Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 I always read about how you guys think it's too difficult to use, which is weird considering we all know more than the average computer user. So, what exactly is so hard about using Foobar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 MR_Candyman Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 What? Who's intimidated by it? It's probably the easiest program to use, aside from customization (which is still pretty easy but not the THE easiest) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 That's what I want to know. There's people on this forum who say they refuse to use Foobar because it's so "difficult" to configure and use, so they go with Winamp, which IMO is very basic and lacks the functionality Foobar has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Sethos Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Never seen anyone call Foobar hard to use? I just refuse to use it because I hate when you have to spend time customizing to achieve an above-basic form of functionality. I just want to install, have a pretty functional interface and that's it. Foobar seems to require skins and setting up a few settings here and there ... I can't be arsed, especially considering Foobar isn't doing anything for me that WMP couldn't do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 persona non grata Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 You're dreaming. Nobody ever said Foobar's too hard to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 coresx Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 I never bothered with customising, too many go to this website get that, get this from here, put it there etc. This was a few years go though so don't know how much foobar has evolved but as a basic, fast, clean player it was really good. The options are there to mess with, whole point really. It's not for the masses anyway. Your meant to change it to what you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 We already have one vote from a person who said it's too hard to use...so yeah, those people exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest xiphi Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Foobar isn't hard to use as is. It's the customization that requires WAY too much work that turns me off. If they had a add-on system similar to how Firefox works then they would be getting somewhere. By default the interface leaves lot a to be desired, which makes me want to customize it, but, instead, I give up in frustration. In the end, even if the usability issues were fixed, I'd still stick with WMP12/Zune. Foobar just doesn't compare to either one. I've voted "hard to use" in the context of the customization issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 BajiRav Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Never seen anyone call Foobar hard to use? I just refuse to use it because I hate when you have to spend time customizing to achieve an above-basic form of functionality. I just want to install, have a pretty functional interface and that's it. Foobar seems to require skins and setting up a few settings here and there ... I can't be arsed, especially considering Foobar isn't doing anything for me that WMP couldn't do. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 Foobar isn't hard to use as is. It's the customization that requires WAY too much work that turns me off. If they had a add-on system similar to how Firefox works then they would be getting somewhere. By the default the interface leaves lot a to be desired, which makes me want to customize it, but, instead, I give up in frustration. In the end, even if the usability issues were fixed, I'd still stick with WMP12/Zune. Foobar just doesn't compare to either one. There's plenty of pre-made customizations that are as easy to import as extracting the contents into the Foobar folder and clicking "import" on Foobar. It's far easier than you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Eric Veteran Posted May 17, 2009 Veteran Share Posted May 17, 2009 I have no need for it. I've tried it a few times and it doesn't seem to offer anything that existing media software doesn't already have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 The reason I use it is because I love being able to configure every aspect of my player, and the fact that Foobar is probably the most advanced audio player for Windows. It plays everything out of the box, converts my WAV files to mp3/ogg/aac in a single click, can handle huge amounts of tags with ease, has full replaygain and gapless support, and is the only player with native support for WASAPI output on Windows 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest xiphi Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 There's plenty of pre-made customizations that are as easy to import as extracting the contents into the Foobar folder and clicking "import" on Foobar. It's far easier than you think. Too bad that's not really the case. Foobar is AGES behind any other audio player out there. I'd rather use iTunes, and that says a lot considering I can't stand iTunes. Can you imagine where Firefox would be if it was just as hard to customize as Foobar? I don't have to worry about FF crashing on me due to incompatible plugins or themes. (Foobar ending up crashing everytime on startup after attempting to install a theme that required quite a few dlls.) Firefox is smart enough to block incompatible plugins and installs the plugins for me. All I have to do is search for the theme or plugin and click install. That's it. Is that so hard for the dev's of Foobar to implement? The bottom lime is that I don't want to have to do more work just to get the results I want. I just want it to just work and work well. Foobar barely does neither. