Nightingale (software)
Encyclopedia
Nightingale is a completely free, open source
audio player
and web browser
based on the Songbird media player
source code. Since official support for Linux was dropped by Songbird in April, 2010, Linux using members of the Songbird community diverged and created the project. Being a descendant of Songbird, Nightingale is based on the Mozilla XULRunner
engine, with libraries such as the GStreamer media framework
and libtag providing media tagging and playback support. Contrary to it's parent, Songbird, whose name and skin/feather is copyrighted and closed source, Nightingale licensed under the GPLv2, with portions under the MPL
and BSD licenses.
As of now, Nightingale is still work-in-progress, although headway is being made since new developers joined the project. A preview release based on the Songbird 1.8.1 code tree is being prepared with a target release date of December 15, 2011.
. Community coded extensions are available on Alivebirds, a community addons and information site for Songbird based players.
s are referred to as "feathers" in Nightingale, and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Nightingale 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 Nightingale look however they want.
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
audio player
Audio player (software)
An audio player is a kind of media player for playing back digital audio, including optical discs such as CDs, SACDs, DVD-Audio, HDCD, audio files and streaming audio....
and web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
based on the Songbird media player
Songbird (software)
Songbird is a free and open source software audio player and web browser, with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web."...
source code. Since official support for Linux was dropped by Songbird in April, 2010, Linux using members of the Songbird community diverged and created the project. Being a descendant of Songbird, Nightingale is based on the Mozilla XULRunner
XULRunner
XULRunner is a runtime environment developed by the Mozilla Foundation to provide a common back-end for XUL-based applications. It replaced the Gecko Runtime Environment, a stalled project with a similar purpose....
engine, with libraries such as the GStreamer media framework
GStreamer
GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
and libtag providing media tagging and playback support. Contrary to it's parent, Songbird, whose name and skin/feather is copyrighted and closed source, Nightingale licensed under the GPLv2, with portions under the MPL
Mozilla Public License
The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...
and BSD licenses.
As of now, Nightingale is still work-in-progress, although headway is being made since new developers joined the project. A preview release based on the Songbird 1.8.1 code tree is being prepared with a target release date of December 15, 2011.
Features
- Multi-platform compatibility with LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Mac OS X v10.5Mac OS X v10.5Mac OS X Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on 26 October 2007 as the successor of Tiger , and is available in two variants: a desktop version suitable for personal computers, and a...
(x86, x86-64). - Ability to play multiple audio formats, such as MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, AACAdvanced Audio CodingAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Apple LosslessApple LosslessApple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced...
and WMAWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs... - Ability to play Apple FairPlayFairPlayFairPlay is a digital rights management technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, iTunes, and iTunes Store and the App Store. Formerly, all songs in...
-encoded audio on Windows and Mac platforms via hooks into QuickTimeQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
(authorization takes place in iTunesITunesiTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
) - Ability to play Windows Media DRMWindows Media DRMWindows Media DRM is a Digital Rights Management service for the Windows Media platform. It is designed to provide delivery of audio and/or video content over an IP network to a PC or other playback device in such a way that the distributor can control how that content is used.WMDRM includes the...
audio on Windows platforms - A skinnableSkin (computing)In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....
interface - Media files stored on pages viewed in the browser show up as playable files in Nightingale
- MP3 file downloadMusic downloadA music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
- Ability to subscribe to MP3 blogs as playlistPlaylistIn its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. They can be played in sequential or shuffled order. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.-In radio:...
s - 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 interfaceGraphical user interfaceIn computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
similar to iTunes, and mini-player mode - Keyboard shortcuts and media keyboard support
- Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
integration via a plugin, complete with love/hate buttons - Microsoft MTPMedia Transfer ProtocolThe Media Transfer Protocol is a devised set of custom extensions to the Picture Transfer Protocol . Whereas PTP was designed for downloading photographs from digital cameras, Media Transfer Protocol supports the transfer of music files on digital audio players and media files on portable media...
compatible device support - Ability to edit and save metadata tagsID3ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself....
- Gapless Playback & ReplayGain
- Watch Folders
- Media Importing / Exportings (from and to iTunes)
- Automatic Library Files Organization
Extensions
Users can add features and change functionality in Nightingale by installing extensions. Extensions are similar to the Extensions for the Firefox browser and can be easily portedPorting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
. Community coded extensions are available on Alivebirds, a community addons and information site for Songbird based players.
Skins
SkinSkin (computing)
In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....
s are referred to as "feathers" in Nightingale, and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Nightingale via an extension which generates a default skin. Using CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
(and optionally XUL
XUL
In computer programming, XUL , the XML User Interface Language, is an XML user interface markup language developed by the Mozilla project. XUL operates in Mozilla cross-platform applications such as Firefox...
), and an image manipulation program such as Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
or GIMP
GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...
, users are then able to make Nightingale look however they want.
See also
- List of media players
- Comparison of media playersComparison of media playersThe following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "video players" are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files.-General:-Operating system...
- List of feed aggregators
- Comparison of feed aggregatorsComparison of feed aggregatorsThe following is a comparison of notable RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.Many BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds for broadcatching ....