4 ms·

It's great to see that fb2k is still around and well :) It's remarkable how they've kept the same UI since its inception, 21 years ago. It was clean, simple an

by imiric 2y ago

It's great to see that fb2k is still around and well :) It's remarkable how they've kept the same UI since its inception, 21 years ago. It was clean, simple and intuitive back then, and still is today. Same goes for the website, now that I think of it. A true testament that simplicity trumps trend-chasing. It was my main music player after Winamp released the awful version 3.0, and I never looked back. I don't use Windows much these days, but mpv serves me well as a barebones audio player, and occasionally I do use Quod Libet on Linux, which has similar design sensibilities as fb2k.

codr7 2y ago
re: Quod Libet; thank you, these kinds of recommendations are invaluable for finding good tools. Especially these days with all the noise.
qwerty456127 2y ago
Despite somehow liking WinAmp 2 more than WinAmp 3, I could never understand why do people consider WinAMP 3 awful. Nevertheless I just switched to foobar2000 on Windows and DeaDBeeF on Linux because their UIs just are perfectly bullshit-free practical pragmatic tools and I came to feel I want a tool rather than a show.
- themerone 2y ago
  WinAmp 3 was bloated, slow, and unstable. It was bad enough that they threw out the code and released WinAmp 5 which was based on the code from WinAmp 2.
  - donatj 2y ago
    Yep, Wasabi, the XML driven UI toolkit was just too slow for PC's of the time.
- a0123 2y ago
  People got used to a fairly simple and efficient UI. Version 3 was a bit of an abrupt change. A bit like today when your favourite social network completely revamps its UI for no apparent reason and makes it look fancier without adding any interesting functionality (and usually removes a couple). It's hard to come back from that.
- serf 2y ago
  >Despite somehow liking WinAmp 2 more than WinAmp 3, I could never understand why do people consider WinAMP 3 awful variety of reasons. mine: it broke a huge amount of visualizers/dsps/skins.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  I guess you might wonder the same thing if installing Windows Vista on a recentish computer.
- rchaud 2y ago
  Winamp 3 with its default "Modern" skin was very sluggish, even on decently specced computers in 2003. If you replaced the default with a Winamp classic skin, it immediately sped up, but defaults are powerful, so most users probably left it as is.
out_of_protocol 2y ago
> the same UI Haha, it's not the same even for any specific version. With plugins and ability to move panels around, it's hard to say all these UIs are the same player. Search for "foobar2000 theme" in google images
a0123 2y ago
A remnant of simpler times. Foobar and VLC, any other software that has always worked and remained pretty much the same?
- tvshtr 2y ago
  VLC is getting a a major UI overhaul, it's pretty much finished actually and should be released soon.
- imiric 2y ago
  > A remnant of simpler times. I think it has more to do with the authors and their principles, and less with the times. There are plenty of counterexamples from that era: all major browsers, the Sonique audio player (which I loved for the UI novelty), Winamp itself, etc. > any other software that has always worked and remained pretty much the same? mpv is in that league for me, and it's much more recent. Then, of course, there are very stable CLI and power user software that has existed for decades: Vim, Emacs, BSD and Linux coreutils, etc. Some of these are not necessarily simple under the hood, but I use them because they do one thing well (or in the case of Vim/Emacs as much as I want them to do :)), and I know that they're not going to disappear or drastically change as so many software does.
- jolj 2y ago
  Total Commander
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  "simpler" is not how I remember foobar2000. I used to use it (±15 years ago) because of its extreme configurability (e.g. in terms of layout). Configuring foobar2000 felt kind of like building your own music player. YMMV
  - defrost 2y ago
    Simple to use, with a smart editable layout configuration for those that chose to go down that rabbit hole. I'm still using it to this day, with little more than an album tree, a playlist window, and an album art thumbnail that optionally all fold away. I've been down the configuration | plugin trail, good fun for those of us that enjoy that kind of thing but it is | was simple and clean from a fresh install.
signaru 2y ago
I use Audacious on Ubuntu as I can almost get the same UI configuration as foobar2000, tabs of playlists which can be made on the fly or from saved files. A music player app is something I always use on the background, so all the fancy visualizations or album art are not so useful for me. It's also sad that the default music player on Ubuntu (Mate) doesn't have a volume control out of the box.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
DidYaWipe 2y ago
Foobar2000 was always better than WinAmp. WinAmp was the best example of why standard UI affordances evolved.
- mostlysimilar 2y ago
  Disagree. Winamp skins are the highlight of a better era of computer interfaces.
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    Some people don't enjoy meandering through a puzzle game of arbitrary, standards-ignoring UI instead of getting stuff done.
- rchaud 2y ago
  No, Winamp was the last example of broadly used "appliance" software that wasn't inextricably tied into a megacorp's business model. iTunes and Windows Media Player were both bloated because of the e-store baked into the back end.
  - spectre3d 2y ago
    There was no store in iTunes when it was released in 2001, and those of us using SoundJam MP knew there would be no further updates so we started using it and enjoyed its bulk metadata editing and album art embedding capabilities, with an interface that was intuitive for managing playlists and music. And scriptable! It wasn’t until two years later that the store was integrated as part of an update. Although there was an (Carbon?) OS X version for a while, Winamp was Windows-only from what I knew, so my opinion of it was always coloured by having to use Windows to interact with it, although I used CrossOver on Mac and Mint as well.
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    EphPod was 100% free and didn't bury its functionality in an Advent-calendar UI. It was simple, clean, and did something that iTunes/Music doesn't to this day: automatically sync new files you added to your music directory, with no need to "add to library" every time you acquired them. iTunes, when tied to a "megacorp's business model," still suffered from piss-poor UI. Take, for example, the "LCD" display at the top of the UI that was even depicted as having a transparent cover over it... yet had undemarcated clickable controls in it (which you were likely to never discover). So I don't see the relationship between good or bad UI and business models in this case.
raxxorraxor 2y ago
It also just has superior functionality. Want to mirror your front channels to your back channels? Easily done in foobar2k, while many other media players already fail here, even those whose main task is to do audio output.
rchaud 2y ago
> It's remarkable how they've kept the same UI since its inception, 21 years ago. Easy to do when you don't have bosses breathing down your neck about adding in podcasts and audiobooks, then nudging users into engaging with that stuff first so that they don't have to pay as much to the music rights holders.

