Nuvola Player Adds Built-In Last.fm Scrobbling

Nuvola Player integrates various cloud music services (Google Music, Grooveshark, Hype Machine and 8tracks) with your desktop: Mpris2 (Ubuntu Sound Menu integration), notifications, multimedia keys, Unity quicklists and more.

The latest Nuvola Player available in the Unstable PPA finally adds built-in Last.fm scrobbling for all the supported cloud music services. Until now, you had to use user scripts for this.

Other new features in the latest unstable Nuvola include: elementary-like AppMenu (can be enabled by selecting View > Only toolbar) and an option to automatically start playback on start-up (if possible).

To install the latest unstable Nuvola in Ubuntu, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nuvola-player-builders/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer

Note: the built-in Last.fm scrobbling feature is not yet available for Ubuntu Lucid in the unstable PPA, because the builds failed.

Remember, this PPA is unstable! See also: Stable or Beta Nuvola PPAs (it will take a while until you get the features available in Unstable though).

Arch Linux users can install the latest unstable Nuvola via AUR.

For other Linux distributions: get the code via Launchpad (bzr branch lp:nuvola-player).

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Clementine Music Player 1.0 (Stable), Finally Released

A while back, Clementine music player got Grooveshark and Spotify support and these, among many other new features are finally available in a stable release (1.0). You'll need a Spotify Premium / Grooveshark Anywhere account though.

Besides Spotify and GrooveShark support, the latest Clementine 1.0 also comes with a new global search feature which you can use to search for music and radio (includes your music library, radio streams, Spotify and Grooveshark), Digitally Imported (di.fm) and Sky.fm radio stations, audio CD support and Amazon as an alternate provider for album cover art.

Other changes in Clementine 1.0:

• transcoder options
• improve the organisation of the settings dialog
• album cover art searches now select the best cover automatically instead of the first one
• keyboard shortcuts to navigate between playlist tabs
• options to customise OSD messages that are shown on song changes
• cache lists of streams/friends fetched from Last.fm, di.fm, soma.fm, etc.

Oh, and you can finally remove the playlist background image (under Tools > Preferences > Behavior).

Install Clementine

To install Clementine 1.0 in Ubuntu Lucid, Maverick, Natty or Oneiric using the stable Clementine PPA, copy/paste the commands below in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:me-davidsansome/clementine
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clementine

You can also manually download .deb files via the Clementine download page, but you won't get automatic updates if you don't use the PPA. Here, you'll also find .rpm, .dmg, .exe and source files.

Also see:

• How To Install The Native Spotify Linux Client In Ubuntu (With Fixes)
• Nuvola Player 1.0 (Stable) Released

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Nuvola Player 1.0 (Stable) Released

Nuvola Player (previously Google Music Frame) is a music player especially designed for cloud music. Even though it's only a "frame", it's a great application that comes with features such as Ubuntu Sound Menu (mpris2 - also works with some GNOME Shell extensions) support, notifications, multimedia keys, Unity quicklists and many extra features thanks to user scripts (like last.fm scrobbling for Google Music, etc.).

Nuvola Player got Grooveshark, Hype Machine and 8tracks support recently (in addition to Google Music) and we've talked about this already, but if you like using stable releases, you'll be glad to know that Nuvola Player 1.0 has finally been released.

Other changes in Nuvola Player 1.0: 

• a new menu bar and reworked tool bar (and you can select to show them both or only one of them)
• support for SOCKS proxy servers
• various configuration options like: turn off notifications, visibility of tray icon, close button behavior, simple settings for user scripts

You can see the official release notes, here.

Install Nuvola Player (stable) in Ubuntu

If you've added the Nuvola Beta or Unstable PPA and want to install Nuvola 1.0 stable, disable them and remove Nuvola, then use the commands below (or use PPA Purge).

To add the Nuvola Stable PPA and install Nuvola Player (stable) in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nuvola-player-builders/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer

For Fedora, see: How To Install Nuvola Player (Ex Google Music Frame) In Fedora.

To get the code, report bugs and so on, check out Nuvola Player @ Launchpad.

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Google Music Frame Renamed To Nuvola Player, Grooveshark (Free) Support Added To The Latest Development Builds

Google Music Frame used to be an application that integrates Google Music in Ubuntu, providing sound menu support, notifications, multimedia keys and even last.fm scrobbling.

But the application has evolved and the latest development builds work with Grooveshark too. Because it now supports two music services (more cloud music services might be added in the future), Google Music Frame has been renamed to "Nuvola Player".

Since the Grooveshark integration is very new, it doesn't support all the features that were available for Google Music yet: for instance, you can't use user scripts yet (so no last.fm scrobbling for now) Last.fm scrobbling support is actually built into Grooveshark now (as long as you log in).

But there's something very cool about the Grooveshark support: because the website is embedded into the application, you don't need a Grooveshark paid subscription to use it (you don't even need to create an account if you don't want to)! Also, the Ubuntu Sound Menu / GNOME Shell Mediaplayer integration,  multimedia keys or notifications already work for Grooveshark.

(Google Music Frame / Nuvola Player in Ubuntu 11.10 with GNOME Shell Mediaplayer extension)

Grooveshark support should land in Nuvola PLayer 0.4, but if you want to try it in Ubuntu already, you can install the latest Nuvola development build from its (new) unstable PPA - available for Ubuntu Lucid, Maverick, Natty, Oneiric and Precise:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nuvola-player-builders/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer

To install Nuvola / Google Music Frame in Fedora, see our previous post (note: not tested with the latest dev builds): How To Install Google Music Frame In Fedora.

Switching between Google Music / Grooveshark can be done by clicking the "Switch service" button on top:

If you encounter bugs, report them @ Launchpad.

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Clementine Music Player Gets Spotify And Grooveshark Support

The latest Clementine music player available in the Clementine Development PPA got some very interesting new features: you can now listen to Grooveshark or Spotify songs through Clementine. For this, you need a Spotify Premium / Grooveshark Anywhere account though.

I've only tested the Grooveshark plugin (because I don't have a Spotify Premium account) and I can tell you it works pretty well already. Also, most of the Grooveshark features can be accessed from Clementine: you can add a song to your favourites, create new playlists, add songs to a Grooveshark playlist or get a song share url. What's not yet available is listening to a Grooveshark radio station.

Other changes include: reorganization of the Preferences dialog, you can configure the quality when converting music before copying it to a device, A new "Search for anything" box above the sidebar, Unity quicklists and more.

Update: the latest Clementine also comes with an option to disable the playlist background image (under Preferences > Behavior > Enable playlist background image).

If you want to test the latest Clementine development build in Ubuntu, use the commands below (warning: the packages may be unstable!):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:me-davidsansome/clementine-dev 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clementine

Thanks to Olof Nord for the tip!

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Grooveshark Scope For Unity Music Lens

David Callé has released a Grooveshark scrope for the Unity Music lens which lets you search for music on Grooveshark from Dash. The new scope uses the free Grooveshark API and clicking on a search result opens a new tab in your default browser, playing the selected song.

To install the new GrooveShark scope in Ubuntu 11.10 or 12.04, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:scopes-packagers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-scope-grooveshark

Then log out and log back in.


According to David, there are a few known issues though, such as:

• the results open in different tabs and aren't enqueued
• results in the local collection are not deduplicated
• some searches don't display any results due to some encoding errors
• sometimes cover art isn't displayed the first time you search for something

If you encounter some other bugs, report them @ Launchpad.

Update: Grooveshark Scope has currently reached the API usage limits. Hopefully, it should work again in a few hours. See this comment.

Via David Callé @ Google+

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