Amarok 2.1: Top 10 Features and Wish-List for the Upcoming Version

Amarok has always been a favorite for most GNU/Linux users. And that’s not because its free. I still saw fellas sticking to the 1.x series when the 2.0 was on floor. The Amarok 1.4 is good with queuing, playlist search and filtering; not to forget the stop after current track. But the rants doesn’t stop. From here its was a new story with the Amarok 2.1 counting on its sores. Amarok dev team were back with features most of which you’ve been waiting for. Now it’s shaped with svn, powerful  and showing its merits. Still more, it fixed a lot of bugs as well.   

Let’s kick the tires to find out what’s new in the Amarok 2.1

Replaygain

Every time you change a track your ears are are blasted with much higher volume. Replaygain analyses the tracks and calculates an optimum decibel for each of them. Amarock reads the tracks and changes the volume to meet your hearing abilities.

Love for ALL tracks

Amarok now offers a new love feature for All tracks. It supports all the tracks and not just those in last.fm.

Last.FM service

The Amarok dev team has completely refurbished the Last.FM service. Now you have the most powerful service client for last.fm even more qualified than the official last.fm. Just imagine, it’s now capable of playing all kinds of tracks without a payed account. You can also get the My Recomendations and My Radio Station. Even more, the last.fm settings now offers a way to check your user name and password is correct.

Editable Playlists

This is something for the playlist freaks who love to do a lot of mix and match with the info. The 2.0x had an intricate playlist. With the new prodigy the playlist is customizable with the help of a powerful editor. But its simple to handle. The editor can even change the playlist in a single track mode. Further you can also change it in album mode.

Current track plasmoid

Now you can view the current and favorite tracks from the current track plasmoid

Plasmoid Interface revamp

The plasmoids in new Amarok are united in a single column unlike the 4 separate virtual folders earlier. You can switch or choose your choice with the new taskbar in the lower central window.

Services Plasmoid

This addition is the latest with plasmoid features that occurred just days ago. Suppose you select a service let’s say jamendo. It’ll connect  to the service site and match the your info with one that’s online.

Amarok URLs

With the latest Amarok you can load and generate amarok urls, which facilitates the bookmaking of any view that can be retrieved later. Further the newly installed protocol handler launches Amarok into the correct state or allows you to view the exact url if its activated system wide.

A wishlist

It’s for power users I must say. Although these are not actually rants you can call them so.

1. Better interface

To begin with you can ask for Return of the mood bar, return of visualizations, implementation of MediaFlow like the svn before the release of 2.0.

2. More interactivity with music

For every music-buff will always ask for a better interactivity with music, like equalizer, and other advancements.

[Information Source: padoca.wordpress.com]