10 ms·

Winamp 2 in HTML5

299 points by jazzychad 12y ago

carlesfe 12y ago
That looks very cool, but I'd appreciate a bit of context. Maybe it's a work in progress? Edit: Maybe it's a WIP, it's not linked from the author's project page http://jordaneldredge.com/projects/ http://jordaneldredge.com/projects/ I found a Github link deep at the bottom of the page: https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js
- captbaritone 12y ago
  Author here. Didn't expect it to get much attention. I've added a link to my projects page. I'd be happy to answer any questions the GitHub page hasn't answered.
  - giancarlostoro 12y ago
    Any plans on using this codebase with Node-Webkit? Just curious
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
StavrosK 12y ago
Ahh, the best player ever... How I miss you.
- rplnt 12y ago
  Why miss it? It's not like it stopped working...
  - josefresco 12y ago
    iTunes, Pandora, Spotify - times have changed and a lot of us retired their massive collection of pirated tunes for a streaming service or much more curated library.
    - rplnt 12y ago
      Ah, I see, and in that regard I agree. I miss the simple, yet featureful classic Winamp when I chose to use something like Spotify. All you get is simplicity.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    It doesn't work very well on Linux :(
pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
I thought this was going to be an emscripten port of Wine running Winamp :(
- mateuszf 12y ago
  Is the code open source? I don't think so.
  - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
    Wine and X are open source; that's all you need.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Wine Is Not an Emulator, though - you'd still need some kind of layer translating the x86 binary to JS.
      - ccozan 12y ago
        wouldn't that be the role of asm.js?
        icebraining 12y ago
        No, asm.js is just "an extraordinarily optimizable, low-level subset of JavaScript". It doesn't run x86 machine code, you'd need to convert it (or interpret it). According to the webs, there are some x86 → LLVM converters, and then Emscripten can convert LLVM → asm.js, but getting that to work would probably take many months.
      - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
        Oh yeah true.
deanclatworthy 12y ago
This brings back good memories. It really was the defacto media player for me, for so many years. I couldn't figure out what else this does other than play, pauses, stops and changes volume? How close to fully functional could this go? Can you adjust balance for example using the HTML5 audio API?
- captbaritone 12y ago
  I originally thought it was impossible, but today I found this Web Audio API doc, and I think it may actually be possible not only to do the balance, but also the equalizer. I'll at least look into it more. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
  - PavlovsCat 12y ago
    Also, the Web Audio API makes a spectrum analyzer practically free: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNode https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNod...
  - kevincennis 12y ago
    Both totally possible. I'd be happy to help out if anyone has questions on how to go about that stuff. I've done a ton of Web Audio work in the past couple years.
  - chriscareycode 12y ago
    Check out this demo: http://html5-demos.appspot.com/static/webaudio/createMediaSourceElement.html http://html5-demos.appspot.com/static/webaudio/createMediaSo... - article: http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/HTML5-audio-and-the-Web-Audio-API-are-BFFs http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/HTML5-audio-and-the-We...
krat0sprakhar 12y ago
Discovering this kind of stuff is what makes HN so awesome! This brings back so many memories. Thanks for releasing this. Sadly, Winamp went completely downhill from here (IMHO) and the subsequent versions never felt as minimal as this version. AIMP[0] comes pretty close and is a good enough clone of winamp if you're interested. [0] - http://www.aimp2.us/ http://www.aimp2.us/
- dimitar 12y ago
  Quintessential Player is also very pleasant and for Linux there are plenty of players that are compatible with winamp skins and presets.
- znowi 12y ago
  I'm using the lite version, which is indistinguishable from the classic Winamp. It's been my default music player ever since MP3 came out :)
- jarcane 12y ago
