<sect1 id="howto-properties">
<title>File properties</title>

<para>Starting from &kplayer; 0.5 each file and <acronym>URL</acronym> has its
own set of properties. They include information that &kplayer; found out about
the file, like time length, video size, frame rate, bitrates, and so on, as well
as various options you can set, like name, video aspect, subtitles, and many
more.</para>

<para>Most properties can be set through the <link linkend="properties">File
Properties dialog</link>. The <guilabel>Properties</guilabel> dialog for the
currently loaded file or <acronym>URL</acronym> can be opened from the
<link linkend="menu-file"><guimenu>File</guimenu></link> menu, or using the
<guibutton>Properties</guibutton> button on the
<link linkend="toolbar-main">main toolbar</link>, or from the <link
linkend="popup-main">right click popup menu</link>. You can also open the
<guilabel>Properties</guilabel> dialog for an entry on your playlist by
<mousebutton>right</mousebutton> clicking it in the
<link linkend="parts-playlist-editor">Playlist Editor</link> and selecting
<guimenuitem>Properties</guimenuitem>, or by using the
<guimenuitem>Properties</guimenuitem> command on the
<link linkend="menu-playlist"><guimenu>Playlist</guimenu>
menu</link>.</para>

<para>An easier way to set file properties is by holding the &Shift; key
when changing a setting. For example, if you hold &Shift; and select
<guimenuitem>Soft Frame Dropping</guimenuitem> from the
<guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu, &kplayer; will remember that setting for
the current <acronym>URL</acronym>, and use it the next time you play it.
After it is done playing the current <acronym>URL</acronym>, it will revert
the <guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel> setting to the default, the one that
was in effect before you changed it with &Shift;. On the other hand, if you
change the <guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel> setting without holding &Shift;,
the new setting will become the default, and will be used for all
<acronym>URL</acronym>s that do not have it set explicitly.</para>

<para>Volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation are handled in a
special way when it comes to file properties. Instead of remembering the
exact setting when you hold &Shift;, &kplayer; will remember the setting
relatively to the default.</para>

<para>For example, if you have a file that was recorded louder than your
other files, when playing that file you can hold &Shift; and adjust the
volume level to be the same as for other files. &kplayer; will remember
this as something like <quote>lower the volume by 10 units when playing
this file</quote>. If later you for example have a party and need to play
your files louder than usual, you turn the volume up (without holding &Shift;),
so all files play louder, then when the turn of that one file comes, &kplayer;
will lower the volume by 10 units while playing it, so it again has the same
volume level as the other files, and then turn the volume 10 units up when
it moves to the next file.</para>

<para>Another example, you find a video that is dark and so needs to be
played with higher brightness than other videos. So you hold the &Shift;
key and drag the brightness slider up. &kplayer; remembers the higher
brightness for this file, and then goes back to playing at normal brightness
when you play another file. Suppose you did that at night, and next time you
play the videos during daylight, so you want to play all of them at higher
brightness. Then you drag the brightness slider up, this time without holding
&Shift;, so the setting is made the default and applied to all videos that do
not have a brightness property set. When the turn of the dark video comes,
&kplayer; sees that it needs to be played at an even higher brightness and
turns it further up, but only for the duration of that one video, and then
restores it back to the default you set.</para>

<para>Choosing the <guimenuitem>Full Screen</guimenuitem> command or clicking
the <guibutton>Maximize</guibutton> or <guibutton>Restore</guibutton> button
in the <link linkend="parts-title-bar">title bar</link> while holding &Shift;
will set the <guilabel>Full screen</guilabel> property. Choosing an aspect
command with &Shift; will set the <guilabel>Display size</guilabel> property
to <guilabel>set aspect</guilabel> and the aspect you choose, and also will
set the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> property. A zooming command on
the <guimenu>View</guimenu> menu when chosen with &Shift; will set the
<guilabel>Display size</guilabel> property to <guilabel>set size</guilabel>
and the fixed size, and so will resizing the window if you press &Shift;
before you begin resizing the window.</para>

<para>This special function of the &Shift; key can be turned off on the
<link linkend="settings-controls">Controls page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>.</para>

<para>There are two special cases when you can also hold &Shift; to modify
&kplayer; behavior. First, you can hold &Shift; when opening a file or
<acronym>URL</acronym> or dropping files onto &kplayer; window. &kplayer;
will then load the first file (if told to do so on the
<link linkend="settings-playlist">Playlist page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>) but will not start playing it. You can then open its
<guilabel>File Properties</guilabel> and make your choices before starting
to play it. This trick will not work when launching files from &konqueror;
or somesuch.</para>

<para>Second, if you hold &Shift; when choosing the
<guimenuitem>Play</guimenuitem> command from the <guimenu>Player</guimenu>
menu or clicking the <guibutton>Play</guibutton> button, &kplayer; will
first stop the helper process that it runs once for each file to try and
figure out the time length of the file. This is needed rarely if ever, only
when the helper process causes any problems.</para>

