File menu and main toolbar
The main menu contains the same items as the main toolbar and as such you can have either, none or both visible, depending on your needs. You can change the visibility of the toolbars on the context menu on the toolbar (right mouse click). If all toolbars are closed you can get the toolbars visible again by pressing the windows menu shortcut F10.
The main toolbar gives access to the library functionalities, i.e. you can create, rename or open different libraries (databases). And you can add, delete, delete all, and verify the open library. In options you can also set up to 9 preset library links and it also gives access to the visible main controls, i.e. the view you are in, and the visibility of the player, the playlist/tageditor and the banner player. And last but not least it gives you access to a free format searchbox (search on any album field in format *text*).
Libraries
Soundbase allows as many different libraries as you want, so you can create a library for your newly bought online albums, or your old cds, or add them based on more sophisticated schemes, your classic rock collection, your pop, etc.. Soundbase adds albums based on a value called albumindex. This value is created based on two values, the albumname and the (album)artistname. This default albumindex is not directory dependent and it will show any song with the same albumname and artist as one album, even if they are distributed over several directories. For instance if you have your multi disc albums stored in different directories per disc it will still show this as one album. How ever, what would happen if you have a various artist album, which didnot have the albumartist tag set is, that it would spread over multiple entries showing each artist as one song albums. Therefore, Soundbase checks also if an albumname (not the index) is in the same directory, and if it is in the same directory then it will use the albumname and directory as the index. There have been many discussions on this in the forum, so if you have a problem grasping the essence of this then please visit the forum.
Views
Soundbase has four different views you can use: 1. album view, 2. database view, 3 folder view, and last the player view. Personally we like the album view, but sometimes, if you are searching for a song it is easier to do this in the database view, or if you want to quickly go to a song that is not in your library you want to use the folder view to browse to the song. For more info see the Views and visible controls help topic. The last view is the player view, this allows you to just see the playing album, nothing else. The view can be sized as a full screen media center view, or as small as a mini -always on top- player with just the player buttons visible.
Search
The searchbox is a free format search that searches depending on the view you are in. In the albumview it searches all of the fields in the album library, i.e. it searches on artist, album, genre, etc. but not on individual song titles. In the database and folder view it searches on the visible songs, and any of the corresponding columns. To quickly search songs we recommend you use the filter functionality in the database view that gives you full access to more complex search options then one box can give. For more info see the search and filter help topic.