Author Topic: foobar...honestly...WTF?! WTF?! (Read 55515 times)

Djiezes · « **Reply #25 on:** October 09, 2006, 10:53 AM »

And since they're both open source, anyone could come along and create a decent interface for them.
-Renegade

Foobar isn't open source, see here

But anyway, you're right. It's not easy to learn to get around with it. It takes a lot of time, reading the hydrogen forum, wiki's and other pages. It's a poweruser program & you've got to love fiddling around with it.

f0dder · « **Reply #26 on:** October 09, 2006, 04:48 PM »

And since they're both open source, anyone could come along and create a decent interface for them.
-Renegade
Foobar isn't open source, see here

But anyway, you're right. It's not easy to learn to get around with it. It takes a lot of time, reading the hydrogen forum, wiki's and other pages. It's a poweruser program & you've got to love fiddling around with it.
-Djiezes (October 09, 2006, 10:53 AM)

That certainly does look like a opensource license to me, just because it's not GPL crap doesn't mean it's not open...

JavaJones · « **Reply #27 on:** October 09, 2006, 05:02 PM »

I just have a hard time believing people will go through all that trouble just to get something that really only does maybe a few fairly minor things that Winamp doesn't do, much of which could be done with a custom skin that could then be more easily shared with the world. Seems like if a lot of these people put the same time and effort into skinning/modding Winamp they'd have the same capability but nicer skinning and more overall features.

So yeah, I still don't "get" Foobar".

- Oshyan

f0dder · « **Reply #28 on:** October 09, 2006, 05:09 PM »

I'm not a fan of the way foobar does things, it's scripting seems quite complex and I don't have the patience to tinker with it. But with minimal tinkering (actually just downloading a couple of files and clicking a couple buttons), I got this result, which I quite like:

foobar...honestly...WTF?! WTF?!

Also, I rip my CDs to single file with a cue-sheet, something that doesn't work very well under winamp (unstable plugins) - foobar handles this perfectly.

JavaJones · « **Reply #29 on:** October 09, 2006, 05:34 PM »

Hmm, I've never understood the single-file-with-cue approach to ripping. What's the advantage of this really?

- Oshyan

f0dder · « **Reply #30 on:** October 09, 2006, 05:53 PM »

One advantage is that you have no gaps between tracks, without doing "tricky stuff". Same goes for those CDs with "audio in pre-gap data" or whatever it's called. It's also handy if I want to burn a copy of a CD for bringing to a party, using in a car, whatever - places where you wouldn't want to bring an original. I rip all my music to lossless format for quality as well as archiving.

I plan to, eventually, work on a program to automatically generate MP3 files from the flac/cue combination - once I get a new mp3 player I'll even have an incentive to do so

. (The astute readers will have noticed that my playlist shows .wav files, since I haven't encoded to flac yet).

Dr-Leech · « **Reply #31 on:** October 09, 2006, 06:46 PM »

You can tune foobar as you wish with columns, look mine:

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1791/snap00001kc1.jpg

foobar...honestly...WTF?! WTF?!

JavaJones · « **Reply #32 on:** October 09, 2006, 06:47 PM »

I've never really had a problem with track gaps - there are reasonably solutions to that. Same with burning CD's. Meanwhile the 1 file/cue option makes it a lot harder to use portable devices, share with friends (oops, did I just say that?

), make mixes, etc. It really seems like the wrong answer to the problem for me, but I suppose if more apps supported cue files it might be better.

- Oshyan

tinyvillager · « **Reply #33 on:** October 09, 2006, 07:05 PM »

You can tune foobar as you wish with columns, look mine:

foobar...honestly...WTF?! WTF?!

-Dr-Leech (October 09, 2006, 06:46 PM)

I want that,i've sorted through so much and have gotten lost,would you care to give somewhat
of a step by step of how you got foobar to look like that.I have foobar,love it,but have yet
to make it look good.In other words i want to copy your foobar configuration.

