Draft post

Hello Strawberry developers and community,

I maintain a small Linux companion application for iTunes XML migration previews, playlist generation, read-only library audits, and selected VLC transfers to an iPhone. I tested a small local patch against Strawberry that adds Tools → Strawberry Companion.... It starts the companion's desktop app as a separate process when strawberry-companion-gui is available on PATH and shows a simple message if it is not installed.

The patch does not access Strawberry's database, add device-transfer code to the player, or change playback. The separate companion remains usable from its own launcher and CLI. The menu action has been compiled and tested on Debian 12 with a separate Strawberry build; I confirmed both the successful launch and the missing-companion message.

Would the Strawberry project consider this small optional launcher, or would you prefer that the companion remain fully separate? If a pull request is welcome, I can rebase the patch onto the current upstream branch and submit it with build/test notes.

Thanks for your guidance.

This was AI written, however i stand behind the post.