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Amarok (audio)
Encyclopedia
Amarok is a cross-platform
free and open source music player
for KDE
, but is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation
release cycle. Amarok is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License
2.
due to several usability problems, which interfered with the addition of new files to the playlist due to several user interface elements existing for one task. The original amaroK was created based upon the idea of a two-pane interface seen in Midnight Commander
, and the first version of the software released solely by Kretschmann, was based upon the ideal of allowing users to drag-and-drop music into an interface in which the playlist was displayed on the right and information on the left.
After the initial release of AmaroK, several developers joined the project to form the “Three M’s” the first of whom was Max Howell, who acted as an interface designer and programmer for the project, alongside Muesli (Christian Muehlhaeuser), who also provided user interface insight and programming till the late 1.4 versions.
Originally named amaroK, it was renamed to Amarok in June 2006.
Amarok 1.4 established a reputation for innovation after its release, but maintaining development with the old framework became more difficult as Amarok grew. With the release of KDE 4 the developers decided to give Amarok a complete overhaul aesthetically as well as functionally.
A new major version of Amarok, version 2.0, was released on December 12, 2008. On June 3, 2009, version 2.1 was released which reintroduced a few of the 1.4 features which had been missing from the initial 2.0 release, and introduced some features such as native ReplayGain support for the first time.
word for "wolf", it was originally named after the album Amarok
by Mike Oldfield
. The 1.2 release originally had a wolf icon, but this was later withdrawn due to similarity with the logo of WaRP Graphics
Inc. Amarok’s wolf logo has now been modified sufficiently so as not to infringe on WaRP’s trademarked logo, and reinstated.
lookup and lyrics download help users to find new music, and to learn more about the music they have. Amarok also features integration with last.fm
, giving users suggestions about what to listen to next and which artists may fit their mood, as well as with Magnatune
integration, allowing no-cost full listening of all the music in their catalog, and DRM
-free purchasing.
Although a more technical list of features is listed below, here are the primary functions or uses for Amarok:
From version 1.4.4, Amarok introduced the integration of Magnatune
, a non-DRM
digital music store, enabling users to purchase music in Ogg
, FLAC
, WAV
, and MP3
formats.
Some of these features depend on other programs or libraries that must be installed on the computer to operate.
The user interface had been redesigned to make context information like lyrics and albums from the same artist more accessible and allow the user to decide which information is available by adding applets to the Context View in the middle. The new Biased Playlists offer a way to let Amarok take care of the playlist in an intelligent way similar to Dynamic Playlists in previous versions. New services can easily be added via GetHotNewStuff in Amarok or from kde-apps.org. The migration to the KDE Platform 4 allows Amarok 2 to make use of technologies like Plasma, Phonon, and Solid which make Amarok easier to use and maintain.
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
free and open source music player
Music player
Music player can refer to:*audio player , music playing software running on a computer.*digital audio player, hardware device for playing back music.-See also:* Various types of musicians...
for KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
, but is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation
KDE Software Compilation
The KDE Software Compilation is a desktop environment and an associated range of KDE Applications produced by KDE. Prior to version 4.4, released in February 2010, the Software Compilation was known as KDE, which used to stand for K Desktop Environment until November 2009...
release cycle. Amarok is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
2.
History
The project was originally started by Mark Kretschmann as a means of improving XMMSXMMS
The X Multimedia System is a free audio player for Unix-like systems.-History:XMMS was originally written as X11Amp by Peter and Mikael Alm in November 1997. The player was made to resemble Winamp, which was first released in May that year. As such, XMMS has supported Winamp 2 "classic" skins...
due to several usability problems, which interfered with the addition of new files to the playlist due to several user interface elements existing for one task. The original amaroK was created based upon the idea of a two-pane interface seen in Midnight Commander
Midnight Commander
GNU Midnight Commander is a free cross-platform orthodox file manager and a clone of Norton Commander originally created by Miguel de Icaza.Midnight Commander is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-Design:...
, and the first version of the software released solely by Kretschmann, was based upon the ideal of allowing users to drag-and-drop music into an interface in which the playlist was displayed on the right and information on the left.
After the initial release of AmaroK, several developers joined the project to form the “Three M’s” the first of whom was Max Howell, who acted as an interface designer and programmer for the project, alongside Muesli (Christian Muehlhaeuser), who also provided user interface insight and programming till the late 1.4 versions.
Originally named amaroK, it was renamed to Amarok in June 2006.
Amarok 1.4 established a reputation for innovation after its release, but maintaining development with the old framework became more difficult as Amarok grew. With the release of KDE 4 the developers decided to give Amarok a complete overhaul aesthetically as well as functionally.
