The Wolf 1.4.2-beta1 - 'Fast Forward'

Today the Amarok project released 1.4.2-beta1 of the 'Fast Forward' series. 1.4.2-beta1 includes two major new features. One is Advanced Tag Features (ATF). Turn it on in Amarok's configuration and take advantage of some great features that make sure you can move your music without losing your music. Once your files have been rescanned with ATF writes enabled, as you move files within your collection folders, the Playlist and all of your statistics and song ratings will track your files, no matter where in your collection you move them -- or how you rename them! The other new feature is Dynamic Collection. In the past, users who kept their music on a server or on a removeable storage device would find that the tracks contained in these folders would be dropped when an incremental scan was performed -- and that they would then have to wait while all of these tracks were rescanned when the folders on these devices were available again. Now, when reconnecting devices or network shares, Amarok will immediately remember the files that were contained on that storage device, eliminating the need for a long rescan!

Although we have spent a lot of time testing these and other new features, there are always things we didn't catch -- and we do know that in this beta there may be issues with podcasts and podcast fetching. So, to be on the safe side, we suggest that you make backups of your amarokrc and your amarok directory (ask in #amarok if you don't know how to do this) so that if something is broken for you, your configuration can be recovered. If something is not behaving properly please report the issue in the KDE bugtracking system Bugs.KDE.Org so that we can fix it for 1.4.2.

FEATURES

• Lyrics can be edited directly on Context Browser's Lyrics tab.
• BPM field. Patch by Alf B LervÃ¥g and Aaron VonderHaar. (BR 123142)
• Advanced Tag Features (ATF) goes public: Turn it on in the Collection options and organize your files freely without losing your statistics or needing to re-add tracks to the Playlist. We'll keep track of where you put your files or what you renamed them to and update it all for you!
• Improved crossfading for xine-engine: Honours the 'Crossfade Length' setting precisely, and uses a better mixing style profile. Patch by Enrico Ros.
• A new media device implements a DAAP client. So Amarok can connect to iTunes, Firefly Media Server etc. (BR 100513)

CHANGES

• Quite a lot bugfixes including some bugs found by the Klocwork tools
• Podcatching partly broken

As usually details can be found in the ChangeLog.

Amarok 'Fast Forward' 1.4.1

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Scientists have discovered a new species, a species that doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, and doesn't socialize. They have named this species Amarok developers. These developers have been hard at work preparing version 1.4.1 of world's "fastest" forwarding media player in a small Netherlands town, Annahoeve.

In Amarok 'Fast Forward' 1.4.1 we introduce native support for Last.fm radio streams, including advanced features known from the Last.FM player. In addition Amarok's custom icon theme is completely finished. Users who tested out the 1.4.1 beta probably noticed the completely renovated UI design. After careful evaluation of feedback from our users, we have decided to delay the layout change until 2.0. The 1.4.1 release again features the classic and proven Amarok layout!

Another new feature that has received a lot of attention lately is ATF. ATF, or Advanced Tag Features will allow collection statistics to stay up to date regardless of the track being moved. This is disabled by default, visit the link above to find out how to check this out. Note, this technology can be considered beta, it is not known to cause problems, but it may. We have also disabled INotify support for this release, there were a number of things that needed more attention before it would be added.

You can immediately obtain Amarok 1.4.1 'Fast Forward' in the Amarok Wiki

Thank you for forwarding Amarok!

FEATURES

• Support for Last.fm streams
• New icon theme
• Creative Nomad Jukebox support
• Support for custom scoring algorithms
• ATF - Advanced Tag Features

CHANGES

• Disabled INotify support due to stability problems
• Removed Moodbar

Amarok "Fast Forward" 1.4.1-beta1 On The Road

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Usually one might expect nothing special from a minor release. But as you know: Amarok is different!
The developers of your favorite media player have held a meeting in the Netherlands, all to improving Amarok!

The most visible result of the meeting is a major improvement to the user interface: the "current" sidebar tab has been moved to the top of the playlist. This is also one of the major reasons why we do a beta release for 1.4.1, we want you to try the new layout, report problems, bugs and how do you like it. All this feedback will justify whether we remove it for the Fast Forward series, and delay it until 2.0, or to leave it and make it as awesome as possible.

Another often requested feature is the possibility to use different scoring algorithms. This is now possible using scripts with the improved script manager. There have also been various under the hood changes, which might lead to regressions or totally new bugs - so we ask everyone to test this beta and report issuses, to make 1.4.1 rock!

As usuall you can find the tarball and available Distribution packages in the Amarok Wiki, as well as more details in the ChangeLog.

To help us determine how people generally configure amarok (to help us determine which changes need to be made, especially to the new context browser), please take a screenshot of your Amarok and send it in to [amarok.survey@gmail.com]. Thank you, we appreciate your help.

FEATURES

• All new Context Browser layout.
• LibVisual 0.4 supported and required.
• Great new icon theme by Vadim Petrunin.
• Support for custom scoring algorithms, via scripts.
• Creative Nomad Jukebox support (untested!). Contributed by Andres Oton.
• Inotify support. On kernels 2.6.13 and above with Inotify support compiled in, the collection will be instantly updated as soon as a watched folder changes.

CHANGES

• Changed name spelling from amaroK to Amarok.
• Many usability improvements, as a result of our cooperation with OpenUsability.