Amarok roadmap 2025

[Tuomas Nurmi]

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd write some ideas for Amarok in 2025 down somewhere, and the amarok-devel list
is probably a very good medium for that:

I have a rough roadmap sketched on invent.kde.org as milestones and issues
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/milestones
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues
and I'll write some further notes about them & other things here

First, the closest one:

Amarok 3.2.2 - probably the final version with Qt5/KF5 support. Probably in early March.
A bunch of bugfixes, possibly some small features [& more Qt6 support improvements?]
(maybe finally "Preserve CollectionBrowser ordering when adding to playlist"
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180404 pending since 2009 -
WIP code at https://invent.kde.org/nurmi/amarok/-/tree/sortOrder )

After that one is released, drop Qt5/KF5 support.
I wrote this on IRC earlier:
"[Qt6] 3 things TODO: porting albums context view applet to qtcontrols 2, but that's only after dropping qt5, as it
needs to be partially rewritten;
implementing cache for network connections on qt6, as there's something qt5/kf5 that's been ifdeffed out for qt6;
and possibly replacing some ifdeffed-out connectivity checks with QNetworkConfigurationManager().isOnline() "

Some other things to do also:
drop the antique taglib-extras ( https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/18 ) and do the first db scheme
update since 2012 to fix some db-related bugs & make everything a bit more future-proof by changing to a more
modern utf8 codec in db - related merge request at https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/merge_requests/134

and after these are done - release as the first Qt6/KF6 -only version 3.3.0
Maybe late April, exactly 1 year after 3.0? If everything's ready to go then, why not.

Why start Qt6 with 3.3.0? I wrote earlier at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498169
"I remember KDE 4.0 - the discrepancy between the expectations for the fresh new future vs the actual case of focus being getting a ".0" for a very much renewed technology stack.
There's a lot that could - and should - be done (4.0), but a very reasonable amount of work will ensure that the lights stay on for many many many more years as is (3.3)"


And after this groundwork is there - target Amarok 4 - no exact ETA yet, no exact plans yet
I've noted a bunch of TODOs for that one earlier: audio, db, UI & scripting:
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/11
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/12
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/13
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/14



Auxiliary to all these, there's of course the tasks of modernizing website, documentation etc, e.g.
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/issues/17
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=496160
not quite my line of business, I hope that someone picks these up, but if not, possibly will do myself at
some point (but that will be later than sooner)


Also noting here the nice work by NitrosTwitch on working to get current Amarok build on Windows;
ongoing in IRC & also some earlier notes on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1i3e62b/trying_to_compile_latest_amarok_for_windows/
I've tried to assist a bit and find solutions to compilation errors encountered, currently working
with some library export errors - again, definitely not my line of business, but progressing, still.


Wishing everyone a nice weekend
(with Amarok blasting out my favourite tunes, like it has done the last 20 years or so for me)
Tuomas