ADDING AN ALBUM TO YOUR COLLECTION
Automatically adding data for the CD now in your CD-ROM drive
Put your CD in your drive and click Add CD in the green Manage Collection panel. The Edit Form will now appear, fly-over help hints are available by putting your mouse cursor over an entry's title for a second.  Here are further descriptions of the fields:
Artist:  If you have a multi-artist CD (like a sampler, compilation or tribute album) please be sure to use Various as the artist, so that the One Stop artist search feature will work properly.
Although the edit box may display more, only the first 50 characters will be stored in the record.
Album: This is the Title of the album; as with Artist, the first 50 characters are stored.
Genre: Select the appropriate genre (category) from the drop down list. Or enter one you feel is more appropriate (max. 10 characters), and CD Czar will automatically add it to the list.
Except for Tracks, all of the following fields are optional.
Year:  If you wish, you can enter a 4 character year of recording or release.
Notes:  Here you can enter whatever and as much text as you want (up to 64K characters), such as composer, soloist, lyrics or link to album cover image file or artist webpage.  To the right is the number of lines of Notes.  You can edit Notes by clicking on the Edit Notes button in the Edit Form's Toolbox, which brings up the multi-line editor.
You can add links for cover art which can display while the album is playing, or artist/album website which you can go to by clicking the appropriate button in Album View's toolbox.  And with version 5.3, you can click the buttons at the bottom to record the purchase cost and current value for the album (the Report in the Report Writer can show the totals for your collection).  This Notes field coupled with the power of the Report Writer enables you to track almost anything, click for an example of tracking loans of your albums.
The rest of this part is about how to add Extended Info in submission to Freedb, so you can skip ahead if you do not plan to do that.  For extended info on the whole disc begin the line with EXTD=, and for Extended info on individual Tracks begin the line with EXTTx= where  "x"  is the track number minus one (sorry, they begin with track 0 in the remote database but will appear nicely formatted in blue under the correct track in the Detail View).  For your convenience, buttons are provided for making these entries so you don't have to deal with typing these codes yourself, just entering the data.   You can mix these kind of lines with others solely for your own personal use, only those lines beginning with EXTD= or EXTTx=  will be submitted (but will appear nicely formatted in blue, and without the funny codes, in the Detail View).  For example, for a classical recording you could use the Add Extended Data for a Track button to add this for a track: composer=J. S. Bach soloist=Pablo Casals - then when you see the Detail View for this album this info will be in blue below the track title.  The Add Extended Data for Album button can be used multiple times for the same album, but the Add Extended Data for a Track button only once PER TRACK.
Media Format: This field is dual purpose.  You can use it to select the media to which you have copied tracks (select Local or Remote drive if you have "ripped" tracks to MP3 or other audio files on your drive).  Or this field can be used to catalog your old LPs and Cassettes, as well as newer formats such as SuperAudio (SA) or DVD-Audio.  The default is blank, in case you want to use that to indicate that no copies or mixes were made from the CD.
The following 2 fields are intended for keeping track of songs you have copied (ripped):
Media Label/Directory or Location: Media Label or Directory & Filename Mask for copied or ripped tracks.  An examples of the latter could be: \mp3\Elvis\Burn*.mp3 or \mp3\folk\baez\vol2\*.mp3  (the Mask Maker button is provided in the Toolbox to automatically create this mask from the audio files you select).  Or, this field could instead point to a physical location.
Index: Where the tracks start on the target media (for example, if you have copied to a MiniDisc, enter the track on the minidisc (not on the CD) where this album starts, or for a cassette tape enter the starting time. Max. 6 characters.
Tracks:  To edit an existing track, first click on the target track in the grid to highlight it and then hit the enter key - now you can navigate within the track with the left/right keys. Max. 73 characters.
If you have a multi-artist CD, please enter track information in this format:
           ArtistName / TrackTitle
If  the Album's Artist entry starts with "Various", the Flip button will appear in case the above are in reverse order, as they often are with info from the internet. This Flip button will also correct the situation in which a dash or colon was used instead of a forward slash, and will even correct when the Artist was instead enclosed in parentheses ( if this causes the ArtistName/TrackTitle to change to reverse order, simply click the Flip button again).  Needless to say, this Flip option can save you a tremendous amount of time!  Don't be afraid to try it, you can always click Cancel!  Remember, the ArtistName / TrackTitle for multi-artist albums MUST be be in this format, including the space before and after the forward slash, in order for the One Stop artist search function to yield all of an artist's entries. and for the track to appear in the Tracks View.

