Positron User's Guide: Configuration

Now that you've got the operating system all set, and positron installed, it's time to create a positron configuration file. Login as a normal user, connect your Neuros to your computer, and mount it.

Guided Configuration

Positron includes a command to help you generate and modify the configuration file. The next few sections will guide you through a sample configuration. To begin configuration, type the following:

positron config
Positron will now ask you a series of questions that will allow it to generate a configuration file for you.

Setting the Mountpoint

Positron configuration

Please connect your Neuros to your computer and mount it.
Press return when ready.
Hopefully, you've already done this. If not, now is the time.

Where is your Neuros mounted? []
This the mountpoint you specified during installation. If you followed the example, your answer will be /mnt/neuros. Pressing enter without typing anything will automatically select the answer given in brackets. Since you don't already have a configuration file, nothing is shown in the brackets.

If your Neuros is mounted to the directory you type in, you should see the message:

Neuros found at that mountpoint.
If it is not mounted, or you type the wrong directory, you will see the message:
Warning: A Neuros does not appear to be mounted at /blah.
Would you like to try a different mountpoint? [Y/n]
Here you can type y to go back and change your answer.

Synchronizing Recordings

Once you select the mountpoint, the config script will ask you:

Positron can copy new FM and microphone recordings from your Neuros to your
computer when you synchronize with "positron sync".

Would you like to enable this feature? [Y/n]
This is a useful feature if you want the recordings you make with the Neuros to be saved to your computer's hard disk automatically during synchronization. If you select this option, you will be asked to pick a directory:
Where should recordings be copied to? []
=>
You can pick any directory, include one inside a directory you plan to make a synchronization point (see next question).

Selecting syncpoints

Positron can automatically find new music files in the directories you
specify and copy them to the Neuros during synchronization.

Would you like to configure this? [Y/n]
This question is asking if you want to select one or more directories (called "synchronization points" or "syncpoints" for short in this document) to watch for new music files. Whenever you run positron sync, positron will search all of the syncpoints, and all of their subdirectories, for files that have not been loaded onto the Neuros and copy them. This is very convenient if you want to keep a copy of your entire music collection on the Neuros. If you have a 128 MB Neuros, you probably will not want to use this feature, as it is very likely your music collection is bigger than 128 MB. You can manually add and remove files without defining syncpoints, as described in the section on adding music tracks.

If you choose to configure syncpoints, you will be taken to a menu:

Synchronized directories
------------------------
(Format: [source directory] => [subdirectory on neuros]

No synchronized directories specified!

[a]dd another synchronized directory
[r]emove a synchronized directory
[d]one configuring
Command? [a]
Since this is your first time configuring, no syncpoints are defined. The a option will let you create a new syncpoint:
Enter the directory on your computer to synchronize with.
=>
Type the name of the music folder on your computer here. (For example, I store all my music in /home/stan/music.)
Enter the subdirectory on the Neuros to copy files to.  Do not include the path
to the Neuros mountpoint. [Leave blank to use default]
=>
Files and directories inside the syncpoint you specified above will be copied into this directory on the Neuros. MUSIC is the default answer to this question.

To see how this works, consider the following scenario:

Then the file /home/stan/music/a.mp3 will be copied to
/mnt/neuros/tunes/a.mp3
when you synchronize.

Finishing

Once you have the syncpoints configred to your satisfaction, you can say that you are done configuring:

Synchronized directories
------------------------
(Format: [source directory] => [subdirectory on neuros]

1) /home/stan/music => MUSIC

[a]dd another synchronized directory
[r]emove a synchronized directory
[d]one configuring
Command? [d] d


New Configuration
-----------------

Neuros Mountpoint = /mnt/neuros
Recording Directory = /home/stan/music/recordings

Synchronized directories
------------------------
(Format: [source directory] => [subdirectory on neuros]

1) /home/stan/music => MUSIC

Write this configuration to disk? [Y/n]
If you say yes here, the configuration will be written, and you will be ready to start using positron.

Configuration File Format

You can also edit the configuration file directly. The positron config files is stored by default in ~/.positron/config. You can edit it as a normal text file. It is composed of two types of entries:

A sample configuration file is shown below.

mountpoint=/mnt/neuros
recordingdir=/home/stan/music/recordings
neuros_musicdir=MUSIC
sort_database=true

begin sync
  src=/home/stan/music
  dest=tunes
end sync

Allowed Keys

mountpoint
The directory where the Neuros is mounted.
recordingdir
The directory where recordings on the Neuros are copied to during synchronziation.
neuros_musicdir
The subdirectory on the Neuros (inside the mountpoint) where music files are copied to by default. This is used both by the add and by the sync command as the default destination. The default value for this if not specified is MUSIC.
sort_database
A boolean key that sets whether the database should be sorted after new entries are added. This affects the display of songs on the Neuros. If this value is set to false, new songs will be shown at the end of lists. Allowed values are true, yes, false, or no.
oggvorbis_support
A boolean key that sets whether positron should recognize Ogg Vorbis files as music files. Setting this to true will allow Ogg Vorbis files to be uploaded to the Neuros. Warning: If your Neuros does not have a version of the firmware which supports Ogg Vorbis files, DO NOT TURN THIS ON. This option defaults to false.
mp3_support
A boolean key that sets whether positron should recognize MP3 files as music files. Setting this to true will allow MP3s to be uploaded to the Neuros. You would normally only set this option to false if your firmware lacks MP3 support for some reason. This option defaults to true.

Blocks

sync

Zero or more sync blocks are allowed in the configuration file. The sync block defines a syncpoint. Music files are copied from the syncpoint to the specified destination directory on the Neuros. The keys that can appear inside a sync block are:

src
(Required) The directory on the computer where music files should be copied from. All subdirectories of this directory will also be searched.
dest
(Optional) The subdirectory on the Neuros (inside the mountpoint) where music files from src should be copied. If not specified, neuros_musicdir will be used by default.