maybe you could achieve this with foo_customtag... but not sure if its possible

Not really mate It doesn't work the way it's supposed to...

because its the best freaking audio player out there.

I love it because it's fast and efficient ! The programmer knows his stuff, good job man

ALL I CAN SAY IS:

FREEEEEDOM!!!!! to do anything you darn please with your music!!!

Thank you!!

I found fb2k 0.8.3 while searching for a music match replacement. I wanted a multiple file renamer, tagger and converter/ripper without limitations imposed on it's features, and fb2k completed that desire. I've enjoyed customizing and watching it grow since.

I originally needed something that could handle .tta files and a wikipedia comparsion of media players showed foobar could handle it along with a whole skew of others so I tried it and loved it ever since. I love tweeking it a little bit every time I'm bored.

A few months ago I was thinking about a long, praising text here about its great and useful options and user interface (I came from winamp about or two years ago, and after I got used to it I enjoyed it very much), but I think I found what can I say in short and simple: I like foobar's functional beauty very much.

(And - although I am a big fan op optimized software - I can't say too much about its hardware footprint, because it simply can't be measured on my system, at least CPU-wise )

I've been using foobar couple years ago and tried it about year ago again but I've found to many coding and configuring instead of enjoying music, so I've turned to media monkey pro witch fits me in excelent way. Unfortunetly I 've changed my sound device to EMU 0404 last time and media monkey which uses winamp plugins freezes when using asio drivers so in the meantime I'm back to foobar which handles ASIO quite good.

> to many coding and configuring

Hm, Foobar plays music quite well in its default state.
I agree that I've configured much of it, such as the formatting and layout of basically every part that displays some info about a track, and by god I cannot stand black-on-white for a playlist, but I'm just a customiser by nature.

The only thing that kept me with Winamp for so long was its spectrograph plugin. Now that Foobar has one, I'm really enjoying its better layout and superior playlist management abilities.

Though I still don't really like how it's the standard grey Windows fuf. I suppose I just want something nice to look at.

Cause there is no other option :/ iTunes is 2 cpu consuming, no folders in playlists, its not very beautiful though intuitive and simple to use. Amarok is not yet avaible for windows. Winamp media library is crap, and mediamonkey has really stupid interface. EDIT:Most players are ugly as hell (maybe except winamp & itunes), and skins for the ugly-ones are also ugly

In fact, only thing that I like in foobar, is its customizability, which is quite good I guess, but since I have very little skills in programming, I have to use plugins by others, which doesnt suit my needs completly.

Anyway, after one week of modding Ive managed to have nice UI (mogelbrod panel UI), writing custom tags to id3tag, (rating, date added, play count), jump to currently playling song, playlists organized in folders, total tracks in playlist info, some autoplaylists (some not :/), artwork display, nice & small spectrum analyzer (though I would like something better, but if foobar handles vst's well, it shouldnt be a problem), popup info, iPod support (quite nice! tags mapping and syncing)

Things I cant get to work: autoplaylist based on total size, playlist with random albums, autoplaylist based on other autoplaylists(see my post in playlist tree plugin), drag and drop to playlist (!!) [not doable yet through playlist tree, which I use), iTunes-like search (doable using facets in default UI, but not in panels UI), easy way to create autoplaylist, auto-rescan library, cash mashine, pool, free drinks, getting playcount from ipod (heard it can be treaky or eaven not possible?), graphical representation of library ( ),

Things I havent worked on yet, but still want it: simplified eq (2 many faders! but again i could use vst), sorted playlist (heard its doable), converting flac/any other to ALAC (dunno if possible), powerful tags & files managing (I think no problem with that, but havent tried it yet so cant tell), multiple genre tags), better iPod support (I can only wait for newer foo_dop).

Don't know where to start!
Live Show Tagger, as a collector of live music, this is wonderful, wonderful.
I can use my ipod on my work PC and laptop without erasing it and not to mention having to load itunes and the annoying army of memory resident junk.
The community...
That doesn't begin to answer but ...

simple, light , customizability, but also respect standard as ID3tag and can display album art name cover.jpg.

Small, simple customizable, no "dogs and ponies". What more can I say. Thanks you FooFolks!

