Amarok: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:02, 10 November 2009

Amarok

Amarok is a music manager for KDE

Amarok is a free, versatile and powerful music player for linux. The latest 2.x release series, often referred to as "Amarok 2", is cross-platform (can be used on many platforms including linux, mac and windows) and implements a completely reworked codebase that will enable it to incorporate exciting new features as the release matures. The current stable release is version 2.2.0.

Note:

Click on an image to view the enlargement

Interface

Amarok 2 sports a three-pane interface by default.

The left pane

The left pane is tabbed and retractable. The first tab is the collection browser, which is the primary interface to your local collection. Attached devices will also show up here. There is a tab for all internet services that you have enabled. Here, you can browse listings of radio stations and podcasts; listen/subscribe to them, interact with your last.fm account, purchase music from online stores such as Magnatune and download independent artists' music from Jamendo and more. The Playlist tab allows you to create and manage dynamic and traditional playlists and podcasts. Finally, the files tab displays an integrated file browser.

The central pane (Context View)

This is where all the action is. The pane contain applets that dynamically change to display context information about the song that is currently playing. You can see the rating, score and playcount of the currently playing song, other songs by the same artist that you have, the lyrics of the song, the wikipedia page on the artist and more. These applets can be added, removed or rearranged using the applet bar at the bottom of the pane.

The right pane (Playlist View)

Amarok 2 has the most configurable playlist of any music player in existence. While most offer a columnar layout as default and perhaps a few other fixed views for the playlist, Amarok2 puts the power in your hands to shape the playlist any way you see fit. To start you off, there are three example playlist layouts that you can use as starting points to create the layout that fits your flow the best.

Features

Plays music :)

Amarok 2 can support most popular formats for music files. The actual list of formats is dependent on the codecs and audio backend in use on your system. There's also support for traditional playlists - you can create, save and load all the playlists you want.

Device Support

Currently, basic iPod, MTP and UMS device support are enabled if the required packages are installed. This will be improved upon and more devices will be supported in the future releases.

Take care not to click the "Toggle Unified View Mode" or you will loose the context separating the device collection and your local collection.

Configurable Context View

The centerpiece attraction in Amarok 2, the context view can automatically fetch contextual information about the currently playing song (such as album art, lyrics or Wikipedia information) from the internet and display them. This is one of the unique features of the Amarok series.

More Internet Services

"Some internet services shown on the left pane"

Amarok 2 opens the gateway to a rich multimedia experience on the internet. Sporting interfaces to services such as Ampache music servers and mp3tunes lockers, it allows you to listen to your music from anywhere in the world. You can sample and buy music from Magnatune. Using the Jamendo service, you can listen to and download music from independent artists who you can support with your donations. With integrated last.fm functionality, you can scrobble your tracks, use last.fm features like statistics, charts and listen to radio streams customized to your music taste all from Amarok 2. And that's just the beginning - you can add even more internet services using the Script Manager.

Script Manager

Scripts are add-ons that allow you to extend Amarok 2's functionality in innovative ways. Using the Script Manager, you can manage these scripts by allowing you to install/remove or enabling/disabling scripts you already have. You can also use the "Get More Scripts" feature to download new scripts submitted by other users.

Cover Manager

You can browse through your music collection using the nifty cover manager that displays the album art.

Rating and scoring

You can show your love for the songs by rating them. Amarok 2 supports 1/2 star ratings, too. In addition, Amarok 2 can calculate a score (a sort of guessed rating) depending on metrics such as how often you listen to or skip a song.

Pop-Up Dropper

"Or you could right-click, but this is cooler!"

This is an innovative interface that offers contextual options (such as the ones you see in a right-click menu) that you can "drop" a song into. Grab a song and see it appear in the context view pane!

Configurable Playlist View

"The Playlist Layout Editor is flat-out awesome!"

The currently loaded playlist is highly configurable and can show information about the songs in any form you like. If you prefered the "spreadsheet-view" found in Amarok 1.x series and other music players, you can have that, too! The Playlist View also allows you to save or export the current playlist.

Dynamic Playlists

"A little bit of this, a little bit of that..."

Amarok 2 allows you to create weighted random playlists that adhere to various criteria exactly ("Proportional bias") or approximately ("Fuzzy bias"). For example, you can create a playlist that's randomly populated by songs that are rated more than 3 stars and are approximately from around the year 1967!

Replay Gain Support

Amarok 2 supports replay gain tag information embedded in files and automatically adjusts the overall volume of the song to a common level.

Rediscover your music!

Hints, Tips and FAQs

If you find that most of your music is recognised by Amarok, but some folders are not properly picked up, open a console and type touch folder where folder is the path to the folder that has the problem. In Amarok, You then select the Settings > Configure Amarok > Collection > Rescan Collection option. Now Your folder should be seen.