Captain's Log

Winamp 5 Media Library

Most of the people I know use Winamp as their music player. Hopefully people are either using Winamp 5 or 2.91, and not Winamp 3, because it sucks. If you are using 5 or 2.91, then you have the Media Library available to you, but I'm guessing that most people don't use it. I think it's pretty useful and neat. If you ever use the jump to feature in the playlist, then you'll like the Media Library

You have it scan through your mp3 folders, and it catalogs everything based on ID3 tag (or filename if necessary) and stores it in the media library database. Normally if you wanted to find a song, you'd have to navigate your directory structure, browse around, and find the song. Now you can just type any part of the song (title, album, artist) in the search box, and it pares down the listings in the box to the ones that match. Want to play Push the Hand by the Toadies? Just type 'push' in the box, and it'll list the songs that match (5 in my case), and you can click to play or enqueue the song. There are a ton of options to configure, so you can get the behavior of the list just the way you like it. There are some other neat features, like the fact that it keeps stats on what you play, how often you play it, and the last time you've played any given song. Also you can play/control external devices (i.e. mp3 players) if you have the appropriate plugin, but I haven't tried this yet.

So if you are using Winamp 5, then you might as well give it a try, since it's already available. Those who still use Windows Media Player need to give Winamp a try for playing audio.

As an additional treat, here's a list of most requested Winamp features that are plugins. (for v5) Makes for a good list of useful, handy plugins.