Nuvola Player
Cloud music integration for your Linux desktop
Nuvola Player
Cloud music integration for your Linux desktop
Contents
Nuvola Player 3.0.0 was released on December 30th, 2015 and the latest maintenance release 3.0.10 was released on September 1st, 2017. Continue reading these release notes, explore all features or just jump to installation instructions.
Nuvola Player is a runtime for web-based music streaming services providing more native user experience and integration with Linux desktop environments than usual web browsers can offer. It tries to feel and look like a native application as possible. However, it cannot overcome common drawbacks of web-based music streaming: some music streaming services require Flash plugin and web apps usually have higher memory usage than native apps.
Nuvola Player 3 has been rewritten from scratch and contains plenty of improvements over Nuvola Player 2.
Nuvola Player 2 uses graphical toolkit GTK+ version 3 for its user interface, while Adobe Flash, Gnash and Lightspark use GTK+ version 2. The old GTK+ 2 and the new GTK+ 3 are not compatible, so they cannot live in the same process. The problem is that the first generation WebKitGtk+ web rendering engine used in Nuvola Player 2 runs plugins in the same process as the rest of the user interface, so GTK+ 2 based Flash plugins cannot be loaded without conflicts with GTK+ 3.
Nuvola Player 2 has to employ an ugly hack to support Flash: run the Flash plugin in its own non-conflicting process via nspluginwrapper. However, this approach has several disadvantages:
nspluginwrapper only supports only 32bit Flash plugin. As a result, you have to install hundreds of 32bit libraries on you 64bit system to be able to run 32bit Flash plugin. Yes, this is insane.
Memory usage is higher and performance is lower.
Wrapped Flash plugin is less stable, it often crashes and takes down whole Nuvola Player 2 application.
Nuvola Player 3 doesn't need any hacks to support Flash plugin, because it is built on top of WebKit2Gtk+, the second generation of this web rendering library. The major diference is that plugins are run in a separate GTK+ 2 compatible process, so there is no need to use nspluginwrapper and install 32bit libraries on 64bit system. There is also one extra benefit: If Flash plugin crashes, it doesn't take down whole Nuvola Player application.
It was possible to have only one instance of Nuvola Player 2 shared by all streaming services and switch between them. In Nuvola Player 3, it's possible to run multiple services side-by-side (feature request). The services selector launches new instance for each service and creates a desktop application shortcut (feature request) when a particular service starts. As a result, you can than pin it to the Unity Launcher or GNOME Activities dock and launch it directly in the future.
While Nuvola Player 2 repository provided packages only for Ubuntu and Debian, Nuvola Player 3 brings official support and packages also for Fedora. However, the Fedora packages may be discontinued if there isn't enough financial support from Fedora users to justify existence of these packages.
As I have received many complains that installation of Nuvola Player 2 was not easy enough for less experienced users, I've created a graphical installer specially designed for them. However, power users can of course still add Nuvola Player repository to software sources manually using terminal kung-fu. The graphical installer is pretty handy though and I always use it when I test Nuvola Player in clean systems in VirtualBox ;-)
Since I dislike the short nine-month support window of interim Ubuntu releases and their consecutive removal from Launchpad build machines, I decided to abandon Launchpad and host APT repository on my server like I did so with the repository for Debian. A side benefit is that packages won't get stuck in Launchpad build queue. In addition, RPM packages for Fedora are also hosted on this server, all in one place.
Since Nuvola Player 3 codebase was written from scratch, it doesn't have to carry a huge bag of backward compatibility, which limited improvements in Nuvola Player 2, and it's easier to use new technologies. Consequently, Nuvola Player 3 uses header bar with client side decorations and App Menu in GNOME, but classic window decorations and global menu bar in Unity. Also, JavaScript API for service integration scripts has been reworked to be more flexible.
nuvolaplayer3ctl --help. It is no possible to
invoke toggle and radio actions (e.g. thumbs up/down, star rating;
feature request)On February 22th 2016, Nuvola Player 3 shipped with 19 music streaming services. See Nuvola Player hompage for more up-to-date list.
Since I didn't want to postpone release of Nuvola Player 3 again and again, I decided not to implement some features available in Nuvola Player 2 for now. As a result, following features are missing in Nuvola Player 3 and might be added later upon demand from users: Libre.fm scrobbling, translations and file downloads.
Nuvola Player 3 project provides free support on best-effort basis without any guarantees. Officially supported distributions include Ubuntu 16.04, 16.10 and 17.04, Fedora 24-25, and Debian Stretch and Sid. The Nuvola Player developer has tested installation and functionality in clean virtualized instances of these distributions and can assure reasonable user support in case of problems. However, Nuvola Player should also work on other modern Linux distributions, but user experience might not be optimal (e.g. inconsistent look and behavior) and quality of user support depends on complexity of an issue.
If free support on best-effort basic is not sufficient, you can contract the Nuvola Player developer for a commercial support.
My work on Nuvola Player is funded by Nuvola Patrons. My dream is to work as an independent developer on open source software for all people around the world, software for you. If you like Nuvola Player, or even use it every day, you can show your gratitude by supporting the project.
Thank you and happy listening!
Jiří Janoušek
Maintenance release 3.0.10 was released on September 1st, 2017. It fixes high CPU usage under Wayland and exchanges “Stable Release” designation for “Legacy Release”.
Maintenance release 3.0.9 was released on July 18th, 2017.
Maintenance release 3.0.8 was released on April 15th, 2017, addressing following issues:
Maintenance release 3.0.7 was released on February 26th, 2017, addressing following issues:
In addition, Nuvola 3.0.6 no longer supports scripts not built with the Nuvola SDK. This backward incompatible change is necessary for a smooth transition to Nuvola 4.0.
Maintenance release 3.0.6 was released on February 25th, 2017, addressing the same issues as 3.0.7 but with an insufficient fix for NuvolaPlayer/SoundCloud 3.0.5 menu item 'Unknown application name'.
Maintenance release 3.0.5 was released on February 18th, 2017, addressing following issues:
Maintenance release 3.0.4 was released on September 17th, 2016, addressing following issues:
Maintenance release 3.0.3 was released on June 4th, 2016, addressing following issues:
nuvolaplayer3 --version and in the About dialog. In addition,
JavaScript API got Nuvola.LIBSOUP_VERSION, Nuvola.LIBSOUP_MAJOR, Nuvola.LIBSOUP_MINOR and LIBSOUP_MICRO constants
for script to detect not new enough versions and to recommend upgrading. Issue: tiliado/nuvola-app-spotify#13Maintenance release 3.0.2 was released on April 29th, 2016, addressing following issues:
Maintenance release 3.0.1 was released on February 14th, 2016, addressing following issues:
Configuration option --with-appindicator was removed as AppIndicator integration is currently
unmaintained. Issues: tiliado/nuvolaplayer#201 and tiliado/nuvolaplayer#45
Web app integration template was moved to its own repository to keep it up-to-date independently on Nuvola Player releases. Developer documentation was updated accordingly.
The nuvolaplayer3 --help screen now lists also the -a/--app-id argument used to launch
a particular service. Issue: tiliado/nuvolaplayer#147
All pop-up windows now can pop up a new window, which is required by the SoundCloud's log-in-via-Google feature, for instance. Issue: tiliado/nuvola-app-soundcloud#3
Questions? Feedback?
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