3.3. Hotkeys
Hotkeys are a convenient way of having songs at the ready when you need them. They can be used for common situations, events where you need a range of songs ready with little notice, and so forth. You can also save hotkeys to files for later use.
3.3.1. Configuring Hotkeys
To set up a hotkey, you must first search for a song and have it displayed in the search results box. The available keys are the function keys F1 through F12. You can bind a song to more than one hotkey if you choose. To assign a song to a hotkey, open the Show Hotkeys window, left-click on a song within the Search Results box, and drag it over to the name of a hotkey (F1 through F12), and drop it on the name. The song you dragged will then be assigned to the hotkey that you dropped it on.
You can also drags songs from the Holding Tank onto a hotkey, just like you can from the main search box.
To see which hotkeys you currently have defined, choose Hotkeys->Show Hotkeys from the main menu. You can also press Control+H. That will bring up a menu showing each of the 12 hotkeys, and beside the key name, the title, artist, and time of the song that is bound to the key. If you leave this window up, you can see it change as you add or remove hotkeys.
To remove hotkeys, you have two choices: Remove keys individually, or remove them all in one fell swoop. To remove all hotkeys, choose Hotkeys->Clear All Hotkeys from the main menubar. This will do exactly what it implies - reset all hotkeys back to empty. You can also, from the Hotkeys->Show Hotkeys menu, press the buttons beside any key listing, and choose the Clear Selected button to clear out just the keys that you select, while leaving the others alone.
If you clear all hotkeys, the Hotkeys->Restore Hotkeys option becomes available. It allows you to return your hotkeys to the state they were in immediately prior to the clearing. This exists in case you accidentally clear hotkeys that you don't mean to. Note that the Restore Hotkeys feature currently only works for the Clear All Hotkeys and Open Hotkey File (discussed below) options.
You can also lock the hotkeys by choosing the Hotkeys->Lock Hotkeys option. When hotkeys are locked, a checkmark appears beside the menu item, and you will not be able to add or clear any hotkeys until you deselect the lock option.
3.3.2. Using Hotkeys
To use hotkeys once you have defined them, simply make sure that a Mr. Voice window is selected, and press the hotkey for the song that you want. The song should immediately begin playing.
3.3.3. Saving and Loading Hotkeys
To make the use of hotkeys more convenient, you can save groups of hotkeys to a file for later retrieval. To use this feature, first assign songs to hotkeys like you want. Then, choose File->Save Hotkeys To A File, or press Control+S. A box will pop up where you can select the filename to save the hotkeys under. The file by default will be saved in the directory that you defined in the $savedir variable during configuration. Simply enter the filename that you want in the box labeled Filename, and press the Save File button. The filename will have the extension ".mrv" appended to it, and get written to disk.
 | If you save a hotkey file with the name default.mrv, that hotkey file will be automatically loaded every time you start Mr. Voice. |
To load a saved hotkey file, simply choose File->Open Hotkey File, or press Control+O. The file box will pop up, and you can choose the name of the hotkey file that you want to load. Choosing the filename and pressing the Open File button will load the hotkeys defined in the file, and will overwrite all hotkeys that you currently have defined. If you do this and want your old hotkeys back, choose Hotkeys->Restore Hotkeys. When you load a saved hotkeys file, the Hotkeys window will display (if it is not up already).
The most recent hotkey files that you have accessed via a save or open will be listed on the File->Recent Files menu. These filenames can be selected directly for one-click access that recently-used hotkey files. To adjust the number of files that are displayed, use the File->Preferences menu. Four is the default.
3.3.4. The Holding Tank
Somewhere in a netherworld between the search box and hotkeys exists the Holding Tank. The Holding Tank can be accessed via the Hotkeys->Show Holding Tank menu choice or by pressing Control+T. You can drag songs to it, like with the Hotkeys window. Unlike the Hotkeys window, though, you can have an unlimited number of songs in there at any time, but you can't get one-button access to playing those songs. New in Mr. Voice 1.10, you can save and load the contents of Holding Tanks to a file, just like hotkeys. Find those options under the File menu. You can also export the contents of the Holding Tank as a "bundle" - a special zip file that can be imported in another copy of Mr. Voice, while retaining all the information about the songs.
You populate the Holding Tank by dragging and dropping songs from the search results box onto it. The items in the Holding Tank will appear in the order you add them. To reorder the songs within the Holding Tank, highlight the song you want to move and press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow buttons to move it up and down in the list.
To play a song from the Holding Tank, you can either double-click the song in the Holding Tank window, or single-click the song and press the Play button.
You can use the up or down arrow buttons on either side of the Holding Tank to reorder the songs. That can come in handy when you press the blue Launch Playlist button, which will launch a playlist in WinAmp or XMMS of all the songs in your Holding Tank, in the order they are displayed.
To remove a song from the holding tank, click on the name of the song, then press the Clear Selected button. You can press the Control key while clicking to select more than one song, then use the Clear Selected button to clear all selected songs. Or, for a quicker way to clear all songs from the Holding Tank, use the Hotkeys->Flush the Holding Tank menu selection to wipe it with one fell swoop.
The Holding Tank allows you to easily move songs between installations of Mr. Voice, via a new feature called bundles. To create a bundle, move songs into the holding tank. Then, when you're finished, choose the Hotkeys->Export Holding Tank As Bundle option. That will write a .zip file to your root directory (see the status line of the Mr. Voice window for the specific path). That zip file contains the MP3 files for the songs you expored, plus a special XML file that contains the information for the songs (title, artist, extra info, category, etc).
You can then transfer that .zip file to another system, and import it into that installation of Mr. Voice. The songs will be copied into its database, with the song information from the original.