<para>&kplayer; will remember properties for every file or
<acronym>URL</acronym> that it opens, even those that are removed from the
playlist, until the total number reaches the limit set on the
<link linkend="settings-playlist">Playlist page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel> under <guilabel>Cache size limit</guilabel>, by default
1000. After that it will start discarding the oldest entries. Playing an entry
makes it the most recent entry in the cache. If you have very many files, you
can set the <guilabel>Cache size limit</guilabel> higher, but as some point
it may start affecting performance.</para>

<para>Following are the available file properties, listed by pages in the
<link linkend="properties">File Properties</link> dialog.</para>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-general">
<title><link linkend="properties-general">General</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Path or URL</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The file system path to the file or the <acronym>URL</acronym>
of the file or stream. This property is read only. To use a different path or
<acronym>URL</acronym>, open it with <guimenuitem>Open</guimenuitem> or
<guimenuitem>Open URL</guimenuitem> on the <guimenu>File</guimenu> menu, or by
dragging and dropping it onto &kplayer; window, or starting &kplayer; with
<acronym>URL</acronym> argument(s), for example by launching files from
&konqueror; File Manager or clicking a link in &konqueror; Web
Browser.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Name</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This is the name that &kplayer; will display for this file or
<acronym>URL</acronym> in the playlist and also in the
<link linkend="parts-title-bar">title bar</link> when the file is loaded. It
will also be shown and can be changed on the <guilabel>Meta Info</guilabel> tab
of the <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel> dialog in &konqueror;. Modifying it
will not change the actual file system name of the
file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Playlist</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>&mplayer; currently is not smart enough to automatically detect
and play a playlist file like <literal>pls</literal> or <literal>m3u</literal>,
so &kplayer; has to explicitly tell it to parse a file as a playlist. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting lets &kplayer; use the file extension to guess
if it is a playlist file. The playlist extensions &kplayer; recognizes are
<literal>ram</literal>, <literal>rpm</literal>, <literal>smi</literal>,
<literal>smil</literal>, <literal>asx</literal>, <literal>m3u</literal>,
<literal>pls</literal> and <literal>strm</literal>. If a file that is not a
playlist has one of these extensions, or a playlist file has a different
extension, you will need to correctly set this property in order to be able to
play the file or stream.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Length</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The time length of the file. &kplayer; tries to detect it with
precision of one tenth of a second, and usually gets it pretty close to the
real length. This property is read only.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Original size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The original video size, empty for audio only files. This is
also read only, but see the next property.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Display size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the initial video size &kplayer; will use
when it starts playing the file, unless you turned off the option to
<guilabel>Resize main window automatically</guilabel> on the
<link linkend="settings-general">General page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will use the
<guilabel>Minimum initial video width</guilabel> option from the
<link linkend="settings-general">General page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. The <guilabel>set size</guilabel> setting will use the
fixed initial size you specify. The <guilabel>set aspect</guilabel> setting
will again use the <guilabel>Minimum initial video width</guilabel> option,
but will apply the fixed initial aspect you
specify.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Full screen</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Normally you would leave this at the <guilabel>default</guilabel>
setting, which will keep the full screen or maximized state of the previous
file. The <guilabel>normal</guilabel> setting will force normal windowed mode
for this file, the <guilabel>full screen</guilabel> setting will force full
screen mode unless it is an audio only file, and the
<guilabel>maximized</guilabel> setting will force maximized window
mode.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> option
specifically for this file. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting will keep
the <guilabel>Maintain aspect</guilabel> option you choose
globally.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-video">
<title><link linkend="properties-video">Video</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Contrast</guilabel>,
<guilabel>Brightness</guilabel>, <guilabel>Hue</guilabel>
and <guilabel>Saturation</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option uses the same setting
as for other files. The <guilabel>set to</guilabel> option sets the specified
initial contrast, brightness, hue or saturation when loading the file.
The <guilabel>add</guilabel> and <guilabel>substract</guilabel> options adjust
the contrast, brightness, hue or saturation relative to the normal setting. See
the <link linkend="howto-properties">introduction section</link> of this HOWTO
for more details and some examples of how this
works.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Codec</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Specifies the video codec to use when playing this file. Right
below this option you can choose whether &mplayer; will fall back on other
codecs if the one you choose fails. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting
will use the codec chosen on the <link linkend="settings-video">Video
page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel>, normally
<guilabel>auto</guilabel>. The <guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting will tell
&mplayer; to choose the codec it thinks is the best for playing this
file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Bitrate</guilabel> and
<guilabel>Framerate</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The video bitrate and framerate of the file. These properties
are read only. For variable bitrate files the bitrate property will show the
initial bitrate.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-audio">
<title><link linkend="properties-audio">Audio</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Volume</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option uses the same sound
volume as for other files. The <guilabel>set to</guilabel> option sets the
