screen_thumb Amarok is the music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface. Amarok makes playing the music you love easier than ever before - and looks good doing it.

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Nerrivik - Beta 1 of Amarok 2.0 released!

August 22, 2008 - 10:00 — nightrose

The Amarok team is proud to announce the first beta version of Amarok 2, codenamed Nerrivik, released after days of hard work during this year's Akademy in Belgium. It contains a considerable amount of improvements over the previous alpha versions, bringing Amarok one step closer to the 2.0 release.

Thanks again for sending bug reports, patches and giving feedback. Amarok's development is heading towards 2.0 with an incredible rate, let's keep it that way!

Please be aware that the database scheme changed since alpha 2 and you will need to delete collection.db in Amarok's settings folder (often in ~/.kde4/share/apps/amarok or ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok) if you have used any previous version of Amarok 2.

The highlights of this first beta version are the scripting interface, AFT, new artwork and of course many bugfixes. The scripting interface has matured and script authors are encouraged to explore the new possibilities QtScript offers. The scripting interface might still change but those changes will be minor. Amarok File Tracking (AFT) helps you keep your playcounts, ratings and a lot more file related information that Amarok keeps in its database, even if you move files around in your file system. It has now been brought back to Amarok 2 and will be improved even more in future releases. To find out more about AFT you can read Jeff Mitchell's blogentry about it. The interface was improved a lot by new artwork provided by Nuno Pinheiro and a new splash screen by Wade Olson.

based on a photo by Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary Wolves,


md5sum: 823fcaea9450110bc9ea9fceba674b4e

Some of the changes since alpha 2:

Features

  • Inline editing of tracks in the Collection is now possible.
  • Album moves can be undone
  • Grouped albums can be moved in the playlist by draggin the album header
  • Track moves in the playlist can now be undone
  • Gapless playback.
  • New "fuzzy" bias type, which matches values loosely.
  • Collection Setup automatically expands to show selected directories. (BR 123637)
  • Tag editing and file deletion for MTP devices
  • Add toolbox to context view
  • Allow selecting multiple playlist items.
  • Implement "Move to collection" functionality in file browser.
  • Saving/loading of biased playlists.
  • Improved script console
  • Set items in directory selector to partially checked when relevant. patch by Sebastian Trueg
  • Album is now added to the playlist when clicked in Albums applet.
  • Trigger play/pause when middle-clicking systray icon. (BR 167162)
  • New start flag --multipleinstances allows to run multiple instances of Amarok.
  • Full cover support for Nepomuk collection
  • Search local collection for albums to show in the album applet when playing non local content
  • Context view state is saved on exit and restored on start up.
  • New functions available to the scripting interface, under Amarok.Info.

Changes

  • New filename scheme widget in the Organize Collection dialog.
  • New laylout of the main toolbar using the new graphics.
  • Greatly reduced memory usage when using dynamic playlists.
  • Reworked layout and more intuitive interface in the Guess Tags from Filenames dialog.
  • New artwork by Nuno Pinheiro and Wade Olson
  • Better zooming animation in the context view
  • Better usage of the available space in the context view.
  • Show url in the playlist if track has no name. patch by Edward Hades (BR 167171)

Bugfixes

  • Fix crash when dragging media from an external source (or the file browser) to the playlist (BR 169035)
  • Fix crash when opening the setting dialog (BR 169215)
  • Many fixes to the behavior of the playlist when dragging things around.
  • Don't pop up multiple cover search dialogs when cancelling search in the Cover Manager (BR 167462)
  • Amarok would not respect the user's changes in the cover search dialog.
  • Amarok would submit tracks to lastfm reguardless of whether the user chose to enable scrobbling.
  • OSD translucency works now. (BR 166567)
  • Use name based sorting of tracks without a track number (fixes sorting in shoutcast and cool streams services)
  • Don't try to scan the whole $HOME on first startup.
  • Don't pop up the OSD after changing Amarok settings. (BR: 168197)
  • Fix crash when exiting while collection scan was running. (BR 167872)
  • Automatically re-authenticate connection if the Ampache server has logged us out. (BR 166958)
  • Status bar now allows shrinking main window beyond it's width and does not enlarge main window by itself. Patch by Daniel Molkentin (BR 166832)
  • Submit tracks to Last.fm also when playing Last.fm Radio. (BR 164156)
  • Check if the file is writable before allowing the tags to be edited in SqlMeta. ( BR 122797 )
  • Properly insert items dragged from the collection view. (BR: 166609)
  • Don't remove all the tracks in the group when removing the first. (BR: 167251)
  • Only increment playcount if we've played more than half of the song. (BR 121587)
  • Added protection against endless looping when a playlist contains only unplayable tracks.
  • Missing default playlist does not produce error message now. (BR 167385)
  • Fixed playlist bias drop-down box showing multiple empty and duplicate entries. (BR 167153)
  • Fixed the "Toggle Main Window" shortcut. (BR 167218)
  • Script manager now could stop scripts which use qt bindings.
  • Fix crash when calling GetCaps from the DBus Player interface
  • Update album applet on track change. (BR 167256)

Packages are available through your package manager for most Linux distributions and trough the KDE-on-Windows installer on Windows.

