minitunes Player makes Your music Collection look good

By , Published May 5, 2010

Minitube developer Flavio Tordini is currently developing another exciting and visually attractive project: a new music player titled ‘Minitunes‘.

Now before the smart alecs at the back start groaning about ‘Yet Another Linux Music Player’ the developer is actually adding something new here: style.

Download Minitunes preview

Although Minitunes is still heavily under development you can sneak a peek at it €“ but be aware that this isn't an alpha, less so a beta and a stable version is much further along the track. Comprendez? Kapeesh.

First you need to download the Minitunes snapshot. Press the button below to nab that.

image

Before we can run it we need to install the necessary dependencies. Open up a terminal and enter the following commands carefully.

  • sudo apt-get install build-essential qt4-dev-tools libtag1-dev libqt4-phonon-dev
Once the dependencies have been installed navigate in to the extracted Minitunes folder using cd minitunes/ and proceed to run the following commands to both make and run Minitunes.
  • qmake
  • make
  • ./build/target/minitunes

Minitunes

Now you need to choose a music folder for Minitunes to scan. Now, because Minitunes pulls in data (for album art, artist art, etc from Last.fm a large collection is going to take a fair while to be fully scanned and ID’d so my tip is to try it out by just selecting one artists’ folder.
 

Selection_004[3]

Once loaded you'll have three main views: Artist, Albums and Folder. This are pretty self explanatory; to add an artist or album to the playlist just hover over the folder art and press the play button that appears.

You are able to shuffle, repeat and clear the playlist at present.

Selection_005

You can get info on the currently playing artist by pressing the 'start' icon in the toolbar.Selection_006[9]
Remember that this is a preview €“ there is no alpha, this isn't a beta and a stable version is much further along the line.

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. Guayadeque Music Player: Light, Unique, Awesome?
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  • Anonymous

    even though i actually like this one, don’t you believe there are too many music players out there yet none of them is complete (feature-wise)?
    couldn’t this be made into a plugin for an existing player?
    (obviously the developer has the right to do whatever he/she wants , that’s not what i mean. )

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Yeah there probably are a few too many and it will only be the ones with enough distinctiveness that have any longevity. A similar interface to this probably could be added to an existing player and if someone actually makes it then Minitunes will have all been worth it.

  • Anonymous

    oh look another music player :/ instead of making new music players people should just make plugins for banshee and rhythmbox. but it’s their time so i guess they can go whatever they want

    • Anonymous

      there are plenty of reasons for wanting to start from scratch, not the least of which being that it is more efficient to write a program to do a particular purpose then to add plugins to another. thats why we have chrome, why we have banshee, why we can get better things. i prefer them to make new programs, within bounds, because it means new things, specialized things, and meeting the needs of users and not the schedules of the developers.

  • dd

    looks somewhat similar to the cubano interface for banshee.

    http://abock.org/tag/cubano

    • pt

      i guesss this died when they found out how slow Mono is with graphics and multimedia, just look at F-spot.

  • Anonymous

    The problem for, is that music players on linux tend to be fairly heavy weight (or at least feel it) and I liked Songbird because of it’s UI. It looked awesome.

    Is it just me who has a problem with the default grey / beige colour of apps on ubuntu?

    I mean Chrome instantly encourages you to select a theme, is this good or bad? I could live with custom browser, music player and e-mail client themes, everything else can be default because I don’t use it all that much OR it’s purely for work (i.e. open office would start to be a pain if icons and colours changed all over the place)

    • Anonymous

      you could always just change the theme, or the default colors of your theme.

      • Anonymous

        Thats interesting, because I’ve not met someone who likes consistency, so there are different sets of people :-P

        I need ot find the time to tinker with icons and themes, I’m kinda considering writing some documentations on compiling themes and icons for users. I started looking into it once when playing with icons – http://www.gauntface.co.uk/blog/2008/09/11/open-office-icons/ but I think the naming convention for icons changed or something too much for me to keep up with each distro

        • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

          I think the kinds of people who expect/like the consistency tend to have been/are mac users – just a hunch, don’t sue ;)

          (btw – you’re slacking on your 365 :P )

          • Anonymous

            I am a mac user, but their default colour is white and silvery, that or they make better use of gradients, some how it looks smoother and more coherent.

            I just wonder how the UI colour scheme and images are brought together with Ubuntu cos I alway feel like it isn’t quite right.

            (lol I know, Thesis has started to kick in, heavy work load at the moment on the 365 point!)

          • Anonymous

            I love consistency too. I hate to see non monochrome icons on the panel (Opera!), I also like “boring” grey-ish themes, my current favorite is Radience Osliner, before that it was, you guessed it, elementary. I stopped using it because of the “e” icon instead of Ubuntu’s logo by default. I used to modify the icons, but every time the theme updates, the icons were reverted again.

            Now, to the real topic, damn minitunes looks awesome!

          • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

            I would actually love a way to distinguish certain windows from others, would’nt it be just simply awesome if we had an Option that said “Style” for any window? With some simple CSS-like Options. Nobody would have to use it but you could use it, id love it, just write a new Stylesheet if you dont like this or that button. If youre sick of it, you disable it…

            I guess nobody would have a different color for every System Window, there always needs to be a certain degree of consistency, but f.e. if Rhythmbox would be in a slick black it could look way cooler. Or F-Spot, staying in the default Apps here. I say CSS-styled Windows FTW!

          • Pelle

            I’m a mac user as well (used to be a full time linux user though). And you’re right, inconsistencies bother me to no end. Maybe that is what made me buy a mac. I love linux, and i do feel a little “dirty” using a mac most of the time, but i can’t help it. Looks is important to me. Very important.
            I would prefer using a linux distro as my main desktop system, but atm my mac serves me very well (ie it doesn’t irritate my eyes too much). KDE4 is shaping up very well though. If i can get rid of all the transparency and glass i might even consider replacing my mac with a pc running the upcoming KDE 4.5 series.

        • ant

          I’m all about consistency, it drives me crazy if stuff looks different, I honestly can’t understand why you would want that :P
          I’ll never use Chrome while the tabs are a different shape to my GTK tabs for example. I use Epiphany even though Firefox is better because the tooltips in Firefox don’t match. I am probably one of a few that go this far though. :)
          But the idea of theming something so it looks different? argh……….

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Some people yearn for consistent appearance between applications and other prefer being able to theme the bananas out of an application. It’s perhaps telling that my Chrome theme makes it match the rest of my desktop.

  • Cyco

    It does give the impression with the name “mini” to be this light music player, then I went and checked the dependencies and it wanted me to install 47 new packages.

    Pass, sorry because I do like the look of it.

    • Cyco

      Oh I missed that it was a QT app which explains it (my system being a QT free zone).

      Is there any GTK app like this or similar?

  • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

    For a lightweight player I’ve been hooked #gmusicbrowser for awhile now, it handles my large collection very well, and has good tagging support, and very customisable interface.

  • Anonymous

    i’m already loving this. a music player that has what I want (libraries, artist sorting, album covers) and not things I don’t (internet radio, podcast, and blah blah blah) so that its quick and not bloated with features. I’m already happy and I can’t wait for a full release.

  • Anonymous

    That looks really good, finally something to compete with other music players on style. I installed Guayadeque Player yesterday and I’m really liking it so far. Rather than a music player just being an application it should also engage the user to get the most out of it, I’ll be trying Minitunes out when it’s a bit further along in development.

  • http://dottorblaster.it/ Bl@ster

    Mh. Pretty good, ah. But Banshee and its CoverView are the best, at the moment :P

    • pt

      banshee is slow, and its seek control is so tiny

      • http://www.FreezingMoon.org/ Dread Knight

        Even the volume widget is lame/stupid in banshee, rhythmbox and many others. Wish Gnome would get done with that joke of a widget already.

  • Anonymous

    looking good

  • Anonymous

    this looks perfect for netbooks! if it reaches 1.0 it should be in maverick netbook :D ok, ok im jumping to things here but if we can get an ubuntuone store plugin ;)

  • pt

    it is ridiculous that music players can’t import libraries from other players. Why would I want to rate each song again, when all the ratings are available in Rhythmbox

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, we should have some way of organizing this, at least among the most popular music players. If there were a standardized way, I think most new programs would follow suit. Of course, some people might, for whatever reason, want different collections in different programs.

  • Anonymous

    Already looking pretty slick! Might get this on my N810 soon (with Mer, of course).

  • http://www.FreezingMoon.org/ Dread Knight

    Too buggy to use atm, tried it before.

    Anyway, this is one player I look forward to use.
    But since I’m on KDE atm, bangarang, amarok and vlc ftw.

  • Anonymous

    As the trend of downloading music to computers ends, the music players for Gnome are getting good. Its kinda sad that we lag so much behind. Spotify, Grooveshark and the likes are bound to take over because nobody wants to download their music when you can stream it instantly. And support for the most popular alternative (Spotify) is still sub par.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/R25APX2NWD4262MDEYS2BWWEZU Mikolaj

      I don’t know… I still download and cannot imagine it otherwise. This allows me to take the music to a portable player etc. On the other hand, I have not even heard about anyone who uses Spotify exclusively so maybe I just strange. :)

      • Anonymous

        Well, if you had all the music in the world readily available to you, not
        only on your computer, but on your cell phone with unlimited data plan and
        coverage everywhere, wouldnt you switch? Also consider that you dont have to
        be concerned about the legallity of your listening, which is kind of an issue since most people who download do it illegally…
        This isnt science fiction, but reality for an increasing number of people.
        Im no futurologist, but i think the trends point in this direction, and
        within a couple of years i think downloading music, as we know it today,
        will be a thing of the past.

        • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/R25APX2NWD4262MDEYS2BWWEZU Mikolaj

          For some people sure. Others do not want to listen to “all the music in the world” but just to this little bit they like. I travel a lot listening to music, and it stopping in tunnels, countryside etc does not seem like a compelling vision.

        • Anonymous

          There are a large group of people who understand that cloud computing in its proposed form is not the way to go. It is ludicrous to give up the FREEDOMS that we have today.
          Let me put this to you. What happens when a song is taken down that was there yesterday? What happens when a cybercriminal compromises your account, and uses data the business collects to frame you?

          This is not fear, this is being rational. Everyone who is a proponent of cloud computing has a vested interest in gaining profit. When I buy a $10 game for example, I pay once (and in the long run can eclipse the value I get out of it VS what I paid), I get to keep that relatively forever. Whereas I pay a subscription and it ends up costing me $50. In 3 years, they don’t even have it on the server. Where is my freedom and choice?

          Look up any terms you need to know. Wikipedia or an offline encyclopedia.

          • Anonymous

            Its a naive ‘fight against the machine’ to think cloud computing can be
            stopped IMHO. It has penetrated every market it has touched.
            I agree that there are huge concerns, not only regarding privacy. But these
            problems, like all others, can, and will, be solved. The advantadges far
            outweigh the potencial dangers.

          • Anonymous

            I’m not trying to fight against it. I said IN THE PROPOSED FORM (sorry just trying to highlight that). The idea of cross-platform apps is really cool and I agree with you the privacy issue (hey this is on Blogspot and I think a certain company has a lot to offer, but is slightly evil).

            But I think the risks and problems far outweigh the benefits. And some benefits can be achieved by just writing apps for the browser, or using the cloud computing model but only for a private intranet. While people might not want Adobe AIR, Mozilla has a really valuable solution using XUL and could integrate this with Prism (this is where Chrome’s “create application shortcuts” came from).

            Also from a user experience position, apps on the internet is terrible because of UI inconsistency, and will inevitably lead people to fall victim more often to DNS poisoning attacks, phishing etc. Some people can’t even read the Web Address/Location bar.

            Taking the control away from the user or organization leaves people helpless when something breaks, which won’t happen with the IT department testing etc. Which is why I selectively choose Windows updates (I’m in the transition to Ubuntu), though nobody should have to. I choose this because of updates breaking things, this even happens with Google products, auto-updating or updated through redeploying in the cloud.

      • Ken Ham

        When are you Freetards going to realise that your individual, personal experience does not equal everyone elses?

        So fucking what if you personally stream instead of download, everyone else has moved on, and if you want Ubuntu (or any GNU/Linux flavour) adopted on the desktop you’d better realise that.

        Better get coding morans.

  • ZAP

    Might be worth giving a try. Can’t believe I still haven’t found a replacement for Amarok 1.4. I use Exaile most of the time, but it doesn’t do Various Artist compilation management the way that Amarok 1.4 did (a.k.a., the RIGHT way).

    I tried the art cover browser plugin for Rhythmbox (which looks a lot like this), but it doesn’t work for me in Lucid x64. Plus, I HATE that Rhythmbox starts playing the songs from your Library when your Queue is empty. WTF is with that? Not even an option to disable this, even tho people have been complaining about it for over four years? If anyone knows how to stop Rhythmbox from doing this, I’d really appreciate the tip.

    • Anonymous

      Have you tried Clementine (Amarok 1.4 fork)?

      • ZAP

        I’ve thought about it, but no I haven’t tried Clementine yet. It’s a QT4 app and I mostly run Gnome, so it would always be a little bit janky on my systems (as was Amarok 1.4, admittedly). I’d much prefer something GTK, and Exaile almost fits the bill (but not quite).

        Thanks for the recommendation, though!

        • Anonymous

          No problem, I didn’t realize it was QT4 (I thought it wasn’t QT4 because Amarok 1.4 wasn’t – unless I’m wrong). I’m new to this stuff, so I’m wondering why a QT4 app would be janky, maybe a conflict with Gnome or GTK?

          • FrozenFox

            Amarok 1.4 was indeed a qt app. Some people don’t like mixing and matching gtk and qt apps for differences over the file browsers and differences or issues between gtk/qt themes, or just for the extra memory they use.

  • TM

    I have been looking for this kind of music player: simple and beautiful. Great! I will follow this project with great interest.

    I followed installation instructions on this blog but could not get sound working (I am using Ubuntu 10.04). It gave me an error that stated “phonon backend plugin could not be loaded”. I googled a bit and here is what I did to make it work:

    sudo apt-get install phonon-backend-gstreamer

  • NIck

    looks very very very promising, and folder view is an excellent idea for people who don’t have there music files properly tagged

  • http://www.facebook.com/SIUQAN Furqan Malfira

    How I can change Picture of artist and album??

    anyone can help me??