by imiric 2y ago

codr7 2y ago

re: Quod Libet; thank you, these kinds of recommendations are invaluable for finding good tools. Especially these days with all the noise.

qwerty456127 2y ago

Despite somehow liking WinAmp 2 more than WinAmp 3, I could never understand why do people consider WinAMP 3 awful. Nevertheless I just switched to foobar2000 on Windows and DeaDBeeF on Linux because their UIs just are perfectly bullshit-free practical pragmatic tools and I came to feel I want a tool rather than a show.

themerone 2y ago
WinAmp 3 was bloated, slow, and unstable. It was bad enough that they threw out the code and released WinAmp 5 which was based on the code from WinAmp 2.
- donatj 2y ago
  Yep, Wasabi, the XML driven UI toolkit was just too slow for PC's of the time.
a0123 2y ago
People got used to a fairly simple and efficient UI. Version 3 was a bit of an abrupt change. A bit like today when your favourite social network completely revamps its UI for no apparent reason and makes it look fancier without adding any interesting functionality (and usually removes a couple). It's hard to come back from that.
serf 2y ago
>Despite somehow liking WinAmp 2 more than WinAmp 3, I could never understand why do people consider WinAMP 3 awful variety of reasons. mine: it broke a huge amount of visualizers/dsps/skins.
rightbyte 2y ago
I guess you might wonder the same thing if installing Windows Vista on a recentish computer.
rchaud 2y ago
Winamp 3 with its default "Modern" skin was very sluggish, even on decently specced computers in 2003. If you replaced the default with a Winamp classic skin, it immediately sped up, but defaults are powerful, so most users probably left it as is.

