Winamp News

[LfmC]

Winamp is, for all intents and purposes, dead. And has been for a very long time now. The new generation uses iTunes and WMP, which although not as good in some aspects, gets the job done.
The golden years of (then revolutionary) mp3 players and CD rippers are long gone; Nobody pays for a program which they can get for free. So the viability of making and supporting a program like this is very difficult.

I would like to see Winamp return to it's former glory, but a lot has changed in the last 15 years, and the old business model will not work anymore; Nobody tolerates slow, sluggish or buggy software today. Nobody wants untested plugins which might or might not work/crash. Latest versions of winamp work fine, but if a new version is in the making, repeating the fiasco known as Winamp 3 in today's software climate would be suicide. Today's generation of users want it working, simple, bug-free and they want it for free. Not saying I agree with them, but that's what gets you users. Everything else is a niche market.

If Nullsoft (or whoever owns winamp now) can make this happen, I'll be the first in line to get it. I love Winamp and use it from the start, but I have my doubts...

Just my 2c

[DJ Egg]

Hello LfmC

Thank you for your input & feedback.

I'm pretty sure we've already mentioned here that the next release will be still based on Winamp 2.x/5.x
and that we'll be doing away with Pro and making Winamp freeware again :-)

[DrO]

calling a piece of software "dead" is somewhat subjective as i've got 2 instances running so it's far from dead to me

it's been stated repeatedly that what comes out as 6.x will be based on 5.x and so for it's underlying core will not be doing a Winamp3 and re-inventing the wheel (though 5.x has a lot of Winamp3 in it as part of the newer style plug-in services and obviously the modern skin support).

yes there will be changes, like most of the plug-in interfaces have been altered to help speed up start-up times and ensure common things are provided directly instead of needing the plug-ins to query Winamp for that information. but it doesn't prevent older style plug-ins from working (as long as they don't assume things).

as for untested plug-ins, most issues come from 3rd party plug-ins and primarily old ones which are not updated to be compatible with "recent" Windows and Winamp releases. and when i say "recent" i mean anything in the last 8 years.

and yes Winamp needs to be more stable, and a lot of work was done between 5.64 and 5.666 to do just that, but more has been done in the countless hours i've put in so far going over the source code in trying to make sure the code is in a better state and so in general should be more stable and less likely to cause issues like memory leaks (as has been an issue over the years).

as for sluggish, that's a bit subjective though there's been some areas that have annoyed me for years which i'm hoping will appear as a noticeable improvement. for example, i've gone from ~1s to load the classic base skin down to ~100-200ms (depending on when Winamp is loaded, what else is going on with the machine) but it's typically sub-150ms to load now which is faster than the ~170ms it takes my fb2k install to load.

there's also some obvious memory usage improvements which have and still need to be made e.g. i've got changes that reduce the main playlist editor's memory usage by upto ~45% which for large playlists generally works out as a few MB which isn't too bad a saving (though actual usage all depends on plug-ins, skins in use and other factors).

but there's a slew of other things which can be done, most of which is just being a bit smarter and only keeping things in memory when needed, otherwise after a time a lot of things should be unloaded from memory (like the db if not needed after closing a view), or not loaded at all until needed (which also helps with loading speeds and data corruption issues people have always reported).


so i understand people's concerns, but for the desktop client, it's probably best viewed that when 6.x comes out, it'll be more evolutionary than revolutionary, but that's not to say there shouldn't be some nice changes (once designed and implemented).

[edit]
i typed to much

[musicf8]

Winamp is, for all intents and purposes, dead. And has been for a very long time now. The new generation uses iTunes and WMP, which although not as good in some aspects, gets the job done.

Mostly preference, "gets the job done" is kind of stating, "why get your dream car? just get a used kia, it gets the job done"

The golden years of (then revolutionary) mp3 players and CD rippers are long gone; Nobody pays for a program which they can get for free. So the viability of making and supporting a program like this is very difficult.

