With the tagline “Let there be light” the all new Amarok 2.1 release seems to be another step closer to make the popular music player the world’s best.
The new version not only seems to fill in most of the features that went missing in the 2.0 version from the 1.x series but has many additional features as well.
New Features
The most noticeable feature would be its new look with the appealing blue color.
The advanced playlist editor has search and filter in it, add new tracks and even ask the player to stop playing music after a particular track. The developers have put in work to let the user customize the editor the way he wants it apart from some new pre-defined layouts.
One could add on covers and ratings or could just keep it simple with just the track name-make it in the single track mode or the album mode.
Its simple yet powerful. The new playlist editor lacks is keyboard shortcuts though.
ReplayGain analyses the next track in queue and adjusts the decibels to play the track in optimum volume, thus avoiding sudden voice blasts. The feature currently requires the GStreamer Phonon backend.
Amarok 2.1 comes with 7 internet services, including Last.fm, Jamendo and Magnatune music stores, access to podcasts etc.
Last.fm service got an update. It now allows playing any tag, user or artist radio, marking local tracks as loved, getting the My Recommendations and My Radio Station and even checking your username and password.
The enhanced plasmoid feature in the 2.1 version shows the favorite and current track ad unlike the earlier versions the plasmoids are united into a single folder and lets you choose or switch with the new taskbar provided in the lower central window.
A new services plasmoid is another addition.
Both manual and automatic bookmarking is enabled in the amarok 2.1 version. The player automatically bookmarks a track played continuously for more than 10 minutes and resumes playing from the position when back.
The player even offers to create a link to a certain place in amarok which the user could send to a friend.
Downsides
The player still lacks an equalizer.
Even with all the exciting add-ons and the looks, Amarok 2.1 version still misses some the features that the 1.4 series had.
Let's see what the future upholds.
Resources
Download Amarok
Updates
Don't forget to get the latest 2.1.1 release codenamed Oceania. It fixes some rough edges ;).
Hey thanks for the nice
Hey thanks for the nice review of Amarok.
Stay tuned for Amarok 2.2 that will bring back quite some of the still missing features. Check http://amarok.kde.org/en/PlanetAmarok for some updates.
Cheers
Lydia
> The feature currently
> The feature currently requires the GStreamer Phonon backend.
What a crock for a KDE app to require a GNOME backend, the Xine-Phonon-Backend has some work to do it seems!
A big complaint is the layout
A big complaint is the layout of the screen. If the developers would make this dynamic, where the user could move the areas around and reposition the playlist in the center of the screen and whatever else they choose to do, a lot of criticism will go away. Personally, it works fine for me, but I must admit that I get lost in UI. I was so used to the old version and things aren't in the same places. It's not small changes, either. Everything is somewhere else.