From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Songbird is a free software media player and web browser developed as open source by a group known as 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.
[edit] Features
As of version 1.0, current features are:[3]
- Cross-platform compatibility with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (x86) and Linux (x86, x86_64)
- Ability to play multiple audio formats, such as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC 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
- Built-in RSS subscription and 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
- eMusic integration using the eMusic Integration plugin
- Full Last.fm integration, complete with love/hate buttons (plugin)
- Insound.com and HypeMachine integration
- Microsoft MTP compatible device support
- Ability to edit metadata tags and save back to file
[edit] Extensions
Zune MTP support, Songbird 0.5
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 the GIMP, users are then able to make Songbird look however they want.
[edit] Localization/translation
There are 98 volunteer-basis localizations of Songbird currently being developed at various stages. Songbird encourages developers from all languages and locales to help develop and update localizations so that Songbird can be available in each of the 482 language tags established by the IETF for all 567 localities of the world. Songbird has made this project available at Translate Songbird!.
[edit] Release history
Below is the version history of the Songbird project. Note that some versions have nicknames or codenames based on popular musicians and recording artists, such as David Bowie, Cher, Dokken, Eno, and Fugazi.
| Colour |
Meaning |
| Red |
Old release; not supported |
| Yellow |
Old release; still supported |
| Green |
Current release |
| Blue |
Future release |
| Version |
Release Date |
Code Name |
Significant Changes |
Gecko Version |
| 0.1 |
February 8, 2006 |
Hilda |
|
1.8 |
| 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.
- QuickTime DRM audio playback.
- USB mass storage device support.
- iPod device support.
- Automatic locales downloading.
- Improved OS integration.
|
| 0.3 |
October 30, 2007 |
Bowie |
|
1.9 |
| 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
|
| 1.0 |
December 2, 2008 |
Genesis |
- GStreamer media core on all platforms
|
[edit] Legal issues
U.S. Trademark 78,670,999 was registered on July 29, 2008 to Poti, Inc. This, as well as other technical problems (such as invasive changes to shared libraries and runtime download of non-free code) currently prevents Linux distributions including Debian[5] and Ubuntu[6] from packaging and including Songbird in its current form.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Gopher |
|
| Active clients |
|
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| Discontinued clients |
|
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| Server software |
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| See also |
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