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The Road to KDE 4: Amarok 2 Development is Underway

dot.kde.org — This week we'll take a brief look at some of the many features that are making their way into Amarok 2, which is the development branch for Amarok in KDE 4.The features discussed are all in progress features which have reached varying stages of completion. Read on for information about Amarok's engines (including Phonon), UI changes, changes to the

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 13, 2007

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  • sebr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+35woooo Amarok 2.0! can't wait!
  • dkay, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34Since running Amarok, I just can't stand iTunes and Media Player. Looking forward to 2.0!
  • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Good quote from PCWorld:

    ,----[ Quote ]
    | KDE users have it easy: Amarok is slick enough to crow about in a
    | room full of iTunes or Windows Media Player users.
    `----

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128636-page,4-c,linux/article.html
  • markey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15You get used to it ;) But yeah, it can be annoying. Some users are very narrow minded.

    Really, one of the most important rules in open source development is to ignore the mob. Listening to user requests is important, but you need to stay true to your vision. If you don't have a vision and just keep doing what everyone else says, your project is doomed.
  • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15It's better
  • patpi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12it's not smart move. Wait for at least KDE4-beta1 ... install it, test it, fill bug reports on http://bugs.kde.org/ and make KDE4 better! :) Now it is "work in progress"
  • Leviathan777, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Tyr7BE is wrong.

    iTunes management kinda sucks and that's why I moved to Amarok. Because it's better.

    A few features in particular:

    1) Mass renaming of stuff in Amarok is as powerful and simple as it possibly can be. Last I checked, you can't select 25 files in iTunes and say "give them all the album name of this one" in two clicks.

    2) Changes to file metadata doesn't reorganize the underlying files in iTunes. Neither does it in Amarok, which is great, because I usually end up fixing tags on lots of music, then when I'm satisfied, moving it from my "incoming" pile to my "filed" music, using the automatic filing abilities. Amarok can do this, iTunes can't.

    3) Amarok lets you choose your own file naming scheme for organizing your collection. iTunes does not.

    4) Amarok has a file system view and a collection view. This is invaluable if you like to keep your collection organized just so. iTunes is great if you are lazy or dumb, but I'm neither when it comes to my music..

    All you haters are just that.

    And while I dig the cover manager, over 50% of my music doesn't have a cover available, so it's not Amarok's more whiz-bang features that work for me, it's just sensible music and playlist management.

    Amarok FTW.
  • strabes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Pretty much anything that can play an mp3 file is slick enough to crow about in a room full of iTunes and MWP users.
  • midwinter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13It must be somewhat discouraging working on anything related to KDE4, just look at the feedback on that page, so much whining and complaining. I'd probably give up or at least close off development to the world a little.
  • chris182, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I completely agree. I can't stand the iTunes interface compared to Amarok's.
  • martynda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You can right click on the toolbar where title, album, etc are listed and add more filters.
  • Haroldx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Why don't you just use mpd then?

    You should look into it.
  • inkubux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7^^ Amarok is miles ahead
  • dragazis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6No worries. Functionality before features. I'm sure the UI will look fine. It's one of the few apps where they actually care about their UI as well as their code.
  • citrusfizz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7i am excited for the preliminary video support thru photon.. i know amarok doesn't want to focus on video playback at all, but for me it would be nice to have a place where i can organized and catagorize my videos along with my music in linux..

    also i would like to see a better tag editor something like media monkey where you can download the info from amazon and tag it and reorganize it by filename all at once

    i am in awe for kde4 and i can't wait until it is released (of course being done and not rushed )
  • userundefine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@Leviathan

    Funny you should mention a cover manager. Amarok actually does have one, but I assume you're talking about the rotating jukebox kind in iTunes. One KDE developer has already coded up one.

    http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2007/03/reflections.html
  • dragazis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I am currently using Amarok2SVN on Mac via KDE4 and Qt, but there is no sound playback as the phonon engine really hasn't been implemented so it's functional :-p, but it sure runs nice and looks pretty cool. For those interested on getting KDE based apps on their Mac using KDE 4 and Qt, Ranger Rick set an awesome page up telling us how to do so. http://ranger.users.finkproject.org/kde/index.php/Home

    EDIT: The packages we're just update, so audio playback might work.
  • dnissley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Amarok is playlist based, like WMP/Winamp. Banshee is search based, like iTunes. It all depends on your preference. I like amarok more because of better lyrics support and the embedded browser for looking up artist info.
  • h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@Haroldx

