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 File Name, 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 file name.
DR	The file's duration in seconds (optional).
TT	The file's title/description (TAG, optional).
TG	The file's genre (TAG, optional).
TR	The file's track number (TAG, optional).
TL	The file's language (TAG, optional).
TA	The file's artist name (TAG, optional).
TB	The file's album name (TAG, optional).
TY	The file's production year (TAG, optional).
TH	The file's author name (TAG, optional).
TE	The file's encoder (TAG, optional).
TC	The file's comment (TAG, optional).
TU	The file's URL (TAG, optional).
TO	The file's copyright (TAG, optional).
FD	Used to force a duration (in seconds) on a file. Useful for image slideshows (optional).
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 Directory (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!