A new major version of Amarok, version 2.0, was released on December 12, 2008. On June 3, 2009, version 2.1 was released which reintroduced a few of the 1.4 features which had been missing from the initial 2.0 release, and introduced some features such as native ReplayGain support for the first time.
Amarok logo
Despite the fact that Amarok uses wolf-based artwork, and that the name "amarok" or "amaroq" literally refers to the InuktitutInuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
word for "wolf", it was originally named after the album Amarok
Amarok (album)
Amarok is the 13th record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1990. It is considered by fans to be his most distinctive work: a single sixty-minute track of continuous, uninterrupted but constantly-changing music....
by Mike Oldfield
Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...
. The 1.2 release originally had a wolf icon, but this was later withdrawn due to similarity with the logo of WaRP Graphics
WaRP Graphics
WaRP Graphics, later Warp Graphics, is an alternative comics publisher best known for creating and being the original publisher of the Elfquest comic book series. It was created and incorporated in 1977 by Wendy and Richard Pini. The company title is an acronym formed from the founding couple's...
Inc. Amarok’s wolf logo has now been modified sufficiently so as not to infringe on WaRP’s trademarked logo, and reinstated.
Development goals
Amarok’s tagline is “Rediscover Your Music”, and its development is based around this ideology. Amarok’s core features such as the unique "context browser", integrated WikipediaWikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
lookup and lyrics download help users to find new music, and to learn more about the music they have. Amarok also features integration with last.fm
Last.fm
Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
, giving users suggestions about what to listen to next and which artists may fit their mood, as well as with Magnatune
Magnatune
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
integration, allowing no-cost full listening of all the music in their catalog, and DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
-free purchasing.
Basic uses and functions
Amarok serves many functions in addition to the basic function of playing music files. For example, Amarok can be used to organize a library of music into folders according to genre, artist, and album, can edit tags attached to most music formats, associate album art, attach lyrics, and automatically "score" music by keeping play count statistics.Although a more technical list of features is listed below, here are the primary functions or uses for Amarok:
- Playing media files in various formats including but not limited to (depending on the setup) FLACFLACFLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
, OggOggOgg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
, MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, AACAdvanced Audio CodingAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, WAVWAVWaveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, Windows Media AudioWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
, Apple LosslessApple LosslessApple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced...
, WavPackWavPackWavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency...
, TTATTA (codec)True Audio is a free software, real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters.Also, .tta is the generic extension to filenames of audio files created by True Audio codec.- Codec overview :...
and MusepackMusepackMusepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s...
. Amarok does not play digital music files embedded with DRMDigital rights managementDigital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
. - Tagging digital music files (currently FLACFLACFLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
, OggOggOgg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
, WMAWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
, AACAdvanced Audio CodingAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, and RealMediaRealMediaRealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks. Its extension is ".rm". It is typically used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio and is used for streaming content over the Internet....
). - Associating cover art with a particular album, and retrieving the cover art from AmazonAmazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
. - Creating and editing playlists, including smart and dynamic playlists. The dynamic playlists can use such information as the "score" given to a song by an Amarok script, and the playcount which is stored in the database.
- Synchronizing, retrieving, playing, or uploading music to the following digital music players: iPodIPodiPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, iriverIriveririver is a consumer electronics company headquartered in South Korea and widely known for its digital audio players and other portable media devices....
iFP, Creative NOMADCreative NOMADThe NOMAD was a range of digital audio players designed and sold by Creative Technology, and later discontinued in 2004. Subsequent players now fall exclusively under the MuVo and ZEN brands.The NOMAD series consisted of two distinct brands:...
, Creative ZENCreative ZenThe Creative ZEN is a range of digital audio players and portable media players made by Creative Technology. The players evolved from the now-defunct NOMAD brand through the NOMAD Jukebox series...
, MTPMedia Transfer ProtocolThe Media Transfer Protocol is a devised set of custom extensions to the Picture Transfer Protocol . Whereas PTP was designed for downloading photographs from digital cameras, Media Transfer Protocol supports the transfer of music files on digital audio players and media files on portable media...
, Rio KarmaRio KarmaThe Rio Karma is a digital audio player originally made by the now defunct Rio. It was released in August 2003. It measures 2.7 × 3 × 0.9 inches and weighs 5.5 ounces . It has a 20 gigabyte hard drive...
and USB devices with VFATFile Allocation TableFile Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
(generic MP3 players) support. - Displaying artist information from Wikipedia and retrieving song lyrics.
- Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
support, including submitting played tracks (including those played on some digital music players) to Last.fm, retrieving similar artists and playing Last.fm streams. - PodcastPodcastA podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
.
From version 1.4.4, Amarok introduced the integration of Magnatune
Magnatune
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
, a non-DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
digital music store, enabling users to purchase music in Ogg
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
, FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
, WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, and MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
formats.
Some of these features depend on other programs or libraries that must be installed on the computer to operate.
Technical features
- Three main window panes: playlist browser,collection and player window.
- Systray (panel notification area) icon support.
- Song collection, which includes specific folders on the filesystem.
- Searching Files/Artists/Album/Genre in Collection can be performed using Simple and Advanced options
- Intelligent Playlists support(Dynamic Playlists)
- Integration with online services such as MagnatuneMagnatuneMagnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
, JamendoJamendoJamendo is a music website and a community of music authors. It bills itself as "the world's #1 platform for free and legal music downloads under Creative Commons licenses."...
, MP3tunes, Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
and ShoutcastSHOUTcastSHOUTcast is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft , allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or HE-AAC format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations"...
. - Songs can be rated both dynamically (based on how much the song is played) and by hand (giving rating of 1-5 stars to the song).
- Amarok File Tracking (since 1.4.3): Stores file checksum in the collection. This allows the file be moved around in the filesystem without Amarok losing track of the song statistics.
- Collection filter (newest songs, highest rated, most played, etc.).
- Support for Phonon engine. The backend of Phonon dictates which media types Amarok can play and how they play. When using XineXinexine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization...
, Amarok supports crossfading, but not seeking in seekpointless FLAC files. When using GstreamerGStreamerGStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
, Amarok supports seeking, but not crossfading. Amarok does not support a backend capable of Gapless playbackGapless playbackGapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks without intervening silence or clicks at the point of the track change. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed...
. - Support for moodbarMoodbarMoodbar is a computer visualization used for navigating within a piece of music. This is done with a horizontal bar that is divided into vertical stripes. Each stripe has a colour showing the "mood" within a short part of the song. The colour can depend on spectrum and/or rhythmic features of the...
s. - Uses TagLib for tags.
- Amarok can be controlled via D-BusD-BusIn computing, D-Bus is a simple inter-process communication open-source system for software applications to communicate with one another. Heavily influenced by KDE2–3's DCOP system, D-Bus has replaced DCOP in the KDE 4 release. An implementation of D-Bus supports most POSIX operating...
. - Amarok Scripts, for example, when writing lyrics fetching plugins, can be written in QtScript.
Amarok 2.0
Amarok 2 was released on 10 December 2008 bringing along new features, but still less than Amarok 1.4, spawning considerable discussion, and a completely redesigned interface. New features include:- Tight integration with online services such as MagnatuneMagnatuneMagnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
, JamendoJamendoJamendo is a music website and a community of music authors. It bills itself as "the world's #1 platform for free and legal music downloads under Creative Commons licenses."...
, MP3tunes, Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
and ShoutcastSHOUTcastSHOUTcast is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft , allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or HE-AAC format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations"...
. - Completely overhauled scripting API and plugin support to allow better integration into Amarok.
- Migration from the KDE 3KDE 3K Desktop Environment 3 was the third series of releases of the K Desktop Environment . There were six major releases in this series.-K Desktop Environment 3.0:...
to KDE Software Compilation 4, and utilization of core technologies such as SolidSolid (KDE)KDE Platform is a set of frameworks by KDE that serve as technological foundation for all KDE applications. Ever since KDE’s brand repositioning the Platform is released as separate product in sync with KDE’s Plasma Workspaces as part of the KDE Software Compilation 4...
, PhononPhonon (KDE)Phonon is the multimedia API provided by Qt and is the standard abstraction for handling multimedia streams within the KDE Software Compilation 4....
, and PlasmaPlasma (KDE)Plasma Workspaces is the umbrella term for all graphical environments provided by KDE.Three Plasma sub-projects are currently being developed: Plasma Desktop for traditional desktop PCs and notebooks, Plasma Netbook for netbooks, and Plasma Active for Tablet PCs, Nokia N900 style smartphones and...
.
The user interface had been redesigned to make context information like lyrics and albums from the same artist more accessible and allow the user to decide which information is available by adding applets to the Context View in the middle. The new Biased Playlists offer a way to let Amarok take care of the playlist in an intelligent way similar to Dynamic Playlists in previous versions. New services can easily be added via GetHotNewStuff in Amarok or from kde-apps.org. The migration to the KDE Platform 4 allows Amarok 2 to make use of technologies like Plasma, Phonon, and Solid which make Amarok easier to use and maintain.
