There’s something to be said for a piece of software that does exactly what you want it to do, behaves exactly how you expect it to, stays out of your way until you need it, and makes you happy. That’s exactly why Rhythmbox is so darn great. But let’s back up a little bit… Rhythmbox is a Music Player / Library Organizer for Gnome. It’s comparable to, though quite different than, Amarok for KDE. I used to use KDE and was madly in love with Amarok. It was and still is a phenomenal piece of software, but I think Rhythmbox has stolen its place in my heart. Amarok has some features I’d love to see in Rhythmbox, and it has a much stronger community, but
Rythmbox does what I want it to, the way I expect it to, without getting in my way
and that’s why I love it so much.
For instance, when I’m browsing music, the next song played comes from the list I’m viewing just like you’d think it would. Rating songs is one-click simple, but out of the way. The play queue lets me queue up songs (imagine that) that I want to hear, but don’t want to interrupt the currently playing song for. Oh, and it minimizes to the tray (if you want) for the ultimate out-of-the-wayness.
None of these things are unique or particularly innovative, but what makes this software so wonderful is that it does just what it should, how it should. You might say that it follows the Principle of Least Suprise. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not, but it is a fully-capable, powerful music player. It’s built on a plugin architecture and has an integrated Python console, so if you want more raw power, you can get it.
It does what I want, the way I expect, doesn’t clutter my interface, and lets me harness its full power easily if I want. I think that’s a goal all software should aspire to.
So here’s to you, Mr. Heretofore Unglorified Music Player. You don’t get a lot of attention. You’ll never get downloaded 8 million times in one day, but I wish the rest of my software would be more like you.
