From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Songbird is a free and open source software audio player and web browser founded by Rob Lord and developed by Pioneers of the Inevitable (with members who previously developed for both Winamp[1] and the Yahoo! Music Engine), with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web."[2]
Songbird employs Mozilla's XULRunner platform, and is thus capable of running on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux. Songbird utilizes the GStreamer media framework. Apple iPhones, iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune devices are not yet supported.
[edit] Features
- Cross-platform compatibility with Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS X v10.5 (x86, x86-64) and Linux (x86, x86-64). Mac OS X v10.4-10.5 (PPC) and Windows 2000 are unofficially supported by either 1.0 for PPC[3] or using the official Win32 version to run on 2000.
- Ability to play multiple audio formats, such as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Apple Lossless and WMA
- Ability to play Apple FairPlay-encoded audio on Windows and Mac platforms via hooks into QuickTime (authorization takes place in iTunes)[4]
- Ability to play Windows Media DRM audio on Windows platforms[4]
- A skinnable interface, via feathers
- Media files stored on pages viewed in the browser show up as playable files in Songbird
- MP3 file download
- Ability to subscribe to MP3 blogs as playlists
- User-created bookmarks
- Ability to build custom mixes
- Ability to scan the user's computer for all audio files and add them to a local library
- A configurable and collapsible graphical user interface similar to iTunes, and mini-player mode
- Keyboard shortcuts and media keyboard support
- Automatic updates
- Last.fm integration via a plugin, complete with love/hate buttons
- Insound.com and HypeMachine integration
- Microsoft MTP compatible device support
- Ability to edit and save metadata tags
- Gapless Playback & Replay Gain
- Watch Folders
- Media Importing / Exportings (from and to iTunes)
- Automatic Library Files Organization
- Last.fm Radio
[5]
[edit] Extensions
Users can add features and change functionality in Songbird by installing extensions. Community coded extensions are available on Songbird's addons support page. Known community designed extensions are: Qloud Tagging & Search, eMusic Integration, iTunes Importer, iPod Device, Artist Tracker, Library File Organizer, Audioscrobbler Notifier, Wikipedia Artist Display, SHOUTcast Radio Directory, UnPlug, Adblock Plus, Taglib metadata handler and Minimize-to-Systemtray, and ChatZilla.
Skins are referred to as "feathers" in Songbird, and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Songbird via an extension which generates a default skin. Using CSS (and optionally XUL), and an image manipulation program such as Photoshop or GIMP, users are then able to make Songbird look however they want.
[edit] Localization
There are 98 volunteer-basis localizations of Songbird currently being developed at various stages.[6]
[edit] Release history
| Color |
Meaning |
| Red |
Old release |
| Green |
Current release |
| Blue |
Future release |
| Version |
Release date |
Codename |
Significant changes |
| 0.1 |
February 8, 2006 |
Hilda |
|
| 0.1.1 |
February 22, 2006 |
|
- UI fixes.
- More file types supported.
|
| 0.2 |
October 17, 2006 |
|
- Cross-platform compatibility.
- Multi-language support.
|
| 0.2.5 |
February 28, 2007 |
|
- Windows Media DRM audio playback.
- FairPlay audio playback.
- USB mass storage device support.
- iPod device support.
- Automatic locales downloading.
- Improved OS integration.
|
| 0.3 |
October 30, 2007 |
Bowie |
|
| 0.3.1 |
November 6, 2007 |
|
|
| 0.4 |
December 27, 2007 |
Cher |
|
| 0.5 |
March 26, 2008 |
Dokken |
- Media library API.
- MTP device support.
|
| 0.6 |
June 13, 2008 |
Eno |
- Memory and performance improvements.
- Write metadata back to the file.
|
| 0.6.1 |
June 25, 2008 |
|
|
| 0.7 |
August 20, 2008 |
Fugazi |
- Layout and feather changes
- Smart playlists
- Drag & drop
- Dropped support for Mac OS X PPC
|
| 1.0 |
December 2, 2008 |
Genesis |
|
| 1.1.1 |
March 10, 2009 |
Hendrix |
- Watch folders for changes and auto-import media
- Fetching Album Art
- Playback normalization (Replay Gain)
- Improved sorting
- Gapless MP3 playback via file metadata[7]
|
| 1.1.2 |
April 9, 2009 |
Hootie |
|
| 1.2 |
June 18, 2009 |
Isan |
- Automatically Organize Library Files
- 2-way Sync with iTunes
- Last.fm Radio
- 10-band Equalizer
|
| 1.3 |
Features to be released as part of Kanye[8] |
Jackson 5 |
- Mass Storage Class device support
- Playback of additional formats
- Metadata support for MP4 and ASF files
- Transcoding to MP3 or WMA formats
|
| 1.4 |
TBD[9] |
Kanye |
- MP3 encoding
- Mobile device firmware updates
- CD ripping
- CD information lookup
- Notification for un-synced DRM controlled media
|
| 1.4.1 |
TBD[10] |
KoЯn |
- New Feather
- Addons Visual Redesign
- New First Run Bundle
- Additional Device Support
- Critical Bug Fixes
|
| 1.5 |
TBD[11] |
Led Zeppelin |
- Video Library
- Video Playback
- Video Metadata
- Video Device Sync
- Performance and Stability
- Vendor Rebasing
- General Build Improvements
- Video Transcoding
|
| 1.6 |
Week of
Jan 25, 2010[12]
|
Madonna |
- Video Transcoding
- Firmware Support
- Import Network Settings
- Gracenote metadata
- Performance and Stability
- Codec Profiling
- Startup Localizatoin
|
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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Gopher |
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| Active clients |
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| Discontinued clients |
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| Server software |
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| Persons |
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| See also |
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