If CD Czar was able to find your album in the Freedb database, then the Artist, Album, Genre and Tracks fields will be filled in already.  If not, a form will appear allowing you to attempt to find your album in another online database or other source, or to enter the data manually.  Each online source has different instructions color coded to the color of the site button chosen, but basically they each require selecting all or part of a webpage, copying that selection to the Windows Clipboard with Edit|Copy (if you're using Internat Explorer you can instead use ctrl-C), then returning to CD Czar (alt-tab) and clicking the OK button.  Please read the approriate instructions prior to clicking on the Site's button.  Websites are listed from the left in order of recommendation.

You can even use numbered or unnumbered track listings (e.g. from a record company, distributor or fan website).  One line per track and you don't have to worry about blank lines or leading spaces.  Just click the appropriate button and the instructions are the same as for AMG (the green panel).  By the way, here is an online vinyl database I found (but you'll have to reformat the selection to one track per line), please report any others you know of at our peer support group using a subject like "online vinyl database".

Be sure the album you use online actually has the same number and title of tracks, as similar sounding album titles can have quite different content.

As the last step, click the OK button on the Edit Form and your album will be added to your Music Collection.

Adding data for album on other media
Click Add Other in the green Manage Collection panel.  Now the procedure is similar to the procedure described above for a CD not found in the remote database.  Click for an example of using this feature to keep track of the MP3 or other audio files on your disk.

There is even a button to import data directly from a freeware Winamp or Yahoo! Music Engine playist into your CD Czar collection (if you have a drive that can read CD-Text, you can use this method to import CD-Text info from the CD by using .a CD-Text plugin for Winamp).  Winamp's freeware Full version, Modern skin is recommended.  And new version 5.52 of Winamp can now create these playlists from your iPod and other devices.  Finally, you can download our free m3uMaker utility from our Yahoo Support Site to create a playlist of your video files to import in the same way - click on m3uMaker's Help button and you will also see how to download most youTube and other streaming videos to your hard drive.

MODIFYING (EDITING) ALBUM AND TRACK INFORMATION
This uses the same Edit Form as described above for adding albums, just click on the Modify button in the green Manage Collection panel of the opening Albums View.  You will also see an Update Tracks only button that will allow you to try to find updated info on the internet for the tracks, leaving other data as you had entered it.

DELETING AN ALBUM FROM YOUR COLLECTION
Just click the Delete button in the green Manage Collection panel and the highlighted album will be removed from your Collection, including associated tracks and any playlist.  The status bar (at the bottom) will confirm that deletion is in progress.

CREATING A PLAYLIST (MARK TRACKS)
This is easy, just click the Playlist button in the green Manage Collection panel and a form will appear showing available tracks for the current album.  Just click on the arrows to move them into and out of the Playlist Box from the Available Box.  The double arrows move all the tracks. You can "multi-select" to save time - if you want to select a contiguous range, say tracks 2 thru 5, just click on track #2 and then hold down the <shift> key while you click on #5 and the range will be selected and highlighted.  To select multiple non-contiguous tracks, just click on one of them and then hold down the <ctrl> key while clicking on the others.  When you are satisfied with your Playlist/Marked track selection, just click the OK button and you will see your selected tracks indicated in italics and aqua (light blue) color on in the Tracks grid on the main screen.  You use the same easy method to modify (change) the Playlist/Marked track selection.

Note that marking tracks this way has dual purpose.  First, when you click the green Play button on the tool bar the songs you have marked (in aqua and italics) will play.  Second, you can also use this method to keep track of the tracks you have copied from the CD to another media, or have created MP3 or other audio files (in that case the media label or file directory mask - e.g.: \mp3\Elvis\Burn*.mp3 - should be entered in the Label field in the azure colored panel).  Or course, you can mark the tracks for any other purpose you wish.