I would like to see Winamp return to it's former glory, but a lot has changed in the last 15 years, and the old business model will not work anymore;

I believe I remember reading that Winamp was actually profitable or able to maintain itself before AOL decided to cut it. I really don't know what this "old" business model is that your speaking about, selling software? Still seems to be a pretty strong industry.

Nobody tolerates slow, sluggish or buggy software today. Nobody wants untested plugins which might or might not work/crash.

Android marketplace says otherwise.

Latest versions of winamp work fine, but if a new version is in the making, repeating the fiasco known as Winamp 3 in today's software climate would be suicide.

imo, the issue with Winamp3 wasn't because it was buggy and slow. It was because it was released as an alpha and everyone flocked to it expecting a finished product. I always saw winamp3 as having a lot of potential, but because of the backlash from people who for some reason thought it was supposed to work as good as a finished product, they canned it. Shame too.

Today's generation of users want it working, simple, bug-free and they want it for free. Not saying I agree with them, but that's what gets you users. Everything else is a niche market.

I thought everyone always preferred free bug-free working software? Of course, everyone probably also prefers working a dream job that pays well and offers 6 month vacation a year too.

If Nullsoft (or whoever owns winamp now) can make this happen, I'll be the first in line to get it. I love Winamp and use it from the start, but I have my doubts...

Just my 2c

Good to know they have your full support!

[Meaney]

i typed too much

Always impressed with DrO's comprehensive replies. In between coding.

[Supra107]

I think MMD3 should be resurrected and added as one of the default skins

[DrO]

i'd say no on doing that (it's just not right with the general style of UIs that are preferred) and as i've said elsewhere, it'd be a better project for someone wanting to pick-up modern skinning to work on making it properly 5.x compatible.

[Victhor]

I think MMD3 should be resurrected and added as one of the default skins

Translated into a more logical wish.. I think Sven Kistner (aka Bartibartman) should be hired to design the new default skin (if there is gonna be a new one). He or The Skins Factory (I think are the same..). At least for the visual aspect, for the coding part Martin would be cool (if he's willing to abandon Linux for some time ).

[Supra107]

Translated into a more logical wish.. I think Sven Kistner (aka Bartibartman) should be hired to design the new default skin (if there is gonna be a new one). He or The Skins Factory (I think are the same..). At least for the visual aspect, for the coding part Martin would be cool (if he's willing to abandon Linux for some time ).

Actually, that's a really darn good idea!

[DrO]

you're assuming that if there is a new default skin that it would be based on the modern skin engine which is not necessarily a safe assumption to make, though it also could be (as it's just not known at this point).

plus i'm not sure asking someone who's had little to do with Winamp for over a decade (*) to come back as a purely paid person (as i'd assume that would be the only way for your request to be viable) and make something for a player i assume they've not actively used in a long time. personally i'd rather see some input from active community people but that's not my choice to make and wholely depends on what might happen or not with a possible new default skin.

and before anyone freaks out, modern skin support is not going away, but maybe we might even end up with a non-skinned mode i.e. OS native. or we might just have a different skin engine completely in addition to what is already present (along with any tweaks those engines have or will hopefully see).

(*) it'd be like asking Justin (and any one else from the early days) to do things again when even he's clearly stated he doesn't use it much anymore and never went beyond one of the 5.08 releases. hence why although nostalgically it'd be nice having people from the 2.x days doing things again, it's just generally not something that is practical or something those people are interested in doing.

[Victhor]

I wasn't going for the nostalgia, just the professional aspect. It shouldn't be a requirement for a "new" designer to be actively related to the soft, that would cut out 99% of the professionals out there. A strong briefing and a good Case Study should be enough for any designer to come up with a good design / proposal. I think that's how TSF work with any contracted job.
Obviously, someone who actively used Winamp last years / decade wouldn't need any briefing, ideally.
And, in any case, the community feedback is (should be) a must to build that brief / case study.

