After test driving several media players, I have tried to customize foobar2K as a replacement of my current music program, iTunes. Although I was initially negative about the raw power of foobar2000, I still decided to give it one more try. Right away I could tell this was not going to be intuitive. I tried to do things the right way by reading the wiki and registering at their forums. I could not make any forum posts until 5 days after signing up. Another thing was how difficult it was to find every configuration file, associated fonts, and the updated plugins that went along with it. It’s supposedly against the EULA to bundle a complete configuration. This makes it beyond a chore to make things the way I want them to be. I was able to get a config to work 80. I didn’t have all the fonts and 4 out of 20 .dll files were not to be found easily on the web. Some were outdated, links were broken, and the rest were hiding in corners. As much as I like being able to adjust every detail, it’s not worth it to be searching endlessly for satisfaction. There are some truly amazing features, and there are astounding themes and custom players people have made. While not familiar or ready to learn the SDK they use, I think this hinders mainstream acceptance from regular music listeners.
I digress and acknowledge that foobar2K is playable without plugins, and is easy to live with if you are not technically inclined or picky. As such, I was not able to get such things as a rating system in place without reading plenty of information, seeking the files to download, and making the appropriate changes. I consider myself above average at tech and computer situations, but even I have so much patience and time to waste. It might be a good thing to try though. In fact, some plugins were a cinch to install. It just depends on what features you want.
In a couple days, I will check out the forums and see if I can give this a final chance…
