Festival, an open source music player, provides a refreshing alternative for users seeking a local music playback experience with a distinctive UI.
Festival, a brand-new cross-platform music player, has emerged as an open source sensation. Written in Rust and harnessing the power of Symphonia, this player boasts a one-of-a-kind user interface that sets it apart from the rest.
Unlike the modern graphical user interfaces we’ve become accustomed to, Festival takes a bold step in a different direction. Its text-heavy design evokes a sense of nostalgia for the days of command-line music players like Musikcube and CMUS. Yet, despite its departure from the norm, Festival remains remarkably intuitive, offering both point-and-click functionality and support for keyboard shortcuts.
One of the standout features of Festival is its effortless approach to importing and playing music. Gone are the days of metadata editing, playlist compilations, and Last.fm hookups. With Festival, you only need to point the app towards your music directories, let it scan your collection, and then use the “artists” or “albums” categories to find the perfect track to enjoy.
The album view in Festival presents you with a detailed track listing. A simple click on a track will have it playing in no time, while a right-click allows you to add it to the queue. Festival also offers MPRIS integration, a cause for celebration, and features an in-app volume bar for easy audio adjustment.
Although the search function works efficiently, the “songs” view may feel overwhelming for some. It resembles a spreadsheet with column widths that could use a bit of tweaking (which you can actually adjust). Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be an option to hide specific columns. On the bright side, Festival provides various settings for sorting preferences in different views. You can also fine-tune the album art size, customise the text arrangements in the title bar, and even play around with accent colours to your heart’s content.
Festival is already making waves among music enthusiasts. You can easily get your hands on pre-built Windows, macOS, and Linux packages by visiting the Festival GitHub releases page.
Whether you’re a fan of CLI-style interfaces or simply looking for a change of pace, Festival promises to deliver an enjoyable music playback experience with its distinctive UI and impressive performance.
