Cmdref

Voyager CDLink (VCD) Control Language Reference For Voyager CDLink version 1.0b1 subject to continual revision; last modified 8 August 1995 General: The Voyager CDLink software is designed to play Voyager CDLink control files (VCDs). A VCD is a text file containing commands like play, pause, delay, or loop, followed often by track or time figure(s). The vocabulary and grammar of VCDs comprises the VCD control language, developed by Voyager for CDLink. This document describes the VCD control language, and is annotated with HTML links to examples. A CDLink Web page is simply one that contains links to VCDs. Working with VCDs You can open and study the VCDs linked to this document in any text editor, edit them to suit your purposes, and create your own CDLink application within minutes, be it a Web page, a folder full of custom mixes for your figure-skating routines, or part of a more elaborate media project. While a third-party authoring tool for Mac OS is available, and Voyager is currently developing CDLog, a cross-platform VCD authoring tool, no special tools are needed to get started, and many may prefer to make VCDs "by hand" in any case, especially until the concepts become clear. Sound intimidating? Web pages for the first 25 CDs enhanced with CDLink were prepared in just a few days by a handful of liberal-arts graduates using only text editors (BBEdit, SimpleText) and the AppleCD Audio Player desk accessory. NotePad and Media Player are common Windows equivalents of these Mac OS tools. A VCD should be named with the extension ".vcd". This identifies the file properly to Windows computers and to Web servers. In the Mac OS, VCDs must have the creator attribute "VGCD" in order to be double-click testable (otherwise, you can just drag-and-drop a plain text file onto CDLink Kernel). Several excellent shareware utilities are available for setting Mac OS file attributes. BBEdit can even save files directly with the VGCD (CDLink Kernel) creator attribute, allowing you to test VCDs while their windows remain open for editing. Because BBEdit is also a powerful HTML formatting tool, we recommend it highly. Easiest of all is to use an existing VCD (downloaded from this page) as a template--drag a VCD onto any text editor and edit away, while double-clicking the file to test as you go! You can use a word processor to make and edit VCDs, but if you do, remember to save the files as plain (ascii) text--not the default format. Serving VCDs on the Web Web servers must be updated to map VCDs' new MIME type of application/x-cdlink to the .vcd extension before they can serve CDLink files properly. Do this by having your server's system administrator edit the mime.types file in the CONF subdirectory of the browser daemon directory. Add the following line to the file: application/x-cdlink vcd The server may need to be restarted to register the change. The VCD Control Language This section uses the following notation: CAPITALIZED WORDS - A command o…