These playlists can also be imported into many CD Labeler programs, just click the info button to copy and paste.  There is also direct support for SureThing CD-Labeler in the Detail View.

VIEWING ALBUMS
The program starts out with the Albums View.  You can click the Window's Maximize button to see more albums in the full screen mode.  The relative columns widths in the grid can be changed by putting your mouse cursor between two column headers until the "I-bar" appears, then holding down the left button while dragging the mouse left or right.
Navigating your Collection
When the Album grid is in focus (it will be when the program starts and you can always make it so by clicking anywhere on it), hitting a key will bring you to the first record starting with that letter.  You can also use the scroll bar on the right, as well as the <Page Up> and <Page Down> keys.
Further, the <Home> key will always take you to the first record in the currently selected sort order, similarly the <End> key will take you to the last record.
Finally, you can also use the aqua-colored Search panel to take you to any record.
Select sort order
You can see your records in order by any of the columns in the grid, simply click on the column header.  The current sort order's header is highlighted so you always know in which order your albums are displayed. clicking the header that's already highlighted will skip to the next unique entry for that column - for example, if the Artist column is highlighted then clicking it again will move you to the next artist (especially useful if you have a lot of albums by some of the same artists).  If you instead want to see your albums in the order entered (e.g. to see the last albums you entered) just click on the Tool button with the green man running to the left.  If you again want to see your records sorted, simply click on a column header.
See only albums of a particular genre (or other criteria)
To see only albums of a certain genre in the Albums View (the opening screen), navigate to an album of that genre and then right-click to bring up the popup menu and click on Set filter to current genre only (actually, you can change the default text that will appear to any valid Albums table filter expression - for example, changing the = to <> in the default will show all but the that genre).  Click here for more info on setting filters.  CD Czar's status bar (at the bottom) will show that a filter is set.  An option to cancel filtering is also on that popup menu.  Just hit esc to cancel the popup without selecting an option.
Detail View (more info and tools for the current album)
Just click on the Tool Button with the info image to switch to the Detail View with further info on the currently highlighted album including it's Notes (memo) field, and with more tools including the Report Writer.  Any Extended Data will be shown in blue, with Extended Data for Tracks appearing under the applicable Track Title.  Times are given for individual tracks, as well as total time for the Album and Playlist so you can easily see how much time must be left on media to copy the Album or Playlist. Now is a good time to mention that CD Czar provides a means for seeing how much time has already been used on the target media - from the Albums View, click on the "Media Label/Directory" heading in the Albums grid and then navigate to the media label you want and click on any of the Albums already on that media. Now when you click on the Detail view the usage and tracks will be at the bottom (if there is no track timing then 3 min per track will be estimated).  Click here if you want to time used up on all target media.  You can Select and Copy all or any part to the Windows Clipboard, then paste into another application such as an email message or word processing document.  This copy and paste technique is also useful for filling out the Audio Information form in burner software such as Nero to create a CD-Text CD-R.
Beneath the Detail, there are buttons to do the following:  see more albums by this artist,  find posters, find lyrics (with an option include them in the Notes field), bring up the Report Writer (Review/Printout Collection), display Time Used on rewritable media, send album info to the Freedb online database, and bring up SureThing CD-R labeler.
Clicking on the freedb.org logo in this Detail View will allow you submit any albums not already in their database, or to submit corrections.  The CD for the album must be in your drive.  There must be real info, just entering "Track 1" etc. will not be accepted by freedb.org.  The first time you submit you may be asked to enter your email address and outgoing (SMTP) mail server info (same as you are using for your email program), which will be used only for submitting new or corrected info to Freedb.
Creating CD-R labels: as mentioned, in this Detail View there is a button you can click which will prepare the info that SureThing needs to make a CD-R (or other) label and bring up the program for you (if the path is correctly entered, see Change Properties below).  Where SureThing appears, just select Playlists|Edit Active Playlist on its menu bar , then click on the Paste button at the bottom of the form.  For other labeler products, the playlist that is created when you click on the green Play button can often be imported to prevent retyping the info.