  foobar2000 is a more recent work from one of the original devs, and quite good if you're looking for minimalism and function over style. And of course, if you're on Unixen, XMMS is pretty much a direct clone of the old Winamp (and used to even use the same skin by default).
  - busterarm 12y ago
    My goto player these days is MOC.
  - dr_zoidberg 12y ago
    I use foobar2000 too, however I don't agree with "function over style", there are some skins and options that change it completely. I think we should agree it's highly customizable, both for function or style.
    - jarcane 12y ago
      Fair enough. I always left it on default, and it's not the prettiest thing then, or wasn't at the time.
akurilin 12y ago
Winamp lite, you will never be forgotten.
wkonkel 12y ago
I just posted a $15 bounty to "Make it a real app" -- https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/2 https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/2
- CmonDev 12y ago
  "Make it a real app" - wouldn't it defeat the purpose though (imitating real apps using scripting languages)?
- AndyKelley 12y ago
  Here's a "real app" that was largely inspired by Winamp: http://demo.groovebasin.com/ http://demo.groovebasin.com/ Actually is a fully functional music player that runs in the browser.
whatcd 12y ago
I still use 2.95 on my winders 'puters. Thank-you for the ZXCVB & J keyboard shortcuts, Winamp team!
rocky1138 12y ago
Very cool. Doesn't play music modules, though. Still, props!
Sicp 12y ago
Loading a track into it crashes Chrome :P
jraedisch 12y ago
For parties without DJ I still use Winamp 2 with SqrSoft Crossfading Plugin and "club" preset, which can easily be combined with Limiter to keep the volume somewhat steady (but losing some dynamic within tracks).
- spacefight 12y ago
  For Crossfading, I also suggest http://www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/ http://www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/ ;)
ShellDragon 12y ago
Made my day!
pjmlp 12y ago
The wasted hours trying out Winamp skins....
- petercooper 12y ago
  I spent a lot of time doing that too, as well as plugins once they arrived.. it was amazing how many plugins there were to 'improve' the sound of your music, when in retrospect it just made it all worse, lol.
- josefresco 12y ago
  Speaking of skins, I remember the debate between incumbent Winamp and newcomer Sonique: https://www.google.com/search?q=sonique+media+player https://www.google.com/search?q=sonique+media+player Other than skins, the other most frequented activity was finding new, trippy visualizations (https://www.google.com/search?q=geis+plugin https://www.google.com/search?q=geis+plugin) - ahh college. And this! "Uses the acutal skin assets, so it's compatible with all skins" - gotta try this
- busterarm 12y ago
  The wasted hours making Winamp skins...
  - Andrenid 12y ago
    Making Winamp skins and visualisation presets is what got me into graphics and coding, which led to web design, which led to my various web-related careers over the last 15 years. I owe Winamp so so much.
    - captbaritone 12y ago
      That's a big part of why I was inspired to take on this little project.
  - keville 12y ago
    Not "wasted" -- those hours led to a quite fruitful career in Web development. Picking apart an application skins and configuration, and learning some of the nasty, filthy tricks you can turn with bitmaps? That is knowledge I still use just about every day.
rootuid 12y ago
The easterEgg is nice, was this in the original ?
- scrapcode 12y ago
  To save others the time of looking it up: "NUL [ESC] L [ESC] SOFT"
  - icebraining 12y ago
    And to answer the question, yes, it was: http://www.eeggs.com/items/856.html http://www.eeggs.com/items/856.html
laacz 12y ago
If we could al stop using HTML5 when we mean HTML+JS+CSS. Let's just use HTML.
- moron4hire 12y ago
  That's... that's what HTML5 means. It's not just "HTML", it includes all of the DOM and APIs that you use through JavaScript to make any of it mean anything. That the <audio> element is reskinnable with CSS in this way is part of the HTML5 standard. And it's rather much splitting hairs. HTML isn't very useful without CSS, CSS isn't useful at all without HTML, and JS is the only choice of languages for interactivity in HTML. "Can we please stop using 'car' to mean 'car'+'engine'+'tires'".
  - laacz 12y ago
    Or rather we could stop saying "car5" meaning just "car". Oh, wait.. :)
    - moron4hire 12y ago
      No, because HTML4 really is a completely different beast. The syntax is 99% the same, the available elements are backwards compatible (though the recommended usage is almost completely different) and HTML4 did not include anything about DOM or APIs.
