Amarok 3.0 “Castaway”: First stable release since 2018, powered by Qt5 & KDE Frameworks 5

The Amarok development team has unveiled Amarok 3.0 “Castaway”, marking the first stable release of the open-source music player since 2018. Amarok 3.0 is also the first stable version based on Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, succeeding the final Qt4 based version, 2.9.0.

The process of porting to Qt5/KF5 began in 2015, with an alpha version released in February 2021. In recent months, efforts have been concentrated on preparing for the 3.0 release, using feedback from the alpha version and nightly builds.

Amarok 3.0 introduces a number of enhancements. It now displays a visual cue that context view applets can be resized in edit mode, and presents missing metadata errors in the Wikipedia applet UI. An added button also halts automatic Wikipedia page updating.

The update also replaces the defunct lyricwiki with lyrics.ovh as a lyrics provider, and refines the Wikipedia applet right-click menu to show only pertinent items. Amarok 3.0 utilizes the monobook skin for opened links, disregards non-Wikipedia links, and omits non-functional play mode controls in dynamic mode.

Bug fixes are also part of this release. These include resolving issues with loading some Flickr photos in the photos context view applet, fixing the playlist inline play control slider knob, and enhancing the drawing of playlist delegate icons with higher DPI.

Looking ahead, work on porting Amarok to Qt6/KDE Frameworks 6 is set to begin in the coming months. The aim is to release a usable Qt6/KF6-based beta version by 2024.