We discussed this issue at today's WG meeting but did not yet reach a consensus. Should continue discussion at a future meeting.

@aday, do we want to bring this up for discussion again?

@aday, do we want to bring this up for discussion again?

I'm not sure. What was the conclusion of the last discussion?

It would be great to have Music replace Rhythmbox, as it is a much more consistent with the rest of the UX. My experience is that it still has issues though. The last time I tried it, I hit this issue, for example.

Well it's been another year.

I think Music is ready, but if the WG disagrees, let's at least remove Rhythmbox since Videos is a better default music player (given that it doesn't attempt to import every sound file played into a music database).

I would prefer to make this decision in reference to a) the complete list of pre-installed apps and b) a policy and set of design goals for what gets pre-installed.

Where can I find a? Does b exist?

One feature missing in GNOME Music that was considered a blocker for this change in the past was the support for removable devices (phone, usb stick, etc...).

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-music/issues/8

Can it be a flatpak?

Can it be a flatpak?

It's already on Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Music

One feature missing in GNOME Music that was considered a blocker for this change in the past was the support for removable devices (phone, usb stick, etc...).

There are some polish issues that I'd like to see resolved too, although to my shame I haven't filed issues for them all yet (mostly things around the lists, which are inconsistent, and some of the playlist section is a bit broken).

However, I think we maybe have a bigger question to answer, which is: in 2020, is it useful to preinstall an app that's specifically for playing local music files? This isn't to say that it's not good to have those apps available, should someone want to use them, but it is to question whether it is important to have one of them preinstalled on every system.

in 2020, is it useful to preinstall an app that's specifically for playing local music files?

Good question. My instinct says no. I'd much rather have a recommended app for managing+playing podcasts. I've only used Vocal on Fedora, while gPodder has a higher score in GNOME Software.

Superseded by #125

I think we should recommence this discussion. Obvious questions to answer:

• Is Music being actively maintained?
• Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that?
• Is the overall UX quality where we want it to be?

I think we should recommence this discussion. Obvious questions to answer:

• Is Music being actively maintained?

Yes.

• Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that?

Ideally. That would be very nice.

• Is the overall UX quality where we want it to be?

That determination is kind of up to you, as lead designer, right? It's surely better than Rhythmbox?

...

• Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that?

Ideally. That would be very nice.

If Videos doesn't play audio files, it might be more important than that. But testing here, it still seems to, so maybe that's OK.

...

• Is the overall UX quality where we want it to be?

That determination is kind of up to you, as lead designer, right? It's surely better than Rhythmbox?

I'm not sure that Music is quite there in terms of quality, but yes it is probably better than Rhythmbox. My main concern is that, if we do switch to Music, it is going to be developed in such away that existing rough edges go away over time.

If Videos doesn't play audio files, it might be more important than that. But testing here, it still seems to, so maybe that's OK.

Yeah, works here too. Huh, OK.

I'm not sure that Music is quite there in terms of quality, but yes it is probably better than Rhythmbox. My main concern is that, if we do switch to Music, it is going to be developed in such away that existing rough edges go away over time.

I would start by reporting upstream issues for the rough edges that you see.

...

• Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that?

Ideally. That would be very nice.

If Videos doesn't play audio files, it might be more important than that. But testing here, it still seems to, so maybe that's OK.

I believe @hadess intends to break this with the GNOME 40 release of Totem/GNOME Videos, so I wouldn't count on that.

There's already no association for audio files in the 3.38.0 release:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/totem/-/commit/e4a1aaf7d9d3b2c50e2540d5d7f0059ffa30c26b

I didn't "break" anything. It's a video player, and audio specific features have been getting removed or obsoleted since at least totem's current design was made in the early 2010s, and rhythmbox is still being shipped as an audio player in Fedora.

And I'm getting frankly tired of the idea that I somehow made those changes out of spite rather than it being the result of years of "de-media-playerisation" of the project.

I would start by reporting upstream issues for the rough edges that you see.

An initial list:

• Is Music being actively maintained?

Yes.

Poking around the issue tracker, it doesn't seem to be in the best state to be honest - ambiguous old tickets, old design proposals that have been sitting around for years. (Not pointing fingers here.)

Poking around the issue tracker, it doesn't seem to be in the best state to be honest - ambiguous old tickets, old design proposals that have been sitting around for years. (Not pointing fingers here.)

I'm going to take this comment back. I've had a good response from the maintainers since I reported those issues and the project seems active.

Hi Allan, any status updates here? Keep in mind the question is "is it better than Rhythmbox?" and not "is it everything we ever wanted?"

Hi Allan, any status updates here? Keep in mind the question is "is it better than Rhythmbox?" and not "is it everything we ever wanted?"

Thanks for the ping! I've updated the status of the issues in my little review above.

