Songbird (software)

Songbird
	Songbird 2.0.0 on Windows 7
Developer(s)	Pioneers of the Inevitable aka POTI Inc.
Initial release	8 February 2006; 18 years ago
Final release	2.2.0, Build 2453 / 4 February 2013
Preview release	None [±]
Operating system	Windows XP and later; macOS; Android (removed from Play Store, not open-source); iOS (not open-source); Linux and Solaris (unofficial);
Platform	IA-32; x86-64; PowerPC (unofficial);
Available in	98 languages
Type	Media player
License	GNU GPLv2 with exceptions; Android client closed source
Website	getsongbird.net

Songbird is a discontinued music player originally released in early 2006 with the stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web".^[3]

Songbird utilizes the cross-platform frameworks Mozilla XULRunner and GStreamer media framework. Songbird runs on Windows and macOS. In 2012, an Android version and an iOS version were released. Songbird at one point also supported Solaris and Linux, but this support was dropped. As a result, users forked Songbird and created a Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible derivative under the name Nightingale.

Songbird announced on 14 June 2013 that it would stop all operations and shut down by 28 June. The company was unable to fund further business operations and as a result, all operations and associated services were discontinued.^[4]

Features

Multi-platform compatibility with Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X v10.5 (x86, x86-64).
Ability to play multiple audio formats, such as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Apple Lossless and WMA
Ability to play Apple FairPlay-encoded audio on Windows and Mac platforms via hooks into QuickTime (authorization takes place in iTunes)
Ability to play Windows Media DRM audio on Windows platforms
A skinnable interface, with skins called "feathers"
Media files stored on pages viewed in the browser show up as playable files in Songbird
MP3 file download
Ability to subscribe to MP3 blogs as playlists
Ability to build custom mixes
Ability to scan the user's computer for all audio files and add them to a local library
A configurable and collapsible graphical user interface similar to iTunes, and mini-player mode
Keyboard shortcuts and media keyboard support
Automatic updates
Last.fm integration via a plugin, complete with love/hate buttons
Insound.com and HypeMachine integration
Microsoft MTP compatible device support
Ability to edit and save metadata tags
Gapless Playback & ReplayGain
Watch Folders
Media Importing / Exportings (from and to iTunes)
Automatic Library Files Organization

Add-ons

Extensions

Users can add features and change functionality in Songbird by installing extensions. Extensions are similar to the Extensions for the Firefox browser and can be easily ported.^[5] Community coded extensions are available on Songbird's addons support page. Known community designed extensions are: Qloud Tagging & Search, eMusic Integration, iTunes Importer, Artist Tracker, Library File Organizer, Audioscrobbler Notifier, Wikipedia Artist Display, SHOUTcast Radio Directory, UnPlug, Adblock Plus, Taglib metadata handler, ChatZilla, and FoxyProxy.

Skins

Skins are referred to as "feathers" in Songbird and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Songbird via an extension which generates a default skin. Using CSS (and optionally XUL), and an image manipulation program such as Photoshop or GIMP, users are then able to make Songbird look however they want.

History

Songbird was founded by Rob Lord and developed by Pioneers of the Inevitable (with members who previously developed for both Winamp^[6] and the Yahoo! Music Engine).

In January 2010, Philips announced they would ship a personalized version of Songbird with some of their line of portable audio/video players.^[7]

On 2 April 2010, it was announced that official Linux support would end with Songbird version 1.7.2. POTI Inc. would instead focus on its Windows and Mac OS X versions of Songbird, providing only unofficial support for Linux releases.

Sometime during late 2012 or early 2013, Songbird's public SVN was taken down, along with their wiki and other source code related utilities. A survey later sent out via Twitter by Songbird suggested that POTI was closing the desktop player source code, planning to later sell an updated version, fixing many outstanding bugs and feature requests by users who had been ignored for years.^[8]

Color	Meaning
Red	Old release
Yellow	Unreleased, internal milestone
Green	Current release
Blue	Future release

