Frequently asked questions

Can I use other scrobblers like the official last.fm client together with AWAAS?

How can I access all those AWAAS scripts?

How do I use the last.fm radio player?

How can I tag my local files with last.fm tags?

What is a smart view and how do I use it with AWAAS?

How can I scrobble tracks if I don't use the media library?

How can I scrobble tracks from my ipod or other portable player?

Are there any keyboard shortcuts in AWAAS?

Why does Winamp freeze for a few seconds at the beginning of a song?

Can Firefox (or any browser other than Internet Explorer) be used for the dialogs?

How can I get help or report a bug?

Answers

How do I install AWAAS?

Just run the installer (ActiveWinAmpAudioScrobbler_X.exe). AWAAS installs like any other Winamp plugin.

Can I use other scrobblers like the official last.fm client together with AWAAS?

Before you use AWAAS with Winamp, you should uninstall or disable any other scrobbler that wants to scrobble tracks from your Winamp. (After all you would like AWAAS to take over from there...) For example if you have the official last.fm client installed you must uninstall the Winamp plugin. Only the plugin has to be uninstalled though, you can still use the radio player feature of it, if you want. You can find the unistall program of the Winamp plugin here:
X:\Docs
and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Last.fm\Client\UninstWA

It is no problem to have other music players than Winamp that get scrobbled by other programs. AWAAS won't interfere there.

How can I access all those AWAAS scripts?

Go to the Winamp playlist and click the right mouse button, then in the menu select the scripts subfolder:

access scripts menu from winamp playlist

Depending on what you want to do - like tagging your files - you might want to select a few files from the playlist before doing the right click.

How do I use the last.fm radio player?

Call the "AWAAS - lastfm radio player" script from the scripts menu of the Winamp playlist
A tune in dialog will appear where you can enter the station that you want to listen to.
Once you hit "tune in" Winamp will start playing and a window will pop up with information about the current and the next song.
You can forward to the next song in Winamp (only!).
Pausing or stopping the playback will remove the radio tracks from the playlist and stop the AWAAS radio player.
Tagging of items played through the radio player can only be done by clicking the tag icons in the now playing window or using the keyboard shortcuts while that window is on top (t for track, a for artist, and l for album).

How can I tag my local files with last.fm tags?

To add or edit last.fm tags of your tracks, artist, or album directly from Winamp select one or multiple tracks in the playlist window and right click to get to Scripts -> "AWAAS - tag selected track(s)", "AWAAS - tag selected artist", or "AWAAS - tag selected album". (These last 2 will only let you select one track and take the artist or the album thereof.)
If you select one track at a time you will get popular tags for this track and the tags you have set so far will be filled in already. This is the really convenient way of tagging your tracks.
If you select multiple tracks from the playlist window you can only add the same tags to all of these tracks. Please use caution when tagging many tracks as this will set many tags for many tracks...

Which tracks are scrobbled?

In the settings dialog you can type in a Winamp "smart view". All tracks contained within this smart view will be scrobbled when they are played - and if they have at least artist and title information.

What is a smart view and how do I use it with AWAAS?

There seems to be some confusion about what a Winamp "smart view" is. Let me try to explain what it is and how you can set it up. However, before I do that, I have to stress that you can only use them if you have Winamp fully installed including the "media library" and the "local media" part.

You can find the smart views in the winamp media library on the left pane under Local Media. They are nothing but a selection of your mp3 in your media library. They use a query with certain criteria like filename, genre, artist etc., to the media library that you can edit by right clicking on them and choose edit view. You can also create new ones there. I find this a nice way of "organizing" and viewing my tracks without really changing anything.

Now, with respect to AWAAS, smart view refers to exactly what I've described. Actually, AWAAS uses the smart view, that you choose by typing its name into the AWAAS configuration dialog, and scrobbles only songs which show up in this smart view.

The default setting is "Audio". I chose to do this because a smart view with this name exists by default after installation of Winamp and the user doesn't have to do anything. In general, you can leave it this way.

