5  The Main Menu

5.1  Introducing the Main Menu

The Main Menu 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 Main Menu, press the Home button.

All settings are stored on the unit. However, Rockbox does not access the flash storage solely for the purpose of saving settings. Instead, Rockbox will save settings when it accesses the flash storage the next time, for example when refilling the music buffer or navigating through the File Browser. Changes to settings may therefore not be saved unless the player is shut down safely (see section 3.1.2).

5.2  Navigating the Main Menu

5.3  Recent Bookmarks

If the Save 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.

Note: Bookmarking only works when tracks are launched from the file browser, and does not currently work for tracks launched via the database. In addition, they do not currently work with dynamic playlists.

There are two options in the context menu:

Resume will commence playback of the currently selected bookmark entry.

Delete will remove the currently selected bookmark entry from the list.

This entry is not shown in the Main Menu when the option is off (the default setting). See section 8.7 for more details on configuring bookmarking in Rockbox.

5.4  Files

Browse the files on your player (see section 4.1).

5.5  Database

Browse by the meta-data in your audio files (see section 4.2).

5.6  Now Playing/Resume Playback

Go to the While Playing Screen and resume if music playback is stopped or paused and there is something to resume (see section 4.3).

5.7  Settings

The Settings menu allows you 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 Sound Settings 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.

5.7.2  Playback Settings

The Playback Settings menu allows you to configure settings related to audio playback. The details of this menu are covered in section 7.

5.7.3  General Settings

The General Settings menu allows you to customise the way Rockbox looks and the way it plays music. The details of this menu are covered in section 8.

5.7.4  Theme Settings

The Theme Settings menu contains options that control the visual appearance of Rockbox. The details of this menu are covered in section 9.

5.7.5  Recording Settings

The Recording Settings menu allows you to configure settings related to recording. The details of this menu are covered in detail in section 10.

5.7.6  Manage Settings

The Manage Settings 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 13.3.

5.8  Recording

5.8.1  While Recording Screen

Selecting the Recording option in the Main Menu enters the Recording Screen, whilst pressing Long Select enters the Recording Settings (see section 10). The Recording Screen shows the time elapsed and the size of the file being recorded. A peak meter is present to allow you set gain correctly. There is also a volume setting, this will only affect the output level of the player and does not affect the recorded sound. If enabled in the peak meter settings, a counter in front of the peak meters shows the number of times the clip indicator was activated during recording. The counter is reset to zero when starting a new recording.

The frequency and channels settings are shown in the status bar.

The controls for this screen are:

5.9  FM Radio

This menu option switches to the radio screen. The FM radio has the ability to remember station frequency settings (presets). Since stations and their frequencies vary depending on location, it is possible to load these settings from a file. Such files should have the filename extension .fmr and reside in the directory /.rockbox/fmpresets (note that this directory does not exist after the initial Rockbox installation; you should create it manually). To load the settings, i.e. a set of FM stations, from a preset file, just “play” it from the file browser. Rockbox will “remember” and use it in PRESET mode until another file has been selected. Some preset files are available here: FmPresets.

It is also possible to record the FM radio while listening. To start recording, enter the FM radio settings menu with Long Select and then select Recording. At this point, you will be switched to the Recording Screen. Further information on Recording can be found in section 5.8.

Saving a preset:

Up to 64 of your favourite stations can be saved as presets. Long Select to go to the menu, then select Add preset. Enter the name (maximum number of characters is 32). Press Long Select to save.

Selecting a preset:

Select to go to the presets list. Use Volume Up and Volume Down to move the cursor and then press Select or Right to select. Use Left to leave the preset list without selecting anything.

Removing a preset:

Select to go to the presets list. Use Volume Up and Volume Down to move the cursor and then press Long Select on the preset that you wish to remove, then select Remove Preset.

Note: The radio will turn off when starting playback of an audio file.

5.10  Playlists

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 Context Menu (see section 4.1.2) or using the Playlist 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 memory.

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.

View Catalogue:

Provides a simple interface to maintain several playlists (see section 4.4).

5.11  Plugins

With this option you can load and run various plugins that have been written for Rockbox. 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 different plugins is to be found in section 12.

5.12  System

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. Memory size and amount of free space on the two data volumes, this info is given separately for internal memory (Int) and for a plugged in memory card (MSD).

Credits:

Display the list of contributors.

Running Time:

Shows the runtime of your player in hours, minutes and seconds.

Running Time:

This item shows the cumulative overall runtime of your player since you either disconnected it from charging (in Rockbox) or manually reset this item. A manual reset is done through pressing any button, followed by pressing Select or Right.

Top Time:

This item shows the cumulative overall runtime of your player since you last manually reset this item. A manual reset is done through pressing any button, followed by pressing Select or Right.

Debug (Keep Out!):

This sub menu is intended to be used only by Rockbox developers. 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.

5.13  Quick Screen

Although the Quick Screen is accessible from nearly everywhere, not just the Main Menu, it is worth mentioning here. It allows rapid access to your four favourite settings. The default settings are Shuffle (section 7), Repeat (section 7) and the Show Files (section 8.2) options, but almost all configurable options in Rockbox can be placed on this screen. To change the options, navigate through the menus to the setting you want to add and press Long Select. In the menu which appears you will be given options to place the setting on the Quick Screen.

Press Long Home to access it and Select or Home to exit. The direction buttons will modify the individual setting values as indicated by the arrow icons. Please note that the settings at opposite sides of the screen cycle through the available options in opposite directions. Therefore if you select the same setting at e.g. the top and bottom of the quickscreen, then pressing up and down will cycle through this setting in opposite directions.

5.14  Shortcuts

This menu item is a container for user defined shortcuts to files, folders or settings. With a shortcut,

• A file can be “run” (i.e. a music file played, plugin started or a .cfg loaded)
• The file browser can be opened with the cursor positioned at a specified file or folder
• A file’s or folder’s “Current Playlist” context menu item can be displayed
• A setting can be configured (any which can be added to the Quick Screen)
• A debug menu item can be displayed (useful for developers mostly)
• The current time can be spoken
• The sleep timer can be configured
• The player can be turned off

Note: Shortcuts into the database are not possible

Shortcuts are loaded from the file /.rockbox/shortcuts.txt which lists each item to be displayed. Each shortcut looks like the following:

Only “type” and “data” are required (except if type is “separator” in which case “data” is also not required).

Available types are:

file

data is the name of the file to “run”

browse

data is the file or the folder to open the file browser at

playlist menu

data is the file or the folder to open the “Current Playlist” context menu item on

setting

data is the config name of the setting you want to change (see section E for the list of the possible settings)

debug

data is the name of the debug menu item to display

separator

data is ignored; name can be used to display text, or left blank to make the list more accessible with visual gaps

time

data needs to be either “talk” to talk the time, or “sleep X” where X is the number of minutes to run the sleep timer for (0 to disable). name is required for this shortcut type.

shutdown

data is ignored; name can be used to display text

If the name/icon items are not specified, a sensible default will be used.

Note: For the “browse” type, if you want the file browser to start inside a folder, make sure the data has the trailing slash (i.e /Music/ instead of /Music). Without the trailing slash, it will cause the file browser to open with /Music selected instead.

The file shortcuts.txt can be edited with any text editor. Most items can also be added to it through their context menu item “Add to shortcuts”. A reboot is needed for manual changes to shortcuts.txt to be applied.

Shortcuts can be manually removed by selecting the one you wish to remove and pressing Long Select.