[Review] amaroK 1.2

By g-n-t
in Member Reviews

 Share

Recommended Posts

Veteran

g-n-t

Posted
Posted

amaroK 1.2 Review

amaroK 1.2 final has been released recently. This will be my first review. I took a bunch of screenshots for it too :p.

Intro:

amarok is an audio player for KDE. However, it runs on just about any window manager, provided the correct libraries are there(kdelibs and taglib are the most important). Compared to 1.1, amarok 1.2 is much more stable and the interface has been greatly improved.

amarok24ex.th.jpg

The Player Window:

amarok has two modes. One is the player as seen in the screenshot above, and the other is the playlist window. For now, we will focus on the player window. The player has 8 visualizations. Three of them are openGL. In addition to these, amaroK has support for xmms visualizations. The one below is called Infinity.

amarok39uq.th.png

It is also worth noting that the embeded ones can be detached from the player window. The one below is an example of one of the openGL ones.

amarok42bk.th.png

amaroK 1.2 introduces an equalizer. It was disapointing to see that it does not have support for presets, however.

amarok59cg.th.png

Another new feature in amaroK is support for scripts. Honestly, I have not yet taken the time to find out what these do and how far they can go. Here is a screenshot with the about box of the alarm script that is included with it. The other two are pretty self-explanatory.

amarok63no.th.png

All these features are accessible with the right-click menu

amarok79xa.th.jpg

The Playlist Window:

This is where the bulk of amaroK's features are. It is worth noting that you can choose not to use the player window and use this as the default amaroK interface.

This is what you see when playing a song. The pane on the right is your playlist(more on those later) and the pane on the left is the context browser. The brain picture next to the album will open up a browser window displaying information about the album in musicbrainz.com. The box labeled "suggested songs" uses infromation from audioscrobbler.com to suggest songs from your collection to you. There is an option to have these suggested songs automatically append to your playlist. The one below that displays your favourite songs by the current artist. Rating of songs is based off of how many times they are played. If you skip a song, it's rating will go down. Further down, there is a box containing all the albums by the artist(with a matching album cover next to the title). If you click the title of the album, it expands and lists all the songs in the album. You can add songs to your playlist from here.

amarok112tm.th.png

The "Home" tab lists your favourite songs, your newest tracks and your least played tracks.

amarok125uw.th.png

The third tab is the most interesting to me. It is the "Lyrics" tab. Due to copyright issues, the lyrics cannot be saved locally and have to be downloaded every time. The lyrics are automatically downloaded and displayed when the tab is clicked. It uses information found in the meta tags in a song file to search for the lyrics.

amarok139hy.th.png

After the context browser, comes the "Collection" pane. To use this, you specify folders for amarok to search for music in and it automatically imports them and organizes them for you.

amarok150fc.th.png

amaroK has an album cover manager built in. It uses amazon.com(or a custom site) to search for covers. Clicking the "Fetch Missing Covers" button downloads covers for all your albums and applies them. Like the playlist, the album manager too has a Filter box.

amarok141td.th.png

amaroK can import playlists and automatically adds them to your "Playlists" pane. You will also notice the "Cool-Streams" playlist. This allows you to listen to streaming internet radio.

Another major feature is "Smart Playlists". These are similair to the ones in iTunes. They can create playlists based on criteria like ratings, dates, genre and etc. You can create your own custom smart playlists. The following screenshot also shows the "Filter" functionality in the playlist i had mentioned earlier.

amarok171bg.th.png

The next pane is the "Media Device" pane. I personally do not have a portable mp3 player, so i was unable to test this feature. However, it looks very straight-forward. Yes, it does support the iPod(need gtkpod installed) as well as other mp3 players.

amarok180ub.th.png

The final pane is a file browser. It is just a file browser with search funtionality to search for songs. I don't think it needs a screenshot...

Configuration:

amaroK has very good configuration options and the Preferences page is not too complex.

amarok88fb.th.png

The Appearance tab allows you to choose colors for amaroK as well as fonts. amarok 1.2 has added support to "skin" the left-hand pane using CSS.

Playback options allows you to set the startup volume and crossfading options.

The OSD is a small box that appears temporarilly on top of your other windows displaying information about the currently playing song. Here you can customize colors, fonts and display duration.

The Engine tab allows you to choose the ouput engine. I use xine and it is the highest quality sound i have ever heard. Other engines in linux had poor sound output. xine is as good as any windows mp3 player I have used. The other engine that you may use with great sound quality is the GStreamer engine. I do not have it installed however, so i cannot comment much. You may also choose the arts engine, which sounds horrible next to xine, but your mileage may vary.

amarok95fi.th.png

The Collection tab allows you to configure which folders are scanned for music.

The Scrobbler tab allows you to configure audioscrobbler.com options. amaroK 1.2 is the first mp3 player that comes with out-of-box support for audioscrobbler. For those that don't know, audioscrobbler allows you to upload the songs you play to their site and it recommends songs to you(plugins for most other popular mp3 players are available at their site). Here you can type in your username and password and say whether you want to upload your songs and whether you want amaroK to recommend songs to you.

amarok105xd.th.png

Well that about wraps it up. Honestly, i have to give amaroK a perfect 10. I cannot find much wrong with the application, and unlike previous versions, 1.2 is very stable and bug-free. The amaroK devs have done a wonderful job with it.