Is it better than Rhythmbox is a somewhat tricky question. Overall the UI design of Music is nicer, but Rhythmbox is more featureful and Music does have rough edges. In some respects I think the bar needs to be higher for whatever we might want to switch to. One concern in that regard is the fairly low level of development activity around Music.

Action: Allan to blog and request community attention for the selected issues.

Here is an updated issue status:

Issue	Status
Missing album artwork	Resolved
Content doesn't automatically appear after adding files to ~/Music	Resolved
Inconsistent list styles	Resolved
Album view loading isn't smooth	Resolved
Playlists UX improvements	Unresolved
Empty starred tracks list looks broken	Unresolved
Open audio files	Unresolved

I think playlist UX improvements and empty starred tracks lists are not blockers, but opening audio files is. Allan, do you agree? If so, I would like to let the Music maintainers know that we will swap Rhythmbox -> Music once that remaining issue is fixed.

I think playlist UX improvements and empty starred tracks lists are not blockers, but opening audio files is. Allan, do you agree?

It depends on what we expect to happen with totem, I think. If it continues to be able to play audio, and can act as the default audio handler, then it seems OK to switch Rhythmbox for Music.

It depends on what we expect to happen with totem, I think. If it continues to be able to play audio, and can act as the default audio handler, then it seems OK to switch Rhythmbox for Music.

Bastien has already removed support for handling audio, he just didn't do a new totem release for 40 or 41. So we have a little breathing room until 42 at least. But not much.

Maybe instead of gnome music it would be better to replace rhythmbox with lollypop?

We'd like to stick with core GNOME applications. I'm sure Lollypop is great, but its maintainer is taking a different direction, and that's fine.

We'll likely be able to do this (finally!) for Fedora 37, see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-music/-/merge_requests/901

Just putting my 2c here... Rhythmbox's UI is extremely outdated and it doesn't follow the GNOME UX, making it stick out like a sore thumb among the default apps. Canonical papers this over in Ubuntu by using the Alternative Toolbar extension (provided by the rhythmbox-alternative-toolbar package here in Fedora), which helps some, but I know Fedora prefers to do things upstream so I don't believe including that is a possibility?

There are a few issues I have with GNOME Music:

• Shuffle is turned on by default; it should not be. Clicking on an album or playlist, it is naturally expected that it will play in the order shown on-screen. Additionally, the shuffle/repeat button is oddly placed in the bottom-right of the window, and it is only visible when playing a song. The options for shuffle and repeat ideally should be in the burger menu on the headerbar.

• Speaking of the burger menu, it includes a Last.fm account option, but this is greyed out due to it requiring non-existent support from GNOME's online accounts system. Unless the Music developers plan to use an external library for Last.fm like Rhythmbox already does, this should be removed entirely to avoid confusing users.

• After playing songs, they appear greyed out, which is confusing because greying out items implies they are unavailable. Songs should not be greyed out after being played.

• There is no volume control in the app. If users want to change the volume, they will have to either turn their entire system volume down, or open the Settings app and scroll all the way down to Sound and use the volume slider there.

• When there's no files in ~/Music, the image shown is low quality.

That said, most of those are nitpicks, and I would still be happy to see it be the default instead of Rhythmbox even in its current state, or at least once it gains the ability to open audio files directly. The UI overall is so much easier to understand than Rhythmbox's archaic UI and it fits in very well with the rest of the GNOME experience!

I agree with all your concerns, but also agree they are nitpicks. It would be useful to report issues for these problems upstream.

We have had a change in direction upstream. Instead of teaching Music to open audio files, we are now working on a new app to open audio files. It's uncertain whether Music will remain in core or not.

We should continue to delay and just leave this ticket open until the situation upstream has stabilized a bit more.

It looks like we're going to want to replace Rhythmbox with the new Decibels app rather than Music.

Does the new app exist yet? Is it in a state to be packaged in Fedora?

The app is https://github.com/vixalien/decibels/

I don't know whether there will be packaging problems or not. Hopefully not.

My suggestion is to wait and see what happens upstream. In the meantime, packaging is good to do regardless.

My suggestion is to wait and see what happens upstream.

There are two considerations:

• Will Decibels be added to GNOME core? Probably, but it will take some time. I suggest we replace Rhythmbox with Decibels if and only if this occurs.
• Will Music remain in GNOME core? Uncertain, and it's now an entirely separate question as Music will certainly not replace Rhythmbox. I suggest we wait a few more months to see what happens upstream.

Will Music remain in GNOME core? Uncertain,

So we had been talking about starting the upstream core app review process due to lack of development activity. But checking things now, I see activity has actually picked up significantly recently. So that problem is actually solved. I will close the upstream tracking issue.

My new proposal: wait and see what happens to Decibels. If it enters GNOME core, then replace Rhythmbox with both Music and Decibels. Music on its own is not an adequate replacement for Rhythmbox, but the two together are.

