Whilst iTunes is still my primary media player of choice, I have been looking for a slightly more ‘open’ player that has broad audio format support, will still interface with my (aging) iPod, can import from iTunes and will generally do everything iTunes can.
So, what happens when you roll a media player, into the Mozilla rendering engine? You get Songbird.
Songbird™ is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and
skinsfeathers. Like Firefox®, it is built from Mozilla®, cross-platform and open source.
Boasting a range of features and benefiting from the extensible nature of Mozilla’s engine it takes a little bit of “the good” from virtually every player I’ve used and rolls it into something that feels similar but is all new.
Enterprising folks have already spun up beta extensions that include iPod support and an iTunes import function.
Right from the outset, one is stepped through the post-install setup process - which includes a quick scan for extensions and once done it launches into an ‘iTunes’ style media player.
Still getting to grips with the interface and haven’t yet started bopping around with the iTunes or iPod extensions - however songbird does seem to work remarkably well so far. Worth a look if you’re looking for something with an iTunes like feel, with an open source like style.
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of No Tags.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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