1.1 Overview

1.2 System requirements

1.3 Installation

1.4 Configuration

1.5 User management

BrowseAmp is a plug-in for the most used music player for windows:

Winamp
created by Nullsoft

With BrowseAmp you can access Winamp over any TCP/IP based network (like the internet) and control almost every Winamp feature with a standard webbrowser like IE or Firefox.

No more standing up and searching the music server in your house. You can now do that from every workstation or wireless device like your pda or PSP connected to the server.

• Install Winamp and BrowseAmp.
• Run Winamp.
• Open up your webbrowser
• enter as location: http://localhost
• now you should see the BrowseAmp webinterface
• read the section below about BrowseAmp configuration

Here's a BrowseAmp sample screen (eXtended skin).

You need:

• a computer
• of course a soundcard
• Windows XP/2000 (older versions suck much!)
• Winamp 5.5+ music player (www.winamp.com/download) FREE!!
• and of course the BrowseAmp plug-in...

Versions before Winamp 5.5 (down to Winamp 2.9x) do also work but not all BrowseAmp features are supported.

Winamp 3 is NOT supported!!

BrowseAmp comes with a guided installer. Just download and start BrowseAmpGT3.exe and follow the installation instructions.

BrowseAmpGT3.exe

BrowseAmp uses only some ini files in the installation folder. No messing up the registry.

The uninstaller can be found in %WINAMPDIR%\plugins\browseamp folder and is called uninstall.exe. Just start the uninstaller and all BrowseAmp stuff including skins will be removed from your computer. There will be absolutely nothing left of BrowseAmp on your system.

uninstall.exe

Please visit the BrowseAmp forum on the BrowseAmp website or see the FAQ.

Right-Click somewhere in the main window. Select Options -> Preferences as shown in the image below. You may press Ctrl+P for short access.

In the Winamp Preferences window choose Plug—ins —> General Purpose —> BrowseAmp GT3 and click Configure selected plug-in.

Now you should see the main configuration window...

...here: It is divided with several tabs and should be self explaining. Anyway I'll give a short introduction to all options. Let's start with the server setup...

webserver
shows the current server status and the port on which BrowseAmp is running. Before you can edit the options in this category you have to stop the server. The globe is grayed out if the server is not running, has a wall in front of it if the server is can only accessed from localhost or has a red tag when an arror occured.
These are all states of the globe:

webserver port: the port that is used to connect to the server. If you use something different than 80 you need to add that number to the url in the webbrowser (http://localhost:8080)

Bind to localhost hides the server from every other computer in the network. You can only access the webinterface from the local machine. Useful if you don't like open ports.

info
Shows a short summary of what you need to do to see the web interface. A link is generated from your IP with the current port. Just click the link and your default webbrowser will show up with the BrowseAmp webinterface - easy!

write access log to file
Does exactly what it says. Check the enable logging option and all remote requests will be written to the given file. If you click the view logfile link your default text editor with the logfile will show up. The two buttons near the file field can be used to change the logfile or even delete it.
If you select overwrite logfile on BrowseAmp restart the logfile will be deleted when you start BrowseAmp. This helps to save disk space if you are not interested in old logs.
The log what checkbox area defines what data is written to the logfile. I hope I don't need to explain every single of them...

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

we continue with general setup.

winamp enhancements
remove played songs: songs you have completely heard are removed from the playlist.

add random track if playlist is empty (keep-playlist-alive): BrowseAmp adds tracks on it's own from the root folder if playlist length is below 2. If the folder contains less than 2 files keep-playlist-alive uses ALL subdirectories to add a random file! Playlists are ignored.

add random track on track change: BrowseAmp adds a random tracks whenever a track has finished playing.

file caching
BrowseAmp reads and indexes your media files to increase search speed. While caching is in progress, you will see a continuously increasing number followed by 'working...'. When caching is finished, the overall number of files remains.
You can choose the chaching inverval by changing the number of seconds in the editfield.
Clicking refresh now starts the indexing process immeadiately.

preserve cache on exit: the current cache is stored in a file (cache.dat) in the BrowseAmp directory on exit and reloaded on startup. This saves you CPU-load and time.

clear album art cache on exit: If you use album art from ID3-Tags, BrowseAmp stores these files in a cache directory (%WINAMPDIR%\plugins\browseamp\cache) once they are retrieved from the mp3-file. This saves some time since you may want to reload the images very often. This setting makes BrowseAmp to delete this folder on exit. Saves you disk space.

