Hi everybody,
time goes fast and more than a year passed from first release of GrooveOff.It was a good year for it: a lot of downloads, positive reviews, some requests, new localizations (we have passed 10) and very few bugs :D So, after a year, I think it is the right moment to give it some love.
Ok, let's start with the very first image of GrooveOff 0.2.0:
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| GrooveOff main window |
As you notice, it is not a revolution. Let's start from cosmetics changes:
- a new icon set for main interface
- new animation for current playing track (as we used to in mobile applications)
- redesigned player area
Probably some of you already recognized it: the icon set comes from Amarok. I expanded it designing new icons.
The player is the area that changed the most from version 0.1. Now it looks like a familiar audio player. Back/next track buttons, album cover and audio properties of the playing song are all new. Furthermore, it is now possible to rearrange downloaded tracks with a simple drag&drop.
These new media player capabilities are coupled with a new feature: save and restore session. This new option is default enabled in settings; now when you close GrooveOff the current download list is preserved and loaded on next start. It is also possible to save failed/canceled downloads for next try/resume.
A new feature of GrooveOff 0.2.0, and requested by a good number of users, is batch downloading. In author/album filters area there is a new button:
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| New "Download all tracks" button |
My suggestion is to use it carefully, avoiding accidentally queueing hundreds of tracks ;)
Continuing, it's turn of a new layout that flanks Compact and Wide ones: Mini Player layout; you can enable it from the View menu:
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| New "Mini Player" layout |
This layout is very minimal: search fields, result and download lists are hidden in favor of listen mode. Menu bar is replaced by a compact menu from which manage songs in playlist:
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| Compact menu with Playlist |
I also added Mpris support, so that you can control GrooveOff from one of the applets provided by your Desktop or, why not, from your mobile device:
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| Kde's Now Playing plasmoid |
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| Kdeconnect remote |
With this new version you can customize mp3 file names:
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| Mp3 file name editor |
Just drag labels from the lower field to the upper one, in the desired position, and complete eventually with separators and/or spacers. Default scheme is that in the picture: downloading a song will create author and album folders, when required, resulting in a more organized library.
Version 0.2.0 is the first release with external contribution. User Bas added search by playlist id number:
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| Grooveshark playlist search |
So you can use the web interface to build a playlist and later download all tracks you included.
And finishing, now GrooveOff is Qt5 ready so if your distro provides all required packages you may opt for it (be sure that repository contains phonon and a phonon backend compiled agains qt5).
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| Qt5 version of GrooveOff |
The source code can be downloaded from openDesktop:
http://opendesktop.org/content/show.php?content=158258
Pre-build binary packages are merit of OpenSUSE Build System.
If you have a recent distro (Archlinux, Fedora 20, xUbuntu 14.04, OpenSUSE Factory) you may prefer installing grooveoff-qt5.
If you want to contribute with a translation I recommend join the team at transifex.com:
If you found a bug, report it on github's issue page:
Cheers.
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