even if your name
-isn't Luke), to clean up after a crash. However, first make sure
+isn't Luke) to clean up after a crash. However, first make sure
para_server isn't running before executing para_fsck if para_fsck
complains about busy (dirty) tables. para_fsck also contains an option
-to dump the contents of your the contents of the database to the file
-system.
+to dump the contents of the database to the file system.
If you don't mind to recreate your database you can start
from scratch by removing the entire database directory, i.e.