
Preliminarily manual for X-CD-Roast 0.98alpha14
-----------------------------------------------

*** Please see the file "FAQ" for further information. ***

There should also be a online manual at:

	http://www.xcdroast.org/manual 


This file only states some very basic usage of X-CD-Roast. 

I put a lot of effort in making this release "fool-proof".
After you installed and started X-CD-Roast (see README)
you are prompted to enter the setup-menu.

All buttons and controls provide tooltip (bubble) help, when you
rest the mousepointer more than 2 seconds above it. This should
help you in most cases. Options greyed out are currently not
implemented. These will come in future snapshots. 

Please see the FAQ how to setup your devices. You are strongly 
encouraged to install scsi-emulation (on linux) because the direct
ATAPI support of the linux 2.4.x kernels causes a lot of problems.
 
In setup you have to specify at least one image-directory.
Pick all directories you want to store images in and put them 
in the image-partition-list in the HD-Setup. You can only 
add exactly one directory on each physical partition on your drive.
(This makes it easier to calculate the available disk space.)

When you have more than one image-directory you can tell X-CD-Roast
to add all the space in them to store much more data as possible with
only one directory. X-CD-Roast will distribute all read tracks 
automatically to the available directory in case it would run out
of space otherwise. However, it won't break up big images - so a
600 MB image cannot stored when you have 400 MB free in one directory and
500 MB free in the other. You will get a "disk full"-warning when you try
to start to read the track. On the other hand an audio-disk with 10 tracks
needing about 70 MB disk space each can stored easily. The first 5 tracks 
would fit it the first directory and the other 5 in the second. 

Sounds complicated, but it actually very easy and quite a nice feature.

You may now wonder how you know where the track have been stored. 
The answer is simple - you dont have to know. X-CD-Roast keeps track
of that. For each CD read, X-CD-Roast will create a .toc-file 
(Table-Of-Contents) which has stored which tracks belong to which CD and
where exactly all fitting tracks are saved.

So when you want to burn your CD you just have to pick the .toc-file and
X-CD-Roast handles the details.   

When you delete the tracks after writing you simply can double-click
on the .toc-file and all the tracks belonging to that CD will be automatically
selected. Therefore its easy to keep track even when you stored lots of
CDs in your image-directories. You have always only exactly one file
to watch: The .toc-file.


One more thing: You can double-click on any of the devices in the
device-scan-screen in setup to get a detailed output of the device
properties. (Gives for a MMC-writer a real informative output).

New in alpha3 is that you can read selected tracks from your CDs and
reorder them in any way you want before you burn them. 

Alpha4 does only contains several bugfixes, dynamic resize of the
menues when a bigger font is used and a rework of the language handling
to make translations easier.

In the alpha5 I included the master option. You can now create your own
data CDs. You can add as many directories to the image as you want. 
Use the "redirect" feature to place the directories on selected paths
on the CD. See the mkisofs-manpage under "graft pointers". 
Its also now possible to create an image "on-the-fly", so you don't need
any free space on your hard drive. Just be sure to have a fast enough
computer to avoid buffer-underruns. 
All this is very experimental and hardly tested at all!

Alpha6 was a maintainance release. No real new features, but tons of
fixed details. Its a lot stabler than the alpha5.

Alpha7 adds the non-root-mode. You are now able to start X-CD-Roast as
every user, provided root installed it correctly and gave you permissions.
Also some bug-fixes - should now really be quite robust.

Alpha8 is a security update - alpha7 has some problems with the permissions.
There are also a handful bugfixes and improvements.

Alpha9 comes with a completely reworked non-root-mode and requires
cdrecord-1.10 as cdwriting engine. There are tons of bugs fixed and 
some changes to the master menues.

Alpha10 introduces multisession and writing of CD-Text along with a lot
interface improvements.

Alpha11 introduces building with autoconf/automake and translations with
gettext. Updated to use features from the current cdrtools and a lot
of user requests implemented.

Alpha12 is a mainly a bugfix release with also some new experimental 
features. Most the ProDVD handling has improved and there is support
for the Linux kernel 2.4.x ATA interface. (No scsi-emulation required)

Alpha13 is a bugfix release. Alpha12 had introduced some serious problems
with the multisession code. 

Alpha14 introduced a lot of new features and usage improvements.
Better support for DVDs, more devices, startup optimizations, full
drag&drop, remote-scsi and a lot more.
 
Ok...this is all you need to know to copy or create your CDs. 
Please be sure to check the "README" and "FAQ"-file first before mailing me
any questions. 

26.05.2003 Thomas Niederreiter <tn@xcdroast.org>

