Friday, December 7. 2007
Amarok2 as a technology platform, and beyond Amarok 2.0
Anyone who reads any of my blog posts should know by now, that I am quite enthusiastic about Amarok2. I think our initial release, Amarok 2.0, is going to push the boundaries of what a music manager is, and how it can integrate with some of all the great internet services out there.
In this post I want to touch on something else that I have been thinking about in the last few weeks. Something that actually gets me just as exited, and that is Amarok2 as a technology platform.
This discussion has been raging in KDE4 land for a while, and the point that is often brought up is that KDE 4.0 is not all of KDE4. KDE 4.0 will be the very first version of KDE built on the KDE4 technology platform. In itself it is looking to be a interesting release, but the true potential of the underlying technology will only start to become fully realized in later KDE 4.x releases.
The same logic can be applied to Amarok. Amarok 2.0 will be a great release, built on top of some very interesting new technologies, but the full potential of these will not show through in the first release.
So what are these cool technologies that I keep going on about, and what kind of features do I envision in the future for Amarok 2.x ? First of all, I think the new collection framework by Maximilian Kossick is absolutely fantastic. It is the basis of everything we are doing in Amarok2. The local collection, portable media players and all the services are all built on top of this framework. This means that some of the neat tricks that the collection framework has up its sleeve will work for all of these. One of the really cool things that is possible with the collection framework is seamlessly moving and copying content between collections ( subject of course to some collections being read only ). In Amarok 2.0 this will be used for moving content between mobile devices and the main collection, but in the future, this could be expanded to allow things like full synching with mp3tunes, buying directly from magnatune.com to any other (writable) collection, syncing up an ampache server and mp3tunes or migrating to or from mp3tunes and any other similar service. These are just some of my ideas, and I am sure that you can dream up other ruses for this. This will also allow one of our most requested features, multiple collection support, to be implemented without compromising the design of the application.
Then there is the new Plasma based context view. While we have had little to show lately, this allows for some really nice and innovative content to be dynamically displayed. And since it is easily customizable, potentially users will be able to mix and match their own context information based on their current task.
And of course, my own pet project, the service framework which makes it easy to add new content to Amarok. It is my hope that this will attract new developers to Amarok who are interested in adding or improving services. This has actually already started to happen, with Casey Link stepping up to add album cover support to the mp3tunes service, and ending up doing all sorts of interesting work towards allowing full mp3tunes synchronization. Also, as our user base grows, it becomes more interesting for additional companies and online services to have their content added and support Amarok in one way or another. And as the services are quite independent from Amarok itself (they are now implemented as proper plugins ) there is little danger of any one company gaining too much control over Amarok, and Amarok will never become Dependant on any one service.
That is all for now. In recap, Amarok 2.0 will be great, but we have many cool ideas for 2.x that are now possible thanks to the new technological underpinnings!
In this post I want to touch on something else that I have been thinking about in the last few weeks. Something that actually gets me just as exited, and that is Amarok2 as a technology platform.
This discussion has been raging in KDE4 land for a while, and the point that is often brought up is that KDE 4.0 is not all of KDE4. KDE 4.0 will be the very first version of KDE built on the KDE4 technology platform. In itself it is looking to be a interesting release, but the true potential of the underlying technology will only start to become fully realized in later KDE 4.x releases.
The same logic can be applied to Amarok. Amarok 2.0 will be a great release, built on top of some very interesting new technologies, but the full potential of these will not show through in the first release.
So what are these cool technologies that I keep going on about, and what kind of features do I envision in the future for Amarok 2.x ? First of all, I think the new collection framework by Maximilian Kossick is absolutely fantastic. It is the basis of everything we are doing in Amarok2. The local collection, portable media players and all the services are all built on top of this framework. This means that some of the neat tricks that the collection framework has up its sleeve will work for all of these. One of the really cool things that is possible with the collection framework is seamlessly moving and copying content between collections ( subject of course to some collections being read only ). In Amarok 2.0 this will be used for moving content between mobile devices and the main collection, but in the future, this could be expanded to allow things like full synching with mp3tunes, buying directly from magnatune.com to any other (writable) collection, syncing up an ampache server and mp3tunes or migrating to or from mp3tunes and any other similar service. These are just some of my ideas, and I am sure that you can dream up other ruses for this. This will also allow one of our most requested features, multiple collection support, to be implemented without compromising the design of the application.
