Configuring Miro

This chapter covers configuring Miro.

Configuring Miro happens in two places:

1. In the Preferences dialog which affects all of Miro. You can find the Preferences dialog from the File -> Preferences in the menus.
2. In the Podcast Settings dialog which affects a specific podcast. You can find the Podcast Settings dialog by clicking on a podcast in the sidebar, then clicking on the Settings button at the bottom.

General preferences

Automatically run Miro when I log in

Check this if you want Miro to launch when you log into your computer.

When starting up Miro, remember what screen I was on when I last quit

Check this if you want Miro to show the view you were last in when you quit the last time.

If this is unchecked, Miro will always show the Miro Guide when you start.

Warn me if I attempt to quit with downloads in progress

Check this if you want Miro to pop up a dialog asking you if you really want to quit Miro if you have items currently downloading.

Warn me if I attempt to quit with conversions in progress

Check this if you want Miro to pop up a dialog asking you if you really want to quit Miro if you have conversions in progress.

Language

By default, Miro uses the language that your system is using for its user interface.

This drop down allows you to override that and pick the language you would rather see the user interface in.

Note

When you change the Language setting, you must restart Miro for changes to take effect.

Enable tray icon

Check this if you want Miro to show up in the system tray.

Availability: GNU/Linux and Windows

Podcasts preferences

These settings can be overridden on a per podcast basis in the Podcasts Settings dialog. More information at Podcast settings.

Show videos from podcasts in Videos section.

Check this if you want videos from podcasts to show up in the Videos tab in the sidebar.

By default, podcast videos don’t show up.

Show audio from podcasts in the Music section.

Check this if you want audio from podcasts to show up in the Music tab in the sidebar.

By default, podcast audio doesn’t show up.

Check for new content

Controls how often Miro checks a podcast to see if there are new items.

• Every day - Miro will check the podcast for new items once a day.
• Every hour - Miro will check the podcast for new items once an hour.
• Every 30 minutes - Miro will check podcast feed for new items every 30 minutes.
• Manually - Miro will not automatically check the podcast. You can update the feed with the Update Podcast and Update all Podcasts and Library menu items in the Sidebar menu.

Auto-download setting

If Auto-download is set to New or All, Miro will queue items to automatically download if you have unplayed items. The number of unplayed items that trigger queueing of automatically download items is configured with the Pause Auto-downloading when this many items are unplayed setting. The default is 3.

When this is set, once there are 3 items in a feed marked as unplayed, Miro will queue items for automatically download and wait until the number of unplayed items drops below the threshold to download more. Once an unplayed item in the feed has been played, then next item will begin to download.

Remember this many old items

Miro can remember items that used to be in a podcast long after they stop showing up in the feed.

By default, Miro will remember up to 20 old items per podcast.

Downloads preferences

Maximum number of manual downloads at a time

Controls how many manual downloads can be downloading at the same time. A manual download is any download that you’ve initiated by clicking on the Download button.

Maximum number of auto-downloads at a time

Controls how many automatic downloads can be downloading at the same time. An automatic download is any download that Miro has initiated.

Bittorrent

Limit upstream bandwidth to

Limits the amount of upstream bandwidth used by bittorrent.

Limit downstream bandwidth to

Limits the amount of downstream bandwidth used by bittorrent.

Limit torrent connections to

Limits the maximum number of bittorrent connections.

Starting port Ending port

These two define the range of ports that Miro can use for incoming torrent connections.

Automatically forward ports. (UPNP)

Check this if you want Miro to automatically forward ports.

Use DHT to find more peers

Check this if you want Miro to use DHT (distributed hash table) support for bittorrent.

Ignore unencrypted connections

Check this if you want Miro to ignore any incoming/outgoing connections that are unencrypted.

Stop torrent uploads when this ratio is reached

Miro will stop uploading when the specified ratio of upload to download is reached.

This is the ratio of total amount uploaded to total amount downloaded. For example, if you set the ratio to 2.0, then Miro will stop the torrent uploading when it has uploaded twice as much as it has downloaded.

Folders preferences

Store downloads in this folder

When Miro downloads audio and video items, it stores them in the specified folder.

If you change the folder, Miro will ask you if you want to migrate all the things in the folder to the new folder.

Watch for new video and audio items in these folders and include them in library

Miro can watch folders on your computer for new items and import them automatically. These folders are called watched folders.

More about this in Watched Folders.

Disk Space preferences

Keep at least this much free space on my drive

This setting prevents Miro from downloading so much stuff that it fills your hard drive which often makes a computer crash.

