[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] thx1200:
File Feature Matrix

Audio File = The type of media file, such as MP3 and OGG.
Embedded Tags = Also known as "ID3" tags from the MP3 tag definition. This contains information like Artist, Album, Title, Track Number, etc.
Playback Attributes = This is information usually only known when open for playback, such as track length (in time).

Audio File Embedded Tags Playback Attributes
MP3 Yes No
Ogg Yes Coming Soon
Flac Yes Coming Soon
WMA Yes Coming Soon
WAV No No

Playlist File = The type of playlist file, such as M3U or AVPL
Files = Locations of files
URLs = URLs to internet media
Multiple URLs = URLs to internet media linked together as a single online radio station
Wildcards = Locations that point to folders or multiple files in one line
Recursive = Playlists that point to other playlists
Queries = Queries against the Avian Play database

Playlist File Files URLs Multiple URLs Wildcards Recursive Queries
AVPL Yes Yes Yes No No Coming Soon
M3U Yes Yes No No No No
PLS Yes Yes No No No No

Configuration

Avian Play's configuration is completely stored in INI files under the "INI" folder under the installation folder. In the future, you will be able to configure nearly everything from within the application, but these early versions are missing some configuration capabilities without manual editing.

Settings.INI

This is the main configuration file. Most of these settings are configurable from within Avian Play, but there are a few that are not. First, you can't edit the Avian Play database path. This is intentional because it's a bit advanced to move that around. But if you want to move the database file, you can do so and then edit the DatabasePath option under General. Second, the TagsFromPathRegEx option describes the regular expression used to derive tag information from the path. This is RegEx Pattern for Tags from Path in the application. Although you can edit it from within AvianPlay, it probably isn't optimal, since you might want to tweak the pattern from your PC where you can use an editor with RegEx capabilities.

Controls.INI

This file describes the control surface layout for the three control surfaces (Music, Podcasts, and Radio). It's a bit cryptic because it's designed to be configured and ready by the app, but the control surface editor is not yet ready. :-) So if you want to change the control surfaces, you have to edit this file for now. The file starts under the [Main] section. Here there are the three control surfaces (0=music, 1=podcast, 2=radio). The C#L (Control Surface Length) tells Avian Play how much scenes are in each control surface. Minimum is 1. Then there are various sections, in the format of CXSY, where X=surface and Y=scene. So, C0S1 is the music surface and second scene (count starts at 0). Under that, you will see "SL" (Scene Length) which tells Avian Play how many rows the scene has (starting at bottom, going up). There is also R#L (Row Length) which tells Avian Play how many controls per row (1-4). Then you have RXBY, where X=row number (from bottom) and Y=Button (from left). Note that a button is any type fo control in Avian Play parlance, including track slider. The list of controls can be found at the bottom of this post. This is just the initial list and will grow as new features are added.

Events.INI

Avian Play uses events to allow you to execute commands based on occurances. The events currently supported are: OnApplicationStart, OnApplicationEnd, OnPhoneInUseStart, OnPhoneInUseEnd, and then keyboard/SIP events, which are Key_XX, where "XX" is the hex code of the key being pressed. ActiveOnList is a boolean that determines whether the action happens when a list (library, now playing, etc.) is active. Basically, some commands you don't want to work when the list is active. An example is that Avian Play allows lists to be filtered simply by typing. But if you remap "K" to play/stop, you can never use "K" to filter a list. So you would set ActiveOnList to false, in that case. AllowRepeat indicates whether a keypress can be repeated by holding it down. Action# are the steps of the script. The script itself is a super simple crappy thing I made up on the spot. If somebody knows of a script language I can easily include to replace this, that would be awesome. It has to be able to be plugged in easily and should be managed code.

Library.INI

This file defines the Avian Play Library's query results. Execution starts at the MAIN section, then jumps to the next sections based on user input. Most of the options describe the query used to retrieve data from the database. But there are other ways to populate a library list. For example, by using an external plugin. If you want to develop an external plugin, see the MemorizedSong plugin source code. I can't reveal the code for the ShoutCast plugin due to licensing restrictions with ShoutCast. You can also create a section that populates the list directly from a AVPL playlist file.

Podcasts.INI

Avian Play can manage podcast subscriptions and this is where you define your subscriptions. Again, this was designed to be edited by the application, so it's not exactly friendly, but it works well in my tests. Under Main section you set the next index to use to distinguish the subscriptions in the database. Under each SubscriptionX section, you use "Index" to differentiate each entry. Note that the title of the section does NOT differentiate the subscriptions. This is intentional. The rest of the sections are described in the file itself.

RegEx.INI

Online streams present information to the user, such as artist and title, in a single string. Avian Play allows you to use regular expressions to derive this pseudo-tag information to format it on the display easier. Many online radio stations seem to like to include superflous garbage surrounding the title information you care about. With RegEx, it's easy to exclude this crap! A few stations I listen to are included in the default file. Each entry has a "Station" tag which is the actual title of the station (partial or full -- use "ExactMatch" to set this). If multiple matches occur, use Priority to determine which one has precedence (higher number overrides lower number). Then the "RegEx" line is the actual regular expression used to derive title information. Named captures <A> represents Artist and <T> represents Title. The "Default" section is just what it sounds like: the default regular expression used to parse the stations. It follows the format "Artist - Title" which seems to be most common.

Schema.INI

This is used by the settings editor to know the layout of the Settings.INI file. DO NOT EDIT THIS.

State.INI

This file is overwritten every time you exit Avian Play. It stores the last track and some other UI information. DO NOT EDIT THIS.

Control Codes

These are the control codes used in the Controls.INI and Events.INI. Each code corresponds to a logical control (play, pause, stop, next, etc.). Some codes have an argument, which is another integer. Some codes also represent "multi" buttons, where the button may change based on the playback state; An example would be the StartPauseStop button which changes what it does based on whether playback has started or not.

NONE = 0 ' Do nothing
Stop = 1
Play = 2
Pause = 3
PreviousRewind = 5
NextForward = 6
SkipBack = 7 ' Argument, number of seconds
SkipAhead = 8 ' Argument, number of seconds
MemorizeSong = 9
OpenAudioFile = 10
OpenPlaylistFile = 11
JumpToEntry = 12 ' Argument: which playlist entry in the current list? 1..n
OpenURL = 13
VolToggle = 16 ' Argument, number of volume 'segments' (plus 1); Positive value increments; Negative value decrements. Example: 4 cycles through 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, in that order
Close = 29 ' Close the currently open file or stream

ListUp = 201 ' Move up in the current list
ListDown = 202 ' Move Down in the current list
ListSelect = 203 ' Select the item on the list
ScenePrevious = 207 ' Go to previous scene in the collection
SceneNext = 208 ' Go to next scene in the collection

StopPlayPause = 401 ' Depending on playback state, stop, play, or pause
SelectStopPlayPause = 402 ' If in a list, select the list item, otherwise same as StopPlayPause

TrackPositionSlider = 601 ' The slider you can drag to jump around a loaded item