Then there is the new Plasma based context view. While we have had little to show lately, this allows for some really nice and innovative content to be dynamically displayed. And since it is easily customizable, potentially users will be able to mix and match their own context information based on their current task.
And of course, my own pet project, the service framework which makes it easy to add new content to Amarok. It is my hope that this will attract new developers to Amarok who are interested in adding or improving services. This has actually already started to happen, with Casey Link stepping up to add album cover support to the mp3tunes service, and ending up doing all sorts of interesting work towards allowing full mp3tunes synchronization. Also, as our user base grows, it becomes more interesting for additional companies and online services to have their content added and support Amarok in one way or another. And as the services are quite independent from Amarok itself (they are now implemented as proper plugins ) there is little danger of any one company gaining too much control over Amarok, and Amarok will never become Dependant on any one service.
That is all for now. In recap, Amarok 2.0 will be great, but we have many cool ideas for 2.x that are now possible thanks to the new technological underpinnings!
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But I am really disappointed about the fact that the session management will most likely miss MySQL support. It won't be usable for people with large collections (>25000) and especially for people like me, who have home as an nfs share (sqlite locking...).
Hope you can manage to readd MySQL support!
Cheers,
Christian
Hope you can manage to readd MySQL support!
Cheers,
Christian
Thanks for sharing your ideas with us, it looks like Amarok2 together with KDE4 is going to be fantastic, and is really going to innovate the way we think about our desktop.
Keep up with the good work and keep innovating, don't be afraid of keep pushing the boundaries!
Keep up with the good work and keep innovating, don't be afraid of keep pushing the boundaries!
You are probably right that amarok 2.0 will not have the full feature list, the project is looking for but from what I've seen will be amarok 2.0 a great release and I can't wait to fully install it on my system.
But when is it going to be released?
But when is it going to be released?
honestly, I expected something more precise. I mean I'm not asking for a certain date, but there must be some kind of a road map. The main developer is beeing paid now for his work and his funders might want to see some progress including a basic roadmap.
All I'm asking for is something like: "January 2008" or something like that. First Quoter 2008 would be a little week since I expect amarok within the first quoter anyway.
I hope it won't become the next "KDE 4.0" which is delayed all the time and written for ages.
All I'm asking for is something like: "January 2008" or something like that. First Quoter 2008 would be a little week since I expect amarok within the first quoter anyway.
I hope it won't become the next "KDE 4.0" which is delayed all the time and written for ages.
I'll just correct you on a few points, and then I will try to answer your question a little better.
First of all, I am not the lead developer ( If we do indeed have one, that tittle would befall Mark, the project founder )
Secondly, I am employed by Magnatune, and they are indeed interested in getting Amarok2 out the door. My deal with Magnatune is that I work part of my time on their site, and part of my time on Amarok / which is also what I wrote in my blog when they hired me ). Since KDE4 has been pushed back a bit, and Amarok2 will not really have any potential userbase until KDE4 is beginning to gain mainstream adoption, I have been spending a bit more time than originally planned getting some new features on the magnatune site ready for launch ( some quite significant new stuff ). Come January, I will hopefully be able to focus solely on Amarok2 for a while. ( That said, I have already spend a good chunk of time on Amarok while I have been working for Magnatune. )
Now, as to when we are going to release it, I think late Q1 2008 is about the best estimate I can give you right now. At least it is my hope that we can make that and I intend to push hard for it.
Also, I am hoping that we will be able to release a first test version around the time KDE4 is release ( alpha? beta? ... )
All in all, Amarok2 is a huge and ambitious undertaking, and it is taking quite a bit of time to get just right, but until then, Amarok 1.4.x is still perfectly usable, very stable and often updated ( in fact there should be a 1.4.8 coming out in a few weeks )
First of all, I am not the lead developer ( If we do indeed have one, that tittle would befall Mark, the project founder )
Secondly, I am employed by Magnatune, and they are indeed interested in getting Amarok2 out the door. My deal with Magnatune is that I work part of my time on their site, and part of my time on Amarok / which is also what I wrote in my blog when they hired me ). Since KDE4 has been pushed back a bit, and Amarok2 will not really have any potential userbase until KDE4 is beginning to gain mainstream adoption, I have been spending a bit more time than originally planned getting some new features on the magnatune site ready for launch ( some quite significant new stuff ). Come January, I will hopefully be able to focus solely on Amarok2 for a while. ( That said, I have already spend a good chunk of time on Amarok while I have been working for Magnatune. )
Now, as to when we are going to release it, I think late Q1 2008 is about the best estimate I can give you right now. At least it is my hope that we can make that and I intend to push hard for it.
