README - KJ Audio Player
------------------------

KJ is a simple MP3 player written purely in the programming language, Java.  
Why Java? Well it is the programming language I currently work with, and know
very well. So, it was a breeze to write a quick and clean application in no time
flat. I had no more than a month and a half to design and write this player
to be used at my wedding reception.

The story behind this player goes like this:

I got married September 4th, 2004 and before any marriage there is at least
a year of wedding preparations. My wife, put me on music duty, and the quest
for some kind of DJ began.

Hiring a professional DJ at 500$ for the night was simply out of the question,
so at first we asked around, and my wife's sister knew a guy who was in a band
and we though we'd have a live band! And for only half the price of a DJ!

As the wedding day got closer and closer, the band idea seemed less and less 
likely. So, with only 3 months left before the wedding, we got our hands on
a 200 disc, disc changer. So we burned a good 30 discs to use in disc changer,
and we were all set! 

Well, after the first test run with the disc changer, the panic started to set
in as there was a 15 second delay between tracks for the disc changer to select
the next CD. Doah! 

I tell my wife, "We'll just bring the PC to the reception, and use Winamp!" She
was not to comfortable with bringing our only PC to the reception for fear it
would be damaged somehow. I managed to convince her, since with just under 2 
months left to go before the big day, the music problem still was not solved.

Okay! So, most of my music is already converted into MP3 format, fire up Winamp
(version 5.0 at the time) and start preparing a playlist. Everything was going 
well and I even turned on the crossfader between tracks to make it sound more
professional. The trick with Winamp is that you can only have ONE generic 
crossfading setting for the entire playlist. While some songs crossfaded well
with one another, most did not. So me and my wife spent a few evening, ordering
songs in a way to make them sound half decent.

It was just too much work, there had to be a better way to do this. There was also
the problem of organizing the dinner music, dance music, and other individual groups
of music for the different events during the night, plus requests from the guests. 
It is POSSIBLE to do this in Winamp, just not in a usable way. Winamp is just not
designed for a live performance.

Not satified with what Winamp provided, I decide to do a little research for an MP3 
decoding library, convinced I could write a simple player to suit my needs.
Well the guys at: http://www.javazoom.net/ had put together just that; an MP3 
decoding library in Java, that performed fairly well. After a couple of days of 
testing, tweaking, and clean up of this decoding library I was convinced I could
write a professional sounding player before the wedding day.

I started writing it on the second last week of July and finshed on September 2nd, 
a day before the wedding. The release version is not much different than what I
used at the wedding.

Anyway, if you are getting married anytime soon, I hope this software can help you
out!

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------

The player is coded in Java, so you need a fairly performant computer to run it
without skips and cutting. 

- 1.0 ghz or better.
- 256mb RAM
- ~15mb of hard drive space (includes Java 5.0 RE)

To ensure no skipping or cutting, only run KJ and nothing else during showtime. ;)

HOW TO RUN THE PLAYER
---------------------

The player is written in the Java programming language and therefore needs a
Java Runtime Environment (or JRE) to work. This player needs:

- Java Runtime Environment 5.0 or better. 

Earlier JRE's (ie: 1.3 and 1.4) may work but have not been tested.

A JRE can be downloaded at: http://java.sun.com 

To run the player once the JRE is installed:

- Make sure a JAVA_HOME environment variable is defined for the path to your 
  java home folder. (ie: c:\jre50)

- Run the KJ.bat provided with the player.

 OR

- Modify the KJ.bat provided with the player and replace the %JAVA_HOME% variable
  with the path to your JRE.

COMMENTS, SUPPORT AND BUGS 
-----------------------------
Send comments, support requests and report bugs to: sirk_sytes@hotmail.com

See the HISTORY.txt for what has changed in the latest version.

SPECIAL THANKS
--------------
Thanks to N.Masse for helping to develop, test, use this software to DJ my wedding.