Important
This project is abandoned and will receive no further updates.
It is being replaced with a standalone (hopefully cross platform) desktop application built in Python with Gtk, the repository for which will be created when it's in a reasonable public alpha state.
"Keep It Stupid Simple" local audio file player browser extension, CURRENTLY IN ALPHA DEVELOPMENT and likely to contain much incomplete or flat out broken code and functionality.
Having tried many local music players, on Windoze and Linux, I have frequently been confused, frustrated and disappointed. Entire forums have been dedicated to assisting users of these players in operating them. I just want to play my music archive in all the most reasonably expected ways; press "go" and music happens :)
- I am using a PC, unsurprisingly already have a web browser installed and it's open practically all the time
- I have my music archive ripped and stored on my PC in directories
- I want to play those files in specific orders or shuffled
- I don't want my music player to:
- require the internet or alter my files at all
- have so many optional extra features that it requires an online wiki or forum to comprehend
- utilise deep learning AI, and via a wet wired BCI, examine my mood and make selections it deems suitable
With this premise in mind, I am working to build a browser extension that provides only the features I need and presents them in a one stop control panel. It currently looks like this:
When I say "play my music archive in reasonably expected ways"; sometimes I'd like to listen to whole albums, but don't mind much which (i.e. shuffle by album), and in that mode, I might prefer to avoid playing bonus tracks to get an authentic experience as the artist intended (i.e. by ignoring ignorable tracks). If shuffling by track and landing on the 3rd movement of a 5 movement symphony, I might prefer to listen to the whole symphony (i.e. sequenced).
These and other quality of life options lie at the heart of my reason to build this player; I was fed up with being tied into pedestrian players with 20 ways to acquire images from the net and connect to various online accounts that scribble all over my files, instead of a music-playing-focussed UX.
I haven't even finished building it yet and it's already, by far, the most satisfying music player I have used but, there is still a lot of coding to do. This is my primary, nay, only music player and, there's no better way to assess the usability than by actually using it, so every day I tinker with ideas and bugs. Speaking as an alpha user, it's coming along nicely :)
Feel free to try it out as an unpackaged extension while I work on it, and I will publish it on the Chrome Web Store when it's in a fit state for simpler installation.
The code is a hodgepodge of kluges and half-cocked ideas expressed in accordance with the philosophy "make it work, then make it pretty". There are notes throughout the code marked as TODO; some make more sense than others ;)
The most important next step to take is integrating the ability to read files' id3 and other similar tags such as Vorbis Comments; I plan to do this using WebAssembly and TagLib, but frankly dunno if that will work yet, so may need an alternative; time will tell. Reading tags will have a huge positive effect on the quality of the UX and code efficiency.