      - laacz 12y ago
        I don't believe that when saying HTML we mean HTML4...
dheera 12y ago
Surely there must be a way to get the scope and equalizer working using the web audio API?
eli 12y ago
I've posted it here before, but Ars Technica wrote an excellent longform article about Winamp's rise and fall: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/winamp-how-greatest-mp3-player-undid-itself/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/winamp-how-greatest-...
- overgard 12y ago
  I'm always amazed how whenever an acquisition like that happens, the parent company almost always screws it up in some boneheaded fashion. You bought that company because what they were doing was working, your only job is to not fuck it up.
  - MattGrommes 12y ago
    I'm always amazed by this too but I've worked at enough places to see how it happens. Security says "This new thing has to use our approved login system". Ops says "This new thing has to run on our servers/VMs". Eng says "This new thing has to use Technology X so it fits in with everything else". Nobody needs to have bad intentions but the weight of all that slows it down and makes it un-fun for the original team and the new people who take it over don't care that much about it because it came from outside.
    - overgard 12y ago
      Yep, that's exactly how the takeover went at the last place I was working that was acquired. Lots of promises that nothing would change, except, well, this one small thing... to fit into company policy you understand... I think somehow management sees the assets and wants to capitalize on them, without bothering to understand the process that created the assets in the first place (whether those are people or products). It's like if they took over a farm and harvested all the wheat without planting any seeds, and then wondered why they weren't getting crops anymore. I just think it's amazing how frequently corporations will buy an asset for millions or billions with apparently no idea how the entity actually works. I mean if I were going to spend a few million on a company, I'd want to know how and why it's been successful, I wouldn't just want to acquire a "brand" that would get immediately tarnished.
heywire 12y ago
The nostalgia is strong on HN today!
brickmort 12y ago
to quote a previous post of mine: I have a special place in my heart for Winamp's classic UI (Winamp 2). In my opinion, it was the most intuitive interface for a music player. it had a playlist, equalizer, plugins, all of which were condensable to a fraction of it's full size. Of course, now there are a number of similar players that have the same capabilities, but shit, Winamp 2.x was where it started. Even today, it blows todays iTunes interface way out of the water.
- yincrash 12y ago
  Would you say it really whips the llama's ass?
- Eiriksmal 12y ago
  An absolute yes to this! That's why my install of Audacious uses a Winamp 2.x skin--it just makes sense. The rectangles, the beautiful alignment of playing data, equalizer, and playlist... It can never be eclipsed. This has inspired me to figure a way to get my Wine'd Foobar2K to look like Winamp 2. There's probably a helpful article on that somewhere.
- Aardwolf 12y ago
  I still use XMMS, which has a very similar UI. Because I love it. (I tried Audacious but it was slower and had unicode character problems, and similar problems with XMMS2)
  - Eiriksmal 12y ago
    I don't know about the entirety of Unicode characters, but I've been using Audacious since version ~3.1 in 2011 (now 3.4.3) and it's never had any problems displaying Japanese and Korean characters--if you're not using the Winamp 2 theme with bitmapped fonts.
- emehrkay 12y ago
  Winamp was the only thing that I missed when I moved from Windows to OS X years ago. I tried to use VLC as a replacement, but it wasnt the same.
noer 12y ago
the irony of this being two posts away from a medium article titled "the sixth stage of grief is retro computing"
corford 12y ago
Ah Winamp. I still use it today. Justin Frankel is one of my role models as far as how to 'live the dream' goes. He built something great, cashed out young, avoided becoming a tech celebrity, stayed a curious geek and just carried on doing what he loves. The fact winamp is still around and keeping people happy all these years later is the icing on the cake (and proof, if any were needed, that he deserved all the success he got). Justin Frankel really did whip the llama's ass.