By the way, double clicking on the current album in the grid achieve the exact same result as clicking on the info icon.
Tracks View (one row for each track)
This will bring up a window with a Tracks grid, one row for each track (song).  As with the Albums View on the opening screen, you can click on a column header to see the records sorted by that column, and hit a key to see that first record in that column beginning with that letter. Hint: An easy way to browse all the tracks for one artist is to click on the Artist column header to make Artist the sort order, and then go to your artist.  You will now see all their tracks in alphabetical order.  Also as with the Albums View, clicking on the already highlighted column header will bring you to the next unique value within that column.
Also as with the Albums View, clicking the Maximize button will show more rows (and wider  columns).
As with the Report Writer described below, you can Set a Filter for record selection (but don't forget to click the Set Filter button here after entering your Filter Expression, something that's not necessary in the Report Writer).  The fields available are the same as the names of the column headers, with the exception of the Time field which is calculated and therefor cannot be filtered on directly but you can use the sec field even though it does not appear in the grid - for example to find all tracks over 3 minutes in length you could use the Filter Expression val(sec) > 180).  The logical variable marked is also available to see only records marked (or not marked) by the Playlist button in the Albums View, for example to see only tracks by Dylan not yet marked use: contains(artist,"bob dylan") AND NOT marked.  Click  for more info on using Filters in CD Czar.  This Tracks View has it's own Report and Export facility that operates in a manner similer to the Report Writer described below, and you can select rows for output using Set Filter and/or by selecting individual (even non-contiguous) rows by clicking one row in the normal manner and then holding down the ctrl key while clicking with your mouse for the remaining rows.  This feature is a favorite of DJs and radio station program managers for producing playlists, and there is an export option especially for them which will create a Music List to upload to a site like DJ Intelligence.  In addition to the fields showing in the grid, when you select Report or one of the export options then additional fields will be available for output including Media Label and Track number. If you select the Report output and choose several output fields you may need to either Print or to Save in Text (*.txt) format to see all the fields chosen (click on the printer or diskette icon).  The CSV output can be uploaded to the network site blist, another way to share your music collection info.  When you close the Tracks View form, you will be automatically returned to the Albums View.

Report Writer - report to screen/printer/text file, or export to Webpage, CSV or XML
For CD Czar's Report Writer, click on the  information icon in the yellow toolbox and choose Review/Printout Collection.  Then click on the Help button if you need instructions.
In addition to Report, you can create a HTML format webpage that you can upload to a webserver to display your Collection to your friends, or export to CSV or XML format to import into other applications such as a spreadsheet (if you don't own a spreadsheet program already you can use the one with freeware OpenOffice).  You can also create a Webpage by first exporting to CSV and then converting to HTML with this freeware program, more fields can be displayed this way and you can choose your own colors and other options,

 If you just want a list of the artists in your collection, including both solo albums and compilations, click Report in the Report Writer and only choose Artist for output field.

And because CD Czar uses industry standard Foxpro 2.6 format dBase files, literally thousands of third party products can read these files, including Excel, Access and Lotus 1-2-3 (turn off their AutoSave option and do NOT save any changes to CD Czar's dBase (.dbf +.fpt) files outside of CD Czar).  You are also strongly encouraged to backup your files before using a third party application.  These dBase files have the field names in the header, so when you open them in a spreadsheet (for example) the column headers will automatically be the field labels.  Click for the structure of the CD Czar files you will most likely use, with fields annotated.
Having said that, you will usually better off using the CSV  or XML file output of the Report Writer instead as there is then no danger of accidentally damaging CD Czar's files, and the csv format file can be imported directly into all major spreadsheets, database managers, etc..

SEARCH FOR ALBUM, ARTIST, MEDIA LABEL, NOTES, TRACK
In the aqua colored Quick Search panel, first select the field upon which you wish to search.  Then enter your search term (word or phrase) in the For: edit box and click the Find It! button.
To search on a partial word in version 5.2b or later, use the * (asterisk) wildcard (e.g. *cdonald if you don't know if the artist's name is MacDonald or McDonald) - an exception is the Notes field, where wildcards front and rear are inserted for you internally.
If there are multiple records which meet your criteria, a form will appear for you to select an album; otherwise, if only one album matches you will be taken directly to that record.  For more complex queries, there is an integrated Report Writer.

