You WILL need to make a few customizations to suit your system. So open your local_conf.py with an editor, and have a look what you might want to change. The file is well commented, and for most things there are examples.

Most people will change at least the following variables:

• VIDEO_ITEMS : Directories where your movies are

• AUDIO_ITEMS : Directories where your audio files are

• IMAGE_ITEMS : Directories where your images are

Directories that do not start with a / are relative to the directory that Freevo was started from. Note that you cannot use tilde (~) expansion in filenames.

Also check the mplayer section to specify the audio device and special parameter for mplayer.

Main menu

If you do not want to use some parts of freevo, you can easily remove them from the main menu:

plugin.remove('tv')
plugin.remove('audio')
plugin.remove('video')
plugin.remove('image')

Volume control

In local_conf.py you can give Freevo several default volume level for the different media.

If you press VOL+ and VOL- the volume level is changed by 5%. You can change this step size easily by putting the following stuff in your local_conf.py.

EVENTS['global']['VOL+'] = Event('MIXER_VOLUP', arg=2) 
EVENTS['global']['VOL-'] = Event('MIXER_VOLDOWN', arg=2) 

where the value you give as 'arg' is the step size. See KeyMaps for more info.

Skins

Freevo has many different skins. To choose a different skin press the DISPLAY key in the main menu. Just select the skin you like best. But be aware that there may be features which are not implemented in all skins. If you like to invent your own skin, you should have a look at: Skins.

Configuring folders

When you press ENTER while a directory is highlighted a submenu will open. Among other options there is a menu entry for configuring the directory. Choosing that entry gives you a menu, where you can change the behaviour of this directory. Freevo will create a file folder.fxd ( see FXDFiles) in that directory to save your settings. If this file is missing freevo will use the default values. Things that you can change are for example:

• the way entries in the directory are sorted
• or the skin layout
• or if freevo should regard the directory as a playlist
• etc...

Appearance

Moreover you can specify an image to display in the folder's parent menu by adding an image to the folder called cover.jpg or cover.png. The size of the image depends on the current type of the menu. For movies you have something like DVD covers or movie poster, for audio a cd cover. So the image will be resized to 280x200 for movies, 200x200 for audio and 200x160 for images. These sizes will also be used for the directory images. You can change the sizes by changing the XML file (see FXDFiles for more info).

Protection

Individual folders can be password protected by adding a text file named ".password" (note the leading dot). This file should contain the access password, in plain text, not encrypted in any way. Obviously, this is a fairly weak access mechanism if a user has local access to the machine, but it works fairly well in informal home environments.

A remote control input can be used to type in the password. That is why a strictly numeric password is suggested.