Narwhal - Amarok 2.0 RC 1 released

Today the Amarok project releases Narwhal, the release candidate of the upcoming Amarok 2.0.

The changes since Beta 3 focus mostly on fixing bugs, as we are in a fairly hard feature-freeze to give us time to polish the final product. However, this didn't stop us from adding a few nice new things:

• Users' Recommended radio is now shown in the Last.Fm Service.
• Playlist browser items can be deleted and renamed using the keyboard.
• Basic and Advanced view when editing a filename scheme are synchronized.
• Added delete button to Advanced view for defining a filename scheme.
• Importer for iTunes libraries now allows you to import your statistics from iTunes.
• The settings dialog now remembers the page that was last used.
• Track information can be edited from the file browser.

In addition, there are the following changes:

• User playlists added from files are now updated on collection rescans, so any changes in the file is reflected in the SQL playlist.
• Layout refactoring in the Organize Collection dialog.
• Enabled Last.fm scrobbling by default when Last.fm login is supplied.
• "Show active track" has been moved from the playlist context menu to the playlist toolbar
• The video and Last.fm applet have been removed for now as they are not ready for final release. They will be readded in later releases.

There are, of course, a ton of bugfixes. See the full ChangeLog further below for all the goodies.


A lot of great new scripts have shown up on kde-apps.org. Give them a try and enjoy.

Packages are available through your distributions package manager, the KDE-on-Windows installer and from the KDE-on-Mac website. Additionally the tarball can be downloaded here:

Has your favourite Amarok 1.4 feature not been added to 2.0 yet, or perhaps something you read about on someone's blog has not yet shown up? Not to worry -- we've got a large number of things on our plate waiting to go once 2.0 is out the door. So expect to see lots of new, great things being added in short order, plus the return of some old favourites. Have a look at the Amarok 2 FAQ to find answers to the most common questions about Amarok 2.

ChangeLog:

Features

• Users' Recommended radio is now shown in the Last.Fm Service.
• Playlist browser items can be deleted and renamed using the keyboard. (BR 175116)
• Basic and Advanced view when editing a filename scheme are synchronized.
• Added delete button to Advanced view for defining a filename scheme.
• Importer for iTunes libraries now allows you to import your statistics from iTunes.
• The settings dialog now remembers the page that was last used.
• Track information can be edited from the file browser. (BR 172812)

Changes

• Video and Last.fm applet have been disabled. They are not ready for release.
• Ipods and MTP devices auto-connect again for usability.
• Ipod Collections can now delete multiple tracks at once.
• User playlists added from files are now updated on collection rescans, so any changes in the file is reflected in the SQL playlist.
• Layout refactoring in the Organize Collection dialog.
• Enabled Last.fm scrobbling by default when Last.fm login is supplied.
• Amarok now allows opening of video files again. (BR 174267)
• "Show active track" has been moved from the playlist context menu to the playlist toolbar.

Bugfixes

• Last playing track on exit now selected on startup. (BR 168789)
• Update Collection works now correctly, only scanning the necessary dirs. (BR 169602)
• In Organize Collection, the "Collection root" token is now fixed at the beginning of the filename scheme. (BR 175376)
• Resize handle now appears in OS X. (BR 170199)
• Do not deselect album when right clicking on header. (BR 175527) (BR 174584)
• Correctly sort tracks when dragging and dropping directly to the playlist. (BR 175023)
• Clearing the playlist turns Dynamic Mode off. (BR 174514)
• Make sure user has edited a text field manually before overwriting that tag. (BR 174878)
• Podcast episodes and channels can be dragged directly from the playlistbrowser onto the playlist. (BR 175162)
• Multiple fixes and improvements for the Wikipedia applet.
• Playback no longer stops when Last.Fm service config is closed. (BR 174943)
• Fix issue with tracks from SQL playlists that were added from collection scanning not having proper metadata until after a restart.
• Fix duplicate playlists being added on collection rescanning. (BR 173180)
• OSD timer resets when song changes. (BR 175030)
• Fix crash when dragging albums to the bottom of the playlist. (BR 174786)
• Fixed update of preview string in Organize Collection when switching collections.
• Fix playlist behaviour when adding a track that is already playing (BR 174634)
• Jamendo Service: Remove some sorting modes that caused the database to choke as the result sets became too large. Will be revisisted post 2.0.0. (BR 174851)
• Fixed possible crash with reading wav files. Patch by Peter van Fessem . (BR 174819)
• Amarok 1.4 database importer would skip tracks in some collections. (BR 174329) (BR 174444)
• OSD renders correctly on track changes.
• Podcasts are correctly stored to the database. (BR 172688)
• Lyrics aren't refetched when irrelevant track metadata is changed. (BR 174678)
• Don't show transfer popups when copying tracks to a collection and overwriting files. (BR 174533)
• When organising files, "Ignore The" logic was inverted.
• Do not reload scripts that are already active. (BR 174601)
• Pressing Stop while fade-out is running will no longer restart the fading. (BR 173528)
• Fixed problem with Amarok sometimes not advancing to the next track.
• Wikipedia and Lyrics applets now update with streams. (BR 172715)
• Ampache Service: Do not crash if login is incorrect on startup.
• Playback control buttons now respects the current color theme. (BR 169268)
• Fix scripted services not resetting content when filter is cleared.
• Dynamic playlist no longer locks up requiring a restart of the application. (BR 173776)
• Correctly load m3u playlists. (BR 171595)
• Made the Load action start playback correctly like the Append action.
• Correctly load m3u playlists. (BR 171595)
• Fixed metadata updating for Shoutcast streams.