Kaku – web technologies-based music player
My CD collection has taken over my spare room. With very little space to store more, I’m gradually spending more time using streaming services.
Linux is blessed with a mouthwatering array of excellent open source music players. But I’m always on the look out for fresh and innovative music players.
Kaku bills itself as the next generation music client. Is that self-proclaimed hype? The software is written in JavaScript.
Installation
Users are well catered for irrespective of their operating system, as the project offers binaries for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
For Linux, there’s official packages for Debian/Ubuntu (32- and 64-bit). For other distros, there may be packages available from their respective repositories.
The developer also provides an AppImage (32- and 64-bit) which makes it easy to run the software. AppImage is a format for distributing portable software on Linux without needing superuser permissions to install the application. All that’s required is to download the AppImage, and make the file executable by typing:
$ chmod u+x ./Kaku-2.0.1-x86_64.AppImage
In operation
Here’s an image of Kaku in action.
First thing you might notice from the above screenshot is that Kaku replaces the maximize, minimize, and close buttons with Mac style buttons. I prefer my applications to have a consistent look and feel, but it’s not a big issue.
At the top right of the window, there’s a search bar. By default, Kaku displays results from YouTube, but there’s also the option to search Vimeo, SoundCloud, MixCloud, or all of them. Videos can be displayed in a list view or a icon view. By default, you’re presented with the top ranking YouTube music videos.
At the bottom left, there’s a small window that displays the video. There’s the standard playback buttons and playback bar together with the option to cast the output to a device, and toggle TV mode. You can make videos appear full screen or occupy all of the Kaku estate.
Latest News
This section is redundant, useless, and hopefully will be removed in a later release. It shows only release notes for early releases of Kaku. You might (incorrectly) conclude that Kaku hasn’t been updated in years. This isn’t the case; the software is under active development. But even if this section offered details of recent improvements to the software, that information is much better placed on the project’s GitHub page rather than cluttering up the application itself.
Search Results
You’re taken to this section whenever you use the search bar, or click Search Results (unless you’re in TV mode). Videos that match your search criteria are easily added to the play queue. The search bar displays even in TV mode, but search results are not displayed.
Play Queue
This section is populated by clicking the “Add to Play Queue” button, which is shown in Home and Search Results. The video currently being played is highlighted in light blue. Right click on a video gives the option to add it to a playlist. You’ll need to have a playlist created first though.
History
As you might have guessed, this section shows a history of videos that you’ve watched. You can click on any entry and replay that video. Right click on a video gives the option to add it to a playlist.
Settings
This section lets you configure the application. I’ll cover the configuration options in the next page.
Online DJ
Does the prospect of becoming a DJ entice you? This section lets you become your own DJ, offering your choice of music videos to listeners (known as guests). When you create a room, a room key is generated. You share this key with your guests which gives them access to your room. As the DJ, what you play will be offered to your guests. By joining the room, you can also text chat with everyone in the room. Neat!
Other Features
Before looking at some of the other functionality, let’s discuss memory usage.
I recently put Headset under the microscope. Like Kaku, Headset is a YouTube player although it’s implemented in a very different way.
One thing that cropped up with Headset was its excessive memory usage, sometimes topping 1GB of RAM. Kaku is much more frugal with memory, consuming less than 300MB in typical usage.
The settings section offers the following functionality:
- Enable desktop notifications.
- Keep Kaku on top. Unlike vlc, this feature actually works!
- Enable Chatroom. The chatroom is available with the Online DJ functionality.
- Internationalization support – translations are available for Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, and other languages.
- Choose the Top Ranking for different countries. Bizarrely, the application defaults to United Arab Emirates.
- Change the default searcher: YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, or all of them.
- Default track format: Best Video, or Best Audio.
- Import YouTube playlists.
- Backup data locally or to Dropbox.
- Sync data locally or from Dropbox.
- Update Player.
- Reset the database.
The software also offers playlists, with the ability to rename/remove them.
Summary
Kaku is a capable but not a great music/video player. There’s a good range of streaming services available to use. And it’s much more pleasurable to watch music videos using Kaku than on the streaming service website itself. While the software works well, it’s a tad rough round the edges and idiosyncratic.
Overall, I’m left with the feeling of meh! The Online DJ functionality and text chat functionality is innovative, although it’s clunky.
There’s lots of functionality I’d love added. I’d like shuffle playback, better keyboard shortcuts, an option to choose the playback resolution, and tons more. While the software purports to show the best video quality available, this clearly isn’t the case.
The player is under active development. I’ll be keeping my eagle eyes on new releases.
Website: kaku.rocks
Support: GitHub code repository
Developer: Chia-Lung Chen and contributors
License: MIT License