I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious.
Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.
Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

TIA

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On Tue 10 Dec 2024 at 05:54:24 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious.
Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.

I use the traditional winamp interface, which takes up less space
on the screen. Generally, I use ordinary keys to control it.
In addition, ^Q quits, ^R toggles Time Remaining, ^D toggles
a larger rendition when needed, and ^P opens Settings.

Space toggles pause/resume
c ditto
x starts/restarts track
v stops track
a begins/ends/cancels a loop
r toggles repeat button
s toggles random button
← → skip 5 seconds (configurable)

dfijlopy and a few control keys open various dialog boxes,
but I don't use it at that level: I just press Return on
the filename in mc and a window pops up and plays.

Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

There's a slider that progresses as the track plays: drag it.

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

No idea. I'm not sure what you mean by "taking notes tied …". You'd
have to elaborate what you want to physically do (in terms of clicks, keystrokes etc), and what you want the end result to be: file(s) etc, containing what?

Cheers,
David.

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious. Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.

You might want to take a look at VLC. Lots of docs:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=vlc+documentation&ia=web

And this 80+ year old ex audio engineer with failing hearing appreciates VLC's compressor and graphic equalizer.


--
Glenn English
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On 12/10/24 10:53 AM, David Wright wrote:

On Tue 10 Dec 2024 at 05:54:24 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious.
Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.

I use the traditional winamp interface, which takes up less space

I'll investigate "winamp" in the morning.

on the screen. Generally, I use ordinary keys to control it.
In addition, ^Q quits, ^R toggles Time Remaining, ^D toggles
a larger rendition when needed, and ^P opens Settings.

Space toggles pause/resume
c ditto
x starts/restarts track
v stops track
a begins/ends/cancels a loop
r toggles repeat button
s toggles random button
← → skip 5 seconds (configurable)

dfijlopy and a few control keys open various dialog boxes,
but I don't use it at that level: I just press Return on
the filename in mc and a window pops up and plays.

Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

There's a slider that progresses as the track plays: drag it.

That allows rather coarse movement. I was thinking in terms of going to
an exact time in the file.

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

No idea. I'm not sure what you mean by "taking notes tied …". You'd
have to elaborate what you want to physically do (in terms of clicks, keystrokes etc), and what you want the end result to be: file(s) etc, containing what?

It was more of a "I wonder if..." question than a specific "How do I.."

Cheers,
David.

Thanks

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On 12/10/24 11:30 AM, ghe2001 wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious.
Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.

You might want to take a look at VLC. Lots of docs:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=vlc+documentation&ia=web

I did an install and a quick test run.
I noticed that cntrl-t allows going to exact time in file. I like.
Browsing the menus was intriguing.
Will spend time reading in the morning.
Thanks

And this 80+ year old ex audio engineer with failing hearing appreciates VLC's compressor and graphic equalizer.

--
Glenn English

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On Tue 10 Dec 2024 at 18:56:02 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

On 12/10/24 10:53 AM, David Wright wrote:

On Tue 10 Dec 2024 at 05:54:24 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

There's a slider that progresses as the track plays: drag it.

That allows rather coarse movement. I was thinking in terms of going
to an exact time in the file.

The resolution appears to be one second, which is considerably
more precise than x minutes.

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation? What should I be reading?

No idea. I'm not sure what you mean by "taking notes tied …". You'd
have to elaborate what you want to physically do (in terms of clicks, keystrokes etc), and what you want the end result to be: file(s) etc, containing what?

It was more of a "I wonder if..." question than a specific "How do I.."

Then searches may be more productive than reading at this stage.
After all, reading what?

Cheers,
David.

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On 12/10/24 10:33 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 9:22 AM Richard Owlett <[email protected]> wrote:

[SNIP... ]

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.
Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

<https://github.com/orgs/audacious-media-player/discussions>.

Thanks for trying. I just don't grok using web based fora.
I subscribe to mailing lists and USENET groups.
Does that group have something analogous to index at https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/ ?

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On 12/10/24 7:01 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:

On 12/10/24 11:30 AM, ghe2001 wrote:

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Hash: SHA256

I'm using Debian 12.8 with MATE 1.26.0
I date back to days of Z80 systems using CPM.
Never had need for audio.

Now have lectures I want to listen to and was referred to audacious.
Install and initial trial went well.
Its man-page - terse!

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.

You might want to take a look at VLC. Lots of docs:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=vlc+documentation&ia=web

A large collection of information by VLC implementors and users.
Suggested starting point would be:
https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Documentation/
and/or
https://vlc-user-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
[ both over use menu pictures when explanatory text would be better ]

I did an install and a quick test run.
I noticed that cntrl-t allows going to exact time in file. I like.
Browsing the menus was intriguing.
Will spend time reading in the morning.
Thanks

For context, as far as media is concerned, I went from CPM-80 to Debian
in a single step [the little media contact was occasionally using
browser to play short clips min a web page].

I've spent time exploring links about Audacious, VLC, posts on user
experiences with media in general.
[ One post described a user with a lecture in mp3 format to slide show
synced with the audio. This could be useful for a current project.]

I need a newbie oriented intro to media players in general and VLC in particular.

A particular problem is terminology which have specialized meaning in
media context - for example:

title
chapter
bookmark
subtitles
Sub track

I have decided to focus on VLC.
Suggestions/comments?
TIA

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On Tue, 2024-12-10 at 05:54 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

Depending on what you mean by "notes", there are tools to edit
subtitles (e.g. 'gaupol') or lyrics for media files, or to transcribe
audio recording (e.g. 'transcriber'), which allow you to link (short)
texts to a time offset/period.

But you probably mean more something like a tool to write (longer?)
notes that include links to certain fragments of the audio instead?


--
Jan Claeys

(please don't CC me when replying to the list)

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On 12/13/24 9:41 AM, Jan Claeys wrote:

On Tue, 2024-12-10 at 05:54 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

Depending on what you mean by "notes", there are tools to edit
subtitles (e.g. 'gaupol') or lyrics for media files, or to transcribe
audio recording (e.g. 'transcriber'), which allow you to link (short)
texts to a time offset/period.

But you probably mean more something like a tool to write (longer?)
notes that include links to certain fragments of the audio instead?

I tried to express my current thoughts in a new sub-thread at
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/12/msg00538.html
and also asked to be pointed to definitions of terms with special
connotations when used in a media context.

One post in a general discussion on media described syncing a slide show
to an existing mp3 of a lecture. That started me thinking of some how
inserting flags in a mp3 file that might send a URL of a text file to a
browser [ text files are smaller than visual images of that content ].

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Thanks for the feedback.
That project is currently inactive as it it is tax prep time.
I'll try your suggestions when I get a break.

On 3/12/25 8:53 AM, Greg wrote:

On 2024-12-10, Richard Owlett <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm looking for documentation for optimal use of the GUI.
My initial problems revolved around pause/resume.
Those raised the question "How do I go to point x minutes into a file?"

mpv --start=00:12:34 video.mp4

Then I started speculating about taking notes tied to specific times.
Can audacious do that? Is there a media player with that orientation?
What should I be reading?

I think you can *bookmark* timestamps in VLC (Playback > Custom Bookmarks).

The only real note-taking thing I found in my ramblings is mpv-notes for emacs, which allows you to take notes with timestamps that are clickable
to jump back to a specific moment in the video. Sounds delectable if you aren't a vim user.

TIA

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