Original MuyLinux note
To read Eduardo Medina’s original in Spanish, click here.
Today I want to present Lollypop, an interesting audio player for GNOME (although that does not mean that it cannot be used in other desktop environments) that has a somewhat peculiar interface and enormous potential. Despite having existed for years, until now we have not dedicated any article to him, so I take this opportunity to publish this opinion about him.
Lollypop is an audio player built with GTK 3 and Python 3 and published under GPLv3 that according to its GitLab repository offers support for MP3, OGG and FLAC (I have also managed to play WAV); navigation through genres, artists and covers; search; party mode; download cover images (covers); context view of the artist; view of song lyrics; synchronization by MTP; automatic installation of codecs; Last.fm support; HiDPI support; Equalizer; and TuneIn support.
But leaving the technical and support issues, the first thing that surprises the Lollypop user is its peculiar interface, which initially is shown as follows at least with the Flatpak package (there is also a PPA for Ubuntu NOTE: on Arch Linux it is available in the community repository):
Lollypop’s interface seems to be trying to adapt to different types of device, showing by default one that is more suited to tablets and mobiles. However, the user only has to increase the size of the window by pulling a corner to make it fit somewhat more to the patterns that one expects from a desktop-oriented application (and why not say it, making it a little more intuitive).
While it is simple in appearance, Lollypop is an application that has many options and is customizable. The user can only have the possibilities that interest him, being able to hide those that are unnecessary.
The audio player allows showing popular albums, random albums, newly added albums, favorite albums, rarely played albums, web support to play songs hosted on different services, compilations, artists, genres, years, playlists (which can be created by user), albums, additional artist information, search and lyrics. However, this server only uses the options that allow you to easily deal with the music you have locally hosted.
One of the things that was most challenging for me was finding the replay of the playlist. Lollypop focuses more on album management than on creating playlists, although it is also capable of supporting the latter for the enjoyment of those users who prefer to listen to their own compilations or remove a specific song (that The Call Of Ktulu from Ride the Lightning by Metallica…). To repeat the same playlist you just have to go to the “Play Options” and select “Continuous Play”.
How to create a custom playlist in Lollypop
Creating a custom playlist may be a bit strange at first, but once you understand the mechanism, it is straightforward.
First you have to go to the playlists section and click on the icon that allows you to create a new one.
Then click on the newly created playlist and give it an identifying name.
The third step consists of searching for albums or songs through the different channels offered by Lollypop, right-clicking, clicking on “Add to” on Playlists and then selecting the created playlist.
The user can reselect the playlist in the corresponding section to remove the tracks they do not want to keep, making the changes permanently saved.
Conclusion
For the rest, I cannot say that I am very demanding with these types of applications. As long as I can play albums, the few custom playlists I have, and the audio quality is good, I have enough, and Lollypop does all three.
The reason why I ended up on Lollypop is because I am fed up with the problems that Audacious’s Qt interface has on Wayland, and the developers don’t seem like they are going to fix the problem any time soon. I could use the GTK 2 interface, but when I change the volume level, if I don’t click on the application window again, I see the Audacious volume change interface overlapping the rest of the windows I have open.
I’ve also tried DeadBeef, but I can’t stand the fact that it doesn’t integrate with centralized application volume management, which Audacious and Lollypop do, but not other players like Clementine and the aforementioned DeadBeef.
However, not everything is gold that glitters in Lollypop, since the application sins of consuming too much RAM when it fiddles with it too much, reaching over 250 megabytes with relative ease. It is true that it is excessive to ask Lollypop to consume the approximately 20 megabytes of Audacious, but I see that, seeing the profile of the application, this aspect could be polished.
Otherwise, I think I’ll stick with Lollypop for the music I have locally. It’s about time GNOME got an official and level audio player, and seeing the enormous potential it holds, I have decided to support the main developer on Patreon with a small monthly fee.