When Miro hits this threshold, it will stop downloading until you’ve freed up some space.

By default, video and audio items expire after

Miro will expire items in a feed that have been played. You can control how soon the items get expired with this setting.

You can override this setting on a per feed basis in the Feed Settings dialog.

Playback preferences

Play media in Miro

Miro can play most media. However, if you don’t like Miro playing your media, then you can opt to play all your media with your operating system’s associated application for that media type.

Always play videos in a separate window

Miro can play videos in the main view. If you check this, then Miro will play all videos in a separate detached window.

Automatically enable movie subtitles when available

Miro can automatically enable subtitles when they are available for the video you are watching. It picks the subtitle track labeled as default. If there isn’t one labeled as default, then it picks the first one.

Play video and audio items one after another

Stop after each video or audio item

Miro can stop playing after each item, or play all the items in the play list.

Continue playing videos from where they were last stopped

Continue playing music files from where they were last stopped

Continue playing podcast files from where they were last stopped

Miro can remember the point at which you stopped playing a piece of media. The next time you play the media item, Miro will resume playing at that point.

Checking the checkbox next to the media type will tell Miro to keep track of and resume playing media of that type from the point where you stopped.

Sharing preferences

Share my media library

This enables sharing in Miro. When you check this, Miro will share its contents with other DAAP clients on the local network.

This allows you to keep your media on one computer and view it on another.

Warn on quit when others are connected to my library

Check this if you want Miro to pop up a dialog asking you if you really want to quit Miro if someone is connected to your library.

Share name

This is the name that your Miro library will show up as on the network. Other people who are trying to connect to your Miro library will see this name show up in their list and connect to it.

Share my video library

Check this if you want to share all your video.

Share my music library

Check this if you want to share all your music.

Conversions preferences

Allow this many concurrent conversions

Converting media files is CPU-intensive. If you have multiple CPUs or your CPU has multiple cores, then increasing this number will allow Miro to convert multiple files in parallel.

If you don’t know how many CPUs you have or how many cores are on your CPU, then it’s best to leave this at 1.

ffmpeg binary path

On GNU/Linux, it’s possible you might have multiple instances of ffmpeg on your system. This allows you to specify the complete path to the ffmpeg you want to use.

Availability: GNU/Linux

ffmpeg2theora binary path

On GNU/Linux, it’s possible you might have multiple instances of ffmpeg2theora on your system. This allows you to specify the complete path to the ffmpeg2theora you want to use.

Availability: GNU/Linux

Stores preferences

MP3 Stores

Check the boxes in the Visible column for the stores you want to see in the sidebar.

Stores allow you to purchase items and have Miro download those items directly.

Extensions preferences

Note

Extensions are a beta feature in Miro 4. Miro 4 comes with one extension which is not useful, but provides an example for people who want to build extensions.

For more information on extensions in Miro, see the ExtensionSystem wiki page.

This allows you to enable, disable and view extensions that are installed on your system.

Because this is a beta feature and Miro doesn’t ship with any useful extensions, I’m going to leave it at that for now.

Podcast settings

Miro allows you to configure some behavior on a podcast by podcast basis. This is done in the Podcast Settings dialog.

To get to the Podcast Settings dialog:

1. Select the podcast in the sidebar that you want to configure.
2. Click on the Settings button in the footer of the main view.

When you do that, you’ll see this dialog:

Pause auto-downloading when items are unplayed

If Auto Download is set to New or All, Miro will queue items to automatically download if you have unplayed items. The number of unplayed items that trigger queueing of automatically download items is configured with the Pause Auto-Downloading when this many items are unplayed setting. The default is 3.

When this is set, once there are 3 items in a podcast marked as unplayed, Miro will queue items for automatically download and wait until the number of unplayed items drops below the threshold to download more. Once an unplayed item in the podcast has been played, then next item will begin to download.

Auto-Expire Items

Miro will expire items in a feed that have been played. You can control how soon the items get expired in this podcast with this setting.

Outdated Podcast Items

Miro can remember items that used to be in a podcast long after they stop showing up in the feed. This is the Outdated Podcast Items settings. By default, the global preference setting will remember up to 20 old items per podcast.

You can override this on a per podcast basis and and keep from 0 to 1000 outdated items with the Outdated Podcast Items setting.

The podcast will update and either remove old podcast items that are not downloaded, or continue to store additional feed contents.

To clear out all old podcast content, press the Remove All button.