Music Player

Software for playing audio files. I'm particularly interested in ones that feature robust tools for managing a collection of music, so ones with good tools for searching, tagging, sorting.

I've been wanting a Linux alternative to Foobar 2000 (F2K) ever since I switched over. I've never found something good enough, but I check-in with things every now-and-then.

Mostly features Foobar has that I really want in a replacement:

• Have a native Linux version, and be free and open source software.
• Layout: Flexibility is nice. I probably spend as much time organising my music as a do playing it (…), so being able to customise the layout is nice. In F2K my main layout has playlists down the left, then the other column is split with columns for artist, album, genre, and file properties, and a row on the bottom with selected tracks and their details. I have another view for listening with big album art, and columns for playlists and the queue.
• The auto playlists are really handy. They're basically a filter with a robust syntax. For example I have one that contains music I've added recently, and one for stuff I haven't listened to yet.
• Automatically applying tags based on the file name.
• Renaming files and directories based on tags.
• I like the main list of artists to be based on the 'album artist' tag, rather that each file's 'artist' one.
• Easy to change tags from wherever they're displayed, so fussing with menu diving or pop-ups or extra clicks.
• Playlists shouldn't get wiped if the files can't be found. Foobar also has a nice plugin for repairing playlists when files have moved, though that doesn't seem to always work.

And some things Foobar doesn't do that I'd like:

• One thing that bugs me about Foobar in Wine is the font support. I've never been able to get it display characters from all the languages I need. This should work fine in any Linux player without hassle.
• Playlist portability. F2K uses it's own format. It can export to common ones, but I'd love to be able to use the playlists other places without having to export them.
• I'm used to the weird(?) F2K handles tags with multiple values (; separator, instead of separate instances of the tag), but am not too fussed about changing if I can automate it.

Notes on ones I've tried.

• DeadBeeF
• Exaile
• Foobnix
• gmusicbrowser
• Guayadeque | guayadeque.org anonbeat/Guayadeque
• Quod Libet
  I think I've settled one this, one even though it isn't perfect.
  • …
• Strawberry | strawberrymusicplayer.org strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry

• Comparison of audio player software
• Comparison of free software for audio#Players