MRK

Light in resources, fast and extensible.
Great piece of software. :-)

Only missing thing (but I can live without it) it's a way to handle MTP devices directly.

I like it because i can customize it the way i want, and its not bloated with sh*t like many other players

Well, I'm an obsessive tinkerer, so I'm drawn to the completely customizable UI. On that same note, it's easily expandable with other people's plugins, and as I learn more C++, mine as well.

There is not even a default layout to choose from that takes up more than half my screen without losing viewability, let alone the one I made.

Sure, Winamp offers most of this as well, but resource use is on average better (three times better at idle now that I look at it) with foobar2000, and many of the customization options, especially for making custom UIs, for Winamp are far more a pain in the ass than comparable ones in fb2k.

Plus, it's got a few out-of-the-box features that to my knowledge no major player for Windows has, such as mass-file-conversion (iTunes pushing the aac format doesn't count).

If anything, the only thing I'd say it's missing is a graphical queue manager for Panels UI, but I know enough C++ to get around that given time.

Honestly, foobar is one of the most ridiculously designed pieces of software I've ever seen from a user interface perspective. In order to make it look anywhere close to an average media player from 5 years ago I have to download 5-10 plugins and (possibly) write scripts to configure the UI? WTF?

I've been programming for many years now and have spent days customizing dotfiles and having all sorts of fun hacking configurations, but foobar is a nightmare to deal with. All over the forum and wiki I see stickied posts that say "DONT USE PANELSUI" and yet 99% of all configurations posted use PUI. Even worse, to get something that doesn't look like total junk you have to use PUI. EVEN WORSE, programming PUI is buggy and poorly documented, and it's not even being worked on anymore! Is this the expectation of the foobar community for a user to configure foobar to have a halfway decent UI?

Look it's great the foobar is all nice and efficient and compact but when you have to spend 2 weeks to get it to NOT look like an Excel spreadsheet, something is wrong.

The only reason I'm even approaching this is that I need a Windows program that can handle a large library with fast replaygain scanning.

Ok, I feel better now.

@nxmehta
It isn't foobar's design you are raging on, but its third party software, especially PUI - ColumnsUI is way easier.

you could start with tool++'s configurations http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=46093&hl=

then get another windows visual style (http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/windows/visualstyle/ etc). Note that foobar may look fine with the new default UI then.

If you've been "programming for many years now" Why not write a customizable UI that "isn't ridiculous".

The new default UI is more than enough for anyone who's not a gloss-fag.

I like the fact foobar looks like Excel or some database frontend ! I even in fact use it that way.

Why are you trying to have it look like a media player from 5 years ago? Foobar's playlist-centric design is more effective than the stereotypical car-radio-ish player with big playback buttons in your face and playlist control as a sort of luxury extra. Music management is not optional.

I agree that black-on-white is ewwww, but it takes all of two seconds to change the colour scheme -- I was already much satisfied by the tan on dark blue scheme, which I only tweaked a little. Everything else I did to customise it has been evolution over the course of its usage.

I don't have any plugins. Foobar fulfils all my needs out of the box package file. I'm especially enamoured with Automatically Fill Values from filenames. To heck with you, ye lax taggers!

I used it at first because it was an easy to use interface to convert files.

Then I noticed that sound quality seemed to be higher (and I have no proof of this, so please view this as entirely subjective and not proven by me and don't kick me off the forums for breaking the rules) Then I found out it could be highly customised to suit whatever layout I wanted - and look pleasing to the eye. Then I found out that with a bit of a nudge it could manage my albums better than I expected. Then I found out it was great for handling tags.

...

Plus I have never liked Winamp. Ever. And I used version 1 I find Windows Media Player to feel sluggish and bloated. I like neat, tidy, resource economical software. Media Player Classic while being good for video, has horrible playlist management. No iplayer is ever going near my PC. And every other player is trying to emulate what the guy above seems to be after... which is the winamp/horribly useless here's some buttons and a track name and it's just like a car stereo!

So essentially I use it not because it's good, but because it's the only software that does what I want.

It's an incredible bonus that it also happens to be extremely good. I don't have a sister, but if I did I'd let Peter Pawlowski sleep with her.