    Mpd, the music player daemon? That's a bit extreme.
    What I meant is that some people prefer a music manager, with lots of filters and knobs, and some people prefer a playlist-oriented player.
    But I'm all for the progress of Amarok, the way they integrate components in KDE is just beautiful and a technical gem of free software.
  • skymt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The screenshots in the article are just mock-ups. It isn't finished yet, so withhold your criticism until then.
  • enr1x, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'll have to hurry to install kde/svn, then!!!
  • flappysocks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5How does Amarok compare to Banshee?
  • troyunrau, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually, the problem was that there were no universal binaries for xine in the last packages, so neither amarok's own xine engine, nor phonon-xine were built :P Meaning it was using phonon-fake (a null output engine). He just got xine to build as a universal binary, and amarok can now play audio on the mac. :)
  • stupidbrowner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I dunno, I really like Banshee. I tried Amarok but didn't like it as much. But I guess that's the great thing about Linux, you can pick and choose your software.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7"Listening to user requests is important, but you need to stay true to your vision. If you don't have a vision and just keep doing what everyone else says, your project is doomed."

    The secret to Microsofts success!
  • dragazis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't know what this update did, but I can't even add a song anymore without Amarok crashing. Are you using Phonon or gstreamer for playback?
  • Ellsass, on 11/05/2008, -0/+2Another question from someone transitioning from Windows to Linux: which one (Amarok or Banshee) works better with an iPod?
  • fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Right click on the column name in the playlist, length and score are both there.
  • eean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can go crazy with the new (1.4.5) filter editor in the collection browser.
  • EvilGnomeAndy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I generally keep my entire library as the current playlist anyway, and filter/queue myself crazy.
  • hockey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is there any way to add new audio plugins. Right now the only one I see on my machine is the xine audio output plugin and I don't like the audio quality from amarok.

    Is there any way to change that?

    Thanks.
  • geoken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Is this for the left pane or the middle pane?
  • dewes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is a lot o things to do! You should try again amarok 1.4.5 to see it by yourself!
  • vondur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 I think that has to do with how the app was compiled. In Fedora, you can easily switch the audio engine. I usually use the Helix engine since it can play all of my files encoded in .mp4 format. If you cant switch it in your distro, you may have to compile it yourself.
  • bettermentflux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This mockup http://static.kdenews.org/content/the-road-to-kde-4/vol12_mockup.png is a big improvement over the current look. Basically, it combine the default Collection/Playlist view with the Context view - and still manages to look less busy. Good work guys!

    For the ultimate in clean interfaces, I highly recommend the AmarokFS (Full Screen) script: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=52641
    and
    http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/AmarokFS+Startup+Script?content=53125

    Hopefully, a similar Full Screen version can be brought into the base 2.0 system. It's great for parties.
  • Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
    Amarok is the ***** mad note!

    (That means its good)
  • bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just install the package you need for whichever engine. openSUSE has several including aRTs, gStreamer and Xine. Ubuntu has even more.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0that's why I use xmms or foobar2k with wine

  • h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5The day I tried Amarok was the day I realized I don't like music players with lots of options and panels.
    Then I went back to beep-media-player (the original, not BMPx).
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3i think with slick they meant *****, and with windows media player they forgot to write "which is also *****" after it
  • geoken, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3How many filters does Amarok have for it's library view? Last time I used it I was dissapointed because I couldn't figure out a way to sort my library list by rating, or length. Is it possible to do these things? In WMP11 I have my songs displayed in groups according to rating, except when I wan't to listen to DJ sets and I sort by length.
  • geoken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I know the length and rating show up in the playlist/now playing pane. I want to know if I can use those filters in the actual library pane (left window)? Or do I have to make a playlist then add every song to it so my entire library shows up in the playlist pane?

  • strabes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Kid3 is a great ID3 tagger for KDE.
  • bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4You could always use "inverted commas". Some people call them "quotes".
  • ptFoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1But Foobar2000 is a thousand times more configurable than Amarok.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0***** Amarok it's a bloated piece of *****
  • trilith, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Very strange. I'd better go and sleep instead of reading THIS
  • WWWWolf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Ugh, I seriously hope the new UI gets tweaked further before the release (and that it will be more tweakable in future, too). That mockup seems to have, um, a bit too much drag-space between the collection and playlist.

    But I have complete faith in them that they won't mess up the UI too bad. =)
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