Kirocker Music Display

Make your Kicker (the KDE main panel) rock with your music.

It is a Kicker applet that displays what you listen to in Amarok.
A full-screen display can also be used independently of the applet.

With this panel applet, you always know what you are listening to, and can watch its cover and star rating: it is always visible.
It allows you to rate your music with one click: you can quickly change the number of stars of your musics from anywhere on your desktop.
Finally, it let you remotely control Amarok with one click from anywhere on your desktop: play next or previous track, pause, play, and seek to another position in the current track.

You also have the possibility to show your currently playing music in a beautiful full-screen display. Ideal for parties or to listen to music while doing something else away from the computer.
The full-screen display can be triggered independently of the panel applet. You can start it from the KMenu or from Amarok itself.

To install:
- You need to have automake 1.9 installed for the compilation to work. It should be Ok on modern Linux distributions. You also need Python for the Amarok script to work (optional). This should also be Ok.
- Extract the archive
- Open a konsole in the extracted folder (in Konqueror, go to the extracted folder and press F4)
- Run this set of command: ./configure --prefix=$(kde-config --prefix) && make && sudo make install
- It will asks your root password to install the applet on your system
- Right click the Kicker, choose "Add an Applet to the Panel..." (once the panel is unlocked)
- Double-click "Kirocker Music Display"
- Start playing a music. The applet is empty when Amarok is stopped or paused, to not annoy you with useless information when you are working
- If you do not want the panel applet, the full-screen display can be trigerred from the KMenu or from Amarok itself (restart Amarok, enable the "Kirocker Music Display" script, and then right-click the playlist to see the action to show full-screen)

Note: After an upgrade from a previous version, press Alt+F2 and type the command "kicker default restart" to restart the Panel with the new installed version.

How to make the Kicker translucent:
The Kicker translucent white vertical background is also included in the package.
- Your screen resolution need to be 1280*800. If not, you will need some artistic skills and a Gimp experience to modify the given background
- Extract the image "Kicker Right Translucent Background.png" located in the Kirocker Music Display archive
- Open your desktop background image with The Gimp
- Drag and drop "Kicker Right Translucent Background.png" to the Gimp window of your background image
- Save the image and set it as your desktop background image
- Right click the Kicker and choose "Configure the Panel..." (once the panel is unlocked)
- Place the panel on the right (click the button on the right)
- Set the size to "Personalized" and enter "96 pixels"
- In the "Appearance" tab, check "Enable transparency"
- Click "Ok" and you're done: ENJOY!

4.0:
- Theme support with wonderful ones provided by default and a graphical editor that is both powerful and surprisingly easy to use
- Have fun karaokees with automatically-scrolling lyrics
- Added a better no-cover image, from Oxygen (sorry guys, but it's the only beautiful and scalable image I found)
- Now using the "Track, Artist, Album" order (instead of "Artist, Album, Track") to be more complient with other displays, such as iPod, Last.fm, and even Amarok.
- Changed the application icon to a better one, using an Oxygen composition. Also show the icon back in the panel big tooltip, as it cannot be confused with an empty cover image anymore
- Removed a lot of bugs
- Enhanced performances

Browse for new themes:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/search.php?search=Search&text=kirocker

Older list of changes:
http://slaout.linux62.org/kirocker/old-changelog.html

==========================

This is the End:
I think I will now return back to Windows, so i'm done with KDE development. I will perhapse help the KDE Windows project in the future, tough.
This project is now abandonned.
I'm afraid it will not be ported to KDE 4, unless new developers pop up.

Why I returned back to Windows:
http://slaout.linux62.org/Why_Windows.html