Dr-Leech · « **Reply #34 on:** October 09, 2006, 07:09 PM »

well, It requires some hard coding configuration.. letme copy the entire foobar folder and then you investigate yourself, do you want it ?

Bc i've some plugins with their strings for colors and that..

tinyvillager · « **Reply #35 on:** October 09, 2006, 07:34 PM »

Yeah give me what ya got,if you'd be so kind

,don't mean to twist your arm but...

Dr-Leech · « **Reply #36 on:** October 09, 2006, 07:57 PM »

here it's http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N93QDVDQ

f0dder · « **Reply #37 on:** October 10, 2006, 01:38 AM »

I've never really had a problem with track gaps - there are reasonably solutions to that. Same with burning CD's. Meanwhile the 1 file/cue option makes it a lot harder to use portable devices, share with friends (oops, did I just say that? ), make mixes, etc. It really seems like the wrong answer to the problem for me, but I suppose if more apps supported cue files it might be better.
-JavaJones (October 09, 2006, 06:47 PM)

The "gapless" plugins I've tried never worked 100% for me, there's always been at least slightly noticable artifacts. Burning to CD of course works, but I want as close to 1:1 copy as possible while still having something that's convenient to use. So, it's the best thing for me.

The only real inconvenience is when dealing with portable devices, but the trick is to get one with lots of storage and not add/remove tracks from it all the time... (because, yeah, I haven't found any that supports cue/file yet, even individual-file FLAC support is scarce).

Djiezes · « **Reply #38 on:** October 10, 2006, 10:50 PM »

Quote from: Djiezes on October 09, 2006, 10:53:51 AM
Quote from: Renegade
And since they're both open source, anyone could come along and create a decent interface for them.
Foobar isn't open source, see here

But anyway, you're right. It's not easy to learn to get around with it. It takes a lot of time, reading the hydrogen forum, wiki's and other pages. It's a poweruser program & you've got to love fiddling around with it.
That certainly does look like a opensource license to me, just because it's not GPL crap doesn't mean it's not open...
-Fodder

Really? Where's the source then?

f0dder · « **Reply #39 on:** October 10, 2006, 04:56 PM »

Look, over there! It's superman!

Okay, so I confused foobar and musikCube wrt. source code availability. Feel free to chop my head off

Lashiec · « **Reply #40 on:** October 11, 2006, 05:20 AM »

Okay, so I confused foobar and musikCube wrt. source code availability. Feel free to chop my head off
-f0dder (October 10, 2006, 04:56 PM)

We'll do that

I see you're catching the hang of it. Good work. Maybe we can create a foobar2000 ColumnsUI configurations design group (proudly sponsored by DonationCoder.com

) and sweep the floor with all those cocky users showing their configuration in the Hydrogenaudio thread

tinyvillager · « **Reply #41 on:** October 11, 2006, 05:32 AM »

Maybe we can create a foobar2000 ColumnsUI configurations design group (proudly sponsored by DonationCoder.com ) and sweep the floor with all those cocky users showing their configuration in the Hydrogenaudio thread

I'm all for that

superboyac · « **Reply #42 on:** October 11, 2006, 09:19 AM »

Maybe we can create a foobar2000 ColumnsUI configurations design group (proudly sponsored by DonationCoder.com ) and sweep the floor with all those cocky users showing their configuration in the Hydrogenaudio thread

I'm all for that
-tinyvillager (October 11, 2006, 05:32 AM)

Me too.

I'm really glad I got into foobar, it's a great mp3 player. Now that I think about it, in the 9 years that I used Winamp, there were only 4 skins that met with my approval as far as having an efficient design. That's kind of ridiculous considering how many skins there are.

Anyway, I'm going to try to contact this one guy that has an awesome status bar code. Then, my foobar will be perfect!

Djiezes · « **Reply #43 on:** October 11, 2006, 10:20 AM »

Look, over there! It's superman!

Okay, so I confused foobar and musikCube wrt. source code availability. Feel free to chop my head off
-f0dder (October 10, 2006, 04:56 PM)

Don't worry about that. I'm not that choppy.

