Spotifast 0.17 makes Windows Media Player skins real. Skins now run their own scripts, in a sandbox, so their drawers, intro animations, playlists, equalizers and extra windows work the way they did in Windows Media Player. Spotify Soloist has a new setup and clearer Settings, and when it stops, Spotifast now stays usable and brings it back by itself.
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New
- Windows Media Player skins run as they were made. Their scripts run in a sandbox with no access to your files, the network or other programs. Every view works: drawers, shutters, hidden panels, separate windows, and windows shaped like the skin. Playlist panels show your queue, equalizer panels change Spotifast's equalizer, and visualization areas show the same bars or sound wave as Winamp skins. By @crmne and @davorb.
- See your skins before you wear them. Settings now shows a picture of every skin, Winamp or Windows Media Player, instead of a row of names. Pictures are drawn in the background and kept, and hundreds of skins scroll smoothly. By @crmne.
- Windows Media Player skins of our own. Spotifast Tall is a small white ceramic ribbon round a smoked-glass core, made to live at the side of your screen. A thread of green light traces it as it opens and burns under its arch while the music plays. The square switches between the album art and the visualizer, and the glass turns to an equalizer or your queue. Spotifast Wide is the same object laid on its side. Pick either in Settings. By @crmne.
- MilkDrop inside Windows Media Player skins. A skin's visualization area now shows MilkDrop, moving and scaling with the skin, and its next and previous buttons change the preset. It draws in its own process, so the player never waits for it, and goes back to the bars if it can't run. By @crmne.
- MilkDrop in your Winamp skin's frame. Opened from a classic skin's mini player, MilkDrop is a panel of the player, under the equalizer and the playlist, in the skin's own window frame as it was in Winamp 5, with a title bar, close button and resizing. It moves with the player on every desktop, Wayland included. By @crmne.
- MilkDrop behind your lyrics. A skin's MilkDrop window or visualization area can now go full screen, into the lyrics view, with MilkDrop behind the words instead of the cover's art. In the main window, V or a click on the empty space does the same in full screen lyrics, and N and P change the preset. The picture dims itself until the words are clear, even on a white preset, and leaving goes back to your skin. By @crmne.
- MilkDrop alone. Click the album art in full screen lyrics and everything else steps aside for MilkDrop, edge to edge and at full brightness. Moving the mouse shows the controls for a few seconds, and any click brings it all back as it was. By @crmne.
- The line being sung stands out in full screen, bigger and in the accent colour. By @crmne.
- A full screen button in the player bar. It sits right of the volume slider, as in Spotify, and opens and leaves full screen lyrics. By @crmne.
- More skins, one place to find them. Settings links to the Internet Archive's Windows Media Player Skins Collection, and Open folder now covers both kinds of skin. By @crmne.
- A new Soloist setup. Three clear steps, real download progress, and a pairing step that walks you through the Spotify desktop app, with help if Soloist doesn't appear. By @crmne; thanks @PixelAsh6 and @VatSenator. (#1137, #1142)
- Clearer Soloist Settings. Status, version, audio quality, Spotify access and turning it off now read as one group. By @crmne.
- Open a Spotify link from the search bar. Paste it and press Enter. By @crmne; thanks @zamhedonia. (#1027)
- Shift+Q adds the selected songs to the queue, Shift+N plays them next. By @crmne; thanks @outronobre. (#1110)
- Compilations on artist pages, beside albums and singles. By @crmne; thanks @samu-mi8. (#1069)
- Page filters stay on one row, and scroll when they don't fit. By @crmne.
Fixed
- Spotify's own lyrics are asked for properly. Spotifast now sends the song's cover with the request, and forgets the "no lyrics" answers it had saved from before, so those songs are looked up again. By @crmne.
- More Windows Media Player skins draw whole. gnome, Gorillaz and Pharaoh, which opened empty or not at all, now run. Magenta corners on xXx, Wild Well Control and World of Warcraft are gone, and the Bionic Dot's visualization stays behind its logo and inside its round shape. By @crmne.
- Dials in Windows Media Player skins follow the mouse. Some skins draw their volume and seek pictures back to front, as in Need for Speed Underground, so the needle ran the wrong way and silence showed as full. Spotifast now spots these and turns them round. By @crmne.
- Soloist keeps playing smoothly on a busy computer. Spotifast holds a small margin of audio, refills it without a gap and raises its share of the processor for Soloist's audio. By @crmne.
- Soloist comes back at the volume you left it, instead of its own default. By @crmne.
- Volume follows your hand with Soloist on Linux, in the player bar and in skins. By @crmne.
- MilkDrop still starts after an update replaces the running app. By @crmne.
- A busy lyrics service no longer shows an error. Spotifast waits and asks again by itself. By @crmne.
- The AUR package builds in a clean chroot again. By @crmne; thanks AndyRTR.
- Soloist no longer drops you on its setup page. If it stops, Spotifast stays open, restarts it and carries on with what was playing. If that doesn't work, a banner offers Try again and the built-in player. By @crmne; thanks @garpu-ng and @caeksec. (#1140, #1159)
- A brief audio problem no longer stops Soloist. Spotifast rebuilds the audio route while Soloist keeps running, and logs what went wrong. By @crmne.
- A shared song link selects that song on its album, instead of only opening the album. By @crmne; thanks @boboryan. (#1117)
- A song shows as playing only in the playlist it plays from. By @crmne; thanks @jorisw. (#1106)
- A playlist you left no longer lights up again. By @crmne; thanks @jorisw. (#1121)
- The playing playlist is remembered across a restart. By @crmne; thanks @Altair-Qu-Ten. (#1013)
- A restart during autoplay resumes the right song at its saved position. By @crmne; thanks @ECuteri. (#856)
Thanks
@davorb, @PixelAsh6, @VatSenator, @garpu-ng, @caeksec, @zamhedonia, @outronobre, @samu-mi8, @boboryan, @jorisw, @Altair-Qu-Ten, @ECuteri, AndyRTR, and everyone who reported problems since 0.16.0.
Full changelog: v0.16.0...v0.17.0