If you want to help us get Amarok 2.0 ready for final release drop by in #amarok or #rokymotion on freenode. We will appreciate any kind of help from translating, documentation writing through writing code and promoting.

Enjoy beta 1 and watch as the wolf is growing :-)
The Amarok 2 FAQ addresses some of the questions you might have about Amarok 2.

Amarok 1.4.10 released

August 13, 2008 - 21:29 — nightrose

Photo by jetboy2006,
licensed under by-nc 2.0

 News from the "Unscheduled releases"-department: This morning we got news about a possible security issue with local, untrusted users that has now, just a few hours later, been fixed. For more information about it see Secunia Advisory #SA31418. Thanks to Google Alerts for notifying us about this vulnerability.

We encourage all users of Amarok 1.4.x, especially if you are using the integrated Magnatune service, to upgrade as soon as possible.

Meanwhile many team members are at Akademy to discuss new developments and work to get closer to Amarok 2.0. Have a look at the blogs to see what's happening. And maybe we're gonna see you in a week at FrOSCon in St. Augustin, Germany?

Aulanerk - Alpha 2 of Amarok 2.0 released!

July 22, 2008 - 17:25 — nightrose

The Amarok team is proud to announce the second alpha version of Amarok 2, codenamed Aulanerk. We have spent many sleepless nights resolving issues and polishing features since the first alpha was released. It wasn't just for fun though ;-) We want the 2.0 release to be the best ever.

A big thank you to everyone who helped us by reporting bugs, sending patches and giving useful feedback. Without you we would not have come this far in the short time since the first alpha! Keep it coming.

It is also nice to see that many people enjoy the result of our work already and can see where we want to go with Amarok 2. Thanks for all the kind reviews of alpha 1. It's always a pleasure to read something like that.

Photo copyright 2007 by Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary Wolves,
licensed under by-nc-nd 2.0


md5sum: acf43672687a5f261ce36d668338a4c1

Here are some of the changes we made since alpha 1:

FEATURES:
* New interface for extracting tags from filenames, now fully working
* Context view applet to view albums (BR 164005)
* Automatic detection of non-UTF-8 charsets for metadata
* Dynamic/Biased playlists improvements
* QtBindings support for the scripts
CHANGES:
* Collection scanner now picks up bmp images too. (BR 167122)
* Update the DBus APIs
* Update the QtScript APIs
* Current track applet added to the Context View on startup
* No more applets flashing between track changes
* Current track applet now shows a message when no track is being played
BUGFIXES:
* Correctly save custom external browser setting (BR 166979)
* Use default KDE crash handler again
* Fix crash when switching tracks in the playlist. (BR 166964)
* Fix crash when trying to download a playlist from unreachable server
* Script Manager now automatically restarts scripts on next startup
* Correctly handle albums with the same name (BR 164173)
* Various bugfixes for the systray tooltip
* In the Wikipedia applet scrolling works properly now
* Context menu separators are no longer shown as empty items
* Make the filebrowser filter instantaneously display results for files
* Add a path separator if required when constructing relative urls from M3U playlists (BR 166346)
* Rescan collection if the version is higher than we currently use (downgrades) (BR 142712)
* Play the first track in the playlist if there is no active track (BR 166336)
* Do not use 100% cpu in the cover manager when changing view modes (BR 164112)
* Fix build on Debian. Patch by David Palacio (BR 166321)
* Fix bug with selection getting stuck in collection browser when selecting multiple items when dragging over them (BR 164960)
* Fix crash when removing collapsed album from the playlist. (BR 163653)
* Mp3tunes would load for users who had never used it before and prompt them with an annoying login box (BR 166332)
* Random album playback mode implemented (BR 164623)
* Fix rendering glitches when double clicking tracks in dynamic mode (BR 166705)
* Make the rating widget on the current track hideable

Development is at full speed and we are trying to get Amarok 2.0 final ready for release soon. If you want to help us now is the perfect time to do so. We need more contributors, especially MacOS and Windows developers. Drop by in #amarok or #rokymotion on freenode. We will appreciate any kind of help from translating, documentation writing through developing and promoting. Come and join us!

Enjoy alpha 2 and watch as the wolf is growing :-)
Please be aware that this is alpha stage software. Bugs and unfinished features are to be expected.
The Amarok 2 FAQ addresses some of the questions you might have about Amarok 2.

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