StepMania/Installing songs

Installing songs for Stepmania is rather simple, but some people may get confused if it is not properly explained. So here is a step by step tutorial on how you should install your songs for StepMania.

Know where you installed StepMania. Most people install it in C:\\Program Files\StepMania, but if you installed it somewhere else, be sure you know exactly where it is so you can install your song to it.
 * Step 1

Download some songs! I suggest you download a pack of songs from bluexoon (probably the ITG pack) to get yourself started with the game. Open the .zip file and you will see a folder that contains a bunch of other folders (the song folders).
 * Step 2

Click of the main pack folder (if the pack was Hard Songs Megapack 1, you would click on the main folder Hard Songs Megapack 1) and hit "extract" (or if you are using Windows' .zip file extractor...just right click and extract it that way.)
 * Step 3

Once it has finished extracting, move it to your StepMania's songs folder EXACTLY the way it is. The location of your songs folder is completely dependent on where you installed StepMania, but if you installed it in Program files, the directory would be: C:\\Program Files\StepMania\Songs\. Just drag and drop the folder in there, and once you start up StepMania the songs should be successfully installed!
 * Step 4

What about the .SMzip format?
The .SMzip format is generally a format used by StepMania to install and extract songs for you without having to worry about directories or anything else (generally there is only one song, theme, or announcer per .SMzip file). This actually doesn't work that well...because Stepmania installs these songs usually each with different directories, which makes trying to play your songs in the song selection screen a real hassle, ESPECIALLY if you have more than 100 files. The BEST thing you can do if you have obtained a .SMzip file is to change the file to a .zip and extract it that way (or if you wave Winzip, it will automatically detect that it is a .zip file and you can extract it that way. Once you extract it, a folder will appear, DON'T copy it over yet...open that folder up, there should be another folder containing the song name...copy THAT folder and paste it into your StepMania songs folder in one of your other pack folders (like C:\\Program Files\StepMania\Songs\MySongPack\). It is much more convenient in the long run.