Amarok 2.1
I’ve always liked bleeding edge software. Besides the fact that I’m running the latest KDE-RedHat packages (currently KDE 4.1.96 / 4.2 RC1) I am using the SVN version of Amarok 2.
Since a few days they switched to a new trunk containing the upcoming version 2.1 and I must say it’s looking pretty damn sweet so far. Most of the functions which were left out of the 2.0 release are being re-introduced here (actually the current release of Amarok 2.0.1.1 has quite a few of the community’s wishes granted already).
For a little while the Amarok developers had me scared (and quite pissed off) for a moment, claiming the would do only do their own thing and not re-implanting old 1.4 features (Missing features in Amarok 2). Luckily they proof otherwise for 2.0.1.1 with a search/filter for the playlist, queue support, fixed grouping, and a lot of bug fixes, changes and other features. With 2.1 in the making they seem to really get the hang of it.
At this point it would be useless to do an in-depth review so perhaps I will consider that later during the progress, but at this point it’s already worth looking at. Below a screenshot of the slightly changed main window and the changelog as of r910186.
Amarok 2.1 Main Window
New in 2.1 so far:
VERSION 2.1
FEATURES:
* Replay Gain support, currently only for Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files.
* Amarok urls. Amarok can now load and generate “amarok urls” that allows
any “view” to be bookmarked and later retrieved. A protocol handler is
also installed that will launch amarok into the correct state, or make
amarok show the correct view if already running if such a url is
activated system wide.
* Customizable playlist layouts. The playlist is now rendered according to
an xml layout, allowing the playlist to assume a variety of different
looks and supply customizable information.
* Album cover art can be accessed via the scripting API. Patch thanks to
Simon Esneault <simon.esneault@gmail.com>. (BR 179732)
* New vertical Context View layout.
* New applet toolbar in the Context View to arrange, select, and add applets.CHANGES:
* Progress indicator on system tray icon is back.
* Now using KSystemTrayIcon.BUGFIXES:
* Open ogg files in Amarok when using Dolphin and other file managers.
Patch thanks to Lubos Lunak <l.lunak@kde.org>. (BR 180155)
* Fixed an infinite loop bug when using title case conversion in Guess Tags.
(BR 180164)
* Don’t show the rating widget for tracks which are not in the collection.
(BR 180023)
If you would like to give the latest SVN build a try too, Mark Kretschmann, one of the (actually the founder of) Amarok developers has posted a small manual of building the SVN version in your home directory. You’ll find it here: Installing Amarok 2 from SVN in your home directory.
Good luck and Amarok on!
Ps. If one of the Amarok developers is actually reading this, keep up the good work! 🙂
Amarok 2.1 by Eelko Berkenpies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.