Desktop · Windows & Linux
Dorado
The authentic cross-platform spiritual successor to Microsoft Zune Desktop & Player — a behavioral re-implementation of Zune 4.8, built in .NET 8 and Avalonia.
The Zune “Metro” experience
Dorado is built on the purest tenets of the original Zune Desktop software: content before chrome, typography as art, and iconic pivot navigation. Zero rounded corners, no drop shadows, no skeuomorphic textures.
- Content before chrome —
CornerRadius = 0everywhere, no shadows, no faux-leather. - Typography as art — Segoe UI / Selawik metrics with opacity communicating state (active 100%, hover 85%, inactive 40%).
- Iconic pivot navigation — fluid deceleration panning across Quickplay, Collection, Device and Settings.
- Signature accents — the authentic Zune 4.8 magenta family plus Orange / Cyan / Lime / Purple user-selectable accents.
What’s achieved
A broad slice of the complete Zune 4.8 desktop software, restructured around the original experience with extensive decompiled-corpus verification.
- Shell & navigation — custom borderless chrome, panoramic pivot strip with right-edge bleed, tap-the-cut-off-header to go back, parallax 3D pivot slide, compact mini-player.
- Real audio engine — BASS with gapless transitions, equal-power crossfade, ReplayGain, a 75 ms FFT visualizer, and podcast streams.
- Smart DJ & ratings — prioritises hearts, always excludes broken hearts; tri-state heart rating across playback and library.
- Collection & library — Artist / Album / Song / Genre / Playlist / Podcast / Video / Pictures sub-pivots, smart playlists, metadata editing, Find Album Info, folder watching.
- Device sync — sync-group engine with dry-run plans, guest sessions, reverse sync, FirstConnect wizard (real MTPZ hardware is documented N-A).
- Now Playing — artist canvas with Ken-Burns drift, album-art mosaic wall, libVLC video, bio / lyrics / showlist drawers, idle screensaver.
- Playlists — drag-and-drop with hover-swap-icon drop targets, .ZPL export, rule-based smart playlists.
- Settings — 12 software pages and 4 device pages, runtime dark / light theme swap.
Parity status
Verified against the Zune 4.8 decompiled corpus. The corpus itself is not committed, for IP reasons.
| Domain | Parity |
|---|---|
| Shell & navigation | ~90% |
| Quickplay | ~80% |
| Collection (music) | ~90% |
| Now Playing | ~90% |
| Mixview | ~60% |
| Audio engine | ~85% |
| Device sync | ~65% |
| Podcasts | ~75% |
| Settings & management | ~85% |
| Social / Marketplace | Server-dependent (N-A) |
Weighted overall parity: ~85% (UI presentation weighted strongly, hardware-dependent features neutrally).
Build & run
Requires the .NET 8.0 SDK.
dotnet run --project src/Dorado.Desktop/Dorado.Desktop.csproj
dotnet test Dorado.slnMulti-platform publishing:
dotnet publish src/Dorado.Desktop -r linux-x64 -c Release
dotnet publish src/Dorado.Desktop -r linux-arm64 -c Release
dotnet publish src/Dorado.Desktop -r win-x64 -c Release
dotnet publish src/Dorado.Desktop -r win-arm64 -c Releasevlc (or libvlc5 / libvlccore9)
for the video surface. BASS audio natives ship per-RID. On Windows arm64, BASS has
no ARM64 natives, so audio runs in simulated (silent) mode.
Tagging dorado-v* publishes self-contained archives for linux-x64,
linux-arm64, win-x64 and win-arm64 via GitHub Actions.
Licence
MIT. See the LICENSE.
Build the desktop Zune with us.
No gap is unplanned — every remaining item is tracked with a rationale in the parity registry.