...or we might just have a different skin engine completely in addition to what is already present (along with any tweaks those engines have or will hopefully see).

[DrO]

the main issue is there aren't many people who know enough about modern skinning (or can remember what to do) that exist now. so even someone who's made some of the classic skins isn't necessarily the right person if they need to re-learn things (which obviously involves more time and thus money to do things).

hence why at least for me, going the native OS route is a way to tick off that commonly requested thing but also provide enough of a different UI without having to go through all of the hassle that creating an actual skin involves (plus i'm pretty certain it'd help cut memory usage - as Big Bento tends to add somewhere around 30-40MB for me compared to a classic skin).

and designing is the comparatively the easy part compared to either needing to make changes to the skin engine, plug-ins, etc in-order to be able to achieve what the designer wants things to be.

for me, it makes more sense for things to be driven by those who actively use Winamp but then again new blood is often a good thing, but any sort of change in the default UI (even when you make it clear that people can change it if they don't like it but they won't listen to that however much you say - as was shown with the 5.0 and 5.5 releases). but i'm not the boss so we'll just have to wait and see what comes.

and i'm sure i'd mentioned about a possible new skin engine of some sort months back. though doing anything like that would take months (or longer) depending on what its aims are. though i can say that there is no such thing at the moment, just classic and a buggy old modern skin engine.

[Pawel]

I think Winamp has enough skins, so users can choose whatever they want...
Of course, would be nice if Winamp6 present new default skin, but that would take to long time and there is no guarantee that people like it...
Simple example... I always use Winamp Modern Skin (default). I personally don't like SUI interface (so Bento (which is nice) has no chance).
Sometimes I just use old Winamp2 default skin... Winamp is always hidden and just play the music... i dont need to see the window by most of the time.

So, important is to make Winamp popular again - that means work on it stability, speed, sound quality or performance - rather then its visual look.

We can not forget, that today people use mobile devices... So, if Winamp exists on main mobile platforms and fullly synchronize with desktops - that would be something (I dont belive in Spotify services).

[Victhor]

Visual aspect is important enough for people to complain if it's bad or to completely ignore it if it's good and does what it's supposed to do. That's the bitchy truth IMHO ..

I generally agree with most of your post, but I'm not sure if it would take too much time.. Do you say it would take more than DrO's part??

[DrO]

well the UI is important for a lot of people and often what people initially base things upon, so it's something that has to be thought about, though like you mention, it doesn't matter much if other things don't work. but it's not something you can just ignore. and sadly it's something that's expected (be it good or bad) when you bump to a new main number for a product to provide a new UI in some form.

as for the comment about mobile platforms, that's where things are seemingly going (though with Win10 bringing some focus back to the desktop, it gives some place for classic desktop programs like Winamp to persist still). but like mentioned, there needs to be more integration / usage of some of the cloud fad that's been going on as well as doing more in relation to streaming (seeing as we're part of a streaming group so it makes more sense to go that way for new features - but there's still a lot that can be done with local file management).

it's a bit like was tried under AOL but more towards maybe aggregation of media across devices and platforms via what is out there rather than trying to bring something else to the party. though i doubt if anything happens on those lines for it to mirror much of what was attempted previously as part of the 5.7 betas as a lot has changed since the basis of all of that was started back in late 2010/early 2011.


anyhoo, there's a lot of useful things that could be done, is just time and getting the ideas and implementations right to start with. for example i quite liked the idea of how spotiamp client included a mini-DNAS server in it and with things like Chromecast able to play such streams, rather than going through the hassle to create a upnp/dlna implementation, we just output things to the local network as a SHOUTcast stream and then other devices should be able to play it without too much issue and you've then got a simple media server for the home. (and yes having a proper upnp/dlna implementation would be better so you can pick and choose specific files instead of just playing a blind stream), but we've got the means to do it and its in keeping with the streaming requests that keep cropping up.