Here is an example of a case where you might want to change the smart view:
If you have many audiobooks or other audio files that are not music, you might not want to scrobble those when you listen to them. So you can create a smart view in the media library that excludes those audiobooks and other files and which only includes music.

How do I configure AWAAS?

When you first run Winamp after installing AWAAS a configuration dialog will pop up and you will be asked for your last.fm account details etc.

Afterwards, if you want to change some settings, go to the scripts menu in the Winamp playlist and select the "AWAAS - settings" script. This will call the configuration dialog. You'll have to restart Winamp for some settings to become effective.

How can I scrobble tracks if I don't use the media library?

If you don't use the media library too much and you aren't sure if your songs that you want to scrobble are in the library already, you can simply go to preferences --> media library --> local media --> watch folders and enable "automatically add played files".

If the media library is not even installed you will only be able to use the radio player feature of AWAAS. Those tracks played on the radio will be scrobbled. Scrobbling your own songs as well as tagging local files requires the media library. Without the media library you will have to enter "none" in the smart view field of the configuration dialog.

How can I scrobble tracks from my ipod or other portable player?

For scrobbling plays from your portable media players it is essential that you have a plugin for synchronizing them with Winamp (AWAAS does not do that). That plugin must also synchronize the "played last" time with the Winamp media library because this is where the AWAAS gets its information from.
For iPods I would recommend ml_ipod and not the ipod plugin that comes with the more recent versions of Winamp (pmp_ipod). That built-in iPod plugin does not synchronize the play times. However, if you use ml_ipod then you have to make sure not to enable the last.fm support of ml_ipod. (Sorry, this is getting complicated...) That one is the old style audioscrobbler and it would result in double submissions and therefore spam triggering at last.fm.
The usual last.fm submission rules apply. So if you want to scrobble tracks from your portable media player you should not play any tracks in Winamp before the portable player synced with the media library.

Are there any keyboard shortcuts in AWAAS?

Yes, ActiveWinamp supports global hotkeys, so you can assign hotkeys to all AWAAS scripts as you like:
Go to the Winamp preferences --> General Preferences --> Global Hotkeys. There you can assign a custom hotkey or key combination to all scripts. (You find the radio player for instance under Script: playlist_AWAAS - lastfm radio player.vbs.)

Furthermore, in the tune-in dialog of the radio player there are a some access keys:

station / field	Alt +
my radio	m
my neighbourhood	n
my recommendations	r
my loved tracks	l
global tag	g
user tag (field for user name)	t
user playlist	p
user personal radio	u
similar artist radio	a

While listening to last.fm radio and when the Internet Explorer window with the current track information is on top you can call the AWAAS tagger by simply pushing a, l, or t to tag the current artist, album, or track, respectively.

Why does Winamp freeze for a few seconds at the beginning of a song?

In older versions of AWAAS, if your library is very big, the now playing notification that is sent to last.fm might "freeze" Winamp for a few seconds. This issue has been resolved in version 0.53.

Can Firefox (or any browser other than Internet Explorer) be used for the dialogs?

Unfortunately, there is just no way to make Firefox scriptable as an ActiveX component. Therefore there's no way to make AWAAS use Firefox for the dialogs. The IE toolbars etc. are hidden, so the IE window should just look like a dialog anyways.

However, when you click on any link in the now playing info window (the Internet Explorer window that pops up when you use the AWAAS radio player) those links are opened in the Windows standard browser. So if you set Firefox as your standard browser then the last.fm pages will also be opened in Firefox. The same applies to Opera, etc.

How can I get help or report a bug?

Please contact me with any problem. Make use of the forums for help and suggestions. If you are sure you have found a bug, report it at the sourceforge project page.

How do I uninstall AWAAS?

Call the "AWAAS - show files" script from the scripts menu of the Winamp playlist to locate the uninstaller. Run the "uninstall.exe".