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by lediur 2952 days ago
Having used foobar2000 for many many years, I've loved its power and customizability, but I do wish that there was a modern way to customize its UI.

The basics are simple, but if you want to do styling tweaks or anything approaching a "custom" UI, you need to start hacking away at an obscure C++ SDK or an even weirder mishmash of GDI+ and old JavaScript.

If there was a modern and easily customizable frontend to foobar2000's core audio and media library engine, I'd be in love. Something like Zeit's Hyper, but for music. I'd be willing to trade off Electron resource usage if it meant I could set up the UI just how I like it.

2 comments

I still use Foobar2000 on Windows (cmus on Linux), but i wonder why everyone want a Custom UI (Skins) in media player, Is it an old WinAmp feature everyone is nostalgic for ?
Seeking a temp dopamine fix from spending hours perfecting the look of the UI.

Same goes for desktop environment "ricing".

For me I think it's because music is a hobby I care a lot about, and I'd like the "option but not the obligation" to easily improve my experience. I've tried a bunch of other music players over the years (on the go, Plexamp seems the most promising in the "access and play all the weird formats in my music collection anywhere in the world, look nice, and get out of my way" category) but I keep coming back to foobar2000 for the sheer capability and flexibility to tweak how I manage and interact with my music every day.
Thats's why I've stopped using foobar2000 and changed to Musicbee instead. Not as flexibel, but much easier for me to get a good looking music player on Windows with all the functions I like.
Really? I was always wondering why people would care about the looks of a (otherwise very functional) music app. I actually almost never look at it, it simply runs in the background!
For me it is pretty important.

I am listening to full albums most of the time and don't like shuffle play at all. So I am looking over all artists / albums every time I want to listen to something different. A big plus for me is a beautiful list with all the album covers.