About
ZonyMusicLibrary is a local music library for Windows, macOS and Linux. It organizes music files, matches covers and lyrics, and keeps playlists as the one source.
The interface is designed the way Braun and Dieter Rams designed: it should be like a Braun hi-fi on a bookshelf. A light body, physical keys, one orange key, a few lamps and a speaker grille. Less, but better.
Dieter Rams’s principles of good design become these concrete rules in the app:
| Good design is… | In this app |
|---|---|
| Useful | Every element has a job. No decorative color areas, illustrations, gradients or textures; the only “decoration” is the grille, and it marks where the sound comes from. |
| Understandable | Controls look like what they do: what you press is a raised key, what slides is a knob in a groove, what flips is a switch. Lamps and words state what is going on. |
| Unobtrusive | The body is a neutral off-white; the interface steps back so covers and music lead. |
| Honest | No imitation of materials that are not there: no wood grain, brushed metal or leather. Shadows only show what is truly raised or recessed, and the light always comes from straight above. |
| Aesthetic | Beauty comes from proportion, alignment and space, not from adding things. |
| Long-lasting | No trends: no colored glass blobs, no neon, no large gradients. |
| Thorough | Corners, spacing and type sizes all come from the tokens; the same kind of thing looks the same on every page. |
| As little design as possible | The interface has one color, and it means sound. Whatever can go without hurting understanding, goes. |
This site uses the same design system: the orange key of the player on the home page really makes sound, and its level lamps show the sound as measured.
Not done yet:
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Playlists | planned |
| Export to a USB drive | planned |
| Sync with QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music | planned |
The open source license is not decided yet.
- The fonts Archivo, Noto Sans SC and IBM Plex Mono, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
- Some icons come from Lucide, under the ISC license.