I can almost guarantee that Songbird will include all of those features except for transcoding from one format to another. And if that isn't put into the base install of Songbird, then it will almost certainly be implemented via an extension. The only other thing I couldn't guarantee is the some of your more specific organization features. But the basic idea of all of those will make it into Songbird.

I don't think transcoding for all formats should be included. Not only will it make the installer GIGANTIC, it's not necessary. The only thing we might need is a WAV/AAC/MP3/OGG converter. Video conversion shouldn't be included.

The feathers should apply for all windows, including extensions (if possible). The extension window looks awkward.

And lastly (IMPORTANT), network/internet sharing!

Transcoding APIs will have to get written behind the scenes before CD rip/burn can happen.

Whether we spend the time to create UI for people to use them directly is a different matter, but something that can be handled as an extension.

Uh, guys feathers already can include extensions, the coder who wrote the feather has to include extension-specific code in order for them to affect any extension. I did this in my feathers so that the big Qloud button changes color to match my other buttons. Check them out Here.

Skwurl.

There isn't much in those that can be 'skinned' no matter which program you're trying to skin. Now, if you can point me to a Firefox skin that has what you're talking about, Id be glad to incorporate it in the next round of feathers that I create. As far as the main dialog windows go, Songbird feathers have the same skinning capabilities as Firefox 2 skins do, because it's almost the same code.

Skwurl.

As of Firefox 2.0, so far all that can be modified by a theme in that particular window is the icons and text. As Songbird is based off of Firefox 2.0 code, the same should apply.

Skwurl.

P.S. In older versions of Firefox (e.g. 1.5-1.6) themes were able to do more with the dialog windows.

I looked, it doesn't show any dialog windows except the preferences wind in the preview. Scratch that, upon closer inspection (installation) it does change the buttons, tabs, and checkboxes in the dialog windows, nothing else though. If thats what you were after, let me know, and I'll customize the next set of Feathers I make with whichever set of buttons and checkboxes is the most requested among birdwatchers. I've already included some (subtle) changes to the dialog tabs in the last round of feathers.

Skwurl.

P.S. Mig, is there a way to set up a poll in here?

The problem lies not here, but in the base code. the code for these windows is the code used in Firefox 2.0 with a few compatibility modifications, so if you want more from themes, talk to the Mozilla people, not the Songbird people.

Skwurl.

P.S. I was serious last post, if you want to see the checkboxes and buttons look different let me know, and ill see what i can do about making it happen.

Hi all. I really like the idea of the Songbird project. But honestly, CD Importing is the most CRITICAL, important task to be implemented IMHO. I'm a bit confused as to why it isn't there now?

I would *LOVE* to use Songbird as my main media player, if it only had this single feature!! Without it, I don't think it contends with the big players at all.

As it is, I'm going to have to use iTunes instead.

Any ideas on when we might be looking at SongBird with CD Import feature? Is it being held back due to some licensing/drm type issues? or something else? Can't it just interface with lame encoder?

Do you guys really consider video that important? I think it's a completely different story.

The musik/listening story goes like this: Website offers songs. Songsbird parses wwbsite, finds songs. Offers song playback and song-related tasks to user.

The video story might be a different one, I think. And the variety of video formats (read: flash video and other video formats) out there is vast and a lot harder to detect (robustly) than audio file links.

You might leave the video story to Democracy Player, for now. ;-)

Hallo... I'm mostly a console user. Currently the only two programs I use which aren't in a console are Firefox and Songbird ;)

What I would like is a program (mainly the playlist) which I can completely and comfortable control without my mouse. Before I tested songbird the console player cplay was my favorite. It would be nice if you could imbue a bit of this program. Additionally I think of a programmable playlist.

In my suggestion the best way to say what I also want is this:

* After this Song switch to playlist foo shuffle it and play further on this playlist.
* After you played three songs lower the volume down to 60%.
* I like this song more than this (rating) so play it more often than the others if you shuffle the playlist.
* Yeah, I like some of the songs more than the others but I currently have guests so play all of those constantly often.
* Please build a playlist for me. It should contain more than 50 but less than 150 songs. And I only want songs with this genre and this.
* I'm don't interested in sorting my songs and I give a f**k on the current ordering. Please completly do this for me but do it in this scheme.

Ahm... yes I think these are the most important ones :)

~ insanity only seems to be another abbreviation of intelligence ~

Firstly i can definetely say that Songbird is awesome. It's first player after which I stopped using Winamp. It's simply great. But I think it still needs lots of work.
The only player which I can say is almost perfect is amaroK. And I hope Songbird will be soon much better :)
Anyway I think that next feature which should be added is Playlist. For example like winamp or amarok. I want to see what Will be next song. I want also to have ability to set up my own playlist on the spot. Without saving it etc. Just drag'n'drop from library to playlist would be lovely.
All in all Songbird is now my favourite media player and I will use it :) Only video window is quite poor so I prefer just VLC. Do your job guys because it's great.

