Archos Gmini200 4.1.3 Using Playlists, 4.1.4 What is an .m3u le?

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4.1.3 Using Playlists

A Playlist is a list of songs that the Gmini will automatically play one after the other. The

Gmini can handle one Playlist at a time. You can create new Playlists, add or delete

songs from a Playlist, or Save a Playlist as a ﬁ le (ﬁ le type .m3u) to be used another time.

There is no limit to the number of Playlists you can save on the Gmini hard drive.

Creating a new Playlist

To create a Playlist, press the RIGHT button while you are in the

Music browser. A second panel is opened on the right side to

display the Playlist contents (shown empty in the picture). You

can now start adding songs to the current Playlist. In the left

window, search for the songs you would like to add to your

Playlist. Once the song is highlighted, click on the OK/PLAY

button to add it to the Playlist. The song will be added to the

Playlist and a small mark is placed next to the music note icon

to indicate that it is now in the Playlist. Continue searching and

adding songs in this manner until you are satisﬁ ed. You can jump

back and forth anytime between the two windows by clicking the

LEFT/RIGHT buttons. A Playlist can have a maximum of 1000 songs

in it. We recommend that you save your Playlists to the Gmini hard

drive (see below) to be used again later. You can also add all the

music ﬁ les of a complete folder in one operation by highlighting

the desired folder, pressing MENU to display the contextual menu, and then selecting

either ADD TO PLAYLIST or INSERT TO PLAYLIST. Watch which window you are in since the

left window menu has different options than the right window menu.

Loading a Playlist

You can load a previously saved Playlist or add the ﬁ les it

contains to the current Playlist. Use the music browser to select

the Playlist of your choice (Playlists are indicated by a special list

icon) and then press OK. If there were already some items in the

Gmini Playlist, then the songs of the loaded Playlist will be added

to the end of it. You can then check or modify the Playlist as

usual in the Playlist window.

Playing a Playlist

There are two ways to play a Playlist.

1) Press the RIGHT key to go into the Playlist edition window. Then use the UP and DOWN

keys to select which song you want to start with.

2) In the Playlist window press MENU to display the contextual menu and select START

PLAYLIST. The Gmini starts playing from the ﬁ rst track of the playlist.

Playlist contextual menu description

• Start Playlist: starts playing the ﬁ rst track of the playlist.

• Save Playlist: saves the current Playlist onto the hard drive

so that it can be reloaded later. It will be saved into the

directory which is open in the left window. You should

navigate in the left window to your Playlist folder before

saving.

• Rename Playlist: changes the name of the current Playlist

with the virtual keyboard.

• Shufﬂ e Playlist: randomly changes the order of the items in

the current Playlist .

• Clear Playlist: remove all tracks from the current Playlist.

• Move Track: changes the position of the current track

within the Playlist. The current track is then displayed with a

double arrow icon. Use the UP and DOWN keys to move the

selected track and press OK to validate the new position.

• Delete Track: removes the highlighted track from the

playlist.

Important: Once you save a Playlist it is important that you do not move the actual MP3 ﬁ les as the Playlist

searches in the original ﬁ le location. If you need to move your MP3 ﬁ les to a different folder, you’ll have to recreate

your Playlists.

4.1.4 What is an .m3u ﬁ le?

You can open a Playlist ﬁ le (Playlistname.m3u) on

your computer with a text editor such as Notepad

or SimpleText (Macintosh®), and you will see that it is

merely a list of ﬁ les to be played along with the hard

disk path to ﬁ nd them. If you delete a Playlist from

your Gmini, you are only deleting the list and not the

music itself. Because a Playlist includes the path to

the music ﬁ le (as shown in the example Playlist ﬁ le above), you have to remember that if

you change the location of a music ﬁ le, then the path to it in the Playlist will be incorrect,

and the Gmini will not play the song (because it can’t ﬁ nd it). Thus it is important to create

a clean directory structure and not change where your ﬁ les are located. Either that or just

delete your Playlist and create a new one.

Example of the contents of the .m3u Playlist

ﬁ le ‘Jazz Music’

Using the Gmini 200