- icelancer 12y ago
  He got a lot of crap at AOL for developing gnutella and other programs like WASTE. It was pretty contentious for a few years.
  - corford 12y ago
    Ah yes, forgot about WASTE. His corporate disobedience with gnutella etc. made me respect him even more. TBH I think everyone saw the writing on the wall as soon as they bought Winamp... difficult to picture JF happily sitting in a cubicle all day and listening to weekly management stand ups o_O
- Nux 12y ago
  Ah, XMMS. I still use it today.
  - darkstalker 12y ago
    Audacious is the new XMMS.
forlorn 12y ago
I remember something similar: a tribute to Winamp from Yandex.Music team - http://music.yandex.ru/oldschool/ http://music.yandex.ru/oldschool/ . Here is a screenshot - https://www.picozu.com/v/temp/u1JCIYOvNspaGHl1VhQxoHhr.png https://www.picozu.com/v/temp/u1JCIYOvNspaGHl1VhQxoHhr.png .
atbell 12y ago
Spotify actually released a Winamp frontend for their service. Works in Windows/Wine: http://spotiamp.com http://spotiamp.com
- yincrash 12y ago
  According to the bottom of that page: Spotiamp is a Swedish product made by Ludde in Gothenburg, Sweden. Spotiamp is not an officially supported product of Spotify®.
  - atbell 12y ago
    https://news.spotify.com/us/2013/12/20/spotiamp-long-live-the-llama/ https://news.spotify.com/us/2013/12/20/spotiamp-long-live-th...
amirmansour 12y ago
After this sparked the "good old days" flashbacks, I went to http://www.winamp.com http://www.winamp.com and it looks like they are working on a revamped version of Winamp. The site says: "WE ARE WORKING HARD TO REENERGIZE WINAMP!"
- robertfw 12y ago
  Following through to a forum post with more info reveals Winamp has indeed been sold on: > As you all surely know by now, Winamp & SHOUTcast have recently changed ownership (from AOL to Radionomy). The winamp.com website is currently undergoing heavy work and an almost-completely new redesign. As a result, many features will be unavailable, including some in-client services. The Winamp downloads and Winamp Pro purchases will also be temporarily unavailable whilst code licensed to/by the previous owner is removed/replaced. We hope to have everything restored and back in working order as soon as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused in the meantime. Watch this thread for any further updates.
SimeVidas 12y ago
The best part is that the buttons are <div> instead of <button> :-P. HTML5 for the win!
- SchizoDuckie 12y ago
  The sad part about that is that if he were to use <button> properly styled like the div he would have keyboard navigation for free using
mackbrowne 12y ago
It better have Milkdrop or it's completely useless!
niix 12y ago
Ah this brings back so many good memories. Looks like http://nullsoft.com/ http://nullsoft.com/ is still up (for the most part). As a young developer I used to go through this site for little ideas of things to build. Justin always built awesome applications.
roxtar 12y ago
Was this done with asm.js?
- chadzawistowski 12y ago
  It doesn't appear to be the real program, but rather a (functional!) mockup of the UI in HMTL5.
mrtimo 12y ago
I remember telling my 10th grade US History teacher about Winamp. He installed it on his classroom computer - he and I were a bit embarrassed when it played "Really whips the llama's ass" for a few students to hear. Good memories!
captbaritone 12y ago
Author here. Looking for a new host for llama.mp3 (https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/11 https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/11) anyone want to help save my server?
- microcolonel 12y ago
  Maybe use CloudFlare.
- captbaritone 12y ago
  https://twitter.com/Michcioperz https://twitter.com/Michcioperz suggested https://mediacru.sh/download/Q2HAoRHE-JvD.mp3 https://mediacru.sh/download/Q2HAoRHE-JvD.mp3 that seems to be working for now.
- SchizoDuckie 12y ago
  Host in in the gh-pages branch of your site and access it via https://captbaritone.github.com/winamp2-js/<filename> https://captbaritone.github.com/winamp2-js/<filename> Github pages is awesome.
akamaozu 12y ago
Very nice and inspiring demo. I wrote a music player from scratch with Sound Manager 2 and I realized ... this stuff isn't that hard. We can build real software in the browser. Someone bought Winamp for a couple hundred million about 15 years ago. Today, you can throw it together in the browser and do distribution for practically free. Long live Client-Side Javascript!

