We recently reported on the current status of KDE's long time audio player Amarok, and it's slow move to using KDE Plasma 5 technologies. Recently another one of KDE's audio players, Elisa, has been receiving some technology and feature updates that will soon be coming up in the next release. Under active development, Elisa seeks to fill the void that legacy audio players have left in KDE Plasma userspace.
→ For an overview of Elisa Music Player, see our previous article - Plasma 5 Gets It's First Proper Music Player With The Release Of Elisa
A quick look at what's new
libVLC Support
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| Elisa music player to support VLC backend - VLC logo graphic courtesy of VideoLan.org |
Among the new features coming to Elisa that were announced so far include the ability to support the VLC (via libVLC) as a back-end. In addition to having an easy-to-use API to aid in future development, the developer states that the move will allow Elisa to support additional audio formats.
Of course, this will help give Elisa the ability to play expanded music collections from a variety of sources, as well as help with cross platform support.
New real-time progress bar
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| Elisa's new track progress bar |
Additionally, Elisa will support a new progress bar on the Plasma desktop. This will be via a new progress meter anytime Elisa is running inside Plasma Workspace. It's a nice visual queue and a quick way to look at the status of the currently playing track in a native KDE Plasma way.
Party Mode Improvements
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| Elisa's improved 'party mode' for music playlist playback, including touch screen support |
Finally, Elisa has a redesigned "party mode" with a simplified playlist view. Basically, party mode is a full-screen version of Elisa featuring a simplified view with playlist and current-track cover art. One could see using this at parties or get-togethers either on a laptop screen or possibly cast to a television like in a 10ft interface environment.
The improved party mode also gives the ability to touch a track on a playlist and have the new song immediately play upon clicking it. The author mentions the use-case of using touch screens with Elisa, for instance.
The Future
In his recent blog post, states the following:
"Quite some other features are already ready. They will be the subject of other posts.
There are still some features that are still under review for the next stable release. This is the main reason no firm date are currently set for the next release.
I would like to be able to make the best possible release. In order to do that, feedback would be very welcome."
So, as of now, we will have to wait for the official release announcement of the next stable version of Elisa, as well as to see what else is planned for this upcoming release.
Helping Out
Like most open source projects, the Elisa team would welcome your help. If you're interested in seeing how you may be able to lend a hand, see the Getting Involved section here.
The source article for this update can be found here.
As always, thank for reading!
</KDigest>
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