This update brings you more ways to browse and enjoy your music.

Scrobbling

This was another one of the most-requested features. For those unfamiliar, “scrobbling” is a way to automatically share your listening activity with social music web sites. It’s kind of hard to explain if you’re not already familiar with it, but we’ve received quite a lot of requests for it!

The original scrobbling web site is Last.fm, and we’re also supporting ListenBrainz. You can use either one, or both at the same time.

To set up scrobbling, visit App Settings > Integrations.

Scrobbling works with all source types – notably, it even works with Apple Music, which is something the built-in Music app has never supported.

(And don’t worry – if you don’t set it up, nothing will be transmitted anywhere. Our privacy policy is as serious about this as ever.)

Scrobbling is available to all users and does not require Radiccio Plus!

Playlist editing – the Mac way, with drag & drop and multiple windows

A music player should have a way to create and edit playlists, and this is one of the features I wish we could have had at launch – but it took time to get it right. Now it’s finally here!

I always thought that the natural way to add items to a playlist would be drag and drop: You would browse your music collection the way you normally would – in the main window – and when you find what you want to add, simply drag it from there and drop it into the playlist window. So, that’s the way I designed and built this feature. You can see exactly where the items are coming from, and where they will end up, because everything is visible on the screen at the same time.

One of the most powerful and useful things about the Mac is its ability to display multiple windows at a time, and to resize and position them anywhere on your screen. Although Radiccio is largely a single-window app, we have the ability to open more windows when it would be helpful – so why not do so? The playlist window floats above the main window, so you don’t have to worry about it getting hidden while you’re looking for items to add to it.

You can drag items from anywhere in the main window, even from the playback queue. And you can have multiple playlists window open at a time, and drag and drop between them. (Note that a playlist belongs to a specific source, so you can’t drag items from other sources.)

It’s surprising to me that other Mac music apps don’t do it this way. It bothers me when an app forces me to edit playlists in a single window, without letting me look at my library at the same time. That kind of thing can happen with a “mobile first” design that gets ported to Mac later – Mac-specific features are an afterthought, if they are thought about at all. That’s the reason why Radiccio was made for Mac first.

You can create a new playlist with the “New” button in the Playlists view, or in the menu with File > New Playlist.

You can edit an existing playlist with the “Edit” button when viewing a playlist, or by command-clicking (right-clicking) a playlist and selecting “Edit” in the menu.

Playlist editing works with all source types except Apple Music. Sorry! I hope to find a solution in the future.

Playlist editing is available to all users and does not require Radiccio Plus!

Single source mode

From what I have been hearing, Radiccio users tend to fall into one of two categories: Either they have one source, or they have more than 10 sources. These are very different experiences! And I’m glad Radiccio works for so many kinds of people, but I felt like there was room for improvement in how Radiccio works for the former group.

For those with only one source, the sidebar was a bit useless. After all, the entire purpose of it is to switch sources, so if you only have one… what’s the point? In the past I’ve tried to remind people that you can hide the sidebar if it’s not needed, but still, I thought I could do better.

Single source mode is a new setting that you can find in Settings > Navigation > Sidebar > Single Source. When you enable it, the sidebar now shows the navigation items that were formerly shown in the horizontal tab bar: Overview, Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists, Folders. Since the tab bar is no longer needed, it is hidden in this mode.

Also, if you are using a source type that supports pins (such as On My Mac or Radiccio Server), pinned items are also displayed in the sidebar in single source mode.

You can use single source mode even if you have more than one source. Although single source mode only shows one source at a time, you can still switch sources by clicking the source name at the top of the sidebar, or by using the Source menu in the Mac menubar.

Single source mode is available to all users and does not require Radiccio Plus!

Immersive View

Inspired by a blog post by Jon Hicks, Radiccio now has an “Immersive View” that you can use when music is playing. It simplifies the UI, and shows an enlarged version of the album artwork, with background colors and highlights that automatically change based on colors found in the artwork. You can toggle this mode using the new toolbar button, from the menu with View > Enter Immersive View, or with the keyboard shortcut command-shift-i.

Immersive View is available to all users and does not require Radiccio Plus!

Other changes

• When using sources list mode (the default sidebar mode) tabs can now be customized. Find this in Settings > Navigation > Tabs. Hide or show tabs, and drag and drop to reorder.

• You can now double-click a tab (Overview, Artists, Albums, etc.) to quickly navigate back to the start of that tab.

• Playlists can now be pinned (only for On My Mac + Librarian sources, and Radiccio Server sources)

• The main window toolbar can now be customized (View menu > Customize Toolbar…)
  • The toolbar now includes buttons for Journal and Immersive View by default. If not wanted, customize the toolbar and remove them.
  • When customizing the toolbar, you can optionally add a button to open the Server Activity window (not shown by default).
  • The toolbar is not always totally reliable about remembering your customizations. For best results, don’t remove the spaces on either side of the volume control. I’m looking for ways to improve this.
    
    

• When adding a Plex source, the server URLs are now shown. This may help with troubleshooting connectivity issues.

• Fixed an issue where command-W wasn’t always working correctly. (When the main window is in front, it closes open files, if any; it does not close the main window. When other windows are in front, it closes them.)

• Improved cleanup of temporary files, to avoid unnecessary disk space usage

• Known issue: When the playback queue auto-scrolls to a song, the scrolling animation is not smooth. (Manual scrolling seems fine.) This bothers me quite a lot, and I have spent many hours trying to fix it. I’m still looking for a solution.

• Known issue: VoiceOver incorrectly indicates that items in the Songs view are “not draggable”. These items are draggable with a pointing device. I’m looking for a solution. Workaround: When using VoiceOver, drag items from a different view (Artists, Albums, Playlists, Folders)

Everything new in this version is free

I mention this again because I think people don’t always notice that Radiccio is actually a free app. Of course, we offer Radiccio Plus! because that is the only way we can afford to keep making Radiccio for you. But if you don’t need the extra features in Plus!, you don’t have to pay, ever – and, as I hope this new version demonstrates, Radiccio keeps getting better, whether or not you’ve paid.

And when I say “free”, I don’t mean “free, as in, it’s going to annoy you until you pay”. We never nag you or show ads. There’s no time limit and no catch. Whether you pay or not, I really want you to enjoy Radiccio.

Why? Because the built-in Music app is free, and I want to provide a better alternative. I want Radiccio to be the best music player on the Mac, and I want as many people as possible to be able to use it.

Up next

In my last update I said I was going to focus on the “core music listening experience”, and this update is the first part of that effort. The next major update will continue this work. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you!

If you are enjoying Radiccio, please help spread the word! It’s really hard to get noticed these days, and a personal recommendation makes a huge difference.

– dmd