Biffuz' Gogo Frontend - readme file
Release 1.1

Gabriele Biffi
biffuz@inwind.it
http://spazioweb.inwind.it/biffuz (temporary)
http://www.bebits.com/devprofile/1962 for latest info on me
http://www.bebits.com/app/2314 for latest release on this app.

Please read this document fully before using the software, it contains some important information!
Terms and Conditions are at the end of the file.

Introduction

This is a simple GUI fronted for Gogo, the open source MP3 encoder. It's very easy to use: just add files to the file list, set options, and click the "Encode" button.
I wrote this because I didn't find any (working) frontend that allowa me to encode multiple files at once. Now there are a number of good frontends, but I still prefer this because it does what I want: no more, no less. Lately, I decided to clean it up and put it on the Web.

BGF 1.1 is designed for BeOS R5 and Gogo 2.35 (or later) for BeOS.

You can find Gogo at http://homepage1.nifty.com/herumi/gogo_e.html or http://www.bebits.com/app/1928 on BeBits.

To fully understand this document, you must be familiar with the BeOS, MP3s, wave files, and Gogo.

How to use

The main window has two tabs: "Files" and "Options".

In the "Files" tab, you can specify wich files you want to encode. You can drop 'em from the Tracker, or use the "Add..." button. You can add more files once with both methods. The "Remove" button will remove the selected files from the list. Quite easy, I think.
Make sure your files are in RIFF/WAVE format with a 32/44.1/48 kHz sampling frequency (Audio CD tracks are good). Gogo does actually supports other formats, but the "Options" tab is designed for this one only; some options may be NOT compatible with other formats.

In the "Options" tab, you can specify encoding options. These are passed directly to Gogo, BGF doesn't do nothing. "Default" always means Gogo's default. For more info, see Gogo readme file.
1) "Bit rate": select the bit rate you want your MP3s to be (Gogo option: -b). Default is 128 kbps.
2) "Output mode": mono, stereo or joint stereo (-m option). Default is joint stereo for stereo waves, mono for mono waves.
3) "Output directory": if you want your MP3s to be put into a specific directory, specify it here or use the "Select..." button. Otherwise, Gogo will use the same dir as the source file (-o option). Do NOT enclose dir name between quotas.
4) "Disable psycho-acoustic": check this to disable psycho-acoustic (-nopsy option).
5) "Delete wave file after encoding": check this if you no longer need the source files (-delete option). Use this option with caution; deleted files doesn't go into the Trash, they're just deleted.

In the "Program options" tab, you can specify where Gogo is (default is /boot/apps/gogo) and if you want the Add files panel to not be closed when you click on Add (useful if you have multiple files to encode in different directories).
These two options are remembered, so you don't have to set them each time.

When you're ready,  click on the "Encode!" button. A new window will appear, showing which file is being encoded (they're encoded in the same order thay appear on the list). Inside this window, there is a button to stop encoding and one to skip just current file. Note that it may take some time to BGF to detect that Gogo has stopped.
Warning: BGF can't notice if encoding fails. I suggest to launch BGF from a Terminal window to see Gogo output.

Tips & Tricks

To encode Audio CDs: when you insert an Audio CD,  it will be mounted on the Desktop. If you open it, you will see two directories: "wav" and "cda". In the first, there are the wave files of the tracks. You can add these files to BGF and encode them, with no ripping, just remember to select an output directory and not use the "Delete wave files after encoding" option.

To see Gogo output (and a better progress report): launch BGF from a Terminal window. When you click "Encode!", you will see the Gogo output, including errors, progress meter, etc.

Version History:

1.1 [June 22, 2001]:
- Handles correctly directories with blanks inside
- Can stop encoding and skip files
- "Options" tab renamed "Gogo options"
- New tab: "Program options"
- New option: "Gogo location"
- New option: "Don't close the Add Files panel when adding files"
- Add files panel's "Open" button renamed "Add"
- Select output directory panel's window title set to "Select output dir"
- "Remove" button is enabled only if some file is selected
- Changed executable name (was "BFG" instead of "BGF")
- Some minor improvement

1.0 [June 20, 2001]:
- First public release

Feedback

Feedback is always welcome! Please write me about any bug you find, but please keep in mind the following:

The future

I don't know if I will enhance this fontend more. It already does what I need; if you need more functions, you can easily find something better. It is, for me, not much more than a programming exercise, and it's (as of now) the biggest program I ever made for the BeOS.
Anyway, take a look sometimes to BeBits or my site. Maybe I will post some update. In fact, I do have some idea to make BGF better. If you need some more option (wich doesn't require too much work), just ask me, I may add it: but please remember I'm working for free.

Will I make this software open source? Again, I haven't decided yet, but, if you want to develop this software, please send me a message, I can share the source code with you.

I know, I already wrote this for BGF 1.0. Four things happened: 1) While studying for a university exam, I learnt how to launch apps using POSIX; 2) a friendly guy asked me why he's forced to put Gogo in /boot/apps; 3) I needed to put MP3s in a folder with a blank in the name, so I solved this; 4) 500 page views and 50 downloads in 24 hours, it's a record for me.
All this happened in two days. But don't worry: (almost) all these changes were laying around. And if you're thinking if there is some more changes waiting... yes, there is.

Terms and Conditions

Copyright (C) Gabriele Biffi, 2001. All rights reserved.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software") to use, copy, publish, and/or distribute the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

In any case the User can't modify, separe, and/or alter the Software, without the prior written permission of the Author.
The above copyright notice and this permission notice applies to all licenses and shall be included in all copies of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF, OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