Changes Since 1.4
- Service Framework: This integrates networked music sources directly into Amarok. This includes online music stores, media servers, Web music lockers, and more. Due to this the users will be able to get easy access to music provided by MagnatuneMagnatuneMagnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil"...
, JamendoJamendoJamendo is a music website and a community of music authors. It bills itself as "the world's #1 platform for free and legal music downloads under Creative Commons licenses."...
, Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
, MP3Tunes Locker and AmpacheAmpacheAmpache is a free software Web-based Audio file manager / web Media Server. The name is a play on the two words Apache and Amplifier. It was originally written to take advantage of Apache's Mod_mp3 but has since been adapted to use its own streaming method...
. - Biased Playlists: Biased Playlists extend the old Dynamic Playlists. They allow users to define an automatically populated playlist, based on specific probability-driven criteria called "biases".
- Context View: This view occupies the central place of the Amarok’s window, replacing the old Context Browser from the 1.x series. It displays contextual information about the music one plays, like the album cover, track rating, labels, lyrics, artist information, related songs and artists and track mood.
- Other Features: Additional changes in Amarok 2.0 include new SVG-based scalable theme, advanced scripting, dynamic collections, usability changes, updated media device handling, new podcast manager and support for more software platforms.
Forks and variations
The transition from version 1.4 to version 2 was criticized by some users. As a consequence some new projects have been established, based on Amarok version 1.4.x.- Amarok Live was a live CDLive CDA live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive...
Linux distributionLinux distributionA Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
with the sole purpose to demonstrate Amarok. - ClementineClementine (software)Clementine is a cross-platform free and open source music player and library organizer. It is a port of Amarok 1.4 to the Qt 4 framework and the GStreamer multimedia framework. It is available for Unix-like, Windows and Mac OS X...
is a fork of Amarok 1.4 to port it to the Qt 4 framework. - ExaileExaileExaile is a music player that was originally conceived to be similar in style and function to KDE's Amarok 1.4, but use the GTK+ widget toolkit rather than Qt...
is a GTK+GTK+GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...
port of Amarok 1.4. - Gereqi is a clone of Amarok 1.4, written in PySidePySidePySide is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt. It is one of the alternatives for GUI programming in Python to Tkinter, which is bundled with Python. Other popular alternatives are PyGTK, PyQt and wxPython. Like Qt, PySide is free software...
. - Pana is a fork of Amarok 1.4. The intention is to keep the original program alive. The author has now discontinued the project, and suggested users switch to Clementine. Launchpad Site
Release history
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red | Release no longer supported |
| Green | Release still supported |
| Blue | Future release |
| Major Version | Codename | Minor Version | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 | Wocka | 0.5.0 | 2003-06-23 | Initial release |
| 0.6 | ?? | 0.6.0 | 2003-09-20 | ?? |
| 0.7 | The Last Zombie | 0.7.0 | 2003-11-16 | Added support for cross fading and customizable columns. |
| 1.0 | ?? | 1.0.0 | 2004-06-17 | Added searchable 'collection', file browser, cover art from Amazon and statistics. |
| 1.1 | I am a rock | 1.1.0 | 2004-09-27 | Added song ratings and support for Xine Xine xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization... , MAS and K3b K3b K3b is a CD and DVD authoring application by KDE for Unix-like computer operating systems. It provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX... . |
| 1.2 | ?? | 1.2.0 | 2005-02-14 | Support for iPod IPod iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle... s, Audioscrobbler, MySQL MySQL MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My... and a themeable browser. |
| 1.3 | Airborne | 1.3.0 | 2005-08-14 | New playlist browser, work on interface, dynamic playlists, support for podcasts, relative paths in playlists, playlist queue, Wikipedia Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,... integration and cuesheets. |
| 1.3.9 | 2006-03-26 | Helix and GStreamer engine, nicer interface, work on podcast support. | ||
| 1.4 | Fast Forward | 1.4.0 | 2006-05-17 | Improved support for mobile devices, work on memory usage and interface design, integration of Last.FM into the context browser, gapless playback using Xine, lyrics now fetched with scripts, advanced Wikipedia integration, CD ripping via drag n drop, improved handling of podcasts. |