You can download it at amarok.kde.org

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/287189-review-amarok-12/
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Nothing Ear buds with active noise cancellation are at their lowest price ever with 51% off

      By Fiza Ali · Posted

      Nothing Ear buds with active noise cancellation are at their lowest price ever with 51% off by Fiza Ali Amazon is currently offering the Nothing Ear wireless earbuds at their lowest price ever with 51% off limited prime deal. The earbuds feature an 11mm dynamic drivers with a ceramic diaphragm, and support high-resolution audio codecs including AAC, SBC, LDAC, and LHDC 5.0. They support active noise cancellation of up to 45dB across a frequency range of up to 5000Hz, and include a smart ANC algorithm, adaptive noise cancellation, and a transparency mode that allows surrounding sounds to be heard when needed. Connectivity is provided via Bluetooth 5.3, with support for multiple profiles including HFP, A2DP, AVRCP, and others. The earbuds also support dual connection, allowing them to be paired with two devices at the same time. Additional features include IP54 water and dust resistance for the earbuds and IP55 for the charging case, in-ear detection, pinch controls, low-latency mode, Google Fast Pair, Microsoft Swift Pair, and a three-microphone system per earbud for clearer voice calls. The Nothing X app, available on Android and iOS, provides access to custom EQ settings, bass enhancement, personal sound profiles, ear tip fit testing, firmware updates, customisable controls, dual-device management, and a find-my-earbuds feature. In terms of battery performance, each earbud has a 46mAh battery and the charging case has a 500mAh capacity. With active noise cancellation (ANC) turned off, the earbuds should offer up to 8.5 hours of playback on a single charge and up to 40.5 hours in total with the charging case. With ANC enabled, playback should last up to 5.2 hours on the earbuds and up to 24 hours with the case. For calls, talk time should reach up to 5 hours on the earbuds and 23 hours with the case when ANC is off, while ANC on should provide up to 4 hours on the earbuds and 18 hours with the case. Finally, fast charging should deliver up to 10 hours of playback from 10 minutes of charging when ANC is disabled. Nothing Ear Wireless Earbuds Bluetooth: $73.15 (Amazon US) - 51% off Good to know This Amazon deal is U.S. specific, and not available in other regions unless specified. We only use first-party seller links (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you purchase from a first-party seller link only. Check out Today's Deals on Amazon | or our recent tech deals. Become a Prime member (for Students or SNAP) via Neowin Get Prime Access - Prime for half price (for qualifying Medicaid, EBT, SNAP) Subscribe to Prime Video, Audible Plus, Music Unlimited or Kindle Unlimited via Neowin As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • Microsoft Eyes DeepSeek V4 for Copilot Cowork: What Azure Hosting Cannot Fix

      By +TRS-80 · Posted

      Microsoft officially launched its Copilot Cowork enterprise AI agent on June 16, 2026, switching to usage-based pricing on the same day it disclosed it is considering a Microsoft-hosted version of China's DeepSeek V4 as a lower-cost engine for the platform — a pairing that puts the company on a collision course with both its enterprise customers' security teams and a White House that has spent months trying to wall off Chinese AI from American infrastructure.................... https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318647/20260618/microsoft-eyes-deepseek-v4-copilot-cowork-what-azure-hosting-cannot-fix.htm  
    • Politically funny images of the World

      By +Edouard · Posted

    • Forza Horizon 6 gets another hotfix for one of the game's online modes

      By TarasBuria · Posted

      Forza Horizon 6 gets another hotfix for one of the game's online modes by Taras Buria Recently, Forza Horizon 6 players discovered an interesting glitch that allowed farming a crazy amount of in-game credits in a few minutes. Playground Games quickly pulled the plug on the exploit by disabling one of the game's online modes, and today, the studio is rolling out another hotfix. In my review, I complained about the game still showering gamers with cars, credits, and wheelspins. As such, earning money in Forza Horizon 6 is not a particularly difficult task. You simply have to play the game, crazy, I know. However, people still found an easier path to becoming a billionaire in Forza Horizon 6. All you had to do was purchase the Hummer EV, install a specific tune, shift in reverse while going at about 15 MPH, hit a wall, and get launched into the stratosphere at the speed of light. While mid-air, launch Eliminator and quickly get eliminated. Boom, the game just awarded you with a few million in-game credits. Initially, Playground Games disabled Eliminator to prevent people from farming credits. Now, following the release of the first balancing update, developers are rolling out a new update that re-enables Eliminator and gives users a free McLaren Sabre as a gesture of goodwill. Here is the changelog: One critical issue remains unpatched, though. There are quite a few reports of the game wiping gamers' saves, and developers are still looking into that. To avoid potential data loss, Playground Games recommends taking one of the steps outlined in a previously published support article.
    • The official Funny Pictures thread

      By Steven P. · Posted

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      AndreaB earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      Huge Trailer earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      Classifyskilleducation earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      eurospharma62 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      With What earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      591
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      171
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      76
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      67
    5. 5
      neufuse
      64
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!