The ZPL (Zoom Player Play List) Format


Introduction:
A lot of applications seem to favor XML as a file format for their playlist. Zoom Player doesn't. The reason? XML is very slow to parse and you don't really need its complexity for playlists.

The Format:
Zoom Player's ZPL Play List format is very simple. It consist of text tags, each on it's own line (to make parsing faster). Each file entry ends with a special break tag. Zoom Player's play list can be in unicode text files in order to support NON-English unicode file names.

The Tags:

AC	Active media File Name/URL, the last file to have been played when the list was saved. This is a global entry and should only exist once in a play list (optional).
NM	The media file name/URL.
ST	The media source type (e.g. SHOUTcast URL).
DR	The media's duration in seconds (optional).
TT	The media's title/description (TAG, optional).
TG	The media's genre (TAG, optional).
TR	The media's track number (TAG, optional).
TL	The media's language (TAG, optional).
TA	The media's artist name (TAG, optional).
TB	The media's album name (TAG, optional).
TY	The media's production year (TAG, optional).
TH	The media's author name (TAG, optional).
TE	The media's encoder (TAG, optional).
TC	The media's comment (TAG, optional).
TU	The media's URL (TAG, optional).
TO	The media's copyright (TAG, optional).
FD	Used to force a duration (in seconds) on a file. Useful for image slideshows (optional).
FT	File Type, set to "6" to treat the file name as a web page URL.
RN	If specified, the playlist will be sorted randomly (optional).
SR	If specified, the playlist will be sorted: SR=0 : Sort by Name SR=1 : Sort by File Type (extension) SR=2 : Sort by Date SR=3 : Sort by Size SR=4 : Sort by Folder (path) SR=5 : Sort by Duration (media length) SR=6 : Sort Randomly (same as RN tag)
SA	Erase the playlist file after reading it (use with care!)
BR!	End of file entry. Each file entry should end with this tag.

Example:
AC=myvideo.avi
NM=welcome.jpg
FD=5
BR!
NM=1.avi
TT=The first video!
BR!
NM=2.avi
DR=60
BR!
NM=myvideo.avi
BR!
NM=4.avi
BR!