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Topic: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners? (Read 2500 times) previous topic - next topic
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Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Hi guys,

I've installed Foobar. All I can manage to do is to play a song from my external drive by clicking on File, etc.
First question. How on earth do I create a playlist?
If there's any tutorials out there for absolute computer-illiterate beginners like me I'd appreciate knowing where they are.
If there aren't any, with your help, I'd like to try to create some.
By the way, this is the way you give instructions to real beginners like me:
     Click on _______
     Click on _______
     Type ABCDEFG in the XYZ box.
     Press the ENTER key.
If you assume ANY knowledge on the part of the reader, start talking computereze or you leave out a single step, you lose us.

Thanks,
Steve

Re: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Reply #1 –
You already have a playlist at the start, it's the default one, but it may not be obvious because it's a single tab. You can make more with File > New Playlist, or double-click an empty spot next to the tabs, or right-click the tabs and select Add New Playlist. Adding items to a playlist can be done with File > Add Files, or File > Add Folder, or you can drag & drop from Explorer. I don't know about you, but I never double-click music files from Explorer. I guess it's just a habit.

And then you just double-click on the first item in the list, and listen to yer music.

When you exit foobar, any playlist tabs you had will be remembered, and everything will still be there when you start it again.

You can also have Foobar manage your music library for you, but I prefer having all my stuff in a single massive playlist, and I often create smaller lists by copypasting items from that big one.

Those are pretty much the basics. There's a lot more you can do with foobar, including a bunch of components, but it doesn't sound like you're ready for that yet. ;)
So explore! Click on things! Fuck things up. Listen to music.

Re: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Reply #2 –
I'd suggest that any advice should be given based on Foobar's default layout (as it is when first installed), or we'll complicate matters.

Re: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Reply #3 –
Yeah totally.

Re: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Reply #4 –
Have you got all your music files in the windows default music folders, i.e C:\Users\Public\Music and C:\Users\'Hostname'\Music?  Foobar will automatically 'add' those locations to your library. If you have a big music collection on a different drive or a NAS you will need to add that music to Foobar's library.

Click the 'Library' tab and then 'Configure' then Add...  (and select your stored music location)

That took a while for me to figure out when I first started using Foobar, but then I gradually got up and running, so I hope it helps the OP.

Re: Any tutorials for Foobar for absolute computer-illiterate beginners?

Reply #5 –
The default install looks like this, from Wikipedia:



Quote from: spinnakersteve on
How on earth do I create a playlist?

You can do that in several ways, including each of the following:
  • Ctrl-n
  • Right-click on the area to the right of "Default", and choose "Add new playlist".
  • Drag or more files/folders into the area mentioned in the previous bullet point
Once you have a library viewer, then there will be an option to select and send to new playlist too.

You should at some stage decide what behaviour you prefer. If you are annoyed with playlist contents disappearing, then in Preferences (Ctrl-p or under the File menu), select Shell Integration and Set "Enqueue" as the default action and/or Always send new files to playlist will change the behaviour. Not the first thing you will change, but possibly the third.