January 27, 2001

10:30 AM

Winamp 3.0a2has been released to the general public. Beware it's Alpha 2 so some things aren't complete, such as the EQ, but it still has some nice new features such as the Thinger and the ability to layer and alpha blend skins.
posted by physics (15 comments total)

The new skin technology simply rocks. The download comes with an extra skin that looks more like a Kjofol skin or some other type of player than the normal Winamp.

Also, you can choose to include whichever buttons you desire, so if that shuffle button was never any use to you, leave it out. New playlist technology and so much more. Skin makers are going to have a field day with this, simply anything can be done.
posted by physics at 10:33 AM on January 27, 2001

I think Jakob Neilson's gonna have something to say about this......
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 10:47 AM on January 27, 2001

Is this a legit release physics? Why isn't it at winamp.com, and instead at some file archive?
posted by mathowie at 11:15 AM on January 27, 2001

I'm guessing it was given to a select few for testing, and one of those few gave it away. But, I don't think this is a big deal considering Winamp is freeware anyway.
posted by Mark at 11:27 AM on January 27, 2001

Am I the only person who thinks skins are the work of the devil?

I suppose with a "cool" application like Winamp they're not so bad, but for anything else they just throw the whole idea of standards out the window.

Me: Here, Mr. Bonehead User, here is MS Windows. It's designed so that all the applications have the same look and feel so when you know one application the others will be easier to learn.

User: Oh look, my son-in-law just sent me this skin thingy. Even though I don't know how to reply to email or insert a floppy disk into my PC, I was somehow able to install the skin. Now I can't understand how to use my program. Can you walk over here and help me out?

Me: *cocks shotgun*

posted by bondcliff at 11:57 AM on January 27, 2001

The release is legit...here's the link from Winamp...

http://genghis.winamp.com/~brennan/wa3/
posted by physics at 12:01 PM on January 27, 2001

Thanks physics, I couldn't reach the other ones, but that one worked great.
posted by mathowie at 12:08 PM on January 27, 2001

Any bugs reported? How stable is it thus far?

I'm still on 2.666 (seriously) and don't want to upgrade to a buggy alpha.
posted by mkn at 12:17 PM on January 27, 2001

Its very cool. I like where they are going with this player. Winamp is finally catching up to the likes of Sonique, K-jofol, and MS Windows Media Player. I wouldn't reccomend downloading it at this time for day to day use. Its is missing alot of the nice features/options Winamp users are probably accostumed to from past versions.

As far as skins go, I love them on my mp3 players, but I'm with you bondclif, they definately don't need to be implemented into all software apps.
posted by howa2396 at 1:45 PM on January 27, 2001

I think you have to understand that skins that f*&$ with the user interface are fun for people. It's like making up industry slang or customizing a car. There aren't that many people who are going to be wasting your time with that kind of question, bondolf -- it's not like you can install a skin accidentally.

Obviously they're popular. Laissez faire.
posted by dhartung at 5:34 PM on January 27, 2001

mkn: I've got you beat, I'm still on 2.61. Everything after that just kinda felt like AOL had their paws in it a little too much.

boncliff: The only one? No. Part of the vast minority? Yeah.

There's a difference between "skins" and "themes," btw, and you seem to be thinking of themes. Skins change colors and appearence, but not layout of functionality. No matter what skin I have on winamp, I all the same buttons, and they're all in the same place. Mozilla, for example, has themes. In addition to changing the appearance, you can move buttons around and things like that.
posted by CrayDrygu at 7:58 PM on January 27, 2001

I'm still trying to justify Winamp over my simple MP3 ripper/encoder/player combo. (Simple MP3) Is it really that killer an app, or is it just that there's fun with the functionality?
posted by Dreama at 10:10 PM on January 27, 2001

Dreama: Part of the advantage (if not nearly all of it) is that Winamp makes extensive use of plugins.

It comes with ones for MP3, WAV, CD, MIDI, WMA, Mjuice, and probably a few others. So let's say some new audio format comes out, and it catches on even better than MP3. As soon as someone writes a plugin for it, WinAmp can play it. Or even an existing format -- MOD files, for example, or Ogg Vorbis. Just download the plugin.
posted by CrayDrygu at 7:07 PM on January 28, 2001

Thanks. Since I barely make use of the multimedia aspects of my various systems (having an exquisite sound system in my office makes it rather moot) I'll likely stick with what I have, even though that does sound like it is indeed, a killer app.
posted by Dreama at 10:11 PM on January 28, 2001

If the above links don't work, download it from Brennan's site.

From Desktopian.org "I see that LoneRunnr & r0n (the Fathers of Litestep & K-Jöfol respectively) are listed as two of the three signatories of the readme. Not to mention that they appear to have have new nicks:

Brennan "I EAT CODE" Underwood
Francis "I EAT FAMILIES" Gastellu
Christophe "I PROUT, THEREFORE I AM" Thibault

And I see that long time associate, maker of the infamous original Litestep 'Piggy' splash screen and the original v1.0 'shrooms K-Jöfol skin, 'splif' turns up as contributing the bundled box0r free-form skin."
posted by riffola at 2:27 PM on February 5, 2001