Songbird is in da house
Since I experienced Flock, I though the only good thing that can possibly come out of the open-source gecko engine was Firefox (simply because, flock sucked..and besides we didn’t need a blue-fox by any chance). But it seems I was wrong, dead wrong. There are other programs that can rely on the great “Gecko” and still make a valid impression. So is the case of “ Songbird“. One might ask, WTF is it? Well as the developers of Songbird put it, its “A web player built from Firefox’s browser engine. Songbird is open source, will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and supports user contributed, cross-platform extensions.“. So basically its a media player, but one that is open-source, looks mesmerising, has glass-effects and comes in BLACK(*sqeel).
As the dudes at songbird dev team put it:
Songbird plays the Web. Play any MP3 on the Web without leaving the page. Songbird can view Web pages as dynamic playlists that it can play, save, or automatically download every day.
Songbird plays your music too. Songbird has all the features you expect in a desktop media player. And Songbird constantly improves. Like Firefox, Songbird’s features may be improved with user installed and contributed cross-platform extensions.
Soon, Web page authors will be able to publish playlists and transfer MP3s into Songbird to build digital music stores like eMusic, music subscription services like Yahoo! Music Unlimited, virtual jamming services like Ninjam, playlist sharing services like WebJay and more.
Even Tech-crunch was impressed by the sleek black GUI. Michael Arrington says:
I am alpha testing Songbird now and am very impressed, even though they say it is only 30% done (as of November 18). They have asked me not to blog about non public information yet, and I won’t. One thing to clear up is that Songbird is not an online application - it is (among other things) a next generation media player. And it is absolutely turning my head around in the way I think about certain things.
I must say, he isn’t exaggerating at all !!!
BTW, there are tonsa other features too. Besides, as this is a brethern of Firefox, you can expect great skins and extensions to come out in the future. A full list of features include:
MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WMA, and more. Can you teach Songbird to sing?
Choose from the two included themes: Rubber Ducky or Cardinal Red. You can even make one yourself.
Play, Pause, Previous, Next, Volume, Mute, Seek, Three Repeat Modes, and Shuffle.
Quickly switch between tasks using the buttons to the right of the dashboard display.
Filter your collection by Genre, Artist, Album, and Song or Search-As-You-Type.
Songbird will find your music and add it to your collection for you.
Use the mini-mode for basic controls while keeping Songbird out of the way.
Songbird comes in dozens of languages.
Drag-and-drop songs from the Library or another playlist to your create your own custom mixes.
Criteria-based playlists that are always up-to-date with your current collection.
Get mixes from the Internet and stay up-to-date with the latest updates, downloads, and casts.
Songbird plays MP3s without leaving the page.
Play web pages as playlists and view any web page as a playlist.
Tell Songbird to watch a folder for new music and it will automatically add new tracks to your collection
and many more
Useful Links:
The only thing I can see “missing” from Songbird, so far, is the ability to copy a CD of yours to your library like iTunes does. I would love to be able to replace the much more resource intensive iTunes with Songbird entirely, but until I can “rip” my favorite CD’s onto the hard drive as MP3s I can’t do that.
Comment by WeyrleaderZor — October 17, 2006 @ 1:16 pm