Audacious, the lightweight music player with both Qt and GTK UI, announced the Beta for next 4.6 version yesterday.
The new version of this free open-source player app added built-in file browser, macOS Now Playing, other new features and various bug-fixes.
First, the new version introduced a built-in file browser, which can be enabled by going to File -> Settings -> Plugins -> General.
It allows to browse or search supported music files in your local computer, then either drag’n’drop into playlist, or use right-click menu options to play, add to (or create) playlist.
Audacious Qt UI with file browser plugin enabled
The built-in file browser is useful for Qt users, who have a large mount of music files, to quickly find out what you want to play and/or manage playlists.
It however always stay in a separate window for the GTK user interface, which is kinda useless as why not use the system default file manager instead.
file browser however always in separate window in the GTK UI
The Winamp classic interface still requires windowing system features that are not supported in Wayland. So for Ubuntu, Fedora Workstaion, and other Linux running Wayland session, the Winamp UI will default to XWayland compatibility mode.
And, a toggle option is added to Advanced settings page, allowing user to easily disable XWayland when trying to switch to GTK or QT user interface.
Winamp UI defaults to XWayland on Wayland session.
Audacious 4.6 Beta also updated its UI with Bitrate, File Created/Modified dates support in playlist, though user needs to enable them manually from Appearance settings page.
It added the Playback History plugin for GTK UI, and a setting option to re-enable the confirm dialog for users who checked “Don’t ask again” in Remove Playlist dialog.
It as well added support for .mpc Musepack audio file, support for all AIFF file extensions (.aif, .aifc, .aiff) and MIME types (audio/aiff and audio/x-aiff), and support for reading lyrics tag from Opus, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files.
New playlist columns available
For users who prefer using keyboard shortcut, the release added global hotkeys support for previous/next album action, and support using Delete and F2 keys in Playlist Manager dialog.
And for macOS users, Audacious 4.6 beta added macOS Now Playing plugin for monitoring and controlling audio playback in the Control Center or Menu Bar. And, it removed the Mac Media Keys plugin.
Other changes include:
- Drag’n’drop into Qt winamp UI support.
- Read ReplayGain tags with FFmpeg plugin, meaning more files support.
- Allow using Previous control to go to the last track in playlist for Repeat mode.
- Support exporting playlist via audtool CLI tool.
- Use localized music directory for Search Tool.
- Load companion .m3u/.m3u8 with Game Console Music Decoder for subsong metadata.
There are as well many bug-fixes, removal of deprecated Audacious code and APIs, and more.
Try out audacious 4.6 Beta
The official release note, as well as the source tarballs are available in the software website via the link below:
Besides building from the source, I’ve built the new version into this unofficial PPA for those who want to try it out, though keep in mind this is a Beta version that may have bugs!
