[Feedback] very short interview

[Ian Monroe]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:38 PM,  <joschi at yalmagazine.org> wrote:
> Jürgen Weidner sent a message using the contact form at
> http://amarok.kde.org/en/contact.
>
> Hallo Amarok Team,
>
> for the August edition for our Linux Magazine Yalm
> (http://www.yalmagazine.org) i wrote an article about Amarok. I've described
> a lot of the features, how to configure Amarok and so on. It's a really
> extensive article. But at it's end i didn't know what to write about Amaroks
> future. Please be so kind and give me some answers to my following questions:
>
> What will be better for the users in Amarok version 2.0?

I think better integration with Internet services is the most obvious
and impressive new feature for Amarok 2. In Amarok 1.4 we had the
Magnatune music store. Amarok 2 adds easy access to Ampache, Mp3Tunes
and Jamendo with a scripting interface to allow additional Internet
services added. From the beginning we wanted to make Internet and
media device tracks "first class" citizens in Amarok. We hope to have
it so that all the features that work with local files should work
with remote as well.

> What has changed at the technical base? (Trolltech, Phonon?)

Amarok 2 takes advantage of the great new technology available from
Qt4 and KDE4. Thanks to Qt4's ItemView technology, the playlist should
be able to handle more files. KDE4's Solid hardware framework should
allow our media device support to be nearly configuration-free.

Phonon is the new media framework and it gives some new user-visible
features: better multiple-sound card handling and it plugs in KIO
protocol support (so now you can play files off of a SSH server, for
example).

I'm currently working on our scripting support along with a Google
Summer of Code student Peter Zhou. It uses the QtScript, a JavaScript
implementation. We will be giving access to nearly the entire Qt API
to our scripts. Firefox extensions show the potential: we are giving
Amarok script developers the ability to create similarly powerful and
creative scripts. Maybe some of the best features of Amarok 2 won't
even be implemented by us!

> What's about the use in Windows and Mac OS?
There were developers working on Amarok 2 on Mac OS from the very
beginning. The Windows port is making progress as well. The Windows
and Mac support might remain beta after Amarok 2 is released as final
for Linux: features such as media device support might lag behind a
bit.

> When can we hope to see the new release of Amarok2?
Fall 08. BE THERE.

> Are you tired to hear always the same questions?;-)

Hey, its important for people to know whats going on. Thanks for asking them. :)

> Please send your answer with name, function and maybe a picture to my adress.

Ian Monroe, Developer, I'll send you a picture later today.

> Thank you very much and good luck, we count on you
>
> joschi
>