Tauon 8.0 has been fully ported to SDL3, an efficient cross-platform and open-source multimedia library that provides a robust API for interacting with hardware (like audio devices). Tauon mention that the port provides better stability and scope for adding interesting new capabilities.
Features-wise, Tauon 8.0 adds an options menu to the stop button so let users define stop behaviour (including an ‘always’ setting, e.g., ‘always stop after album’), and plumbs in LRCLIB as a lyric provider (with support for fetching synced lyrics).
Discord user? There’s improved support for the ever-popular Discord RPC, displaying the name of the player itself (previously the label said ‘playing’) and separating album and artist on to separate lines.
This update makes a pre-existing feature easier to find: Tauon’s Shuffle Lockdown mode. This removes UI distraction and only allows your library to be played in shuffle, hence the name).
To try it out, select it from the main MENU.
Tauon 8.0: Linux Transparency
On to that Linux-exclusive eye-candy I mentioned in the opening.
Linux users can try Tauon’s new ‘Transparent‘ theme mode setting via MENU > Settings > Theme > Transparent accent mode.
When set, this mode renders select parts of the UI semi-transparent, letting whatever is behind ‘peek through’. The track list pane is left opaque to ensure text remains readable.
On Linux desktop environments that either have or supports UI blur plugins/extensions, like KDE Plasm and GNOME Shell, the transparent accent mode coupled with background blur creates a very slick aesthetic.
Here’s Tauon 8.0.0 running on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with the Blur My Shell extension installed:
One thing to note is that this feature is separate to the existing option in Tauon that allows the entire window’s opacity yo be adjust using ctrl + + / - shortcuts.
Other changes in Tauon 8.0.0
- New ‘Charmed’ theme(previously supporters-only)
- Drop region highlighting works when dragging in external files
- Mini mode always on top setting now works on Wayland
- Radio search box shows “Developer Picks” section by default
- Bug fixes
In all, this is another solid update to the flexible, powerful and highly configurable Tauon music player.
For more details on this release check out the official change-log on GitHub.
Install Tauon on Ubuntu
Windows and macOS users can get installers from the Tauon website or the ‘assets’ section on the GitHub releases page.
The easiest way to install Tauon on Ubuntu is to use the official Flatpak available on Flathub. This bundles all dependencies (including a new, temporary, python-lynxpresence package for Discord RPC). you can also download and compile from source code, if you want.
• Get Tauon on Flathub
