Table of Contents |
| Ringtones

The Ringtone Editor is similar to the File Manager, but specialized to handle ringtone files. Drag and drop between the lists (or other locations,) and rename and delete files as usual. What is a Ringtone? Ringtones are sound files in AAC format (usual extension .m4a) with the fixed extension .m4r. Because of that, extensions are not displayed in the lists and not editable when you edit the name of a ringtone file. The Finder does not play ringtone files, and when you double-click them, they are not added to iTunes. To address that, iFuntastic changes the extension to .m4a when you drag ringtones to disk. Before adding any sound files to a ringtone list, iFuntastic converts them to AAC format. Ringtones on the Phone The left side displays the ringtones on the phone. There are two locations, corresponding to the two sections you see when you select Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone. The Custom List is the 'official' ringtone list. This is where iTunes does its thing. The Standard List contains the built-in ringtones. If there are no custom ringtones on the phone, then you only see one section: the standard list. The Standard List Let's address the standard list first, because it is the easy one. The file names correspond to the names that you see on the phone. You can add ringtones without any further ado, however, the standard list is kept on the system partition which has very limited space. So don't add too many, and don't make them too large. You can free up space by removing some of the ringtones that are there (but back them up to disk first - just drag them into the Ringtones (m4r) list.) The Custom List Now things get more complicated. Ringtones in the custom list are managed by iTunes. They are .m4r files, but with a 4 letter combination as name (four letter words were on my mind a lot when working on this :-) iFuntastic's ringtones use Xnnn where nnn is the next available number. The names that are displayed on the phone are stored in a Ringtones.plist file along with additional information. This file acts as a table of contents for the custom list and must be updated whenever you add, remove or rename a ringtone. Text in this file should not have special characters (such as & or > or <.) If the ringtones don't show up on the phone, then check the 'name', 'artist' and 'album' fields in the original files; fix them up if necessary, and remove and re-add the ringtone(s). When ringtone syncing is on in iTunes, then whenever you sync in iTunes, the Ringtone.plist gets rebuilt and, since iTunes does not know (or approve :-) of the changes you may have made, they are lost. Any files you have added are still there - they are just not part of the Ringtone.plist anymore. Ringtones in the iTunes Ringtone list are not added if they are longer than 40 seconds. Rebuild Ringtone List from Folder To help deal with all of this, iFuntastic adds a text file with the plist information for each ringtone. The info file has the same name as the ringtone file. When you click the 'Rebuild' button, iFuntastic adds info files for all .m4r files that may have been added with iTunes. It then rebuilds the Ringtone.plist file from all the info files in the folder and removes info files that don't have any corresponding .m4r files. After a sync in iTunes, or when things look wrong in Ringtone Land, rebuild the ringtone list! The SpringBoard (or the iPhone) needs to be restarted before you can use ringtones you added (instead of 'Marimba' playing.) This is done automatically when iFuntastic Support is installed. Depending on how frequently you add or change ringtones, how many you want and whether or not you use iTunes for that, you may prefer to use the standard list, or make a disk folder with ringtones and put the desired ones in there; switch ringtone syncing off and just drag all ringtones from your disk folder into the custom list when neccessary (after a restore, for example.) Ringtones on Disk The right side of the Ringtone page lets you switch between two lists as well. One is a list of the Ringtones (m4r) folder in the Support folder. It is intended as your global repository for finished ringtones. You can simply drag a selection from there into a ringtone list on the phone; no conversion will be necessary. The 'Sound Files' tab leads to a list similar to the 'Select File' dialog in the Sound Editor. Only sound files can be selected, but from any location on disk or phone. Choose 'Ringtones' from the Go -> Disk menu to get the general sound repository where iFuntastic puts copies, backups and downloaded sounds. Ringtone Editing Double-click on a ringtone (or sound) in any of the lists to open the file in the Sound Editor. Control-click on a ringtone to rename it.