Genuine Amarok fans are still reminiscing about the good old version 1.4, code-named Fast Forward. The new Amarok 2.2.1 should bring back memories.

Just weeks after release of Amarok 2.2 (code-named Sunjammer), developers are already blogging about the new features in version 2.2.1. New features only? Hardly just that. With Amarok 2.2 the team behind the KDE audioplayer wants to match the quality and stability of the renowned KDE 3 version 1.4. Therefore, Sunjammer will get numerous minor versions intent on enhancing Amarok and not necessarily rushing head-on to the next release.

Amarok 2.2.1 can have the toolbar mid-screen, with the option of a slimmer version for smaller screens.

The first in the series is 2.2.1. As Mark Kretschmann announced in his blog, next to countless bug fixes, the release includes support for the KNotify KDE notification system (previously Amarok showed titles and such in its own dialog box), over a positionable toolbar (with a slim version option) and a markedly improved collection scanner.

Jeff Mitchell is responsible for the new collection scanner. In his blog he describes how he optimized its speed by scanning directories only if their mtime changed, thereby reducing multiple scans of unchanged directories. The result is noticeable speed improvements when scanning collections with few directories but many items in the directory.

To try out the early Amarok 2.2.1 version, the source code is available on Gitorious.

Genuine Amarok fans are still reminiscing about the good old version 1.4, code-named Fast Forward. The new Amarok 2.2.1 should bring back memories.