299 points by jazzychad 12y ago

That looks very cool, but I'd appreciate a bit of context. Maybe it's a work in progress? Edit: Maybe it's a WIP, it's not linked from the author's project page http://jordaneldredge.com/projects/ http://jordaneldredge.com/projects/ I found a Github link deep at the bottom of the page: https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js

captbaritone 12y ago
Author here. Didn't expect it to get much attention. I've added a link to my projects page. I'd be happy to answer any questions the GitHub page hasn't answered.
- giancarlostoro 12y ago
  Any plans on using this codebase with Node-Webkit? Just curious
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

StavrosK 12y ago

Ahh, the best player ever... How I miss you.

rplnt 12y ago
Why miss it? It's not like it stopped working...
- josefresco 12y ago
  iTunes, Pandora, Spotify - times have changed and a lot of us retired their massive collection of pirated tunes for a streaming service or much more curated library.
  - rplnt 12y ago
    Ah, I see, and in that regard I agree. I miss the simple, yet featureful classic Winamp when I chose to use something like Spotify. All you get is simplicity.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  It doesn't work very well on Linux :(

pikachu_is_cool 12y ago

I thought this was going to be an emscripten port of Wine running Winamp :(

mateuszf 12y ago
Is the code open source? I don't think so.
- pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
  Wine and X are open source; that's all you need.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Wine Is Not an Emulator, though - you'd still need some kind of layer translating the x86 binary to JS.
    - ccozan 12y ago
      wouldn't that be the role of asm.js?
      - icebraining 12y ago
        No, asm.js is just "an extraordinarily optimizable, low-level subset of JavaScript". It doesn't run x86 machine code, you'd need to convert it (or interpret it). According to the webs, there are some x86 → LLVM converters, and then Emscripten can convert LLVM → asm.js, but getting that to work would probably take many months.
    - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
      Oh yeah true.

deanclatworthy 12y ago

This brings back good memories. It really was the defacto media player for me, for so many years. I couldn't figure out what else this does other than play, pauses, stops and changes volume? How close to fully functional could this go? Can you adjust balance for example using the HTML5 audio API?

captbaritone 12y ago
I originally thought it was impossible, but today I found this Web Audio API doc, and I think it may actually be possible not only to do the balance, but also the equalizer. I'll at least look into it more. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
- PavlovsCat 12y ago
  Also, the Web Audio API makes a spectrum analyzer practically free: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNode https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNod...
- kevincennis 12y ago
  Both totally possible. I'd be happy to help out if anyone has questions on how to go about that stuff. I've done a ton of Web Audio work in the past couple years.
- chriscareycode 12y ago
  Check out this demo: http://html5-demos.appspot.com/static/webaudio/createMediaSourceElement.html http://html5-demos.appspot.com/static/webaudio/createMediaSo... - article: http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/HTML5-audio-and-the-Web-Audio-API-are-BFFs http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/02/HTML5-audio-and-the-We...

krat0sprakhar 12y ago

Discovering this kind of stuff is what makes HN so awesome! This brings back so many memories. Thanks for releasing this. Sadly, Winamp went completely downhill from here (IMHO) and the subsequent versions never felt as minimal as this version. AIMP[0] comes pretty close and is a good enough clone of winamp if you're interested. [0] - http://www.aimp2.us/ http://www.aimp2.us/

dimitar 12y ago
Quintessential Player is also very pleasant and for Linux there are plenty of players that are compatible with winamp skins and presets.
znowi 12y ago
I'm using the lite version, which is indistinguishable from the classic Winamp. It's been my default music player ever since MP3 came out :)
jarcane 12y ago
foobar2000 is a more recent work from one of the original devs, and quite good if you're looking for minimalism and function over style. And of course, if you're on Unixen, XMMS is pretty much a direct clone of the old Winamp (and used to even use the same skin by default).
- busterarm 12y ago
  My goto player these days is MOC.
- dr_zoidberg 12y ago
  I use foobar2000 too, however I don't agree with "function over style", there are some skins and options that change it completely. I think we should agree it's highly customizable, both for function or style.
  - jarcane 12y ago
    Fair enough. I always left it on default, and it's not the prettiest thing then, or wasn't at the time.

