Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Skins? You have got to be kidding me. No open source advocate in their right mind is going to promote a skinned media player in this day and age.

- Chris

No open source advocate in their right mind is going to promote a skinned media player in this day and age.

Why is that? Firefox is just as skinnable. Winamp got so popular due to its skinnability (is that a word?). iTunes, right behind Winamp in popularity, is skinned. Windows XP is skinnable. Linux is skinnable. Why would an opensource advocate have problems with a skinnable media player?

What? That looks like a UI ripoff of iTunes, right down to the pseudo-reflecting LCD panel. I don't think Apple will be happy about it. Personally, I don't see why some FL/OSS can't introduce *new* ideas, rather than carbon copying others. Firefox has done it, IMHO, and it has better UI than the competition, IMHO.

If it really can do the cool things it claims it can do, this could be an awesome program. But if it turns into just another iTunes ripoff that only open source fanboys will download, and then convince their non-geek friends that it's cool without showing them any alternatives first (doesn't this remind you of another program's strategy?) it'll just suck.

Firefox is just as skinnable.

Yes, but unlike the mess that is Seamonkey and Netscape, Firefox's default skin is designed to fit in with the underlying operating system. This is a major plus for XUL, and throwing this advantage away is just shooting yourself in the foot.

I'm not going to lecture you on the sheer awfulness of the Linux media player scene prior to 2003. You either get it or you don't.

Apple are breaking their own UI guidelines with iTunes. iTunes is popular because it isn't as patently awful as the (also skinned) Windows Media Player for audio playlists, not because it's shiny.

- Chris

> If it really can do the cool things it claims it can do, this could be an awesome program. But if it turns into just another iTunes ripoff that only open source fanboys will download, and then convince their non-geek friends that it's cool without showing them any alternatives first (doesn't this remind you of another program's strategy?) it'll just suck.

I could make an identical and equally valid analogy about iTunes being a winamp 5 ripoff, a certain other browser, and its stuck-up, rude and arrogant "community" that go to competitiors' websites and leave snide remarks, but I'm above childish name-calling.

"iTunes being a winamp 5 ripoff"

Hmmm...

Winamp 5 was released in December of 2003, and it's library/jukebox features were based on those of Winamp 3, released in August of 2002. Both of which were after iTunes' initial relase of January 2001. Who's ripping off who now?

Ah, great. It's public now. :-)

What an awful looking UI. An all-black UI can be made to work if you know what you're doing (see Discreet, nay, Autodesk Combustion for a great example). This pale iTunes copy doesn't work.

I can't wait for the invite-only preview hypefest.

YES! Flame war in Asa's blog's comments over products that are not internet browsers. Time to collect my bets...

Why does this look so much like iTunes? It's like they weren't even trying.

It looks like iTunes because the iTunes interface works. Try and find a browser that doesn't have striking similarities to any other.

A XUL mediaplayer? Count me in! Let's see how it measures up to Winamp 5 and its media library.

Yeah, count me in too. I've been looking for a real Winamp alternative for ages, and haven't really found anything since Sonique killed their player by grinding development to a halt.

(You can try downloading sonique at sonique.com, but the links just send you in circles...)

I've been using musikcube.. it also looks a bit like itunes..
and it works great..
I hope this is really xulrunner based and not a toolkit-app like firefox and thunderbird..

A media player coded with XUL! Nice! This might be a future replacement to iTunes in the future for me.

I'm just wondering, since we are seeing more and more applications coded with XUL, can this pose a security problem, much like ActiveX is a security problem to IE? I hope this makes sense, I am not trying to play the devil's advocate or anything, I'm just a bit uninformed :-)

那么，是不是说正式版的FIREFOX将在12月发布？

Looks too much like itunes. I just don't get what's the point of copying 1:1 another program. Where has creativity gone? And IMO itunes interface is not that good. At least not worth of copying. And I doubt there will be a better music library software than AmaroK any time soon. There we can see some real innovations.

@ "Big O": You missed the part where I said it would be an equally valid analogy.

@chris c

I completely agree that applications should follow the design guidelines of the underlying OS. However, I also think media players are the one area where most people don't want it to look like the rest of the system, hence the large popularity of skins. I think a media player that looks exactly like the rest of my OS would be awfully boring, but perhaps that's just a matter of taste. Also, who's to say UI guidelines can't be improved over time? When it comes to the options menu and such, however, the app should drop the gloss and look and feel like that of any other app.

Yes I think that a better skin could be created. But a great skin does not make a product; a great skin gets out of the way to let you use the product better.

The reason I started to use iTune is because I am almost always playing music from my computer and it's interface is one that I can the most quickly select a song to play. Things I use the most commonly:

• Volume control
• Moving throuhg out the track
• Finding a song based on artist
• Playing an entire album
• Pause/Play
• Shuffle on/off

Less time I spend doing that and more time I spend listen to my music and do other task on my computer the better.

