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I'm looking for a sound or video player that will:

  • play one (and only one) of a set of tracks on demand,
  • play a track with minimal interaction (ideally a single click), and
  • either load multiple tracks into memory, or somehow load tracks from disk without much of a pause.

I've tried a handful of movie/music players, and they all see to want to play through an entire playlist rather than just a single track. Re-loading each track when it's required is both a hassle and doesn't have the response time I'm looking for, perhaps because I'm using a Netbook.

Is there a player out there that might work better for me?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Try Quodlibet. There's a "One track" play order that will play one track then stop.

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The play button exhibits some strange behavior, but double-clicking the track does indeed just play one song and stop. Thank you for the help! –  ladenedge Apr 24 '12 at 5:01
Not sure what you mean by strange. It's a play/pause button. 1: play 2: pause 3: play etc ... –  user55822 Apr 24 '12 at 9:56
If I hit the play button after having played the last track, Quod plays the first track. If I hit the play button after playing any other track, it plays the same track again. –  ladenedge Apr 24 '12 at 14:27

Try BansheeInstall banshee: Play a song, press Shift+Space or select PlaybackStop When Finished - it will do so.

stop when finished menu

This setting will be memorized for one song only, which means you have to activate this each time you play a song. For this issue a bug report exists.

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It appears that the "Stop When Finished" feature only takes effect for a single press of the play button. In other words, if I enable "Stop When Finished" and hit play, the player stops after one song as expected. If I hit play again immediately, however, it plays through the entire list without stopping. –  ladenedge Apr 24 '12 at 4:56
You are right. When I checked it yesterday I pressed "next" or chose another song by double-clicking it. Then it works. But this doesn't help in your case. You can take a look here for other audio players: wiki.ubuntuusers.de/AudioPlayer - it's in German, but it could be helpful, though, I think. –  Jakob Apr 24 '12 at 7:39
Bug report: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/banshee/+bug/987682 –  Jakob Apr 24 '12 at 7:53
Bug was denied. Supposedly it's as designed, though I think the rationale is pretty silly. I added my thoughts too, fwiw. Thanks for the effort! –  ladenedge Apr 24 '12 at 14:40

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