README

Amarok - the audio player for KDE
===================================

There are many media players around these days, it's true. What's missing from most
players is a user interface that doesn't get in the way of the user. How many
buttons do you have to press for simply adding some new tracks to the playlist?
Amarok tries to be a little different, providing a simple drag and drop interface
that really makes playlist handling easy.


 FEATURES
==========

    * Quick and simple drag and drop playlist creation
    * Music library
    * Cross platform: Support for Unix, MacOS X and Windows
    * Plays all audio formats known to man
    * Cover art download using Last.fm services
    * Automatic play-statistics generation (iRate style)
    * Full lyrics download
    * Learn about your music with integrated Wikipedia
    * Full Last.fm support
    * gpodder.net support
    * Configurable on screen display for track changes
    * Podcast support
    * iPod support, as well as other media players
    * Powerful scripting interface
    * Integration with Plasma and KDE Applications
    * Integration with multiple web sources including Magnatune,
      Ampache, and others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 DEPENDENCIES
==============

The following list should give you an impression what's required but it might
not be entirely up to date. You can always look at CMakeLists.txt to discover
the most recent dependencies.

Required
    * KDE Frameworks 5.108 (or newer, for an exact list look at CMakeLists.txt)
      https://www.kde.org

    * Phonon 4.6.60 (or newer with support for Qt5) and one of the following backends:
      * phonon-gstreamer 4.6.3 (or newer)
      * phonon-vlc 0.6.1 (or newer; as of 0.6.1 doesn't yet play Audio CDs, bug 313046)

    * Qt 5.15
      https://qt.io/
      * Alternatively, building an experimental Qt6/KF6 version is now possible. Qt6
        and KDE Frameworks 6 development files are required, in addition to Phonon
        version with support for Qt6. Please be aware that there are likely a number
        of unknown issues in addition to known the ones (albums context applet not
        working, last.fm and gpodder not being available due to no relevant Qt6
        libraries available)

    * TagLib 1.12 (or newer)
      (Metadata tagging library)

    * MySQL 5.0 (or newer) / MariaDB (external database support) or MariaDB
      Embedded (In-process database support)

Optional
    * TagLib Extras 1.0.1 (or newer)
      (Support for metadata reading of RealMedia and Audible file types)
      https://websvn.kde.org/trunk/kdesupport/taglib-extras/

    * iPod support requires:
      * libgpod 0.8.2 (or newer)
        http://www.gtkpod.org/libgpod/
      * optional iPod album artwork support requires:
        * libgpod built with GDKPixBuf support enabled
        * GDKPixBuf 2.0 (or newer) itself

    * libmtp 1.0.0 (or newer)
      (MTP device support)
      http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/

    * Liblastfm 1.0.3 (or newer)
      (For scrobbling, internet radio, and artist info)
      https://github.com/lastfm/liblastfm

    * MusicBrainz-based audio fingerprint tag lookup requires:
      * FFmpeg 0.7.0 (or newer) - https://ffmpeg.org/
        * libavcodec & libavformat specifically
      * LibOFA - http://code.google.com/p/musicip-libofa/

    * gpodder.net Podcast Provider & Service
      * libmygpo-qt 1.1.0 (or newer)

    * Transcoding requires (at runtime):
      * FFmpeg 0.7.0 (or newer) - https://ffmpeg.org/
      * For all supported encoders to be available in Amarok, FFmpeg needs to
        support the following codecs:
        * aac (introduced in 3.0, https://www.ffmpeg.org/index.html#aac_encoder_stable)
        * alac
        * flac
        * opus
        * libmp3lame (NOT just "mp3")
        * libvorbis (NOT just "vorbis")
        * wmav2

    * CD support requires:
      * audiocd-kio - https://www.kde.org/ (part of KDE multimedia; NOTE: KF5 version)

    * Building tests require:
      * gmock 1.10 (or newer) - https://github.com/google/googletest

Please note that if compiling from source you also need to install -dev/-devel
versions of these packages, depending on your distribution.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 IMPORTANT INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
================================

To compile from source, please refer to the INSTALL file.

Packages for popular distributions are available at https://amarok.kde.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 FURTHER RESOURCES
===================

For answers to problems like "Amarok won't play any MP3s!" and "My MP3s skip
and stutter!" please visit:

   https://amarok.kde.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 CONTRIBUTING
==============

If you wish to contribute to Amarok, you should build it from Git and subscribe
to the amarok AT kde.org mailing list. The IRC channel is also a place where
it's nice to be. There you can talk to other developers easily.

More information at:
https://community.kde.org/Amarok/Development/Join

See you on IRC!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WWW:  https://amarok.kde.org
MAIL: amarok@kde.org
IRC:  irc.libera.chat - #amarok