What you see as "xine" really consists of two major parts:
* xine-lib or libxine is the so called engine, it contains all of xine's core
  functionality like retrieving media from the various input sources supported,
  video and audio decoding, synchronized playback and post processing.
  This part of xine is only a mere accumulation of functionality, programmers
  call this a library. End users cannot use this directly, since there is no
  interface to interact with xine-lib.
* The second part is the so called frontend. This wraps a user interface around
  xine-lib, making it usable for everyone.

The benefit of this division is that you can choose between a variety of
different frontends. The one you are using now is known as "xine-ui". Some
interesting features of xine-ui are briefly noted below:


The menu
--------

All key functions of xine can be accessed through the main xine-ui menu which
you get by right-clicking in either the video window or the panel.
Most of the entries should be self explaining.


MRL browser
-----------

xine's way of describing the media to play are MRLs. You can read more about
this interesting concept in the MRLs section. Due to their power, an ordinary
file selection dialog is not enough to tell xine, what stream to play. The
MRL browser therefore not only allows you to browse through your files, it also
lets you select other types of media input, which offer their own choice of
possible streams to play. You can open the MRL browser with the related icon in
your favourite skin or by selecting Open->Location from the menu.

An ordinary file dialog is available as well, you can get it at Open->File in
the menu.


Playlists
---------

xine-ui also handles playlists, of course. The playlist editor, located at
Playlist->Editor or represented by a button in your current skin, allows you to
load, save and edit playlists. The mediamark editor allows you to edit the
current playlist entry in detail and attach further playback options, like a
separate subtitle file. By default, the mediamark editor can be opened by
pressing Ctrl-e.


Autoscan buttons
----------------

You find the autoscan buttons within the xine panel or in the playlist editor.
They are a shortcut to create a playlist for a certain, well-known media source
and, with the default settings, also starts to play it. For example, pressing
the autoscan button labeled "DVD" will do, what the name suggests: It starts
playing the DVD in your drive by creating a playlist best suited for this job.


Post effects
------------

xine also offers a growing set of post processing effects you can apply to your
video. From the menu, open Video->Postprocess->Chain reaction to open the Chain
reaction window, where you can create a stack of post effects to be applied to
the video. Choose from the drop down box to select a post filter and select and
modify the available options to tweak it to your liking. Click on "New filter"
to add another effect to the chain.


Media menu navigation
---------------------

Some types of media are interactive, the most common example today being DVDs,
where you can choose all sorts of options from sometimes quite elaborate menus.
xine offers multiple means to navigate within such interactive content.
* First, you can directly click with your mouse on items in the video window.
* Second, you can use the so called event sender panel, which you can open from
  the menu under Menus->Naviagation.
* Third, you can use the menu entries under Menus to jump directly to various
  submenus of your interactive medium. This will only have an effect, if the
  source you play offers the designated menu.
* And last but not least, you can use the keyboard. By default, the arrow keys
  on the numeric keypad will let you move the menu highlight and Enter will
  select the highlighted button.
  Some other interesting features are also available via the numeric keypad:
  (The keys listed are those of the default key mapping.)
  PgUp and PgDown will let you jump back and forth between chapters.
  Home and End will select the angle to play in multiangle features.