Displaying international characters in Winamp

[DJ Egg]

Displaying international (unicode) titles with Winamp 5.5x.


Global setting:

1. Go to: Winamp > Preferences (Ctrl+P) > Playlist
2. Uncheck "Use skin or language pack font"
3. Select an appropriate font from the drop-down menu, eg. Arial Unicode MS

Screenshot

Note, if a suitable font isn't already installed on your system for the language you are trying to view,
then you will need to locate and install one...
(Note that 'Arial Unicode MS' is included with Microsoft Office 2003+) .


Classic Skins:
This setting is only required if using any Classic skin:

1. Go to: Winamp > Prefs (Ctrl+P) > Skins > Classic Skins
2. Uncheck "Use skinned font for main window title display"

Modern Skins:
These settings are only required if using a Modern skin (not for Classic skins):

1. Go to: Winamp > Prefs (Ctrl+P) > Skins > Modern Skins > Font Rendering tab
2. Uncheck "Use the alternate fonts if the skin defines them"
3. Change the TrueType Replacement font to something more suitable via the "Replace with" drop-down menu.
   
   Note that there was a bug in Winamp 5.2x-5.5 which required a Winamp restart for this setting change to take effect.

Screenshot

Media Library:
To display unicode fonts in the Media Library:

1. Go to: Winamp > Prefs > Media Library > Library Options tab
2. Checkmark "Media Library uses same font as Playlist Editor"

Note, this assumes that you've already set an appropriate font for the playlist.

For upgrades from a pre 5.3x version, you might also need to refresh the metadata in the Media Library local database. You can do this by going to:

• Media Library > Audio view
• Select All items in the Tracks pane (Ctrl+A)
• Right-click an entry, select "Read metadata on selected items"

Note, you might want to do this in stages if you've got a large database
(eg. in excess of 10,000 files).


Reading & Writing MP3 ID3 Tags:

1. Go to: Winamp > Prefs > Plugin > Input > in_mp3.dll > config
2. Make sure the appropriate settings are selected in the Title/Tags tab

For instance:

• Read ASCII tags as: System Language (not Latin-1)
• Write tags as: Unicode (UTF-16)

Unicode characters need to be entered into the ID3v2 tag (ID3v1 does NOT support Unicode). Though also note that many external/older mp3 cd & portable players do not support Unicode ID3v2 tags. So you may want to bear this in mind if you also plan on using your MP3's with any such players (if the external/portable mp3 player doesn't support Unicode ID3v2 tags, then it will just display weird jibberish/square type characters instead).


The Results:

If you've followed all of the above instructions correctly
you should now have full support for international/unicode characters.

Screenshot

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Extra Notes

Saving Unicode Playlists:

When saving your playlist to file (via: Playlist Editor > List button > Save Playlist),
make sure you change the 'Save As Type' drop-down menu to .m3u8 (Unicode Playlist), instead of m3u.

Jump To File:

For the Jump to File (J) dialog to show unicode characters, and assuming you didn't uncheck "Extended Jump to File support" in the installer options, go to:
Winamp -> Prefs -> Jump To File -> Display tab
and make sure "Use Playlist Editor font for the 'Jump to file' dialog" is checkmarked.

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