I'd love it to be open source though. But it's freeware and that's counts at least for something.

herbiman · « **Reply #44 on:** October 17, 2006, 07:39 AM »

Of ourse the other way to use Foobar is like I do:

Install.
Open
Drag files frmo Explorer into Foobar window.
Press Play and shrink to taskbar.
Listen to the music.

Dr-Leech · « **Reply #45 on:** October 17, 2006, 08:02 AM »

have you tried Songbird?
It's like iTunes but better support for online music, like blogs and tho..

I don't like iTunes then it doesn't fill my requirements.. So.. go foobar go!

superboyac · « **Reply #46 on:** October 17, 2006, 12:01 PM »

Of ourse the other way to use Foobar is like I do:

Install.
Open
Drag files frmo Explorer into Foobar window.
Press Play and shrink to taskbar.
Listen to the music.
-herbiman (October 17, 2006, 07:39 AM)

Ah...a practical person!

Lashiec · « **Reply #47 on:** October 19, 2006, 06:38 AM »

have you tried Songbird?
It's like iTunes but better support for online music, like blogs and tho..

I don't like iTunes then it doesn't fill my requirements.. So.. go foobar go!
-Dr-Leech (October 17, 2006, 08:02 AM)

Yep... a total failure I might say. It didn't start correctly on my computer, not to mention it needs maybe a bit too much for a music player. It may be leaner than iTunes, but not leaner than foobar2000, that's for sure. I'll give a try to 0.2, let's see how well it fares

Djiezes · « **Reply #48 on:** October 21, 2006, 12:52 PM »

have you tried Songbird?
It's like iTunes but better support for online music, like blogs and tho..

I don't like iTunes then it doesn't fill my requirements.. So.. go foobar go!
-Dr-Leech (October 17, 2006, 08:02 AM)

Yep... a total failure I might say. It didn't start correctly on my computer, not to mention it needs maybe a bit too much for a music player. It may be leaner than iTunes, but not leaner than foobar2000, that's for sure. I'll give a try to 0.2, let's see how well it fares
-Lashiec (October 19, 2006, 06:38 AM)

Funny you should say that. It seems one day later (18th october), the 0.2 version was released. See here:
http://www.songbirdnest.com/node/875

But I have to concur, I tried it out several months ago, with their 0.1 release and it was totally disappointing; I uninstalled it right away. But I'll try it again, it looks like a promising tool for discovering new music. I mean, look at the screencast:
http://songbirdnest.com/screencast

Edit:
Oops, looks like I looked at the wrong date.
I was supposed to say: one day before.
I guess this is not news to you then.

Lashiec · « **Reply #49 on:** October 26, 2006, 07:16 AM »

Songbird 0.2 continues to be the same pile of crap. Now it launches, takes years to show the screen, gives an error when it can't load the QuickTime plug-in (for what?), and that's all. I scanned my music collection, and it didn't show anything in the media library (it must be a trend, BSplayer 2's music library it's also not very reliable). I tried to play a song and... good! Nothing happened. It does not have many features, and it feels pre-alpha, it's almost in the planning stage. For now it seems like a hacked version of Firefox to make it accept VideoLAN plugins, and a bad hack, which is even worse. Heck, the preferences option is directly copied for the Firefox 1.5 one, they only changed the "Firefox" strings to "Songbird".

Of course, not everything is wrong. The GUI is well designed, and it's very slick. It looks good even on Win98, without alpha blending and in 16 bit color depth.

Personally, I feel that the only reason for releasing this so soon is the hype factor. And it worked. The new version is translated to more languages than 7-Zip, and it was featured on major Internet sites even in 'vaporware' state. That's quite a feat for such a incomplete program.

Another thing to mention is that, although some sites dubbed this one as the "iTunes killer", it's nothing near to that, as it sports more or less some of the problems currently plaguing iTunes (memory hog, lots of components, high system requirements...). Pioneers of the Inevitable had to do better if they want to release a REAL app (and not tons of hype). Now this looks as a bad Mini-Review...