Also, I am hoping that we will be able to release a first test version around the time KDE4 is release ( alpha? beta? ... )
All in all, Amarok2 is a huge and ambitious undertaking, and it is taking quite a bit of time to get just right, but until then, Amarok 1.4.x is still perfectly usable, very stable and often updated ( in fact there should be a 1.4.8 coming out in a few weeks )
If huge software companies owned by multi-national mega-corps (eg Blizzard) can have release dates of "when it's done", I think anyone can. 
The reason why a precises date cannot be given is because Amarok does not have any dedicated developers.
Some days the SVN will get 100 commits, some days it will get 10.
One thing is for sure though: Amarok2 will not be out before KDE4.
Some days the SVN will get 100 commits, some days it will get 10.
One thing is for sure though: Amarok2 will not be out before KDE4.
Yay. You're taking a good application, and turning it into a bloated Windows Media Player knockoff.
Just STOP.
Just STOP.
As I have not used WMP for a good many years now,I really have no idea how it currently works or looks. I would be very interested in how exactly Amarok2 will be a knockoff. As it stands, your comment is useless. Please provide some detailed points about what we are supposedly copying. Also, I find it kinda of funny that some people accuse us of ripping off iTunes (which I have used a little bit a while back, but I did not really like ) and some of ripping of WMP. Surely we cant be doing both at once!?
Also, please dont sling words like "Bloat" around unless you actually haev something to back it up with. I my view the core architecture of Amarok2 is actually a hell of a lot cleaner, simpler and more expansible than that of the 1.4.x series. Almost everything beyond that is plugin based and can be loaded as needed. The one thing that does make parts of the app slightly heavier, is our use of svg graphics, but for this we employ very heavy caching making sure that most files will only be rendered once.
Also, please dont sling words like "Bloat" around unless you actually haev something to back it up with. I my view the core architecture of Amarok2 is actually a hell of a lot cleaner, simpler and more expansible than that of the 1.4.x series. Almost everything beyond that is plugin based and can be loaded as needed. The one thing that does make parts of the app slightly heavier, is our use of svg graphics, but for this we employ very heavy caching making sure that most files will only be rendered once.
It would be really funny if 3 years from now, the next version of Itunes would look like Amarok 1. Everybody will most likely praise the beatiful and "unique" design. Would you be ripping them again then ?
What is it with guys who want to take a does-one-thing-really-well app, and turn it into a giant tries-to-do-everything-and-ends-up-doing-it-all-equally-poorly app?
Connectivity is beyond the scope of what you should be doing in writing a media player. It's a media player, not a media manager, not a media editor, or a PIM application, or a sync app, or whatever the neato thing of the day is.
It's bad enough GNOME and KDE, for 10 years, have yet to come up with a design that doesn't try desparately to look and feel like whatever Winblows version is out at the time. Do you really want your apps to mimic Microsoft apps too?
Connectivity is beyond the scope of what you should be doing in writing a media player. It's a media player, not a media manager, not a media editor, or a PIM application, or a sync app, or whatever the neato thing of the day is.
It's bad enough GNOME and KDE, for 10 years, have yet to come up with a design that doesn't try desparately to look and feel like whatever Winblows version is out at the time. Do you really want your apps to mimic Microsoft apps too?
I don't think there's a problem with apps trying to do multiple things, so long as the extra features aren't forced on the user. I don't think that's a problem likely to happen with Amarok.
If people were content to have just a media player we never would have progressed past mpg123. There are plenty of applications that can play a few audio files. The point of Amarok is what it can do beyond being a media player.