I don't think it's cool to have a video open its own window, I think you should take WMP's approach to show videos in the main window.
For instance, under the player controls a frame could slide out, pushing the window's content (the library or web page) away as much as it needs to and then play back the video.
There are also other things which are / were great about WMP:
- You can make distinction between media types (videos and photos aren't automatically in the same library section as music)
- The mini player in the task bar is great (despite that it automatically extends my classic task bar), because it just uses spaces which is reserved anyway
- In WMP10 there still existed a tag editor with which you could edit multiple files at once and also one file after another without always having to click on "OK".

What I liked about Winamp are the following things:
- Windows stick to screen edge or other windows
- Support for a lot of audio formats
- Opacity options for mini player + mini player is always in the foreground

They can't put video in the main window just yet, theres a bug in the base language that Songbird is written in that screws the video up when its put into the main window. This has been explained a few times before.

Skwurl.

Not sure if it would be possible, but it could be really sweet to have some kind of integration for Pandora (www.pandora.com) in Songbird...

You can already just go to the site and bookmark it and whatever, but it might be cool to be able to control it with Songbird's built-in Play / Pause / Etc. controls.

Ok, a few things I've noticed while playing with Songbird, they're only small things, but still niggles which make me want to go back to Foobar ;)

- Doesn't appear to be an option to view album art, it'd be nice if there was a frame at the bottom that could slide up or down, including album art and maybe also info about the artist (like last.fm has I guess)

- When on shuffle if you hit back, imo, it should play the song that was before the song playing, rather than have shuffle in the backwards direction as well as forwards. It's quite easy to flick through and click accidently then think "wait, I wanted to listen to that", it feels wrong that it shuffles backwards as well as forwards I guess, as no other player I've ever used does that.

- Would it be possible to have an "official" g15 lcd screen thingy thing, or is that an addon I'll have to wait for?

I'm sure I had another couple of points, however it would appear I've forgotten them (I blame the fact it's almost 5:30am...) but if I remember I'll come back and post :)

*edits*
Ah, yes, remembered one, double clicking on the window title should maximise the program, but it doesn't.

And another thing, though I'm sure this is perhaps debatable, but I prefer tag editing in properties style windows from my media player. Think winamp over wmp I guess, I find that editing tags the wmp way takes longer despite it seeming like it should be the other way round...

I agree with everything said, but I don't think that video or audio transcoding should be focused on. Both have plenty of other capable applications. In my opinion, Songbird shouldn't focus on being an all-in-one application for media because it still has a lot of trouble with some forms of popular media and also acts very strangely with tags and other things.

I think that one thing that should be heavily emphasized for 1.0 is gapless playback. This really does make or break a media player, for me (and for many others). Don't let the classical fans down! :)

Thanks,
-Andrew

I want to add that I think that gapless playback is a must for songbird (I hate those pesky Gaps!!!).
Also smart playlists that can use last played information and play count information.
I think that these are a must for songbird 1.0 (hopefully earlier please!!). If they were implemented then I could finally move to songbird for good and stop using Itunes.

Also I love the sound that "Volume logic" brings to music players, could we possibly integrate that somehow into songbird?.

Cheers Rochey

Volume Logic is a third party program, if you want to see it for Songbird then talk to the developers of volume logic.

Skwurl.

alright, a built-in converter is definatly not neccessary, but like an add-on for people who may need it, or come across funky formats.

You are all right about the playback, that is very important.

organization i still think is the main thing songbird needs the most, seperate videos from songs, have features like album art, and make sure the watched folder feature works for everything. i hate when im going through my stuff on shuffle and a random video tries to play when i only want to listen to music.

I've also heard some complaints about playlists, making them should be very easy and intuitive so people who use them can easily make and edit them.

A better option/preferences thing would be nice, right now it pretty much just gives the firefox one with some added things. I'd like it to look more like a media players option menu not an internet browser, since it is a media player.

last but not least initial load time, it is annoying. If it could be possibly speeded up or like a mini songbird comes up first that plays the song selected while the rest loads up that would be good.

One of the only things in witch i think iTunes is best (for my usage) is the check boxes before the name of the musics. It is fabulous to help managing the playlists. That way i can create big playlists, and check or uncheck the musics i wanna play that day

I Can't belive noone has mentioned tabs in the web browser.
It's supported in Firefox 2.0, and this is based on the code isn't it?

Also something i'd love to see is e-mail integration.
anotherthing i think firefox 2.0 supports through an add on.

oh, thanks

itunes has a "show duplicates" function, but the annoying thing about it is that removing a duplicate can alter your playlists, even when you still have a file in your itunes library;

e.g. suppose i add a song to my itunes library, and include it in a playlist. months later i readd the song (perhaps ripped at a higher bitrate): i now have duplicates. when i go to remove the older version, that entry disappears from my playlist.

i hate that about itunes. it would be super-sweet if songbird had a better way of dealing with duplicates.

-diggyG.