CD Czar has a unique One Stop Artist search.  If you have chosen Artist as the field to search upon, the resulting Record Selection Form will show all albums for this artist,  the solo albums as well as the multi-artist albums on which the artist appears.  The Form will show the track number for the artist on multi-artist albums, for solo albums the track number will be blank.

Reminder: For all fields in the grid, you can view the albums in order of any of these fields by clicking on its header.  Then if you hit one of the keyboard keys, the first album whose selected field begins with that letter or number appears.  You can then use the scroll bar or Up/Down keys to navigate to the album you want - in many cases you can find your album this way quicker than by using the Search panel.

BACKING UP AND RESTORING YOUR DATA
Click Reindex in the Manage Collection panel.  After compacting your database (thereby saving disk space) and re-creating the index files that point to your data in various sort orders.   You will then be reminded to copy the data files with the extensions *.dbf and *.fpt  to an external backup device or archive (the cdczar.ini file contains your program settings so you may want to archive it also).

If you should ever need to restore data from a backup archive or device, exit CD Czar if you haven't already and copy the files with the extensions *.dbf and *.fpt into the program subdirectory (if you accepted the default this will be c:\Program Files\CDCzar).  Delete all files with the extension of CDX.  Then just start CDczar again; it will automatically create the missing index files and you should see all your data in the proper orders.

PLAYING THE SONGS
Hear tracks from your playlist
Just click the green play button and you will hear the songs in your playlist (those tracks which are in aqua and italics), thanks to CD Czar's seamless integration with Winamp and other audio players such as realPlayer, Sonique, MusicMatch and Windows Media Player (version 7.01 or later).  If you have not set up a playlist, CD Czar will simply play ALL the tracks from the album in your CD-ROM drive.  While listening to the Playlist you can further add, delete and/or rearrange the tracks within Winamp and save the revised playlist to hear later directly from Winamp.  Click here to see how to also hear albums for which you have only MP3 or other audio files.
By default, CD Czar will use whichever player is registered as the default with Windows.  You can explicitly specifiy a different program to use with CD Czar on the Properties and Options Form.

Hear starting with any track, whether on playlist or not
Just double click on any track, and CD Czar will start playing with that track on the CD (this feature does not apply to MP3 or other files, only to the CD in the CD-ROM drive).
See the Troubleshooting section if you do not hear the songs playing.

EXITING CD CZAR
Just click the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the opening screen (or use alt-F4)

OTHER ACTIONS  The following buttons are in the yellow Toolbox panel
(you can also execute these actions by right-clicking the mouse for the popup menu, which also includes Filtering and  the Report Writer)
Visit our Home Page
  Click this first button in the yellow Toolbox to go to the CD Czar main webpage.  Here you can review features, purchase the unlimited registered version, link to the support group, etc.
Find entry for CD currently in the CD-ROM drive
Click this button and CD Czar will go to entry for the CD in your CD-ROM drive, providing it was added to your Collection.  If not, now would be a good time to add it!
Go to webpage or document about album or artist
Click this World button to view an associated webpage in your browser (or view a document on your local disk).  You initially enter such information in a similar manner as described for Cover Art below.
View Cover Art
Click this button to view any cover image your have linked for this album.  To enter such an image link into your Collection, click on the Modify button to bring up the Edit Form screen.  If you do not already have a cover graphic on your hard drive, click the Get Cover Image to go to a website that has cover art to download.  When you have the file on your disk, click Edit Notes and then Add Cover Image. Hint:   The properties button above allows you to pick the program CD Czar uses to display the image.  There is also button there to download the freeware XnView Image Viewer & Editor - because it is also an Editor you can resize or make other changes to the image (see Tips below to see how to optimize XnView for use with CD Czar) . While there, you can also choose whether to have CD Czar automatically display cover art for the album while playing it through your audio player.
Change Properties (Options)
Click this button to change properties such as: CD/DVD-ROM drive and drive letter you use for CDs (note: Windows does not always put drive description and letter in the same order so check to see that both are correct), email address and mail server to use when submitting data to the Freedb online database (address must be on server, don't use Web Mail address like Gmail and Hotmail), and whether you wish to continue to see "fly-over" hints.  You can also choose between protocols to use for connecting with Freedb: TCP/IP sockets (fastest, the default) or HTTP (if you are behind a firewall).  Additionally, this option allows you to enter the URLs and paths for programs which work together with CD Czar; for example, you can enter your favorite CD player software to use (Winamp recommended) so that another program can't "hijack" it.  Finally, you can change the program's purpose that appears on the Title Bar (for example, if you wish to use CD Czar to handle your video instead of music collection).
Tip of the Day
Shows a Tip for the day.  You can cycle through all the tips by repeatedly clicking "Next Tip".  There is also a box to click to show tips at CD Czar startup.
Import data from cdplayer.ini file.  Just click here to download the free ini2czar program and documentation. This program imports valid album and track data from the cdplayer.ini file used by the Windows Player and others into CD Czar..  If you are using the Trial version, all the valid albums from the cdplayer.ini file will be imported, but if that brings the total to over 25 you will not be able to add more albums until you purchase the unlimited registered version.
Find if an album contains songs already in your collection.  Of course you can still select the Tracks View and look for each song individually, but here is an easier and faster way starting with Version 6.2: First bring up the Edit Form (by clicking on either the Add CD, Add Other, or Modify button).  When the info on the current album is complete, right click anywhere on the Edit Form and click on the only option that will popup.  If any duplicates are found, the number and song title from each duplicated song from the current album will appear in blue, followed below by the track number, artist and album title with the same song.  This information will be automatically copied to the Windows Clipboard  for insertion into a document or text file.  If you are not going to add the album to your collection then just click the Cancel button.

TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
I need ASPI driver
If you got a notice during installation that you needed an ASPI driver, pick one of the options below based on your Windows version:

If you have Windows 95, 98 or Me, download and run ASPI!

For Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP, just download this file (about 170K in size) courtesy of Nero into CD Czar's application directory (if you accepted the default during installation that will be c:\program files\cdczar).  You don't have to install or run anything and you won't even have to reboot! 

CD Czar does not recognize my CD-ROM drive
You probably have multiple CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives, CD Czar initially picks the first it can find.  First make sure that there is an audio CD in the drive you want to use with CD-Czar (and in no other drive).  Click on the button with the Tools image, then when the Options form appears click on the down arrow to be able to choose the Drive (something similar to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM should be in the name) and drive Letter (if you put a CD in, the correct drive letter should show "[audio cd]" ) that you want CD Czar to use.  Caution:  thanks to Windows, the drivers may not be listed in the same order as the drive letters, so make sure both are correct.
Program freezes when I click on "Add CD", but works OK when I click "Add Other"
Exit CD Czar if it's running, and place a CD in your drive and try playing it with another application such as Winamp or Windows Media Player to be sure the CD and drive are OK. Leave the CD in the drive and enter CD Czar and bring up the Properties Form (by clicking on the button with the Tools image), then make sure you have the correct driver and drive letter selected as described in the article right above.  Now select TCP/IP protocol and click OK at the bottom of the form.  See the next article if you get an error message when you click on "Add CD" now.
Get error message "Socket Error #11001, Host Not Found"
Check your connection to the internet.  If that is OK, you may be behind a firewall with Port #8880 not open.  Click on the Options button and select HTTP protocol.  CD Czar uses proxy information from IE (Internet Explorer) Version 5 or later, so be sure your proxy settings are correctly setup there  (Tools|Internet Options|Connections|LAN Settings).  If you must enter a user name and password on your intranet, check the "authentication required" option, otherwise leave it unchecked (if in doubt, try with unchecked first).
Get error message "Access violation at address 004DC383 "
CD Czar was already running and you attempted to run it again, as only one copy at a time can be running in the Single User Edition.  This can happen upon installation if you accept the default to run upon installation and then attempt to run it from the Start Menu or Desktop before closing the first instance of the program.

