Amarok 2.4 Beta 1 Brings A Basket Of Features

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Amarok 2.4 Beta 1 Brings A Basket Of Features

KDE Software Compilation 4.6 is set to be released in January and coming alongside that will be the Amarok 2.4 music player release. KDE SC 4.6 Beta 1 came late last month, but now Amarok is joining the Christmas party with its first 2.4 beta release. It brings a basket of new features, thanks in part to the contributions made this year with the Google Summer of Code project...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODg4Mg

[GreatEmerald]

Hmm, no sign of a MTP device synchronisation function yet? Ah well, guess I'll have to wait some more. Really looking forward to it. It's pretty odd how Amarok can see the MTP devices and read them, but not write to them, even if in Amarok 1 and other apps that utilise libMTP it works just fine.

[Ragas]

nice.
Most interesting for me is: "brand-new (completely rewritten) music collection scanner"
The old one still kinda sucks. (even though it's kinda usable right now, it still has some hicups)

I'm looking forward to the stable version .... maybe I should also try the beta ... if it isn't too broken ...

[hax0r]

Amarok is the worst audio player and a worst example of software, slow, memory hog, bad UI layout. Takes ~100MB of memory just to start it up. They could learn something from foobar2000 and mimic the same design.

[KAMiKAZOW]

Am I the only one who dislikes the whole "right-click and add/replace playlist" metaphor?
It's the most important reason I use Juk. Awkward playlist sorting in Amarok is the other main reason.

[BlackStar]

Highlights of Amarok 2.4 include trans-coding support

Wait, what? Feature creep FTW!

Yeah, and playlists suck. Just use my file structure directly, dammit!

[MaestroMaus]

I third that. I never understood how someone can think that this is useful.

[TheCycoONE]

Wait, what? Feature creep FTW!

Yeah, and playlists suck. Just use my file structure directly, dammit!

Amarok aims to be a full featured media player, and iTunes/Windows Media Player both have transcoding. Its useful for moving songs to players that only support limited media formats; and probably easier for most users than 'transcode'

[Nevertime]

Am I the only one who dislikes the whole "right-click and add/replace playlist" metaphor?
It's the most important reason I use Juk. Awkward playlist sorting in Amarok is the other main reason.

I quite like how amarok works playlist wise (though I left click and drag to middle section where the lyrics are, as that location changes to add/replace. Still each to their own there's plenty of other players out there. The biggest issue I have with amarok is how long it takes to boot up.

[Ranguvar]

I can appreciate that it wants to be the GNU/Linux iTunes/WMP.
Sadly, that means it won't be for me, though.
Amarok has come a long way, but it seems as part of that, it has found a new userbase (for the most part).