I recently tried to use amarok. I started with SuSE's amarok 1.4 apackets, and I have to say, it got much better. Instead of uninstalling it, I wrote a wrapper wich would kill the old instance before starting amerok. I liked the idea of using a mysql database on the server hosting the collection.

I did not like the player in the playlist. It has some knobs on the left, more tunables on the right side and inbetween a lot of space for visualisations. I don't like large visualisations, I don't like visualisations doing random movements when not playing, and I don't like any of the offered visualisations. This would not be bad, but I have a large , empty, wasted space there.

The separate player window is differently bad: There is no indication on the clickable areas, and no way to change the skin.

The playlist itself is very usefull, I use it to see and edit the id3 tags of my to-be-sorted files.

I tried using the cover manager to set the covers for my mp3s. I set it to display the albums without cover, and clicked the button. It found pictures for most albums, and it even got some of them right. After imagining to look at 2 000 to see if the picture is right, without having an indicator saying "I checked this picture", I stopped amarok from downloading the pictures and erased all new covers.

Then I discovered amarok does support last.fm, and tried it out. Having no decent error message, I wasted some time on trying to make it run. Thank you very much.

At that point, I switched to amarok 2, which could by installed using third-party kde4 packages. The first thing I had to do was to google about how kcontrol was renamed (who the F* would use a generic name like systenmsettings? I might very well name my own utility "systemsettings"! Besides that, the classic view is gone ... grrrr!). Then I found out about the new utility not being able to load kde3 color schemes, the kde classic style being gone etc pp. But I got it installed.

Trying to run it, I was offered to convert the old database. I entered my mysql settings, and was informed thet the module(?) was not loaded. I must have been a fool to not load it - no wait, it was never offered, and there is no way to load it! Besides that, I have no option to store the database on the server. I'd hate to think about running more than one instance of amarok in my network ... or on one account from a different session.

The amarok arrangement has changed, too. Now there is the middle pane, and you have to cross it each time you drag/dropsome files - or at least you do it at first. The playlist is beautified, but I prefer the usability of the old playlist. Now I've read it will be improved, and the picture looks promising.

The player has improved by moving the position slider into the visualisation area, but that's it.

I'd write about the middle pane now, if I hadn't done it in another thread.

And I still want to change the covers ... but I find the old cover manager.

Now I'm not using amarok 2 unless I want to hear lastfm and unless I don't find another lastfm player, and amarok 1 only to look at the id3 tags and sort the files. I'm using audacious for playing music, since xmms did not have a flac player. The bouncing-title slightly annoys me, but having not enough room for the title I did not find a better option. The voiceprint visualisation is acceptable.

sounds like you don't like anything of amarok and generally can do everything better by yourself... so why don't you stop wasting time and program a player which does what you want ?

Now, now, that's just mean. He/she was merely pointing out his observations

In three separate threads, no less... there are limits!

I'm in the same boat as 7eggert...

Fresh install of KDE 4 and I decided to keep it current and put Amarok 2 on my box... wrong choice!  As a long-time iTunes user I find myself  having a TON of trouble getting this media player to do what I want:  shuffle through my whole collection.  Also, there's this big empty box in the middle of my player where I am to put applets; why do I NEED this???  I try to close it, no way to do that; try to hide it, no way to do that; try to resize it, ALMOST works.

I can only agree. I've found amarok2 to be quite unstable and resource consuming (over 1gb of virtual memory!) and nearly dying upon opening the cover manager.
I don't blame the team though. Not at all. I know how time consuming and how much work this program must mean, but still there are lots of improvements to be made.

I like the new design, but I really can't understand why the covers are seperately stored (and there is no way of changing that!) and not in the folders the audio files are in. This is highly irritating. Otherwise the cover fetch tool would be freakin great! But this way it's even more a pain in the back...

Though it can be some work (for the user of amarok) I think a more customizable approach like in the prior version is more likely to have impact on the user than a version that does most of the custom settings FOR YOU and won't let you CHANGE anything.