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Songbird Source Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the for-your-patching-pleasure dept.

Rinisari writes "The source for Songbird, a music-oriented XULRunner application, is now available via Subversion. Rob Lord, CEO of Pioneers of the Inevitable, released the source for the not-yet-0.2 version of the music player, which integrates a music library and the facility to purchase and download music from a variety of vendors. If you haven't heard of it, read the features list and try it out. Slashdot previously mentioned Songbird when it was released as a preview in February."

3 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. What's that quote? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A caged source can't sing?

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  2. Why XUL? by kahei · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Is XUL a good application platform? If so, why?

    It doesn't seem to have much to reccommend it at first glance -- a language that lacks features and performance (javascript) a runtime that's bulky (mozilla), and worst of all a real case of Java-itis -- XML files and source files that endlessly have to be kept in sync and bundled together, no self-documentation and no metadata.

    I ask because I tried porting a semi-complicated IE plugin to XUL and had to give up -- admittedly, I had to give up because of limitations in the HTML renderer, but long before then I had learned to dread the process of hooking into Mozilla at all. And that's saying something, considering that the original IE plugin was entirely made of hand-written COM, written against IE's none-too-predictable interfaces.

    So, why XUL? I appreciate that you _could_ write an application in it, but what's the unique selling point that justifies all the work?

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    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
    1. Re:Why XUL? by kahei · · Score: 3, Insightful


      To be honest, your reply comes across as 'don't use XUL'. Being cross-platform (to platforms that have Mozilla available and installed) is hardly a big unique selling point that justifies a whole new way of doing things. As you point out:


      To be sure, you don't need to do XUL- you can do the application in Qt, GTK+, Fltk, and a few others and get
      the same results with less effort unless you need some HTML rendering support
       ...and even if I do need HTML rendering support, I can embed a browser or launch a browser or use an HTML control, or use Java or (on a good day with the wind blowing S by SE) Mono or Ruby+[binding].

      So, why use XUL...

      --
      Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.