OK, I have a whole lot to say about a matter ppl will probably care very little about. This will involve several programs and a project I started a couple weeks ago, and will likely make several detours along the way. . .and I won't touch on nearly all of it in just one post. The saga begins. . .
You may remember /forums/geeks-r-us/anyone-using-an-mp3-player-not-called-winamp-6031/" target="_blank">this post in which I talk briefly about WinAmp, and how it's gone from "new hotness" to "old & busted" in the nearly 11 years I've used it. It used to be small, fast, customizable with cool plugins and skins, and had that "just right" feel. It worked. You knew it would work, work right, and work with a crisp, snappy feel. This was an app that lived to work, and worked to live. No sluggishly-opening windows or menus here. Unlike far too many other programs that seemed like they were perpetually yawning, stretching, and getting up from a break, WinAmp was like a workaholic on crack.
Well 10+ years, and a company buy-out later, things have changed. After a decade of poorly thought-out, poorly-done upgrades that never seemed to actually do much, the WinAmp brand is a mess. Too many revisions, and not enough labeling has turned searching for skins into Russian Roulette. The version I use, v5.05 (the version before the tampon ads made an unwelcome appearance) can use "modern" skins, but there appears to have been some changes made affecting skinning, because SOME modern skins will work, some will not load, and others will crash WinAmp. So now, WinAmp's pushing ads, bloaty, and all crashy 'n' stuff. It appears that some skins are more "modern" than others, and these skins are not properly labeled as "Modern Skin rev 2" or some such. There's just Classic Skins, Modern Skins, and those red-headed stepchildren, the WinAmp 3 Skins.
Which brings us to the next subject - Skinning. I got on this subject a week or so ago because I was wanting to make my own skin. It's something I've wanted to do since before I could properly use Photoshop. Who doesn't want their apps working and looking exactly like they'd want it? So I went out looking for skinning info. And I found it. After ten years of amazing popularity, every jerkwater Geocities homepage seems to have instructions on skinning Winamp. The problem? Sorry. The Problems?
After a day of stream-of-consciousness WinAmp skin surfing, I'm a bit sick up and fed with the whole WinAmp thing, and I start to rethink my allegiance to the bloated old programming equivalent of Elton John. This once startlingly cool and innovative program has been merely going thru the motions for many years, and it's time to find a program that hasn't lost it's edge. . .
So I spent a couple hours poking around Google, using such stunning Google-fu as "WinAmp Replacement", "WinAmp Foobar", and my personal favorite, "Best PC software MP3 Player -creative -zen -ipod -zune -sansa", I came up with few candidates. Anything that purported to organize my music collection got tossed - I want a player, not an all-in-one bloat-hog. I already have a small program I use to organize my MP3's - just play the damn things.
You may remember /forums/geeks-r-us/anyone-using-an-mp3-player-not-called-winamp-6031/" target="_blank">this post in which I talk briefly about WinAmp, and how it's gone from "new hotness" to "old & busted" in the nearly 11 years I've used it. It used to be small, fast, customizable with cool plugins and skins, and had that "just right" feel. It worked. You knew it would work, work right, and work with a crisp, snappy feel. This was an app that lived to work, and worked to live. No sluggishly-opening windows or menus here. Unlike far too many other programs that seemed like they were perpetually yawning, stretching, and getting up from a break, WinAmp was like a workaholic on crack.
Well 10+ years, and a company buy-out later, things have changed. After a decade of poorly thought-out, poorly-done upgrades that never seemed to actually do much, the WinAmp brand is a mess. Too many revisions, and not enough labeling has turned searching for skins into Russian Roulette. The version I use, v5.05 (the version before the tampon ads made an unwelcome appearance) can use "modern" skins, but there appears to have been some changes made affecting skinning, because SOME modern skins will work, some will not load, and others will crash WinAmp. So now, WinAmp's pushing ads, bloaty, and all crashy 'n' stuff. It appears that some skins are more "modern" than others, and these skins are not properly labeled as "Modern Skin rev 2" or some such. There's just Classic Skins, Modern Skins, and those red-headed stepchildren, the WinAmp 3 Skins.
Which brings us to the next subject - Skinning. I got on this subject a week or so ago because I was wanting to make my own skin. It's something I've wanted to do since before I could properly use Photoshop. Who doesn't want their apps working and looking exactly like they'd want it? So I went out looking for skinning info. And I found it. After ten years of amazing popularity, every jerkwater Geocities homepage seems to have instructions on skinning Winamp. The problem? Sorry. The Problems?
- No one DATES anything on the effin' Internet! Or they didn't in the past, so there's a shit-ton of old info on skinning.
- The aforementioned issue with skin revisions. Many folks didn't even bother to label their instructions as one of the nominal 3 revisions, so you have no idea what kind of skin they're telling you to make.
- OK, so screw that. Go to the source and ask the horse - he'll give you the answer that you'll endorse! I visited the WinAmp forums and scoped out their info. There's some good info there, but as I surfed thru the links, I found some of them dead. I go to jump to the part I want to learn about, nothing!
After a day of stream-of-consciousness WinAmp skin surfing, I'm a bit sick up and fed with the whole WinAmp thing, and I start to rethink my allegiance to the bloated old programming equivalent of Elton John. This once startlingly cool and innovative program has been merely going thru the motions for many years, and it's time to find a program that hasn't lost it's edge. . .
So I spent a couple hours poking around Google, using such stunning Google-fu as "WinAmp Replacement", "WinAmp Foobar", and my personal favorite, "Best PC software MP3 Player -creative -zen -ipod -zune -sansa", I came up with few candidates. Anything that purported to organize my music collection got tossed - I want a player, not an all-in-one bloat-hog. I already have a small program I use to organize my MP3's - just play the damn things.