Version	Release date	Codename	Significant changes
0.1	8 February 2006	Hilda
0.1.1	22 February 2006		UI fixes. More file types supported.
0.2 RC1	26 September 2006		Cross-platform Windows 2000, XP Mac OS X (PPC, Intel) Linux (Intel) 30+ languages New features Bug fixes Automatic updates
0.2	17 October 2006		Cross-platform compatibility. Multi-language support.
0.2.5	28 February 2007		Windows Media DRM audio playback. FairPlay audio playback. USB mass storage device support. iPod device support. Automatic locales downloading. Improved OS integration.
0.3	30 October 2007	Bowie	Tabbed browsing. API overhaul. Updated to Gecko 1.9
0.3.1	6 November 2007		Six major bug fixes.
0.4	27 December 2007	Cher	Display panes.
0.5	26 March 2008	Dokken	Media library API. MTP device support.
0.6	13 June 2008	Eno	Memory and performance improvements. Write metadata back to the file.
0.6.1	25 June 2008		Three major bug fixes.
0.7	20 August 2008	Fugazi	Layout and feather changes Smart playlists Drag & drop Dropped support for Mac OS X PPC
1.0	2 December 2008	Genesis	GStreamer media core on all platforms
1.1.1	10 March 2009	Hendrix	Watch folders for changes and auto-import media Fetching Album Art Playback normalization (ReplayGain) Improved sorting Gapless MP3 playback via file metadata^[9]
1.1.2	9 April 2009	Hootie	Bugfix release
1.2	18 June 2009	Isan	Automatically Organize Library Files 2-way Sync with iTunes Last.fm Radio 10-band Equalizer
1.3	—	Jackson 5	Dropped iPod device support^[10] Mass Storage Class device support Playback of additional formats Metadata support for MP4 and ASF files Transcoding to MP3 or WMA formats
1.4	December 2009	Kanye	MP3 encoding Mobile device firmware updates CD ripping CD information lookup Notification for un-synced DRM controlled media
1.4.3	23 December 2009	KoЯn	New Feather (Purple Rain) Addons Visual Redesign New First Run Bundle Additional Device Support Critical Bug Fixes Easily Resizable Display Panes
1.5	—	Led Zeppelin	Video Library Video Playback Video Metadata Video Device Sync Performance and Stability Vendor Rebasing General Build Improvements Video Transcoding Windows 7 Support
1.6.0	—	Madonna	Video Transcoding Video Transcoding Device Support Device Video Compatibility Firmware Support Import Network Settings Gracenote metadata Performance and Stability Codec Profiling Startup Localization Some Firefox Addons Start Working on Songbird
1.7.0	—	Nirvana	Photo Device Synchronization AAC Decoder Windows 7 Support Additional Device Support Performance and Stability Ability to subscribe to new podcasts removed.^[11]
1.7.2	3 June 2010	NOFX	Additional Encoding Support Additional Device Support SD Card Support Video Window Performance and Stability Official Linux support dropped
1.8.0	2 September 2010	Orbital	New Device Support Mac USB/MSC Support Mac Partner Integration Service Pane Cleanup Device Synchronization and UI Cleanup AAC Encoding Stream Transcoding (Backend) Performance and Stability
1.9.3	9 February 2011	Pink Floyd	Online Media Store Integration Play Queue Addon CD Rip for Mac Firmware Updates Seamless Update for Partner Releases XULRunner 1.9.2 Misc Minor Projects 7digital Addon Rewrite (new API) Performance and Stability
1.10.1	1 November 2011	Qbert	Device 2-Way Sync Performance and Stability
1.10.2	25 January 2012		Playlist and track sync with Android devices has been improved. Added official support for Google/Samsung Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy SII, HTC Evo 3D, and Galaxy Nexus. The issue with WMA tracks not being playable after updating to 1.10.1 should be resolved. When creating a Smart Playlist with the criteria of "Playlist is Library", Songbird no longer crashes
1.10.3	22 May 2012		?
2.0.0	8 June 2012		New skin matches the Songbird.me web app and updated Android skin^[12]
2.1	31 October 2012		?
2.2	15 February 2013		?

References

^ Auberger, Georges (2 April 2010), "Songbird Singing a New Tune", Songbird Blog, Songbird, archived from the original on 4 April 2010, retrieved 2 April 2010
^ "Translate Songbird!". Translate.songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 21 August 2007. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
^ "About". Songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
^ "You gotta know when to fold 'em". Songbirdnest.com. 14 June 2013. Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
^ Wayner, Peter (19 October 2010). "Top 10 specialty Web browsers you may have missed". InfoWorld. p. 7. Retrieved 28 October 2010.
^ Songbird Jobs Archived 25 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
^ Blankenhorn, Dana (7 January 2010), Songbird now in convenient Philips hardware form, ZDNet, archived from the original on 9 January 2010, retrieved 9 January 2010
^ songbird [@songbird] (21 February 2013). "Use Songbird Desktop? Please take our 5 question product improvement survey" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
^ "Songbird Blog » Songbird 1.1 is here". Archived from the original on 12 January 2010. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
^ "iPod Device Support - Songbird Wiki". Wiki.songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
^ "Songbird 1.7.3: Where did the subscriptions go?". Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
^ "Download Songbird 2.2.0 for Windows - Filehippo.com".

External links

Songbird homepage(sourceforge)
Nightingale homepage - A community supported fork of the Songbird media player and library.
Songbird homepage, at archive.org
Songbird Add-ons, at archive.org
Songbird, the "open source iTunes killer," flies today - Boing Boing interview with Rob Lord
Lord of the Birds…Songbird Archived 25 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine - Interview with Rob Lord
Songbird ver. 1.4.2 review at Lifehacker.com - 23 December 2009, accessed 14 January 2010

[nolinux-1] Auberger, Georges (2 April 2010), "Songbird Singing a New Tune", Songbird Blog, Songbird, archived from the original on 4 April 2010, retrieved 2 April 2010

[2] "Translate Songbird!". Translate.songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 21 August 2007. Retrieved 14 July 2012.

[3] "About". Songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 14 July 2012.

[4] "You gotta know when to fold 'em". Songbirdnest.com. 14 June 2013. Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2013.

[infoworld-5] Wayner, Peter (19 October 2010). "Top 10 specialty Web browsers you may have missed". InfoWorld. p. 7. Retrieved 28 October 2010.

[6] Songbird Jobs Archived 25 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine

[7] Blankenhorn, Dana (7 January 2010), Songbird now in convenient Philips hardware form, ZDNet, archived from the original on 9 January 2010, retrieved 9 January 2010

[8] songbird [@songbird] (21 February 2013). "Use Songbird Desktop? Please take our 5 question product improvement survey" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

[9] "Songbird Blog » Songbird 1.1 is here". Archived from the original on 12 January 2010. Retrieved 12 January 2010.

[10] "iPod Device Support - Songbird Wiki". Wiki.songbirdnest.com. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 14 July 2012.

[11] "Songbird 1.7.3: Where did the subscriptions go?". Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2012.

[12] "Download Songbird 2.2.0 for Windows - Filehippo.com".

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