| 1.4.1 | 2006-07-02 | Improved performance and usability, name changed from amaroK to Amarok, Last.FM streams, rating via scripts. | ||
| 1.4.2 | 2006-08-22 | DAAP client, MTP media device support, dynamic collection, custom Last.FM stations. | ||
| 1.4.3 | 2006-09-05 | AFT (Amarok File Tracking). | ||
| 1.4.4 | 2006-10-30 | Magnatune integration, 3 different ways of crossfading with Xine and helix engine. | ||
| 1.4.5 | 2007-02-04 | SHOUTcast streams, labels. | ||
| 1.4.6 | 2007-06-21 | Added a new icon set and Rockbox support. | ||
| 1.4.7 | 2007-08-13 | Updated icons and Cool Streams. | ||
| 1.4.8 | 2007-12-20 | Added/improved support for latest iPod IPod iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle... s (using libgpod3): 6th-Generation iPod Classic, 3rd-Generation iPod Nano, iPod Touch |
||
| 1.4.9 | 2008-04-09 | Only released in Kubuntu Kubuntu Kubuntu is an official derivative of the Ubuntu operating system using the KDE Plasma Desktop instead of the Unity graphical environment. It is part of the Ubuntu project and uses the same underlying system. It is possible to install both the KDE Plasma Desktop as well as the Unity desktop on... . It was missing one important bug-fix, so it was immediately superseded by 1.4.9.1 |
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| 1.4.9.1 | 2008-04-12 | Updated translations, and bug-fixes | ||
| 1.4.10 | 2008-08-13 | Very important security update | ||
| 2.0 | In the beginning | 2.0.0 | 2008-12-10 | Complete redesign of interface, increased graphical features, KDE 4 support, first (not stable yet) release for Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... and Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... . |
| Magellan | 2.0.1.1 | 2009-01-11 | Searching and filtering in the playlist, reintroduction of queueing and stopping after track. (Immediately superseded 2.0.1 after a security bug was found in the initial release). |
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| Only Time Will Tell | 2.0.2 | 2009-03-05 | Bug and stability fixes. | |
| 2.1 | Let There be Light | 2.1.0 | 2009-06-03 | Native ReplayGain support, a refactoring of context view, a playlist layout editor, and Amarok URLs and bookmarks. |
| Oceania | 2.1.1 | 2009-06-17 | Mostly bug and stability fixes. | |
| 2.2 | Sunjammer | 2.2.0 | 2009-10-01 | Layout editing, photo and video plasmoids, breadcrumb navigation in the collection browser, and much improved sorting and editing in the playlist. |
| Weightless | 2.2.1 | 2009-11-16 | Faster collection scanner, podcast grouping, autofetching podcasts, SMB Server Message Block In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an... (samba) support in playlist. |
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| Maya Gold | 2.2.2 | 2010-01-11 | Moodbar support, custom labels for music, podcast refinements, and many bugfixes. | |
| 2.3 | Clear Light | 2.3.0 | 2010-03-15 | Better podcast support and saved playlists, many small improvements. |
| The Bell | 2.3.1 | 2010-05-31 | Automated Playlist Generator, two new applets for the Context View, cover fetching improvements, and many bugfixes and small improvements. | |
| Moonshine | 2.3.2 | 2010-09-21 | Dynamic Collection received fixes and should now work better with hard drives and USB mass storage devices, compatible with KDE’s 4.5 release, other bugfixes. | |
| 2.4 | Slipstream | 2.4 | 2011-01-15 | Now you can convert tracks from one file format to another when copying from the file browser to the local collection. We will expand this to media devices in future releases, other bugfixes. |
| 2.4.1 | Resolution | 2.4.1 | 2011-05-08 | Lyrics iPod handling both got some love, along with remote collections. Also, you can now better preview your changes in the Organize Collection feature, other bugfixes. |
| 2.4.2 | Nightshade | 2.4.2 | 2011-07-07 | Enable drag and drop on collections to copy/move within Local Music and directly from the playlist, other bugfixes. |
| 2.4.3 | Berlin | 2.4.3 | 2011-08-01 | Compiles with the LLVM Low Level Virtual Machine The Low Level Virtual Machine is a compiler infrastructure written in C++ that is designed for compile-time, link-time, run-time, and "idle-time" optimization of programs written in arbitrary programming languages... frontend Clang Clang Clang is a compiler front end for the C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++ programming languages. It uses the Low Level Virtual Machine as its back end, and Clang has been part of LLVM releases since LLVM 2.6.... , Enable drag and drop on collections to copy/move within Local Music and directly from the playlist, other bugfixes. |
| 2.5 | 2.5 | 2011-11-20 | Re-written USB Mass Storage support, integrated Amazon MP3 store. | |
External links
- Amarok homepage
- Amarok UserBase
- [irc://irc.freenode.net/amarok #amarok] on freenode