The management of thousands of music titles as requirement, is addressed very well here with Rhythmbox. I do not see it to be well done with Gnome Music (e. g. Genre organisation).
Decibels is just a dumpy audio player for single files. So, more suitable as a previewer (a better nautilus / sushi quick previewer) but certainly not a substitution for Rhythmbox. I should be more self-cirtical but currently I do not see Music as replacement.

I personally use Lollypop for music on my Workstation machine.

The management of thousands of music titles as requirement, is addressed very well here with Rhythmbox. I do not see it to be well done with Gnome Music (e. g. Genre organisation).
Decibels is just a dumpy audio player for single files. So, more suitable as a previewer (a better nautilus / sushi quick previewer) but certainly not a substitution for Rhythmbox.

However, is all of these features a hard requirement for default user experience of Fedora Workstation? Do Fedora audience really need that, by default? Most people listen to music from web browsers and/or apps like Spotify. Most people nowadays don't collect local music files.

Decibles: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/Incubator/decibels

I'm reducing the scope of this issue to just "replace Rhythmbox with Decibels."

It's been more than 6 years since I reported this issue, but in this time Music has never really been on track for inclusion in Fedora Workstation. It's time to move on. We can always reconsider in the future.

In case anyone is unaware: Decibels in designed for playing standalone audio files, primarily those which are not music. It provides a default audio player, but shouldn't really be considered music app.

What do you consider a "music app" then? The primary reason most people play standalone audio files on their system is to listen to music, so I'm confused why you would say that.

What do you consider a "music app" then? The primary reason most people play standalone audio files on their system is to listen to music, so I'm confused why you would say that.

A music app would do things like:

• present music metadata (artist, album, album art, etc)
• album/compilation navigation
• browsing and searching a music collection

On the other hand, Decibels has features which you might need for listening to non-music audio files, like changing the playback speed, or navigating based on a wave form (useful for identifying section breaks). In the future we might add other features like auto-captioning.

@aday Probably 99,99% of users would use Spotify, YouTube Music, Deezer or something like that for that purpose. And people who really want to play their offline music collection already have it's own favourite music app, like Lollypop mentioned in previous comments here in this thread. There is no need to have "music app" by default in modern OS.

Please don't make generalized statements like that. You don't know that, we don't survey people for that information, and we provide no means of extrapolating that information.

Also, we ship what we want to encourage people to do in addition to supporting what they want and need to do.

You don't need any formal data to know reality. Just search for it in Google, it's easy. People don't use offline music anymore. 6 years long discussion about choosing default app for music library when people don't use offline music anymore (and most users will get rid of it right after clean installation) — it's just waste of time. Of course you are free to continue, so.

@tomaszgasior I will not explain what kind of methodology is necessary to get nearby to reality.
What I miss here is the insight that the reality can probably also be different to your own statement. I want to invite you to understand, that some parts of the world do not have the budget nor the bandwidth to daily stream there favourite music.
So, reading this now by you and ignoring such evidence (as already done above) is just not helping here.

About the app substitution (even when the feature set is not 100% achieved compared to Rhythmbox). What about creating a feature matrix about all mentioned apps, to find the "best" substitution ...?

I think it's better to use amberol instead of decibels, at least if Fedora intends to provide a music player, it should have some features like As Aday said
- present music metadata (artist, album, album art, etc)
- album/compilation navigation
- browsing and searching a music collection

All these features are offered by Amberol, which is mature enough. Unlike decibels, you only have to select one file at a time.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/amberol

(Since its release, it is the default music player on my Fedora OS).

I don't think Decibels can be easily considered yet since it hasn't yet been packaged for Fedora. Speaking from my Debian/Ubuntu perspective, it may be as difficult to package as the Rust apps. (It uses TypeScript and the package list is not short.) I believe Fedora has similar packaging best practices.

Amberol is a Rust app that isn't packaged for Fedora either. It's in GNOME Circle but it hasn't been proposed for inclusion in GNOME Core.

Michael, if you're wanting to take an action for Fedora 41, the most practical is probably to not include any music app in the default install beyond whatever Totem can do.

Since its release, it [Amberol] is the default music player on Fedora

I believe you are mistaken.

Michael, if you're wanting to take an action for Fedora 41, the most practical is probably to not include any music app in the default install beyond whatever Totem can do.

I'm not. This issue report has been open six and a half years. A little longer won't hurt.

Since its release, it [Amberol] is the default music player on Fedora

I believe you are mistaken.

Sorry, it's my mistake I didn't notice that.

I have sent a "help wanted" email to desktop + devel + rust: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/7JRYVPLOFVQJ2EANEGTO6ZQTXJF7EWRC/

We agreed:

• Do not remove Rhythmbox (we'll investigate replacing Rhythmbox separately)
• We will add Decibels without replacing anything
• Audio MIME types in gnome-desktop3 package will be reassigned from Rhythmbox to Decibels