A word about audio players on the tukosite.

A full player has a navigator control to enable the listener to drop into any section of the track immediately. In a sequence of tracks, it might be expected that, when one track finishes playing, the next in sequence would start playing. The tukosite players don't have a navigator and don't autoplay the next track.

Why?

Well, although the navigator is ubiquitous and convenient, I believe it reduces music to the level of a soundbite and that means that the 'con' far outweighs the 'pro'.

Where there is a navigator, we all use it. That is why it is not there on the tukosite. Music is meant to be listened to. To listen to a song means to be involved with it. To sink into it, not dip into it as the navigator tells us to do. Once upon a time ago, albums were listened to. After you got to know an album, you could skip tracks of course. But you wouldn't until after you'd listened to it. That is not nostalgia. Listening and skipping-through provide different experiences. If people are ok with soundbiting their music, or to put it another way, eat their junk food to junk background music, that's their choice. But choice becomes entitlement when it expands into a demand.

So Spotify allows you to buzz in and out the album or playlist you have browsed to and a carefully crafted record -- Astral Weeks or The Marble Index for two -- is vandalised. I know, I've done it and will no doubt do it again. But given the choice of listening to Astral Weeks or soundbiting it, I know which I think is best.

Autoplay is less clear-cut, but again the intent is to encourage listening. This is a web site not a CD player or for that matter Spotify. It can play music but it isn't a music player. Visitors will, I believe, prefer to play individual tracks rather than entire sets. No autoplay, and a song must be listened to as a song that for example has time to end before the next in the queue pipes up.

Playlists are a sort of drawer that can be opened and shut. To open the drawer tap it, and to close it tap it again.

When the drawer is opened you can play the tracks inside it. The far left icon will take you to the set page itself, so you can explore the other tracks in that set.

You can also download a playlist to your computer or device. The playlist file uses the popular m3u format, which most players should be able to read. For Windows, I have found the free AIMP by far the best for m3u playlists, as it downloads the artwork and metadata. For the iPad and Samsung Galaxy -- my tablet and my phone -- I use the excellent VLC player.

Please note the playlist is just that -- a list of references to a file on the www. Downloading the playlist does not download the music files to your machine and you must be connected to the Internet to play the tracks in the list.

On the tukosite, ebooks are zipped to avoid security issues preventing the download.

Downloading an ebook should be straightforward on a PC. The book will be sent to your download folder where it can be unzipped and read in your favourite reader.

The process is much the same on a tablet or phone (d/l, unzip, read), but may be a little more unintuitive.

As I do not own every tablet and every phone, all I can offer is the example of my iPad and Samsung Galaxy phone.

For the iPad, you should be asked if you want to download. If the download is successful, you will be asked if you want to go to your iPad downloads, so say yes and then press down on the zip file to see a menu. Select the 'Uncompress' option, and an ebook file will appear. Simply select this and it will open in your reader, if you have one installed. If not, you can for example install the free 'Apple Books' app, which is the reader that I use.

For the Galaxy, the process is similar -- download, then go to the d/l app as per the iPad. However, you will need to install a zip app. There are free options available for android. You will also have to install an e-reader. With a zip-app and and e-reader, you can now unzip your book and now the unzipped file will open in your default e-reader.

On a PC, by the way, once you have unzipped the book ('xyz.epub'), you can send it to Kindle. You will then be able to read it on your physical Kindle reader, or the Kindle app on any tablet or phone.