This is a Readme file for Hotkeys Plus, a Winamp Media Player general purpose plug-in. It's been tested to be working well under all the versions of Winamp, beginning from v 2.x, and up to its present, v 5.x one (save for the infamous v3.x of the program). As the name suggests, it supports hotkeys assignment to control playing of the music within the Winamp application, but also has many additional useful features. Click here to read the full User's Guide on this software component. The Download link is found at the end of this page.
The plug-in's hotkeys code is based largely on the original sources of the gen_hotkey plug-in by Vassili Bourdo, Minsk, Belarus, written in 1999; unfortunately, the online whereabouts of this plug-in (or the author's) could not be traced down anymore, by this time (beginning of 2008).
The 'standard' (present both in the original and the new versions of the plugin) features of the plugin include hotkeys assignment for the following:
1. All the basic playback commands for Winamp: Start/Stop, Pause/Resume, Next/Previous, Next random/Previous random, Forward/Rewind, Volume Up/Down, Toggle Equalizer. Also, virtually any right-button-activated menu command of Winamp can be hot-keyed by the plugin, - this significantly extends the basic range of actions supported, compared to the majority of traditional Winamp hotkey plug-ins.
2. Some newly-implemented actions: "Kill current file", "Smooth return from pause" (drives the sound volume smoothly up, when the playback is resumed).
Here's the list of changes and additions done by me within the hotkeys part of the plugin (the full description of the new and old features can be found in the Hotkeys Plus User's Guide file supplied with this plug-in):
- the plugin now brings forward those relevant windows opened by a hotkey action (previously, they would be opened, but remained obscured by whatever active application window at the moment);
- now just about any keyboard button can be assigned as a hotkey; previously, the plugin would only let those with a 'known' name to be used. This means support for the most of 'special' keys found on modern multi-media keyboards;
- various new hotkey actions added:
1. "Show this config", to call up the Hotkeys Plus' configure dialog window itself;
2. "Volume Mute/Unmute";
3. Bookmarks calling: "Bookmarks Next" / "Bookmarks Prev" / "Bookmarks Base" hotkey assignment allows to activate bookmarks from the Winamp's bookmarks file;
4. "Show track title": to show the current played song title on the screen, with a variety of enhancements;
5. "Show folder" - will launch Windows File Explorer with the currently played mp3 folder loaded in it (for a quick file maintenance work, for example);
6. "Kill current folder" - a new action, in addition to the existed before "Kill current file";
7. "Restart Winamp" command;
8. "Online Info" - will display various types of info about the currently played track, album and performer, as well as it will try to locate lyrics for the current song and the cover art images for the currently played album into the Winamp's Minibrowser window. Each of such info pieces will become available as a result of a search string submitted by the plugin to one of many predefined sites (music database sources on the Web). Requires prior installing of the separate (but quite small) Rake Search package available from the same source as Hotkeys Plus.
- and old ones removed:
1. "Volume preset 1-4": seemed not very useful to me, and taking way too much dialog space;
2. Combinations of the mouse wheel and Shift/Control/Alt/Win buttons for various playback and playlist control actions: couldn't get any of them to work, nor I found them to be very useful, comparing with the main mouse wheel function, smooth volume up/down (which still works just fine).
New useful features, not hotkey-activated, but rather working as switchable options.
1. Another significant part of Hotkeys Plus that was 'borrowed' from someone else, is the Resumer option (activated via checking of the "Enable Resumer" box in the plugin's interface), originally created as a Winamp plugin by Eddie Mansu which is still available (including the sources) here. Again, the original code was significantly simplified and enhanced, at the same time, by me.
2. "Enable Title auto-popup" - an automatic version of the above "Show Track Title" hotkey option.
3. "Enable Playlist trimming" will fill the Winamp's playlist window with a more compact title information than the host program usually does, basically of the same (enhanced) type that the titling options above.
4. "Keep Webcast alive" will try to prevent a webcast station from 'stalling' and even randomize picking of the bookmarked webcast stations.
5. Finally, the experimental "Xtreme Buffer" option. It was implemented to enhance the input buffering functionality in Winamp (which was somehow crippled in the latest versions of the program) and to allow for a better interrupt-protected playback, when mp3 music is being 'streamed' from a website or from a remote shared volume over a high-bandwidth connection like a cable or ADSL.
Unzip the downloaded zip file and copy the included gen_hotkeysplus.dll into the Winamp's plug-ins directory (normally, C:\Program Files\winamp\plugins).
Please read this before downloading: the Hotkeys Plus plug-in is a freeware software. You are being granted the right to use it on as-is basis: no warranty of any kind is implied, no support provided either. Although it has been tested successfully by the developer for a number of years since it was created, this software's faultless or crash-free behaviour is not guaranteed; use it at your own risk. Any kind of further copying or distributing of this product should be performed only with our explicit permission. If interested in obtaining of the source code of the plug-in, send your inquiries to info@syberiansolutions.com.
Have fun with Hotkeys Plus!
Valery Kritchallo,
the plug-in's developer.
Click here to download the Hotkeys Plus plug-in package (a 144 KB zip file).
Send you comments to:
info@syberiansolutions.com
Delft, October 2002
last revised: February 2008