Exaile media player gets major update

More than two years after their last major update, the developers at the Exaile project have released a new version of their open source media manager and player with improvements throughout the application, including user interface and playlist enhancements. Written in Python, Exaile uses the GStreamer media framework and was originally inspired by version 1.4 of KDE's Amarok media player, incorporating a number of the same features. Unlike Amarok, which is written using the Qt framework, Exaile uses the GTK+ widget toolkit.

Code-named "Jump", the 3.3 release of Exaile sees the leading "0" dropped from the version number (moving from 0.3.x to 3.3.x) and features a revamped album cover chooser, an updated track properties dialog, and a new option to restore closed playlist tabs. The playlist API has been completely rewritten to be "cleaner, more flexible and extensible", and playlist recognition has been enhanced.

Other changes include improvements to drag-and-drop importing of files, automatic scrolling during drag operations, and a variety of new and updated plugins such as BPM Counter, which allows users to set BPM per track, and Preview Device, which allows audio to be played back over a secondary device. The developers also note that they have fixed several threading bugs which caused Exaile to hang at startup and during playback.

Out of the box, the player can handle large media libraries and supports tabbed playlists, automatic album art fetching and internet radio stations such as SHOUTcast. It also includes support for scrobbling the names of recently played tracks to the Last.fm online music service and syncing tracks to portable media players with USB mass storage support.

A full list of changes and new features can be found on Launchpad and in the release announcement on the project's homepage. Exaile 3.3 is available to download as source code for self-compilation or as a Windows installer from the project's Launchpad page. Exaile is licensed under the GPLv2 or later.

(crve)