Same here o.0


I think foobar is so good because of plugins, so your sister would be very busy... ^^

I've been using it for several years now and I can't bear to get close to a different music player now. I love the simplicity of its design, along with full customization capabilities.

Also, I take the opportunity to thank the developers for the new WYSIWYG default interface option. It's amazingly effective for my modest needs. Thank you!

Honestly, I want to like foobar2000, I really do.

However, lack of any kind of integrated set-it-and-forget it Podcast/Netcast features is a major miss for me, since I listen to podcasts for at least 5 hours a day. So far only ONE program can do that, and it's not foobar2000.

I have simple requirements:
1) Must automatically download new episodes without user intervention or a second program.
2) Must remember position within the file.
3) Must have an option to automatically delete non-new Podcasts/Netcasts once listened to without user intervention or a second program.

If foobar2000 can implement such features, it will of course be my media player of choice. Lacking them - I have to pass.

Hi, I use Foobar2000 side by side with Winamp. I like the undramatic no frills lay out. WinAmp has a slight pause between tracks, very irritating when playing continuous albums. Foobar2000 keeps on playing.

Why do you use Winamp?

Actually I don't have a choice not to use foobar2000. It's highly addictive, and with a fast growing music collection that needs proper tagging it's the best tool around.

With the extensive ability to store custom tags and create (auto)playlists the possebilities are endless. Also I have many ideas of new components I hope I can learn to develop in the future

(1) is not possible (might be with some external batch script i think), but you can try create a thread requesting such feature. I think that (2) is possible - I just don't remember if it's a function in the core or a component (i was unable to find it). (3) is possible with this component.

I use Winamp for my player (and have for over a decade ) ... I don't have any gap problems with gapless albums.

But as for foobar ... I couldn't live without it for tagging! The ability to powerfully edit tags in MASSES (and quickly), and then rename the files and move them into album folders based on those tags is ... outstanding. Without foobar my music collection would be messy and horribly unorganized ... with foobar, it's clean, neat, and tidy. Couldn't live without it.

I initially started using foobar like that. Then I gradually started using it when I wanted a bit of music playing in the background, and to run off my ipod. Then I started customising it a bit more - and each time I did that, I used foobar a bit more for music and Winamp a little less. I've now found that every single feature I liked in Winamp is replicable in some form or another in foobar (except maybe visualisations), plus many more useful features.
The last time my computer crashed, Winamp didn't get re-installed and it's been foobar all the way since

Mainly because of its small footprint, and how its easy to manage/edit tags in a large music collection, does these things better then any other player. To many players have become bloated im glad foobar has not.

About 3 years ago I was winamp & iTunes user (i could not choose the best one between the two, so I had both of them). I made my own skins (none of them were accepted by winamp.com so it kinda sucked). The day earlier before registering here i started using foobar. It was version 0.9.3 (or so). I loved it, compared to iTunes & winamp. Because i could make the player look like I wanted. ('custom tags, bunch of components woohoo'). My library is still under construction, but I guess, it will never get to the `final version`.

At work I have openSUSE linux. Well, let's face it, my work laptop is not for music playing, but linux native player Amarok is not so good as fb2k. But I took some ideas from Amarok, to add in my library. Also, foobar2000 has the best community site (in my opinion)to get some help..

Cheers everyone somehow connected to fbk!
Keep up the great work/development of the greatest music player

It works, has a clean interface and can do Kernel Streaming.

What more needs to be said?

I did love it, till I installed 0.9.5.1

Thankfully I still have an older installer around to keep using

Have been a foo user since 0.8.3. and like it for it simplicity and the fact it can play everything you throw at without the need to install some codec that may not work. I've fallen in love with the converter function because it keeps all tags and you can do multiple files to one if you choose so. Plus those colored icons per codec is sweet.

Hi,

New poster, long time lurker. I've followed foobar's evolution on the last couple of years, always tried new versions, to simply uninstall them next. Thankfully, the new DefaultUI finally allows me to have this setup my way without having to know too much technical details.

With that said, i chose foobar because no other player gives me this degree of customizability and power. Also no other player has this strong community of users always ready to help.

Cheers

I'm quite new to Foobar2000, and I've never used older versions. Is there a particular reason you prefer the older versions?