It had to happen sometime.

Now Playing: your way

In case you missed it a few months ago, I wrote a veritably ponderous tome about how and why I designed the UI elements of Radiccio, including why I put the now playing info and playback controls on the right side of the window, instead of the top or bottom. As with anything new, it’s not to everyone’s taste. And naturally, some people would prefer something more like what they’re used to.

Radiccio’s original design will still be the default. However, now you can transform Radiccio into a substantially different music player. Here’s what it looks like:

The option to change this can be found in the View menu > Now Playing at Bottom.

Remember that you can also toggle options like Compact Playback Controls and Hide Sidebar to get an even more minimalist look, if you want:

Whichever way you prefer, we hope these new customization options will help you make Radiccio look and feel just right for you.

Some things have moved around

Some options that were previously in Settings have moved to the View menu:

• Compact Playback Controls (formerly “Simplify Playback Controls”)
• Show Nerdy Info
• Show Album Art in Playback Queue

On My Mac

• You can now re-scan a specific On My Mac source (if it has Librarian enabled) via File > Librarian > Scan “Source Name”, or via the context menu in the sidebar. (By customer request)
• Fixed: “View Log” contents did not include partial scan logs

Open Files

• Added a new setting: Automatically start playback of open files. (By customer request)
  • This is off by default, but you can find it in App Settings.
  • This is available when you open a single folder or playlist at a time.
• When opening individual file(s), there is a new option “Open All Files in Folder” in the “⋯” menu, which opens the remaining unopened files in that same folder. (By customer request)
  • When necessary, an “Open File” dialog may appear. Please click “Open”, in order to grant Radiccio permission to open these files. This is required by macOS security policy.
• Fixed an issue where the loading spinner could sometimes get “stuck” when opening files.

Apple Music

• The Artists tab now has caching so you don’t have to wait for it to load every time.
  • If anything is missing, click the reload button.
• Fixed: Missing stop button when playing Apple Music live radio and Compact Playback Controls were enabled
• Fixed: Incorrect menu items when playing Apple Music live radio

Liquid Glass

We didn’t prevent it. We only postponed it.

Everyone’s favorite (?) new design has finally come to Radiccio, when running on macOS 26 Tahoe.

If you’re on macOS 15 Sequoia – don’t worry – nothing is changing for you.

Here are the app changes for Tahoe:

• The sidebar, toolbar, buttons, and overall UI now have the Tahoe look.
• Content will not scroll underneath the sidebar or the toolbars. (No one wants this, right?)
  • The app’s use of transparency effects is pretty much the same as it was in Sequoia.
  • The app continues to respect “reduced transparency” and “reduced motion” accessibility settings.
  • As always, if you have any accessibility concerns, please let us know. We’re always looking for ways to improve.
• The loading spinner in the toolbar has merged with the reload button. (On Sequoia it remains the same as it was.)
• The app icon will not have the Liquid Glass look.
  • This is because Apple does not provide a way to ship two separate icons appropriate for each OS, and I would prefer not to ship a Liquid Glass icon to Sequoia users. As a Sequoia user myself, I don’t like seeing Liquid Glass on Sequoia. As a result, we have to use the same icon for both.
  • The shape of the icon has changed, in a very subtle way, to fix a problem on Tahoe where the edges were getting clipped. I think this is still close enough to the Sequoia shape that Sequoia users should not notice a difference.

Here’s what the redesigned Radiccio looks like on Tahoe:

The brand new “Now Playing at Bottom” option has also been glass-ified, and all customization options are available on Tahoe as well:

Besides the app itself, there are some related housekeeping items around here:

• The web site will now show screen shots of Radiccio running on Tahoe by default.
  • There is a link under the first screen shot which allows you to toggle the Sequoia version of the screen shots, so that visitors running Sequoia can see what the app looks like before they try it.
  • Originally, I wanted the web site to auto-detect which operating system the user is running, and toggle the screen shots accordingly, similar to what we already do for dark mode. However, Apple seemingly removed the ability for browsers to detect your operating system version.
• The App Store screen shots now show the Tahoe version of the app.
  • If you want to see what the Sequoia version looks like, please visit our web site.
• Future news posts will likely only show the Tahoe versions of the screen shots.
  • This is to try to keep my news post workload manageable. Screen shots take a lot of time.
  • Please know that Sequoia is still a priority; I am still continuing to design everything for both Sequoia and Tahoe, and I personally use both operating systems on a daily basis.

Apple’s Tahoe design with Liquid Glass has seemingly had a mixed reception from the public, compared to most previous macOS releases. In any case, I ultimately decided that when running on Tahoe, Radiccio should look and feel like it belongs there, and try to fit in with other Tahoe apps. My hope is that users running Tahoe will find that this update meets their expectations; and that users who prefer the Sequoia look are likely continuing to run Sequoia on their Mac, and can thereby continue with the original Radiccio experience.

Secret extra bonus collabs

• If you have an Apple trackpad, you can now use a two-finger drag gesture to move the seek bar scrubber, and the volume control, when the cursor is over the control.
  • Thanks to Mario Guzmán for the advice!
• Radiccio now has basic AppleScript support for controlling playback.
  • Thanks to Daniel Kennett for the advice!
  • If you would like to see us continue to improve AppleScript support, please let us know so we can learn more about how you want to use it!

Next up…

There are more new features on the horizon for Radiccio. Stay tuned, and keep the feedback coming!