I’m self-teaching modern C++ by developing a native music library manager and player for Windows, macOS and other Unix systems. The main focus is on the 100% custom UI (with Direct2D/CoreGraphics/Cairo backends), aiming for responsiveness, power-user friendliness and compactness. The UI thread is absolutely sacred and I’m trying really hard to separate the core logic from the UI, because I hate how laggy and hang-prone all players I’ve tried are. I’m drawing inspiration from pre-2010 skeuomorphic and dense UIs. Key features include fast incremental imports and powerful UI elements with features like multiple column sorting, multiple element selection and keyboard-first navigation. I understand this problem is already solved, but I’m starting to DJ and curate my personal music library again. So far, nothing has been more satisfying than an old unsupported version of iTunes that doesn’t even support FLAC. I’ve tried foobar2000 but it doesn’t meet many of my requirements. Therefore, I’m building this software both because I have a need and because writing it is very fun (and frustrating at times)!

I’ve written a PoC already (mind the crappy and incomplete UI), mostly to test the wild custom UI idea, and it’s working so far! https://i.redd.it/ocx9m5av6d6g1.jpeg

The simplicity and density of that UI is nostalgic. You say it's crappy and incomplete, but all I'd want is a search bar which can actually scroll the whole-library view to the found-song (something I wish Spotify did, but they only filter.)

Okay fine, playlists are a good thing to have as well. Either way, I miss stuff this simple.