Quick Start Guide

Listening to music should be easy. In order to ease you into using amaroK we have provided a First-Run Wizard. which presents itself the first time amaroK is run. For those who wish to update their collection later on, or not to use the wizard, this Quick Start Guide is for you. It will help you have amaroK up and running in only a few minutes.

Step 1. Build your amaroK Music Collection

Building your collection is an essential step in using all of amaroK's features. Without a collection there is no music to listen to!

From the Collection Browser located on the left side of your screen, click the Configure Folders button (a wrench), located in the toolbar. (Add screenshot of tab with arrows)
Next you can choose which folders you would like to be in your collection from the Configure Collection dialog. Also, from here you have the option to Scan folders recursively, Watch folders for changes, and Import playlists that are found in the collection folders.
After selecting your folders, and checking any relevant check boxes, click the OK button.

(a screenshot showing the options selected to cover above 2 steps)

After the initial scan is complete, your collection is built and amaroK is now ready to use! You can move on to making a playlist.

Step 2. Make a Playlist

Making a playlist is as simple as drag and drop. There are various ways to do this.

Drag files or folders from konqueror into the amaroK window
Drag items from the Collection Browser onto the red playlist icon within the playlist tab (hover the dragged track over the Playlist Sidebar tab to change to that tab). To make searching for items easier, a text box is provided for filtering your collection. Just start typing in the text box, and the Tree View will change to show only the relevant results. After you are satisfied with your playlist, you can open it by double clicking on the icon beside the side of the playlists name.

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If you have your own playlists, you can add them to the Playlist Browser by clicking the Add button and choosing the Playlist... option in the toolbar. If any of your collection folders have playlists in them, and you selected Import Playlists in the collection setup, they will already be listed at the top of the Playlist Browser. Right clicking a playlist in the Playlist Browser will give you several options for loading the playlist.

(similar one screenshot to illustrate the procedure)

You can also drag files from your collection sidebar directly into the Playlist Window at the right, then select Playlist>Save Playlist As... to save as a playlist.

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Amarok's music collection is it's most powerful feature, use the Collection Browser to get maximum flexibilty and power.

Step 3. Lets Rock!!!

You can directly click the songs to play music, or right click to add songs to the play
Click on the various Sidebar Bar tabs to get information such as Lyrics, Wikipedia for artist wikipedia information or simply Context info. For details see Handbook/Using Amarok or Handbook/Advanced Features

Appendix A. Listening to Streams

In order to listen to a streaming broadcast, follow the following steps.

Click the vertical Playlist tab located on the side menubar. On the window which appears, open the red Radio Streams folder. In this folder you will see a list of internet radio stations included with amaroK by default.
To one of these stations, double click the station and a list of the different streams will appear in the main playlist browser.
Double click on the stream you would like to listen to, and it will begin to play.
If you would like to listen to a stream which does not appear on this list, simply press the add button at the top of the list in the side window, select the stream option, and then put in the name and URL of the stream into the appropriate fields. It will then appear under the streams heading.

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An example of the Radio Streams playlist