BrowseAmp config window
config window always on top makes - as you may have guessed - the BrowseAmp config window stay on top. If it's always on top the window caption says XXX (always on top). See image above.

suppress message if port is already in use does exactly what it looks like. It prevents a dialog box from showing up to tell you that the selected port (e.g. 80) is already in use.

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

we continue with the music folder tab.

root folder
This is your home folder for remote browsing your music. Choose any folder after pressing the folder-button on the right. After entering a path manually press the confirm input button.
The enable browsing above start folder option allows you to browse every folder of the current drive.
The display other drives option allows you to browse other drives including network drives or whaterver. You can also browse drives A: and B: (floppy disks) if you check the show also drives A: and B: if available. Available means a disk must be inserted.
Use full pathname makes browseamp use the full path including drive letter to address files and directories absolute. The advantage is that you can use the back/forward buttons of your browser for navigation and use additional folder and - most important - the media library support. It is checked by default.

additional folder
If you have your media files spread all over your system and/or network you can plug them into you root folder by adding them as an additional folder. The Seamless Integration Management (SIM) shows every file and every directory in every add-on folder as if it was right in your root folder. Browsing subdirs in an add-on folder is now as easy as browsing subdirs in your root folder.
Note: check use full pathname to enable additional folders.

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

we continue with the skins tab.

webskins
Nothing difficult here. Just select a skin you prefer. Check the allow skin selection via browser option if you want to change the skin online.

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

the security tab

misc
allow src= outside home folder allows you to refer to files outside the home folder with the src= command. ATTENTION: Use at your own risk! Every file on your drives can be read if you check that option.
allow remote shutdown/restart/standby lets you execute these commands over web.
allow Winamp locking lets you execute the lock command.
allow file upoload (I won't explain that...) Note that this option has no effect if user management is enabled.

user management
enable usermanagement if you want to define different privileges for different users. Everyone has to enter username and password when accessing BrowseAmp over web.

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

IP address management
enable ip address management if you like to. But make sure to add at least your local address (127.0.0.1) to access the web frontend. You may add a specific IP address(127.0.0.1) or an address range (192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.255). The IPs are stored in the iplist.ini in the %WINAMPDIR%\plugins\BrowseAmp directory.

All changes take effect immediately and are saved (INI-file) when Winamp is closed and are reloaded on Winamp startup.

The User management window is also divided with tabs to make access easy for you. We start with the common elements.

To allow a user to access BrowseAmp over web you just need to create an accout with an individual login and a password.

creating a new user
Enter a login, a passwort in the details box and press the create button. After that you should see a new entry in the listbox on the left.

deleting a user
select a user in the listbox on the left. You should now see the loginname in the details field. Press the delete button. You will be asked if you really want to delete that user. Press 'yes' to delete.

editing a user
Whenever you change a user detail it is required to press the save button to commit the changes. Don't forget that or you will loose all your changes.

clone setup
This button copies the current settings shown in the tabs to every user in the list. You will be asked after you press this button but be careful.

close the window / return to config window
To return to the config window just press the close button.

Ok, let's talk about the tabs...

Here is the access tab.

grant access from / to
Enter a time from/until which you want to allow the user access BrowseAmp. 12h and 24h time format is supported.
For example: 2:00:00 PM or 22:30:00
Don't forget to check the days when the user is allowed to access BrowseAmp. When a day is not checked, the user has no access to BrowseAmp on that day.

We come to the privileges tab.

privileges
Choose privileges of the selected user.
add files: user is allowed to add files to the playlist.
change playing state: user is allowed to press play/pause, etc. and to change the current song.
download files: well...
remove his files: user is allowed to remove files from the playlist he added before
remove all files: user is allowed to remove all files
exec admin commands: thinks like shutdown, close winamp etc...
may add...: I hope this helps preventing playlist spamming by some users.

about browsing...

MP3 Browser
This is the home folder of the selected user for remote browsing his MP3s. Choose any folder after pressing the folder-button on the right. You may not enter a path directly.

The enable browsing above start folder option allows the user to browse every folder of the current drive.

The display other drives option allows the user to browse other drives including network drives or whaterver.

the file upload tab...

Check allow file upload if you want to allow the user to upload files. After checking this option you can specify the upload options.

upload mode
unlimited does what it says. No restrictions at all. You will see the total upload amount in KB.
max filesize limits an upload to the given size (in KB)
daily limit means the upload usage is resetted every 24 hours.
account limit is never resetted. When it is expired the user may not upload any files.

last but not least the skin tab...

skin
Assign a skin to the selected user.

Check the allow skin selection via browser option if you want to allow users to change their skin online.