5 ms·

The recent removal of the system tray icon is anti-user. It provided users with easy access to Play/Pause from the system tray, but that meant users spent less

The recent removal of the system tray icon is anti-user. It provided users with easy access to Play/Pause from the system tray, but that meant users spent less time in the app, so the system tray icon was removed completely.

conradfr 11y ago
Infuriating. It's 2015 and my Winamp is still more usable than a "new" music player. Why do they care if I spend more or less time in the app if I'm a premium user, surely that can't be the reason for this regression.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Winamp is just the best piece of software ever written, ever. I still lament the fact that it doesn't run properly on Linux.
  - pen2l 11y ago
    xmms, audacious, etc. When I went from win -> nix so many years, all I wanted was a music player with the interface that of winamp2. xmms gave that and I was happy. But then I discovered mpd+ncmpcpp. Really great if you have large music collections, have been using it since.
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      Ah, thank you. ncmpcpp looks great (and I imagine I can connect it to an mpd instance running on a separate computer), but it's really important for me to not have a window in my alt+tab list. I'll try XMMS, I have tried it before but it never "clicked". I'll give it another shot, thanks!
      - pen2l 11y ago
        It's so weird for me to be talking like this. You see, I was a very avid fan of winamp(2) about 10 years ago. Nothing else came close. Then onto linux, xmms did the trick (as all I needed was a winamp2 replacement). Then as my collection grew, my priorities change, I was after speed. So mpd was thing. In the past few years I haven't had a personal collection, now it's more often listening to music on grooveshark/youtube. After grooveshark went down, I got spotify (paid subscription), and I find myself being _stunned_ how bad, how slow, how ugly, how anti-UX it is. I think I may go back to having the collection on my HDD once again with mpd as that is still really fast. But that'll be difficult, as I'm often on the go and want to listen to stuff on my cell phone (where spotify is okay actually).
        StavrosK 11y ago
        I have exactly the same experience as you. My solution is Google Music, where I basically just upload all my own music and I can listen to it on my phone. It's a bit of a hassle to keep the two synced, but not as much hassle it is to be listening to music in a browser window that takes up loads of RAM, as if playing an mp3 is some intractable problem.
- DigitalSea 11y ago
  It's 2015 and Winamp is still the only music player that really whips the llamas ass.
  - mwcampbell 11y ago
    foobar2000 is pretty lean and mean too, though also Windows only.
    - mahouse 11y ago
      But it doesn't whip the llama's ass.
    - Already__Taken 11y ago
      The ui is stuck in 2001 though and it still doesn't have the ability to play/pause/skip from the aero tile.
      - morb 11y ago
        For me, the no-BS standard looking UI was the reason to choose Foobar, as compared to Win Media Player or Winamp and other weird looking ones. (Remember Sonique? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_%28media_player%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_%28media_player%29) As for aero tiles... That's a Win8 thing? I guess it's a valid complaint. I think you can set global keyboard shortcuts for those actions, if that helps.
        Already__Taken 11y ago
        Aero is a vista+ thing. Hover over a playing vlc in the taskbar and you see skip/pause/play. Foobar is classic to the cost of UX. We've figured out for a long time now bigger buttons are important, there's no need for separate pause/play especially if stop is right there. It doesn't need a slew of crappy gradients and fancy shit, Just drag the interface forward a decade that's all. Usable with a touch screen should be a minimum now.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
- Dewie3 11y ago
  It's 2015 and I can't "alt-tab" into spotify in order to pause/play by pressing space; I have to click somewhere in the upper half of the interface in order to "refocus", or the spacebar just scrolls down. Which is useful for something, I guess. Though this is on Ubuntu, and Spotify is still a beta app on that platform last I checked. I don't think I've had this problem on Windows.
  - _asummers 11y ago
    This functionality works on OSX, so it must be limited to the Ubuntu app.
  - thrownaway122 11y ago
    Check out the Arch Linux wiki on this. Spotify apparently plays nicely with the rest of your desktop and you should be able to set up media key short cuts. Or maybe just use the Clementine add on?
    - Dewie3 11y ago
      I made a script that plays/pauses Spotify through dbus, which I usually execute by opening dmenu. :) My keyboard has media keys, but I thought I would prefer short textual commands to having to move my hand to the upper right of my keyboard (and probably miss the key if I wasn't looking?).
      - thrownaway122 11y ago
        Yeah media keys are annoying and not present on lots of keyboards. You could map this script via your window manager to something like special-F5 through to special-F8 to back-play/pause-stop-forward...
  - Flimm 11y ago
    In Ubuntu Unity, you can just click on the sound icon in the top right corner of the screen and click pause. Or you can use the pause button on your keyboard, if you have one.
  - 11y ago
baliex 11y ago
This update also removed the Alt+F, X keyboard shortcut I was using to quit from the keyboard. Don't think it's possible to do that any more.
daheza 11y ago
As someone who switches often between the mac and windows version this kills me. The mac version will continue after closing but the pc version just cuts the music completely.
- __float 11y ago
  This is simply a fundamental difference between OS X and Windows. Typically in OS X an application remains open after closing its last window, whereas in Windows this is typically the signal to quit the application entirely. Try minimizing in Windows, that's the appropriate equivalent.
  - pests 11y ago
    That is not what he is saying. The Windows experience is the same if the window is from an application that is running in the systray. In that case clicking the X closes the last window but leaves the application running. I think daheza was saying that the removal of the systray caused the same actions (closing a window) to no longer do the same thing (get this window out of my way, but keep playing music) across operating systems when they used to in the past.
  - hdougie 11y ago
    In Windows you used to be able to set the close action to minimize to tray (so effectively it did the same as OSX). This isn't a non-standard thing in Windows either, plenty of applications offer that behaviour. But a recent update of Spotify removed this and it is insanely annoying. I keep closing it just out of muscle memory and it's infuriating.

conradfr 11y ago

Infuriating. It's 2015 and my Winamp is still more usable than a "new" music player. Why do they care if I spend more or less time in the app if I'm a premium user, surely that can't be the reason for this regression.