If people were content to have just a media player we never would have progressed past mpg123. There are plenty of applications that can play a few audio files. The point of Amarok is what it can do beyond being a media player.
> "It's a media player, not a media manager "
But a media manager is exactly what Amarok has always been. Now it just allows you to, via plugins that you can just disable if you don't care about them, integrate content from other sources as well.
Also, I will readily admit that we are taking some chances with Amarok2, but this is not propritary software. No one is forcing you to stop using Amarok 1.4.x ( which will run just fine on KDE4 ) and it will likely receive updates and bug fixes for a long time to come still.
But a media manager is exactly what Amarok has always been. Now it just allows you to, via plugins that you can just disable if you don't care about them, integrate content from other sources as well.
Also, I will readily admit that we are taking some chances with Amarok2, but this is not propritary software. No one is forcing you to stop using Amarok 1.4.x ( which will run just fine on KDE4 ) and it will likely receive updates and bug fixes for a long time to come still.
Please realase a windows version 
I use both operating systems and need Amarok on windows too.
I use both operating systems and need Amarok on windows too.
They are doing a Windows version, see:
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/536-Amarok-2-now-with-100-more-audio-playing-on-Windows.html
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/536-Amarok-2-now-with-100-more-audio-playing-on-Windows.html
Since probably no one can already answer this question, let me reformulate it:
Will Amarok 2.0 be in a useable beta stage of development when KDE 4 comes out on January 11th?
I would then install it and send backtraces, every time it crashes.
Will Amarok 2.0 be in a useable beta stage of development when KDE 4 comes out on January 11th?
I would then install it and send backtraces, every time it crashes.
As I replied to an earlier post, I personally hope that we will have some kind of test version ready by the time KDE4 ships, but if it will be beta, or more likely, alpha quality I cannot tell just yet.
ok, i know that amarok2 is under dev and a lot of things are not implemented yet.
I've been using Amarok1 since forever and love it. Amarok2 sounds really nice. Keep up the good work and don't mind the trolls.
the thing that i really dont like of amarok2 is the main row, when you can put the amarok-plasmid, in my test system(svn build) miss the info tab, the main row is to small tho show correctly that applets, is not the desktop, preffer an option to show the clasic info(lyric, song, artist, etc) or show that info using plasmoids.
but right now, have nothing in that row.
but right now, have nothing in that row.
Due to the API of Plasma being in a somewhat, hmmm... exited... state for quite a while now, we have not been able to really implement the plamoids and layouts that we have planned for that context view yet. Things seems to have calmed down now though, so hopefully all the info that was present in the old context browser will soon be displayed in the new context view.
Keep up the great work on the best music app on any platform(imho). I'm looking forward to it being released on windows and mac so my friends can see what they are missing.
Also I really like how you handle the trolls.
Thanks.
Also I really like how you handle the trolls.
Thanks.
I quit using Amarok... its engine cant handle packet loss and it crashes... and it isnt really designed for managing radio stations... but the party mode in Amarok looks promising since I use a VNC connection on a wireless pocket pc to manage audio feeds with vlc
i know casey, he is a member of the VTLUUG and a totally awesome guru.
Other than that, id love to see support for amazon.com mp3 downloads. 224vbr kpbs no DRM!!!
Other than that, id love to see support for amazon.com mp3 downloads. 224vbr kpbs no DRM!!!
Really looking forward to it. But if you need some input on the features, by far the best MP3 library / organization tool is the MEXP plugin for Winamp. Especially for organizing your mp3s on your hard drive and the feature (easy to implement tho nowhere else found) to only include artists with a certain amount of songs in the collection. Say artist x has 3 songs in your collection and your threshold is 4, just ignore him. Sort him somewhere else. That way the amount of artists in your collection stays limited and it doesn't get too cramped.
My last final exam is on Wednesday, which means Thursday starts my month long Amarok 2 coding spree.. well not true. Thursday I'll be flying, but Friday it all goes down.
nhnFreespirit made a great point about Maximilian's work on the collection framework. When he says "It is the basis of everything we are doing in Amarok2," he is 100% right!
Props to maxx_k
nhnFreespirit made a great point about Maximilian's work on the collection framework. When he says "It is the basis of everything we are doing in Amarok2," he is 100% right!
Props to maxx_k
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