akurilin 12y ago

Winamp lite, you will never be forgotten.

wkonkel 12y ago

I just posted a $15 bounty to "Make it a real app" -- https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/2 https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/2

CmonDev 12y ago
"Make it a real app" - wouldn't it defeat the purpose though (imitating real apps using scripting languages)?
AndyKelley 12y ago
Here's a "real app" that was largely inspired by Winamp: http://demo.groovebasin.com/ http://demo.groovebasin.com/ Actually is a fully functional music player that runs in the browser.

whatcd 12y ago

I still use 2.95 on my winders 'puters. Thank-you for the ZXCVB & J keyboard shortcuts, Winamp team!

rocky1138 12y ago

Very cool. Doesn't play music modules, though. Still, props!

Sicp 12y ago

Loading a track into it crashes Chrome :P

jraedisch 12y ago

For parties without DJ I still use Winamp 2 with SqrSoft Crossfading Plugin and "club" preset, which can easily be combined with Limiter to keep the volume somewhat steady (but losing some dynamic within tracks).

spacefight 12y ago
For Crossfading, I also suggest http://www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/ http://www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/ ;)

ShellDragon 12y ago

Made my day!

pjmlp 12y ago

The wasted hours trying out Winamp skins....

petercooper 12y ago
I spent a lot of time doing that too, as well as plugins once they arrived.. it was amazing how many plugins there were to 'improve' the sound of your music, when in retrospect it just made it all worse, lol.
josefresco 12y ago
Speaking of skins, I remember the debate between incumbent Winamp and newcomer Sonique: https://www.google.com/search?q=sonique+media+player https://www.google.com/search?q=sonique+media+player Other than skins, the other most frequented activity was finding new, trippy visualizations (https://www.google.com/search?q=geis+plugin https://www.google.com/search?q=geis+plugin) - ahh college. And this! "Uses the acutal skin assets, so it's compatible with all skins" - gotta try this
busterarm 12y ago
The wasted hours making Winamp skins...
- Andrenid 12y ago
  Making Winamp skins and visualisation presets is what got me into graphics and coding, which led to web design, which led to my various web-related careers over the last 15 years. I owe Winamp so so much.
  - captbaritone 12y ago
    That's a big part of why I was inspired to take on this little project.
- keville 12y ago
  Not "wasted" -- those hours led to a quite fruitful career in Web development. Picking apart an application skins and configuration, and learning some of the nasty, filthy tricks you can turn with bitmaps? That is knowledge I still use just about every day.

rootuid 12y ago

The easterEgg is nice, was this in the original ?

scrapcode 12y ago
To save others the time of looking it up: "NUL [ESC] L [ESC] SOFT"
- icebraining 12y ago
  And to answer the question, yes, it was: http://www.eeggs.com/items/856.html http://www.eeggs.com/items/856.html

laacz 12y ago

If we could al stop using HTML5 when we mean HTML+JS+CSS. Let's just use HTML.

moron4hire 12y ago
That's... that's what HTML5 means. It's not just "HTML", it includes all of the DOM and APIs that you use through JavaScript to make any of it mean anything. That the <audio> element is reskinnable with CSS in this way is part of the HTML5 standard. And it's rather much splitting hairs. HTML isn't very useful without CSS, CSS isn't useful at all without HTML, and JS is the only choice of languages for interactivity in HTML. "Can we please stop using 'car' to mean 'car'+'engine'+'tires'".
- laacz 12y ago
  Or rather we could stop saying "car5" meaning just "car". Oh, wait.. :)
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    No, because HTML4 really is a completely different beast. The syntax is 99% the same, the available elements are backwards compatible (though the recommended usage is almost completely different) and HTML4 did not include anything about DOM or APIs.
    - laacz 12y ago
      I don't believe that when saying HTML we mean HTML4...

