DefaultMediaPlayer

Specifications for this cycle :
/Artwork   /DefaultMediaPlayer   /Xfce4.8  

Exaile vs. gmusicbrowser

Replace Exaile with gmusicbrowser as the default music (you can also think: media) player in Xubuntu Natty

  • Launchpad entry: Does not exist.

  • Release target: Natty

  • Contributors: Pasi Lallinaho, Simon Steinbeiß

  • Field of the spec: 'Default Applications' & 'Desktop Experience'

Summary

The specification is written to propose changing the default media player in Xubuntu.

Our current music player is Python-based Exaile. It is said that Exaile is the GTK+ equivalent for Amarok, the KDE/Qt media player.

The proposal for new music player is gmusicbrowser, a Perl-based media player suitable up to large collections (10k+).

Release Note

New default media player: gmusicbrowser (was: Exaile).

Rationale

A lot of work has been put into gmusicbrowser and making its layout/UI cleaner for the user by the Shimmer Project lately. The Shimmer Project has even set up a PPA for their improvements. The PPA can be found at Shimmer Project PPA @ Launchpad.

Exaile was partly chosen as the previous music player since Steve (SiDi) was working with it and acting as some sort of "liaison" for the app. That cooperation has now vanished.

Comparison between the two apps

Non-features

gmusicbrowser

Exaile

Good contact with responsive upstream

No direct contact with development team

General Features

feature

gmusicbrowser

Exaile

User interface

Clean layout

Rather clean layout

Different layouts

Many layouts to choose from, easily customizable

No easy way to customize/change layout

Streaming

 Not able to stream music from internet, but to the internet (icecast)

Good streaming from the internet

Backends

Different backends to choose from (mplayer, gstreamer, mpg321)

gstreamer only

Devices

Basic support for external media (copy-to-mount-location)

Device support (iPod plugin)

Use cases

  • Explain which use cases your specification aims to answer to.
  • Add as many use cases as you think there are.
  • Also add use cases where the specification might have a negative impact, and try to quantify them compared to the positive impact ones.

The specification

Design

Our target should be to have a player that is easy to use and enables the user to easily browse/manage his/her collection. As collections tend to become bigger and bigger with hdd-space becoming cheaper the player should be able to handle large libraries with grace and should help the user to organize it.

The first thing the player needs to have in order to provide this is a good user interface, that can be used intuitively to get to the songs/playlist you're looking for. Being able to make playlists, being able to have a queue, being able to filter your library are essential. Also: a search function that goes through all your library, different sort- and grouping modes and views.

feature

gmusicbrowser

exaile

screenshot

playlists

static and dynamic

static and dynamic

queue

yes

?

filters

very sophisticated and customizable filtering system

?

search

global search (you can select what fields are searched)

only one-item at a time search

sorting

customizable hierarchical sort-modes

simple one-value sorting

grouping

customizable hierarchical group-modes

?

views

simple list, grouped by album, mosaic

simple list

On the more technical side features such as mass-tagging, mass-renaming and the player being able to automatically re-order your files on your harddrive are an additional plus for our audiophiles.

feature

gmusicbrowser

exaile

mass-tagging

yes, very customizable

?

mass-renaming

yes, very customizable

?

reorganize collection on hdd

yes

?

Notes on the implementation

Extra maintenance work after the spec

Issues that need solving

Upstream

  • Streaming. This is WIP.

By the Xubuntu team

By the developer implementing the spec

Comments

Xubuntu/Roadmap/Specifications/Natty/DefaultMediaPlayer (last edited 2012-03-25 16:53:47 by nblzone-227-162)