First, thanks for the best Linux Media player available.
Now the but.

I loved version 1.x, been using it for years.
Just updated to FC10, I only get version 2 available... and I'm not sure I like it.

I only really ever load the full gui when I'm managing the songs I want to play, or loading my media player. The rest of the time, I just click in the tray.

Media Player management? Gone? Where is it? It can't manage my MP3 player anymore?

I really don't care to download CD covers, lyrics or all that. To me, it's completely useless... yet I can't turn it off and/or remove it from the GUI. So there's this big useless space in the middle of Amarok that's just ugly wasted space. I Do not care about cd covers... Why cant I turn this off or at least move it out of the way? It's an annoyance.

I'm not a big fan of the gui either, personally, I much preferred the old one. How can I change the theme? Can I change the theme?

I liked being able to use Jackd because I make music with Planet CCRMA and I don't have to always close everything if I want to switch back to listening, is that gone now?

I used to like the meter, it would be a hint to tell me if the music was actually playing, or if my volume was down, of my headphone in. Now there's no way for me to visually know if anything's playing. Is that just gone too?

I just fail to understand why all those features were changed and/or removed? Seems to me it used to have so much more. Now it's just... eehhh...okay... Actually, version 2 isn't much better than just XMMS for me. I don't get it.

"Media Player management? Gone? Where is it? It can't manage my MP3 player anymore?"

Still there. You might have to use the media device context applet to mount players that will then show up in the collection browser. No support yet for UMS devices though. That is being worked on

"So there's this big useless space in the middle of Amarok that's just ugly wasted space"

Then hide it! Just drag the right divider all the way to the left, and then use the right divider to make the browsers the correct size, then there is no more context view.

"I'm not a big fan of the gui either, personally, I much preferred the old one. How can I change the theme? Can I change the theme?"

No. The gui is a work in progress though. In the upcoming version, (2.1) the playlist layout is competely configurable, making it possible to have a look that is much closer to 1.4.x ( http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/876 ... ditor.html )

All in all the intention behind Amarok 2 was not to randomly remove features, rather the opposite. Because 2.0.0 was mostly a complete rewrite from 1.4.x focusing on the underlying frameworks, it did not have feature parity with 1.4.x, the frameworks however are much more powerful than what was available in 1.4.x, and in Amarok 2.1.0 this is really starting to show as we are adding features that was just not possible before. Try having a look at the changelog for our recent 2.1.0 beta1 release for an idea of how fast development is moving: http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.1/beta/1

- Nikolaj

So if I get what you're saying. Version 2 was sort of a small step back (feature wise) so that you could have a better platform to move forward on? Is that it?
I guess that makes sense.

Can't wait for 2.1 then...

Thanks for the reply.

Have a nice day.

"So if I get what you're saying. Version 2 was sort of a small step back (feature wise) so that you could have a better platform to move forward on? Is that it?"

Yes, that is a fairly accurate description. The 1.4.x codebase was becoming unmaintainable, and it was proving impossible to add some of the features we wanted in a clean way without causing bloat.

And the Amarok  2 platform is already starting to show its true potential with Amarok 2.1.0. While still not on par with 1.4.x in all areas it already far surpasses it in others.

- Nikolaj

Amarok 2.x can speak to jack as long as you have libxine with jack support compiled in which some people *cough* Ubuntu leave out. for 2.0 you will need to configure phonon through KDE's Control panel and move Jack to the top of the list of sound devices. With 2.1 you can configure this directly from Amarok.

Which reminds me.... When you skip tracks in Amarok using phonon->libxine->jack. It reconnects the jack outputs to the default (probably first two) system outputs... IMO this behaviour is wrong Amarok (or offending part of the chain) should remember which client it was connected to and reconnect to that client. This allows for Amarok to be put through an effects rack (for those who need EQ) or for running scopes and other analysers on songs as examples.s