dheera 12y ago

Surely there must be a way to get the scope and equalizer working using the web audio API?

eli 12y ago

I've posted it here before, but Ars Technica wrote an excellent longform article about Winamp's rise and fall: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/winamp-how-greatest-mp3-player-undid-itself/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/winamp-how-greatest-...

overgard 12y ago
I'm always amazed how whenever an acquisition like that happens, the parent company almost always screws it up in some boneheaded fashion. You bought that company because what they were doing was working, your only job is to not fuck it up.
- MattGrommes 12y ago
  I'm always amazed by this too but I've worked at enough places to see how it happens. Security says "This new thing has to use our approved login system". Ops says "This new thing has to run on our servers/VMs". Eng says "This new thing has to use Technology X so it fits in with everything else". Nobody needs to have bad intentions but the weight of all that slows it down and makes it un-fun for the original team and the new people who take it over don't care that much about it because it came from outside.
  - overgard 12y ago
    Yep, that's exactly how the takeover went at the last place I was working that was acquired. Lots of promises that nothing would change, except, well, this one small thing... to fit into company policy you understand... I think somehow management sees the assets and wants to capitalize on them, without bothering to understand the process that created the assets in the first place (whether those are people or products). It's like if they took over a farm and harvested all the wheat without planting any seeds, and then wondered why they weren't getting crops anymore. I just think it's amazing how frequently corporations will buy an asset for millions or billions with apparently no idea how the entity actually works. I mean if I were going to spend a few million on a company, I'd want to know how and why it's been successful, I wouldn't just want to acquire a "brand" that would get immediately tarnished.

heywire 12y ago

The nostalgia is strong on HN today!

brickmort 12y ago

to quote a previous post of mine: I have a special place in my heart for Winamp's classic UI (Winamp 2). In my opinion, it was the most intuitive interface for a music player. it had a playlist, equalizer, plugins, all of which were condensable to a fraction of it's full size. Of course, now there are a number of similar players that have the same capabilities, but shit, Winamp 2.x was where it started. Even today, it blows todays iTunes interface way out of the water.

yincrash 12y ago
Would you say it really whips the llama's ass?
Eiriksmal 12y ago
An absolute yes to this! That's why my install of Audacious uses a Winamp 2.x skin--it just makes sense. The rectangles, the beautiful alignment of playing data, equalizer, and playlist... It can never be eclipsed. This has inspired me to figure a way to get my Wine'd Foobar2K to look like Winamp 2. There's probably a helpful article on that somewhere.
Aardwolf 12y ago
I still use XMMS, which has a very similar UI. Because I love it. (I tried Audacious but it was slower and had unicode character problems, and similar problems with XMMS2)
- Eiriksmal 12y ago
  I don't know about the entirety of Unicode characters, but I've been using Audacious since version ~3.1 in 2011 (now 3.4.3) and it's never had any problems displaying Japanese and Korean characters--if you're not using the Winamp 2 theme with bitmapped fonts.
emehrkay 12y ago
Winamp was the only thing that I missed when I moved from Windows to OS X years ago. I tried to use VLC as a replacement, but it wasnt the same.

noer 12y ago

the irony of this being two posts away from a medium article titled "the sixth stage of grief is retro computing"

corford 12y ago

Ah Winamp. I still use it today. Justin Frankel is one of my role models as far as how to 'live the dream' goes. He built something great, cashed out young, avoided becoming a tech celebrity, stayed a curious geek and just carried on doing what he loves. The fact winamp is still around and keeping people happy all these years later is the icing on the cake (and proof, if any were needed, that he deserved all the success he got). Justin Frankel really did whip the llama's ass.

icelancer 12y ago
He got a lot of crap at AOL for developing gnutella and other programs like WASTE. It was pretty contentious for a few years.
- corford 12y ago
  Ah yes, forgot about WASTE. His corporate disobedience with gnutella etc. made me respect him even more. TBH I think everyone saw the writing on the wall as soon as they bought Winamp... difficult to picture JF happily sitting in a cubicle all day and listening to weekly management stand ups o_O
Nux 12y ago
Ah, XMMS. I still use it today.
- darkstalker 12y ago
  Audacious is the new XMMS.

