Since I made a switch to Ubuntu Linux on my home pc, I needed a program that would manage my vast collection of music files. Being a .net enthusiast, my choice was naturally Banshee. It’s a well-designed tool and so far was meeting all my needs. But… The other day Tabatha and I were compiling a playlist for our trip to NJ. We both agreed that it would be cool if we could have Banshee play say first 30 seconds of a song, and then go to the next track. That way we could add the song to the playlist if we liked it. I could not find that functionality in Banshee, so I decided to write a custom plugin.

It turned out to be pretty easy. After 40 minutes of messing around I had a functional plugin. It works like a charm. I think I will post my source code online in case other people need this functionality. Oh, and this was also the first time that I used MonoDevelop for a project. But that’s a topic for another blog post.

Update: I decided to abandon my work and wait until the new Banshee comes out. Hopefully then I will have time to polish and release my plugin.