Noise or How I learned to love the state of the Gnome audio software

This was originally posted to a bug report (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=327254) but it seams that either this is not worthy of noise, or the Rhythmbox developers would rather argue and not fix something, then accept real critiquing of the software they develop. I realize this was outside of the scope of this particular bug, but this text in and of itself is not exactlly a bug either. I wanted to post this directly where the developers were sure to look, instead of on my blog that is completely unknown to the world. Sure I could have done something such as go to IRC, or a mailing list, but users who are not developers, who do not know the ropes, let alone know what an IRC or a mailing list is, should be helped when they step outside of the proper channels instead of what they have to say just being disregarded in the name of being noise.

I find myself deeply disappointed with the audio player scene under Gnome. The above is an additional reason why, and not a step in solving the issue.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I don't regard myself as a user who doesn't know the ropes. And I am certainly not new to the Linux or Gnome scene. I am also not saying that what I have has any merit, but I have been around the scene for a decade now. What I am saying is that times like these the barrier to entry should be easier, not harder.

Now to the meat and gravy.

I have a very large music library, I have spent years looking for the perfect audio manager for my library, and though there has been great progress, I still don't feel like we are there yet. I very much dislike having to micromanage what is playing, I have spent enough time hand picking what goes into my music collection, that I care less about which album or song is playing, and more about the music just never stopping. Sort of a perfect radio station, if you will.

As of late, what I have the most desire for is along the lines of what Charbucks has been working on over at http://undamped.blogspot.com called "In The Mood". I have not been able to test this out, but I understand it to be along the lines of the music genome project
used by Pandora.

I have used last.fm suggestions supported by various players, but this dynamic playlist support leaves something to be desired. What I have found is that all suggestions lead to mainstream artists/songs and at some point stops offering suggestions of my obscure music.

Example:

Place in queue The Moving sidewalks
Last.fm suggests ZZ Top, Jimi Hendrix, 13th Floor Elevators
ZZ Top Plays, Last.fm Suggests Led Zeppelin
Jimi Hendrix plays, Last.fm suggests The Rolling Stones
13th Floor Elevators plays, Last.fm suggests Pink Floyd
Now there are no more obscure artists left in my queue, so none get suggested

In the same regard, I also feel that Smart Playlists leave something to be desired. If I want to play Slow Blues for example, I would have to tag which songs are not just blues, but slow blues in the genere tag. This is major micromanaging.

The example for In the Mood, I understand that it takes a fingerprint of the audio and it attempts to figure out which songs are similar by tempo, volume, key, etc. and should provide a more accurate selection of songs. Where in my example above with playing a Moving Sidewalks song, It will pull music from any and all genre, but which has a similar finger print.

Here I am providing a critique of audio players and I hope this provides a "State of audio players on Gnome" and not, "This sucks, you suck, everything sucks"

Quod Libet, very nice audio player, major slowdown of development once it hit 1.0. I feel that it is missing podcasts and dynamic playlist support. Has the best tagging support IMO for an audio player. Does not support "party mode" (full screen). Has an extensive plugin selection, but most of the functionality is for tagging, This is one reason I say it has the best tagging support. I very much like the "Album List" view in Quod Libet.

Exaile, more of a cosmetic problem for me, I dislike the vertical tabs along the left edge, I dislike the use of the "gaim" looking icons, has poor tagging support even though it borrows mutagen library from quod libet. Does not support "party mode" (full screen).

Rhythmbox, very basic though it has lots of functionality that other audio players do not. Lacks some very major features that I have come to expect, including, dynamic playlist generation (I am not talking about smart playlists), has poor tagging support, Play Queue doesn't function as expected (as described in the above mentioned bug report).

Listen, has many of the features that I enjoy, including it was the first player under gnome that I found which offered suggestions from last.fm so your play queue never runs out of music. The interface needs some major love, and it is simply not usable with the size of my music library.

Banshee, I am a little envious with the progress that has been made here. But I feel it is not an option due to the use of mono. I realize that parts of C# are standardized, but many parts of the .net universe are not and are heavily patented.

Muine, not an option due to the use of mono. I realize that parts of C# are standardized, but many parts of the .net universe are not and are heavily patented.

BMP (Formerly Beep), sorry but winamp clones just don't do it for me or have the features I am
after.

MPD + Sonata & Ario , This is a nice setup, but again, does not support many of the features I describe above.

I might have left out some audio players, but I feel like all of the major audio players supported under Gnome & GTK+ have been listed above.

Lastly, Jonathan Matthew pointed out that the bug report is not my blog, and I agree. I don't consider myself to be a blogger, and I feel the level of quality to make a factual blog entry is quite a lot of work. I am now talking to the world who might not understand half of what is being said here so I feel I have to provide links to facts and the software mentioned to make my point, where when I comment in bugzilla I am talking directly to the developers.

In either case, he is right and I was wrong. This doesn't change the fact that we have a long way to go to make the Gnome desktop kick all other desktop ass. I felt I was providing a very deep idea, I felt that all I got was a very shallow response.