Get error message "Socket Error #10057, Socket is not connected"
Click on the Options button and enter your SMTP (outbound) mail server address, you get that error message when you enter the incoming (POP) server instead.  However, most ISPs use one server for both and do not encounter this situation.
Get error message "Unable to Send Request"
There is a problem with your connection to the internet using HTTP protocol.
Message says "There does NOT seem to be an audio CD in the drive", but there is!
If you just put in a CD, it may take a slower machine a second or two to recognize it.  So just click again!  If it still doesn't work, the drive and drive letter may not be correctly specified, click here to see how to easily correct that.
Track info on a multi-artist album has Artist / TrackTitle reversed, can this be fixed?
Yes, and very easily.  On the Edit Form (which comes up when you add a new album or click Modify), click on the Flip button.  This will also correct a situation where a dash was used instead of the " / " separator by the original contributor, and can even correct when they have enclosed the artist name in parentheses. Why is this important?  Because on such a compilation album (where the artist is entered as "Various"), the individual artusts' performances will not show up on an Artist search, and the entries won't appear in the Tracks View, unless they are in the proper ArtistName / TrackTitle format (including the space before and after the "/").  CD Czar displays the correct format as you enter information, but unfortuneately not all programs do this so there are a lot of problematic entries in the Freedb database.
Albums do not appear, or appear out of order
Click on the Reindex button in the Manage Collection panel.  In the unlikely event this does not solve the problem, exit CD Czar and delete files in its subdirectory with the extension CDX, these index files will then be automatically re-created when you start CD Czar again..
Songs will not play
CD Czar integrates an external application to play its "m3u" Playlists.  We strongly recommend you install the free, fast loading, ad-free Winamp player Version 2.91 (NOT Version 3.0, nobody seems to like it).  When the "Winamp Setup: Settings" form appears during installation, check AT LEAST the following options:
    Associate with files (at least for m3u playlists)
    Preserve file associations (not required but prevents other players from hijacking the m3u      playlist association).
    Warning: do NOT check Enqueue as default action.
If you have already installed Winamp, you can check that you have these options set by clicking on the upper left hand System Menu and choosing Options|Preferences|Setup|FileTypes.

If tracks played fine before in CD Czar but don't now, another player may have "hijacked" the m3u playlist association and is not able to play CD tracks from an m3u playlist.  Close any other player you may have open and bring up Winamp.  From Winamp's upper left hand system menu choose:  Options|Preferences|Setup|File types and select as least  m3u and click the Close button.  You may have to restart Windows for the change to take effect.
CD Czar and firewalls
CD Czar uses port 8880 to connect via TCP protocol to the Freedb site, as Port Numbers above 1024 are normally safe to use.  If you cannot connect behind a firewall, click on the Options button and select HTTP protocol.
Report Writer will not print on my Epson Stylus printer
Here is Epson's suggestion.
Report Writer gives Error message using Windows2000 or WindowsXP
If the Report Writer gives you an error message when the Report is more than 1 page long, your temp environment variable may be too long (32 characters is the limit for the third-party Report Writer engine that is used).
Luckily, this is easy to fix.
1. Create a new directory that has a short path.  Here's one way to do so:  Bring up Windows Explorer and in the left hand panel click on the drive for the new temp folder to ensure that it is created in that drive's root directory.  Now right-click in an empty space on the right hand panel and select New|Folder and enter a name, such as temp.

2. Edit the TEMP environment variable to reflect this new path like so:
  A.  Right-click the My Computer desktop icon, then click Properties.
  B.  Click the Advanced tab.
  C.  Click Environment variables.
  D.  Click on TEMP, then click Edit to change to the new, short path (e.g. c:\temp).
  E.  Click on TMP environment variable also and change it to the same as in D above.
  F.  Click Apply and Save to make these changes permanent.
  G.  That's it!  The next time you run CD Czar your report should go smoothly.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but the Report Writer engine is a third party product for which we cannot get the source code.  Note that this applies only to the Report output, the other outputs (such as XML) need no change.
Access2000 can open/import CD Czar's Tracks table, but not its Albums table
The bad news is that in the Import, Export, and Link dialog boxes in Microsoft Access 2000, the FoxPro file type which CD Czar uses is no longer listed as an option for file type, and the Albums file's memo field (Notes) precludes it from being compatible with VFP.  The good news is that there is a workaround (using the ID field as the unique identifier).  Please be careful to turn off Access's autosave feature and to save in other than dBase format.  Hint:  a much better and safer option is to use CD Czar's Report Writer to export album data to an XML file which imports directly into Access without affecting CD Czar's files.
When trying to submit new or updated info to Freedb  I get a  "Relaying denied"  error message
Click on the tool icon to go to the Properties and Options form and check that your email address and Outgoing (SMTP) server are both correct and refer to the SAME server (you can't use web mail address like Hotmail here).  You may need to check with your ISP to make sure you are using the correct mail server designation.
What happened to the Media Space report?
It's still there, but it has been moved to the Detail View and it's button now says:
Display Time Used on Rewritable Media