Did you guys miss the part where they said it was skinnable?

In other words, who cares what it looks like?

Winamp can look however you want it to. It doesn't even have to be square. The first thing I do when I install WinAMP is install a different skin.

The beauty of it is that it uses XUL, which is already more powerful than Wasabi, WinAMP's platform.

@BigO:

And Winamp 3's library/jukebox features features are based off of Winamp 2 which also has the library/jukebox feature. So what's your point again?

Thanks for sharing this with us Asa. Very nice alternative!

For the sake of argument, though I tend to disagree, Let's say Songbird turns out to be an iTunes clone. Nothing more than a redesigned copy. OK, so what? Due to the horrible installation and usability problems iTunes has had with Win XP since 5.0, I'm up for something similar that I can use without worrying about whether or not it will screw up my CPU. I'm still using the last stable iTunes (4.9). I've not been able to install anything iTunes has put out since 5.0 without going to their help forums. And don't get me started with the iTunes/Bonjour debacle. It took hours to get Bonjour off my computer. I, for one, am looking forward to using Songbird!

Everyone is copying everyone.

But YOU are stupid enough to make it apparent at the first sight

Sorry thats DUMB.

And its not creative. Did you improve a major function? You didnt even care to improve the GUI, you made it worse

Note 1: Winamp was not created in 2000 but 1997 by Nullsoft (or they named afterward, dunno)

@Uncle Speelbinder: Its not about wether YOU want an iTunes alternative, its about ripping off software values. But YOU had to take it on a personal point "me, me" is the argument suddenly.

"@Uncle Speelbinder: Its not about wether YOU want an iTunes alternative, its about ripping off software values. But YOU had to take it on a personal point "me, me" is the argument suddenly."

@WindowsLaugher: Of course it's about wether I want an iTunes alternative. It's about what YOU want as well. That's the whole point. Any software/application being developed, especially when something like it already exists, is just that...an ALTERNATIVE.

As far as "ripping off software values". Are you nuts??!! Mozilla and the developers of Songbird aren't stupid. Apple/iTunes is a huge enterprise with tons of legal representation. I somehow don't think the developers of Songbird are stupid enough to mess with this giant in the field. Example: All internet browsers share the same general look and feel. IE/Firefox/Maxthon/Opera/Seamonkey/Avant aren't all suing each other. Take your blinders off and join the real world.

Just curious if anyone noticed that A) Winamp is no longer being developed. B) that this new Songbird program is being written by some of the past developers of winamp and C) It doesn't matter that it looks like iTunes if its completely open source and no one makes any money off of it. In legal terms.
My personal opinion... it looks like the bulk of iTunes which I don't like very much... but it's not even preview release yet so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait it out.
Other than that... *yawn* @ rants.
ShaBot

That's a rip off of real player! nah, im just woouk wassle j0u.

I'm a little late to comment on this, apparently, but you all should at least see their reasoning for copying the iTunes interface. If you scroll down just a bit at the link provided by Asa, you'll see a blog post titled "Songbird vs iTunes?", which highlights their reasoning w.r.t. their UI choices.

Here's a direct link: http://www.songbirdnest.com/roblord/blog/songbird_vs_itunes

I applaud these guys for taking the time to create a cross platform media player. After being a linux user for the last 4 years, I can't even begin to describe the horrible nature of finding a good media player. I can't wait to see what Songbird has to offer. I have tried many different players from AmaroK, to XMMS, to RealPlayer, to HelixPlayer (I know they are the same thing minus mp3 and m4a support), Kaffeine, Mplayer, Kplayer and all of them are ok but Linux doesn't have a really good media player that can do some of the same things that the Windows and Mac players can. Who cares if the UI is similar to iTunes. It works, and that is all that matters. The true innovation doesn't have to be the design, but the simple fact that the way the program works is different from others. A good point would be the fact that it could support Ogg Vorbis, MP3, AAC, FLAC, and all other file formats right out of the box. I have yet to find a media player that can support all of those particular formats right out of the box (although the full version of Winamp does support AAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis). This project is also being developed by most of the old Winamp team anyway...so who knows what is in store.

Since I run an online music store, I have particular interest in this software because of its cross platform ability. We designed our music store to work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. We have also been looking for ways in which we could integrate a media player with our music store, to give more exposure to our independent artists and provide a good source of indie music to the Windows, Mac and Linux users out there. Which when we started, we only offered Ogg Vorbis files. That is great, but Windows and Mac don't support Ogg natively. So we provided free plugins for the major media players, and even some free players for each system. But over the last year we have heard a growing demand for MP3 and AAC (as well as FLAC) formats. I can't wait to see what this player can offer.

I wish these guys the best of luck.

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