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 Too bad that's not really the case. Foobar is AGES behind any other audio player out there. I'd rather use iTunes, and that says a lot considering I can't stand iTunes. Can you imagine where Firefox would be if it was just as hard to customize as Foobar? I don't have to worry about FF crashing on me due to incompatible plugins or themes. (Foobar ending up crashing everytime on startup after attempting to install a theme that required quite a few dlls.) Firefox is smart enough to block incompatible plugins and installs the plugins for me. All I have to do is search for the theme or plugin and click install. That's it. Is that so hard for the dev's of Foobar to implement?The bottom lime is that I don't want to have to do more work just to get the results I want. I just want it to just work and work well. Foobar barely does neither. Oh come on. Not even Winamp can do that. A browser has far more resources behind it's development than an audio player. You'll never get that kind of plugin organization and dynamic updating in any audio player. It took me only 20 minutes to get my Foobar exactly how I wanted it to be. It's really not difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Thirtythree Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 That's what I want to know. There's people on this forum who say they refuse to use Foobar because it's so "difficult" to configure and use, so they go with Winamp, which IMO is very basic and lacks the functionality Foobar has. I just need to listen to my music. Why would I be concerned about "functionality"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 DrunkenBeard Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 - Sure foobar is quite easy to use oob, but I don't see any benefit using it if not for its skin capabilities, and I personnaly think that the vast majority of foobar potential users are first seduced by a screenshot of a beautiful skin. It usually goes like this : "Hey ! this player looks so awesome, I want it !" => Download => "Oh ... so in order to have a similar UI to what I've seen in the screenshot I have to read these complicated instructions and prey that the plugins are still available and compatible with my version" => Try => Fail => Try => Fail => Uninstall. - The second problem with it is the way it handles the library ... how can I have a list with just the artists names, click an artist then have the list of its albums and then click an album and have a list of its songs ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Eric Veteran Posted May 17, 2009 Veteran Share Posted May 17, 2009 Why is there no option in the poll for "I just don't want it."? I can't vote because the options provided do not apply. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Kyang Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 If someone doesn't have a need for these extra features, then they obviously won't care about them. People use what suits them best, it's as simple as that really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 I just need to listen to my music. Why would I be concerned about "functionality"? You may not be concerned, but a lot of people want to be able to masstag and replaygain their collection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 -KJ Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Foobar isn't hard to use as is. It's the customization that requires WAY too much work that turns me off. If they had a add-on system similar to how Firefox works then they would be getting somewhere. By default the interface leaves lot a to be desired, which makes me want to customize it, but, instead, I give up in frustration. In the end, even if the usability issues were fixed, I'd still stick with WMP12/Zune. Foobar just doesn't compare to either one.I've voted "hard to use" in the context of the customization issues. I tried Foobar maybe 2 or 3 years ago. There was an update and a lot of the plug-ins were incompatible. I had to do a lot of scouring on the forum for the right compatible files, and had to go through a guide to install them. The end result was okay, but I'd rather not go through it again. I guess I should clarify that all I listen to are MP3 files, and am not an audiophile. I just click Play and listen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Dick Montage Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 You may not be concerned, but a lot of people want to be able to masstag and replaygain their collection. I have far superior apps than Foobar for that. I use a player as a player (and possibly library). Tagging is not a feature I see as needed in that app - it's another apps job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest xiphi Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Oh come on. Not even Winamp can do that. A browser has far more resources behind it's development than an audio player. You'll never get that kind of plugin organization and dynamic updating in any audio player. It took me only 20 minutes to get my Foobar exactly how I wanted it to be. It's really not difficult. I honestly doubt it's that hard to implement. Just because an audio player may have less dev's than a browser has no effect on whether or not such a feature could implemented. It's easy to use to you simply because you're used to the way Foobar does things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Lee G. Veteran Posted May 17, 2009 Veteran Share Posted May 17, 2009 I use foobar2000 and I love it. I first used it in 2006, and I couldn't get the player the way I wanted it, so I switched back to Winamp. After a little while I went back to foobar2000, and found it much easier to customize. I would never go back to any other audio player now. I'm not really a fan of foobar2000 skins - I just use ColumnsUI, and have set up foobar2000 in a way that is very functional for my purposes. IMO, skins appear to have less functionality than customized layouts which do not have skins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Raa Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 I'm more than happy with Winamp for my music. Have been for many years. :) Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 hdood Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 People have different preferences, it's that simple! If something doesn't feel "right," then there's no reason why people should spend time and effort learning to like it. I spent five minutes trying out the standard appearance in Foobar years ago before deciding it felt stupid and wrong to me. Tag&Rename and Winamp for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Anarcho-Capitalist Posted May 17, 2009 Author Share Posted May 17, 2009 For anybody looking for the easiest player in the world to use: look no further than 1by1. http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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Anarcho-Capitalist
I always read about how you guys think it's too difficult to use, which is weird considering we all know more than the average computer user.
So, what exactly is so hard about using Foobar?
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