out_of_protocol 2y ago

> the same UI Haha, it's not the same even for any specific version. With plugins and ability to move panels around, it's hard to say all these UIs are the same player. Search for "foobar2000 theme" in google images

a0123 2y ago

A remnant of simpler times. Foobar and VLC, any other software that has always worked and remained pretty much the same?

tvshtr 2y ago
VLC is getting a a major UI overhaul, it's pretty much finished actually and should be released soon.
imiric 2y ago
> A remnant of simpler times. I think it has more to do with the authors and their principles, and less with the times. There are plenty of counterexamples from that era: all major browsers, the Sonique audio player (which I loved for the UI novelty), Winamp itself, etc. > any other software that has always worked and remained pretty much the same? mpv is in that league for me, and it's much more recent. Then, of course, there are very stable CLI and power user software that has existed for decades: Vim, Emacs, BSD and Linux coreutils, etc. Some of these are not necessarily simple under the hood, but I use them because they do one thing well (or in the case of Vim/Emacs as much as I want them to do :)), and I know that they're not going to disappear or drastically change as so many software does.
jolj 2y ago
Total Commander
The_Colonel 2y ago
"simpler" is not how I remember foobar2000. I used to use it (±15 years ago) because of its extreme configurability (e.g. in terms of layout). Configuring foobar2000 felt kind of like building your own music player. YMMV
- defrost 2y ago
  Simple to use, with a smart editable layout configuration for those that chose to go down that rabbit hole. I'm still using it to this day, with little more than an album tree, a playlist window, and an album art thumbnail that optionally all fold away. I've been down the configuration | plugin trail, good fun for those of us that enjoy that kind of thing but it is | was simple and clean from a fresh install.

signaru 2y ago

I use Audacious on Ubuntu as I can almost get the same UI configuration as foobar2000, tabs of playlists which can be made on the fly or from saved files. A music player app is something I always use on the background, so all the fancy visualizations or album art are not so useful for me. It's also sad that the default music player on Ubuntu (Mate) doesn't have a volume control out of the box.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

DidYaWipe 2y ago

Foobar2000 was always better than WinAmp. WinAmp was the best example of why standard UI affordances evolved.

mostlysimilar 2y ago
Disagree. Winamp skins are the highlight of a better era of computer interfaces.
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  Some people don't enjoy meandering through a puzzle game of arbitrary, standards-ignoring UI instead of getting stuff done.
rchaud 2y ago
No, Winamp was the last example of broadly used "appliance" software that wasn't inextricably tied into a megacorp's business model. iTunes and Windows Media Player were both bloated because of the e-store baked into the back end.
- spectre3d 2y ago
  There was no store in iTunes when it was released in 2001, and those of us using SoundJam MP knew there would be no further updates so we started using it and enjoyed its bulk metadata editing and album art embedding capabilities, with an interface that was intuitive for managing playlists and music. And scriptable! It wasn’t until two years later that the store was integrated as part of an update. Although there was an (Carbon?) OS X version for a while, Winamp was Windows-only from what I knew, so my opinion of it was always coloured by having to use Windows to interact with it, although I used CrossOver on Mac and Mint as well.
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  EphPod was 100% free and didn't bury its functionality in an Advent-calendar UI. It was simple, clean, and did something that iTunes/Music doesn't to this day: automatically sync new files you added to your music directory, with no need to "add to library" every time you acquired them. iTunes, when tied to a "megacorp's business model," still suffered from piss-poor UI. Take, for example, the "LCD" display at the top of the UI that was even depicted as having a transparent cover over it... yet had undemarcated clickable controls in it (which you were likely to never discover). So I don't see the relationship between good or bad UI and business models in this case.

raxxorraxor 2y ago

It also just has superior functionality. Want to mirror your front channels to your back channels? Easily done in foobar2k, while many other media players already fail here, even those whose main task is to do audio output.

rchaud 2y ago

> It's remarkable how they've kept the same UI since its inception, 21 years ago. Easy to do when you don't have bosses breathing down your neck about adding in podcasts and audiobooks, then nudging users into engaging with that stuff first so that they don't have to pay as much to the music rights holders.