Neformal

Media players were created to serve in times when multimedia was not as easy to reach as it is today, thanks to the Internet. Some even managed to build up quite a reputation, while others, although full of potential, got eclipsed, or lost in the sea of alternatives. For instance, Neformal comes with a light set of playback options, online lyrics search, and bookmarks manager for favorite songs.

The main window can feel a little complex, but this is mostly because of the ambiguous overall design, with a tabbed interface, and a bit too cluttered space for playback controls. What bothers the most is the output panel, which can’t be disabled, constantly showing event logs, or file information.

Organizing a playlist can take a little while, because of the browse method. Adding files needs to be done through the built-in navigation component, with a path field, tree list of folders, and bookmarks manager. Every song you want in the playlist needs to be manually saved as bookmark, with no option to automatically add it when playback starts, or to select content of an entire directory at a time.

The tune tab holds a few general settings. Output device can be changed here, whether or not to show ID3v1 tags instead of ID3v2, and to stop playback after the first file. During playback, it can be minimized directly to the tray area by interacting with the corresponding icon.

However, you still rely on the main window for playback controls. Even though it can minimize to the tray area, the icon isn’t fitted with a context menu to house a set of controls. What’s more, hotkeys are not integrated, nor the taskbar preview icon fitted with dedicated buttons.

To sum it up, Neformal is a straightforward audio player, which is sure to satisfy basic audio playback demands, given emphasis is not put on variety of features, or aesthetics. The visual design is bulky, with a counterintuitive browser, while the lack of faster access options to playback controls leaves more to be desired.