3.6. Options for file loading

You may specify filenames on the command line. These may be ordinary soundfiles playable by Aqualung, directories, or playlist files you saved earlier. The program will decide if a file is a playlist, and add its contents accordingly. In addition to Aqualung's native (XML) playlist format, the program will load M3U and PLS playlists whenever possible.

If you used the --session option (see above), the files will be sent to the Aqualung instance you specified. Otherwise a new instance will start up with the files you specified. Note that if you enabled the Save and restore the Playlist on exit/startup option in the Settings dialog, the files you specify will be loaded after the automatically loaded ones.

-E, --enqueue

Enqueue added files to the Playlist instead of loading them (which removes the previous contents of the Playlist). Use this if you want to keep the existing items in the Playlist.

-t[<name>], --tab[=<name>]

Specify target tab for file loading (either remotely using the --session option, or at startup). If --tab is used without the name parameter, the files will be added to a new (untitled) tab. If a name is supplied, Aqualung will check whether a tab with that name already exists. If so, the files will be loaded (or enqueued if you used -E) to that tab. If no such tab exists, one with that name will be created, and the content goes there.

3.6.1. Setting up programs to use Aqualung as a soundfile handler

It is possible to set up a host program such as a browser, file manager etc. to use Aqualung for opening soundfiles. To do this, a command line with the following properties should be used:

• if an Aqualung instance is already running, send the file(s) to that instance;
• if no instance is running, start up a new instance;
• either case, start playing the file(s) immediately after loading them.

One solution to this is to use

aqualung -N0 -E -L -t'File Manager' %s

where %s is one or more filenames. It should be noted that the file associations (the mechanism of knowing which files to open via Aqualung) is completely within the scope of the host program.