**************************************************************************
The file you have downloaded doesn't contain a so called start up image.
When you run FolksKaraoke you will receive an error message.
You can download this image from our group ( in the Files area):
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softkaraoke
Please join the group. If you already are a Yahoo user you can use your
existing user-ID.
**************************************************************************

FolksKaraoke is a player for people who have fun in singing.
Features:
- Plays standard MIDIs with lyric track and KAR-files.
- Background slide show of JPEG images.
- Customized photo album.

If you are a digital camera user FolksKaraoke is the right player for you.

People always say to me: You took so many pictures with your digital camera
but we never see you showing them to us. Actually, it is not such easy to
find an occasion to show them the photos. The only way is to send the photos
via email and flood their email boxes.

For that reason, I built the slide show feature into FolksKaraoke.
While someone is having fun with her/his singing skill the rest can have
fun with the snap shots of their best memories.



FolksKaraoke is free (at least for this version 1.40f). It really depends on
how much time I can spend on the development of this program.

It has only been run on following platforms:
- Windows 98, P2 400MHz
- Windows 2000
No proper test has been done.

THE AUTHOR OF THIS PROGRAM FolksKaraoke IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGE
ON YOUR SYSTEM AFTER THE PRAMGRAM HAS BEEN RUN.

More KAR-Files can be downloaded from:
www.midifarm.com
www.midikaraoke.com
www.midi-karaoke.de	(German)
www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/1685/	(Chinese)

and check the Links section in the Club.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY
It was about end of 1993 when I first time used a software Karaoke player.
It was a German software called 'Lyrics'. The player came with 50 standard
MIDI (with lyric track) songs on a CD-ROM. It looked like a word processing
program with synchronously highlighted text rather than a Karaoke player.

1994 I got a chance to try the 'classic' Tune1000 which played the KAR-format
songs. I think there was only 10 songs came with the software. All additional
songs would cost extra.

It must be sometime 1996 when I first time enter the word 'Karaoke' in a
search engine. What I found was hundreds of songs and different players
for download. It was not easy to decide for one player.

After trial of several players, I decided to use the RealOrche (from
Creative Tech Korea) because it was the only one can play and convert
songs in different formats. Another reason was that they also provide
a huge list of (ST3) songs for download which can only played by their
player.

Then I was a happy registered user of RealOrche. Until one day I replaced
WindowsNT of my notebook by Windows98. From now on the player just keeps
on bring down my system. Unfortunately, the Creative Tech web site does
no longer exist, no more support available. I also found out that RealOrche
cannot run on WindowsME. So I started to look for a replacement.

After long time 'research' I still could not find a similar player and then
I decide to try to write my own one and so the FolksKaraoke was born.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New in:
**** v1.41f **** (21/07/02)
- Fixed:
	File not found after changing current directory (e.g. 'Open')

**** v1.40f **** (18/07/02)
- Allow accessing control board in full screen mode
- Allow selecting folder in play list window
- Hide lyrics for slide show
- Using relative paths: Enable running program on shared drive
- ".e" in filename for exclamation mark added
- Restore video mode when application inactive
- Fixed:
	HTML song list doesn't display songs in directories with '_'
	Artist name always in lower case in HTML list
	Titles compare case sensitive
	Wrongly highlighted text while scrolling progressbar

**** v1.30f **** (02/04/02)
- Quick search: Allows selecting song in full screen mode
  [Enter]   Open search box
  [UP/DOWN] Scroll previous/next song
  [Enter]   Insert song to play list
  [Shift]+[Enter] Append song to play list
  [Esc]     Close search box
- 'Give Me 5': Pick one from 5 randomly selected songs
  [F5] Lists 5 songs
- Plays MIDI files (without lyrics)
- Sorted by length first if the last character of the folder name is '_', e.g. Chinese_
  This is useful for Chinese song titles.
- Fixed:
	Incorrect selected photo album at start
	Empty item on cancelling new photo album
	New album overwrites existing one with the same name

**** v1.20f **** (13/02/02)
- Configurable lyric synchronization (allow use of software synthesizer)
- Export song list in plain text and HTML format
- ".q" in filename for question mark added
- Allow excluding album 'All'
- Check existence of paths before saving list of directories

**** v1.10f **** (14/08/01)
- Full screen
- Random play
- Allow punctuation marks in the title and artist name
- Display song title and artist name while loading
- Detects 'File not found' in adding song into playlist
- More tolerance in KAR-file formats
- Bug fixes in highlighting lyrics
- Text in Help Hint