forlorn 12y ago

I remember something similar: a tribute to Winamp from Yandex.Music team - http://music.yandex.ru/oldschool/ http://music.yandex.ru/oldschool/ . Here is a screenshot - https://www.picozu.com/v/temp/u1JCIYOvNspaGHl1VhQxoHhr.png https://www.picozu.com/v/temp/u1JCIYOvNspaGHl1VhQxoHhr.png .

atbell 12y ago

Spotify actually released a Winamp frontend for their service. Works in Windows/Wine: http://spotiamp.com http://spotiamp.com

yincrash 12y ago
According to the bottom of that page: Spotiamp is a Swedish product made by Ludde in Gothenburg, Sweden. Spotiamp is not an officially supported product of Spotify®.
- atbell 12y ago
  https://news.spotify.com/us/2013/12/20/spotiamp-long-live-the-llama/ https://news.spotify.com/us/2013/12/20/spotiamp-long-live-th...

amirmansour 12y ago

After this sparked the "good old days" flashbacks, I went to http://www.winamp.com http://www.winamp.com and it looks like they are working on a revamped version of Winamp. The site says: "WE ARE WORKING HARD TO REENERGIZE WINAMP!"

robertfw 12y ago
Following through to a forum post with more info reveals Winamp has indeed been sold on: > As you all surely know by now, Winamp & SHOUTcast have recently changed ownership (from AOL to Radionomy). The winamp.com website is currently undergoing heavy work and an almost-completely new redesign. As a result, many features will be unavailable, including some in-client services. The Winamp downloads and Winamp Pro purchases will also be temporarily unavailable whilst code licensed to/by the previous owner is removed/replaced. We hope to have everything restored and back in working order as soon as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused in the meantime. Watch this thread for any further updates.

SimeVidas 12y ago

The best part is that the buttons are <div> instead of <button> :-P. HTML5 for the win!

SchizoDuckie 12y ago
The sad part about that is that if he were to use <button> properly styled like the div he would have keyboard navigation for free using

mackbrowne 12y ago

It better have Milkdrop or it's completely useless!

niix 12y ago

Ah this brings back so many good memories. Looks like http://nullsoft.com/ http://nullsoft.com/ is still up (for the most part). As a young developer I used to go through this site for little ideas of things to build. Justin always built awesome applications.

roxtar 12y ago

Was this done with asm.js?

chadzawistowski 12y ago
It doesn't appear to be the real program, but rather a (functional!) mockup of the UI in HMTL5.

mrtimo 12y ago

I remember telling my 10th grade US History teacher about Winamp. He installed it on his classroom computer - he and I were a bit embarrassed when it played "Really whips the llama's ass" for a few students to hear. Good memories!

captbaritone 12y ago

Author here. Looking for a new host for llama.mp3 (https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/11 https://github.com/captbaritone/winamp2-js/issues/11) anyone want to help save my server?

microcolonel 12y ago
Maybe use CloudFlare.
captbaritone 12y ago
https://twitter.com/Michcioperz https://twitter.com/Michcioperz suggested https://mediacru.sh/download/Q2HAoRHE-JvD.mp3 https://mediacru.sh/download/Q2HAoRHE-JvD.mp3 that seems to be working for now.
SchizoDuckie 12y ago
Host in in the gh-pages branch of your site and access it via https://captbaritone.github.com/winamp2-js/<filename> https://captbaritone.github.com/winamp2-js/<filename> Github pages is awesome.

akamaozu 12y ago

Very nice and inspiring demo. I wrote a music player from scratch with Sound Manager 2 and I realized ... this stuff isn't that hard. We can build real software in the browser. Someone bought Winamp for a couple hundred million about 15 years ago. Today, you can throw it together in the browser and do distribution for practically free. Long live Client-Side Javascript!