specified initial volume when loading the file. The <guilabel>add</guilabel>
and <guilabel>substract</guilabel> options will adjust the volume relative
to the normal volume level. See the
<link linkend="howto-properties">introduction section</link> of this HOWTO
for more details and some examples of how this
works.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Delay</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Delay of the sound relative to video. By default this property
is remembered automatically when you use <guimenuitem>Increase
Delay</guimenuitem> and <guimenuitem>Decrease Delay</guimenuitem> commands
from the <link linkend="submenu-audio"><guisubmenu>Audio</guisubmenu>
submenu</link> of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting always resets audio delay to zero when a
file is loaded.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Codec</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This specifies the audio codec to use when playing this file.
Right below this option you can choose whether &mplayer; will fall back on other
codecs if the one you choose fails. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting
will use the codec chosen on the
<link linkend="settings-audio">Audio page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, normally <guilabel>auto</guilabel>. The
<guilabel>auto</guilabel> setting will tell &mplayer; to choose the codec it
thinks is the best for playing this file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Bitrate</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The audio bitrate of the file. This property is read only.
For variable bitrate files this will show the initial
bitrate.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-subtitles">
<title><link linkend="properties-subtitles">Subtitle</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Autoload</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Tells &kplayer; whether to try to autoload subtitles for this
file. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting uses the
<guilabel>Autoload</guilabel> options from the
<link linkend="settings-subtitles">Subtitles page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. Setting this to <guilabel>no</guilabel> allows you to enter
the path or <acronym>URL</acronym> of the subtitles you want to use in the next
field. This property is only available for local files, for all other
<acronym>URL</acronym>s it is set to
<guilabel>no</guilabel>.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Path or URL</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>The subtitles to be used for this file. By default this property
is set automatically when you use <guimenuitem>Load Subtitles</guimenuitem>,
<guimenuitem>Load Subtitle URL</guimenuitem> or <guimenuitem>Unload
Subtitles</guimenuitem> commands from the <guimenu>File</guimenu>
menu.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Visibility</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Subtitle visibility. The <guilabel>default</guilabel>
setting always shows subtitles when a file with subtitles is
loaded.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Position</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Vertical subtitle position, 0 being at the top of the video
area, and 100 at the bottom. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting simply
keeps the last used position.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Delay</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Delay of the subtitles relative to video. By default this
property is remembered automatically when you use <guimenuitem>Increase
Delay</guimenuitem> and <guimenuitem>Decrease Delay</guimenuitem> commands
from the <link linkend="submenu-subtitles"><guisubmenu>Subtitles</guisubmenu>
submenu</link> of the <guimenu>Player</guimenu> menu. The
<guilabel>default</guilabel> setting always resets subtitle delay to zero when
a file with subtitles is loaded.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-properties-advanced">
<title><link linkend="properties-advanced">Advanced</link> properties</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Additional command line arguments</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Lets you specify additional arguments to be passed to &mplayer;.
You can either <guilabel>append</guilabel> the arguments to the ones given on the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel> or override them. The <guilabel>default</guilabel> option
uses the arguments given in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Frame drop</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>If your system is too slow to play the file properly, you can
tell &mplayer; to drop some frames. The <guilabel>soft</guilabel> setting drops
less frames than the <guilabel>hard</guilabel> one, so you should try it first.
The <guilabel>default</guilabel> setting uses the <guilabel>Frame
drop</guilabel> option from the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>. You can also change this option while playing a file using
commands on the <link linkend="menu-player"><guimenu>Player</guimenu>
menu</link>. If you hold &Shift; when choosing them, &kplayer; by default will
remember the property for the current file.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Cache size</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Here you can set the cache size &mplayer; should use for this
file. See the <guilabel>Cache size</guilabel> sections in
<link linkend="howto-settings">Advanced configuration micro-HOWTO</link>,
<link linkend="howto-slaves">&kde; <acronym>I/O</acronym> Slaves
micro-HOWTO</link> and <link linkend="howto-streams">Online Radio and TV
micro-HOWTO</link> for details.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Build index</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This property allows you to choose whether &mplayer; should
build a new index always (<guilabel>force</guilabel>), never
(<guilabel>no</guilabel>) or only if the file does not have it
(<guilabel>yes</guilabel>).</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Use KIOSlave</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Some <acronym>URL</acronym> types, like
<acronym>HTTP</acronym>, <acronym>FTP</acronym> and Samba, can be played
either directly with &mplayer; or through a <link linkend="howto-slaves">&kde;
<acronym>I/O</acronym> Slave</link>. Generally you should set this option if
&mplayer; cannot play those <acronym>URL</acronym>s
directly.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term><guilabel>Use temporary file</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>When playing a <acronym>URL</acronym> using a &kde;
<acronym>I/O</acronym> Slave, data can either be passed to &mplayer; through
a named pipe or stored in a temporary file before playing. For
<acronym>URL</acronym>s passed directly to &mplayer; this option has no
effect.</para></listitem></varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect2>

</sect1>