StavrosK 11y ago
Winamp is just the best piece of software ever written, ever. I still lament the fact that it doesn't run properly on Linux.
- pen2l 11y ago
  xmms, audacious, etc. When I went from win -> nix so many years, all I wanted was a music player with the interface that of winamp2. xmms gave that and I was happy. But then I discovered mpd+ncmpcpp. Really great if you have large music collections, have been using it since.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Ah, thank you. ncmpcpp looks great (and I imagine I can connect it to an mpd instance running on a separate computer), but it's really important for me to not have a window in my alt+tab list. I'll try XMMS, I have tried it before but it never "clicked". I'll give it another shot, thanks!
    - pen2l 11y ago
      It's so weird for me to be talking like this. You see, I was a very avid fan of winamp(2) about 10 years ago. Nothing else came close. Then onto linux, xmms did the trick (as all I needed was a winamp2 replacement). Then as my collection grew, my priorities change, I was after speed. So mpd was thing. In the past few years I haven't had a personal collection, now it's more often listening to music on grooveshark/youtube. After grooveshark went down, I got spotify (paid subscription), and I find myself being _stunned_ how bad, how slow, how ugly, how anti-UX it is. I think I may go back to having the collection on my HDD once again with mpd as that is still really fast. But that'll be difficult, as I'm often on the go and want to listen to stuff on my cell phone (where spotify is okay actually).
      - StavrosK 11y ago
        I have exactly the same experience as you. My solution is Google Music, where I basically just upload all my own music and I can listen to it on my phone. It's a bit of a hassle to keep the two synced, but not as much hassle it is to be listening to music in a browser window that takes up loads of RAM, as if playing an mp3 is some intractable problem.
DigitalSea 11y ago
It's 2015 and Winamp is still the only music player that really whips the llamas ass.
- mwcampbell 11y ago
  foobar2000 is pretty lean and mean too, though also Windows only.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    But it doesn't whip the llama's ass.
  - Already__Taken 11y ago
    The ui is stuck in 2001 though and it still doesn't have the ability to play/pause/skip from the aero tile.
    - morb 11y ago
      For me, the no-BS standard looking UI was the reason to choose Foobar, as compared to Win Media Player or Winamp and other weird looking ones. (Remember Sonique? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_%28media_player%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_%28media_player%29) As for aero tiles... That's a Win8 thing? I guess it's a valid complaint. I think you can set global keyboard shortcuts for those actions, if that helps.
      - Already__Taken 11y ago
        Aero is a vista+ thing. Hover over a playing vlc in the taskbar and you see skip/pause/play. Foobar is classic to the cost of UX. We've figured out for a long time now bigger buttons are important, there's no need for separate pause/play especially if stop is right there. It doesn't need a slew of crappy gradients and fancy shit, Just drag the interface forward a decade that's all. Usable with a touch screen should be a minimum now.
- seanp2k2 11y ago
Dewie3 11y ago
It's 2015 and I can't "alt-tab" into spotify in order to pause/play by pressing space; I have to click somewhere in the upper half of the interface in order to "refocus", or the spacebar just scrolls down. Which is useful for something, I guess. Though this is on Ubuntu, and Spotify is still a beta app on that platform last I checked. I don't think I've had this problem on Windows.
- _asummers 11y ago
  This functionality works on OSX, so it must be limited to the Ubuntu app.
- thrownaway122 11y ago
  Check out the Arch Linux wiki on this. Spotify apparently plays nicely with the rest of your desktop and you should be able to set up media key short cuts. Or maybe just use the Clementine add on?
  - Dewie3 11y ago
    I made a script that plays/pauses Spotify through dbus, which I usually execute by opening dmenu. :) My keyboard has media keys, but I thought I would prefer short textual commands to having to move my hand to the upper right of my keyboard (and probably miss the key if I wasn't looking?).
    - thrownaway122 11y ago
      Yeah media keys are annoying and not present on lots of keyboards. You could map this script via your window manager to something like special-F5 through to special-F8 to back-play/pause-stop-forward...
- Flimm 11y ago
  In Ubuntu Unity, you can just click on the sound icon in the top right corner of the screen and click pause. Or you can use the pause button on your keyboard, if you have one.
- 11y ago

baliex 11y ago

This update also removed the Alt+F, X keyboard shortcut I was using to quit from the keyboard. Don't think it's possible to do that any more.

daheza 11y ago

As someone who switches often between the mac and windows version this kills me. The mac version will continue after closing but the pc version just cuts the music completely.

__float 11y ago
This is simply a fundamental difference between OS X and Windows. Typically in OS X an application remains open after closing its last window, whereas in Windows this is typically the signal to quit the application entirely. Try minimizing in Windows, that's the appropriate equivalent.
- pests 11y ago
  That is not what he is saying. The Windows experience is the same if the window is from an application that is running in the systray. In that case clicking the X closes the last window but leaves the application running. I think daheza was saying that the removal of the systray caused the same actions (closing a window) to no longer do the same thing (get this window out of my way, but keep playing music) across operating systems when they used to in the past.
- hdougie 11y ago
  In Windows you used to be able to set the close action to minimize to tray (so effectively it did the same as OSX). This isn't a non-standard thing in Windows either, plenty of applications offer that behaviour. But a recent update of Spotify removed this and it is insanely annoying. I keep closing it just out of muscle memory and it's infuriating.