Amarok (software)

Infobox Software
name = Amarok



caption = A screenshot of Amarok, showing the playlist browser, the OSD and the optional player window.
developer = The Amarok Team
released = 2003-06-23 [ [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=84099&package_id=86715 SourceForge.net] ]
frequently updated = yes
programming language = C++ Qt
operating system = Unix-like, Windows(through KDE for windows)
language = Multilanguage
genre = Audio player
license = GNU General Public License
website = http://amarok.kde.org/

Amarok (pronEng|ˈæməɹɒk) [cite web|title=Amarok: Call for Jingle, July 06 2007|url=http://ccmixter.org/media/thread/1095#25856] is a free software music player for Linux or other varieties of Unix. It makes use of core components from the K Desktop Environment, but is released independently of the central KDE release cycle.

Despite the fact that Amarok uses wolf-based artwork, and that the name "amarok" or "amaroq" literally refers to the Inuktitut word for "wolf", it was originally named after the album "Amarok" by Mike Oldfield. The 1.2 release originally had a [http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/13944216/ wolf icon] , but this was later withdrawn due to similarity with the logo of WaRP Graphics Inc. Amarok's wolf logo has now been modified sufficiently so as not to infringe on WaRP's trademarked logo,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.

Originally named amaroK, it was renamed to Amarok in June 2006.

History

The project was originally started by Mark Kretschmann as a means of bettering XMMS 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.

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 Wikipedia 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.

Features

Basic uses and functions

Amarok serves many functions rather than just 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 as it is played.

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) FLAC, Ogg, MP3, AAC, WAV, Windows Media Audio, Apple Lossless, WavPack, TTA and Musepack. Amarok does not play digital music files embedded with DRM.
* Tagging digital music files (currently FLAC, Ogg, WMA, AAC, MP3, and RealMedia).
* Associating cover art with a particular album, and retrieving the cover art from Amazon
* 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 with the song.
* Synchronizing, retrieving, playing, or uploading music to the following digital music players: iPod, iriver iFP, Creative NOMAD, Creative ZEN, MTP, Rio Karma and USB devices with VFAT (generic MP3 players) support.
* Displaying artist information from Wikipedia and retrieving song lyrics.
* Last.fm support, including submitting played tracks (including those played on some digital music players) to Last.fm, retrieving similar artists, and playing Last.fm streams.
* Podcast

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.

More technical features

* Two main windows: playlist browser and player window (latter is optional).
* Systray (panel notification area) icon support.
* Moodbar functionality provides a graphical overview of a song.
* Song collection, which includes specific folders on the filesystem.
** Can be stored in an internal SQLite database, or external MySQL or PostgreSQL database.
** 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.).
* Playback options:
** 10-band graphic equalizer.
** Crossfading (for GStreamer, Xine and aRts).
** Gapless playback (MP3 and other codecs) (however it's dependent on Xine and does not always work properly yet).
* Support for several audio engines. The audio engine also dictates which media types Amarok can play.
** Helix
** Media Application Server (MAS)
** Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware (NMM)
** xine-lib
* Uses TagLib for tags.
* MusicBrainz support.
* Amarok can be controlled via DCOP.
* [http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Scripts Amarok Scripts] , for example, when writing lyrics fetching plugins, can be [http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Script-Writing_HowTo written] in most languages that can speak a simple standard input/standard output protocol and invoke the external "dcop" command. Such languages include Perl, Python, and Ruby.
* Support for Digital Audio Access Protocol and ZeroConf.
* Integration with K3b for burning audio CDs.
* Support for kioslaves-based audio CD access. This allows CDs to be ripped to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis using Amarok's file browser or Konqueror.
* Support for the libvisual audio visualization system.

Amarok 2.0

The next release of Amarok, version 2.0 is currently in development. The Amarok team has started a nightly build service called Neon. [ [http://amarok.kde.org/en/node/482 Project Neon | Amarok ] ] The next version will make use of KDE 4 technology like Phonon for audio and Solid for device interaction, along with extensive use of SVG and Plasma for the new interface. Amarok will also have better integration with online services with Magnatune, Jamendo, Ampache and MP3tunes already supported. A robust services framework will make adding support for other services much easier. [ [http://ljubomir.simin.googlepages.com/awnissue10 ljubomir.simin - Amarok Weekly Newsletter - Issue 10 ] ] This release will also add support for Windows and Mac OS X. [ [http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/545-More-good-news-for-Windows-Amarok-users-to-be.html More good news for Windows Amarok users-to-be - Amarok Blog ] ]

Release History

ee also

*Comparison of media players
*Exaile

References

External links

* [http://amarok.kde.org/ Amarok homepage]
* [irc://irc.freenode.net/amarok #amarok] on freenode