Winamp

General Overview

Winamp 5 features our new Modern Skin that's easier to use and more powerful than ever. You can easily access the Media Library (ML), Playlist Editor (PL), integrated Video or Visualizations (Video/Vis Drawer), or the EQ, Skin Options, and Color Themes (Config Drawer) from the Main Window. The player includes over 50 color themes that suit nearly every mood or occasion! Winamp 5 carries forward the unobtrusive "Window Shade." Get the SDK now.

 

Skins

Classic skins are skins that adhere to the Winamp 2 style model. Classic skins are easier to create than Modern skins but do not allow the author to change the form or function of the player. Classic authors may only replace a standard set of images that alter the player's visual appearance.

Modern skins are skins that adhere to the Winamp 3+ skin model. Modern (aka freeform) skins offer authors a tremendous amount of flexibility by allowing authors to change the player's shape, size, layout, and function. Learn how to create a modern skin for Winamp! We'll show you the pipeline from beginning to end. To get started, use the links to the left to navigate, or download the PDF at the bottom of this page.

More about Classic Skins | More about Modern Skins | Download the SDK

Plug-ins

Winamp plug-ins are files that extend Winamp's functionality. There are currently seven different plug-in types, each of which extends Winamp in a particular way. Winamp plug-ins are implemented as 32-bit Windows DLLs. Here are the plug-in categories:

1. Input plug-ins: Input plug-ins give Winamp the ability to play additional file types that aren't supported by Nullsoft directly.
2. Output plug-ins: Output plug-ins allow Winamp to manifest audio data in different ways.
3. General purpose plug-ins: Anything that needs to run continuously in the background or doesn't require audio processing qualifies as a General purpose plug-in.
4. DSP/effect plug-ins: DSP Plug-ins manipulate audio data before actually being sent to the speakers (or whatever the Output plug-in decides to do with it).
5. Visualization plug-ins: "Vis" plug-ins display some sort of visual effect based on audio that's being decoded by Winamp.
6. Language packs: Language packs are used to internationalize Winamp to the language of your choice.
7. Media Library plug-ins: Media Library plug-ins extend the media library for instance, for portable devices such as iPods, accessing Media Library databases, etc.

All of the plug-ins are designed to be written in C or C++, using Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 or later. Other people have reported success with writing some forms of plug-ins using Delphi, LCC, and Visual Basic. We don't use these alternate development platforms, so we can't really support development on them (writing this page alone took way too much time, wink). The Winamp forums is a good place to start.