TIPS (and optimizations).
The best way to learn to use CD Czar
CD Czar is intuitive and easy to learn.  But it does a lot of useful things so to be aware of all of them, in addition to browsing the task-oriented help file (click on the ? button), let the Tip of the Day go through at least 2 cycles before you uncheck it's Show Tips at Startup box.
How to import data from the cdplayer.ini file that the Windows CD player & others use
Download a free utility & documentation (ini2czar) to import entries from cdplayer.ini at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CDCzar/files/
How to integrate MP3 or other audio files into CD Czar
You can easily integrate your audio files into CD Czar so you can quickly find that artist or song whether it's on a CD, audio file on your drive, or wherever - click to see how.
How to find the lyrics of the songs
Click on the info button, then click on the "Find Lyrics" button and follow the easy on-screen directions that will appear.  Please respect songwriter copyright, do not copy lyrics unless in public domain or acceptable to the copyright holder.  Here is another lyrics source.
For Windows XP users only
You will likely see more rows in the grids (and in general get a better appearance) if you use the Classic Windows Style instead of the default XP style.  If you want to switch, just right-click on an empty area on the desktop and click Properties, click on the Appearance tab, and finally select the Classic Windows style.
And if you want to use the Report Writer (this does not apply to other output such as XML), see here.
How to get Winamp to load even faster
1.  Click on Winamp's upper left hand corner system menu and choose:
        Options|Preferences|Plug-ins|Input
2.  Select Nullsoft CD Plug-In
3.  Click on the Configure button
4.  Uncheck the Use Music ID button (CD Czar sends this info to Winamp as part of the passed playlist, so it just wastes time for Winamp to read it again from somewhere else).
How to use CD Czar to include the music on your iPod or other device
1.  The new version of freeware Winamp works with your iPod and other devices.  Use it to create a playlist with your device's songs and save the playlist in m3u format.  Then run CD Czar, click the Add Other button in the green panel, and then click the Import button to bring that playlist info into CD Czar. 

How to get XnView (recommended cover art viewer) to load faster
1.  On XnView's menu bar, choose: View|Options
2.  Click Misc Category in the left panel
3.  Check the Only one Instance option in the right panel
4.  Click View Category in the left panel
5. Check  Only one view opened and  Force XnView to Fit Image in the right panel
How to use local help files instead of online help to save connect charges
Just download cdczhelp.zip  from the support site and extract the files into the same directory as CD Czar (if you accepted the default during installation that will be c:\program files\CDCzar).
CD Czar automatically uses the local files if they are present instead of going to the internet, so if you change your mind and want to use online help again, simply delete (or rename or move) these help files (all of which end with the file extension html).
How to transfer CD Czar's data to your new computer
First,  backup all of CD Czar's files with the extensions *.dbf and *.fpt.  Then install CD Czar on your new computer with the Install file you downloaded from our registration agent when you bought the program (don't simply copy the program especially if 2 different Windows versions are involved).  Then run any Update program you downloaded from our site.  Before running CD Czar on your new computer for the first time, copy the backup files with the extensions *.dbf and *.fpt into the same directory (if you accept the installation defaults that will be c:\program files\cdczar).  Note: if CD Czar continues to also be used on your old computer, perhaps by a different family member, then the license agreement requires that you must purchase another copy, there must be one purchased copy for each user at a time.
How to know how much time is already used up on your Music Mixes on rewritable media such as CD-RW
Invoke the Report Writer and read the easy instructions for Media List.
 
 

If you've a mind to, we would greatly appreciate it if you tell a friend about CD Czar.

CD Czar™ and this documentation are Copyright © 2001-2003 HighRoad Software. All rights reserved.
All products mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.