Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul

I have no objection to Amarok but....

Does it support the latest generation of iPods yet?

Apple did some sort of crypto hash on index files on the new gen nanos, I think specifically to stop any other programs interacting with the player. Maybe it hurst their iTunes revenue model to have competition. Miserable feckers.

Either way, a friend plugged his nano into my eee 901 just to charge it, nothing dodgy, and up pops Amarok, reads the index and then wrote it back on, without the appropriate Apple magic-hash. The iPod then got very confused and said it was still full but couldn't actually see any files.

Shame on Apple for pulling this stunt, but also shame on Amarok for writing to the device without asking.

Hmm

Amarok 1.4.X was absolutely my favourite player. I loved the features and the way you could navigate through large collections with ease. Yes it had to parse your file structure but then you get all the ID3 tags into the db so you more easily find stuff.

I've been trying Amarok 2 since the first beta and while it's not bad; it's not as good as 1.4.X. The missing things like queuing within a playlist should not be missing from the first stable release IMHO. The look is pretty crappy with too much information crowding the program window. It's almost like the music library has taken a backseat where as the playlist and library where the major features in 1.4.X. The collection navigation and searching is still not great. I am sure it will improve in time, but it's just not as good right now. Mind you it's still better than the bloat that is WinAMP 5 or iTunes!!

Re: MySQL; not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet or not, but Amarok 2 uses MySQL embedded not the full blown server. From my understanding that is like a "better" (subjective) SQLite. You do not need a full blown mysql server installation just for Amarok 2. To be honest, I have no preference on this myself - so long as it works!

Grey?

Why do KDE4 apps looks so ugly? What's with the enormous expanses of grey? I've been a great fan of KDE since the early days of KDE2, but it seems to get buggier, less unix-y[1], and now it's really ugly too! I'll stick with the 3.5.9 as long as I can, but I think my next upgrade will be to XFCE.

Also, anyone who releases a new version of an app without including the majority of the key features of older versions deserves to be slapped with a wet fish. I like Amarok, but a higher priority ought to be making it run long-term without crashing...

[1]In my view, a "desktop environment" should be a collection of self-contained apps, sharing a toolkit and a design view, but not "welded" together, i.e. respecting the Unix philosophy of small simple tools. What don't get is the need to have so many KDE-specific "frameworks". Eg sound should be handled by alsa or (maybe) by pulseaudio, but not by yet another daemon.

Update to my Hmm post re: MySQL

Amarok devs posted a great article discussing why they used MySQL. Seems that my understanding of "embedded" was a little of the mark (naive more like) and TBH I CBA to look further but here ya go:

http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/812-MySQL-in-Amarok-2-The-Reality.html

@Neil Barnes:

Nope: me too. Is there, anywhere, a FOSS music player where I can click on a folder and a context menu comes up & says 'play in (X)/enqueue in(X)'? If not, why not?

Overkill

I don't see the reason for all this. I've never used Amarok, but recently moved from Kaffeine to MOC for my background noise. The only feature I miss is the ability to sort and easily search the playlist(which isn't a problem most of the time anyways).