Taskbar Music Lounge - mod status

taskbar-music-lounge-status.md

Taskbar Music Lounge - mod status

Current status

The Taskbar Music Lounge mod is no longer maintained by its original author, who confirmed they are no longer able to maintain it. The mod is no longer receiving bug fixes, updates, or new features.

Fork situation

Since the mod became unmaintained, several forks and derivative versions have been submitted:

• #3523 - Spotify Taskbar Widget
• #3532 - Taskbar Media Widget
• #3581 - Taskbar Music Lounge Pro
• #3633 - Taskbar Media Beacon
• #3701 - Taskbar Music Lounge Multiple
• #3715 - Taskbar Media Bar
• #3722 - Taskbar Media Player
• #3728 - Taskbar Music Lounge fixes
• #3755 - Taskbar Music Lounge - Fork (Enhanced Version)

While this shows that there is demand for this kind of functionality, most of these forks are too narrow in scope — targeting a specific app, a specific visual style, or a specific use case. As noted in one of the reviews, having dozens of near-identical media widget mods is not sustainable and creates a poor experience for users, who have to compare multiple similar-looking mods without a clear way to tell which one to pick.

Path forward

Rather than accepting many fragmented forks, a single high-quality successor mod is welcome. Ideally, such a mod would:

• Be actively maintained by its author.
• Support a reasonable set of customization and theming options to cover the common use cases that the various forks have been trying to address individually.

I don’t necessarily agree with you. I prefer a separate widget rather than integrating it into the taskbar, which already has many elements on the right side of the screen, while the left side is completely empty. Ideally, of course, the user should have the option to either integrate it into the taskbar or have a floating widget.

Why not let each of us implement our own version and let users decide by downloading and rating the mods which one is better? (Because I think mine is the best 😉 ramensoftware/windhawk-mods#3701)

Why not let each of us implement our own version and let users decide by downloading and rating the mods which one is better?

I agree, it would be better to hold a vote

I prefer a separate widget rather than integrating it into the taskbar, which already has many elements on the right side of the screen, while the left side is completely empty.

Being integrated into the taskbar doesn't mean that it must be on the right side. It means that it's part of the taskbar, and not a separate program that creates a window that happens to be located on the taskbar. Being integrated into the taskbar will result in a more native look and feel, including things such as seamless auto-hide support, no z-index issues, and the player covering taskbar items when enough items are open.