amaroK 'Fast Forward' 1.4-beta3 Released!

[Mark Kretschmann]

Announcing version 1.4-beta3 of the amaroK 'Fast Forward' series

The amaroK team brings you, fresh from the oven, the much anticipated "Fast
Forward" 1.4 beta3 (this time it's not an April Fool joke!). Beta3 ships with
many bugfixes for issues picked up by our thorough beta2 testers, and is the
most stable release to date, and also contains some extra features to bring
amaroK closer to 1.4 final. As always, you can make note of any problems at
the amaroK 1.4 known issues page after filing a bug report at bugs.kde.org so
we can squash them before the final version is released. For download
information please visit the amaroK wiki.


CHANGES VERSION 1.4-beta3:
==========================
  FEATURES:
    * amaroK now supports multiple media devices of varying types (currently
      iPods, UMS/vfat, and iFP devices).
    * Autodetection of iPods and UMS/vfat devices (if KDE has HAL/DBUS support
      compiled in).
    * New DCOP call "devices: showDeviceList()" to show the Device Manager's
      current device knowledge.
    * amaroK now has a custom icon theme, and an option to switch back to the
      system icons, if preferred (in the General settings section).
    * Collection browser view is separated alphabetically. Patch by
      Christian Hoenig <list at hoenig.cc>.
    * Support for loading and saving XSPF playlists. Patch by Mattias
      Fliesberg <mattias.fliesberg at gmail.com>. (BR 114360)
    * Ease navigation with track slider below playlist window by showing mood.
      (BR 121715)
    * Show context information for podcasts.
    * Filebrowser: toolbar button to change to the directory of the currently
      playing song. (BR 115479)
    * Added "Play Audio CD" entry to the amaroK menu. (BR 103409)
    * GStreamer-0.10 engine now supports visualizations.
    * xine-engine: Show metadata for ogg vorbis streams. (BR 122505)
    * Drag and drop podcast urls directly onto podcast folders for addition.
    * Add media directly into directories for iRiver ifp devices.
    * Button to directly edit lyrics from the context browser. (BR 123515)
    * Support for SMIL playlists. (BR 121983)
    * Support for WAX playlists. (BR 120980)
    * Handle the Year tag when playing AudioCDs. Patch by Markus Kaufhold
      <M.Kaufhold at gmx.de>. (BR 123428)
    * Ignore 'The ' in artist names when sorting in the cover manager, as per
      the collection browser. (BR 122858)
    * Add autocompletion to the composer field in the tag dialog. (BR 123026)

  CHANGES:
    * In context browser, show information about recently updated podcasts,
      recently added and favourite albums when nothing is playing.
    * Ratings can now have half stars: click again on the last star in the
      rating to toggle it between a half and a full star.
    * Improved handling of embedded cover art, utilizing the database. Patch
      by Shane King <kde at dontletsstart.com>. (BR 124563)
    * Statistics tool has had numerous improvements.
    * Optimise: Only rerender the CollectionBrowser when relevant.
    * Disable detection of iPod model and thus solve g_object_get related
      problems. (BR 121990)
    * Don't block GUI when trying to transfer large numbers of items already
      on media device. (BR 123570)
    * Update playlist items when their location is changed during organizing
      files. (BR 123752)
    * Recursively add tracks when directories are dropped to the media browser
      and the collection browser. (BR 123982)
    * Visualizations now receive stereo data from amaroK. (BR 118765)
    * Upgraded internal SQLite library to version 3.3.4.
    * Podcast information is stored in the database.
    * Improved password handling in the PostgreSQL config dialog. Patch by
      Peter C. Ndikuwera <pndiku at gmail.com>. (BR 118304)

  BUGFIXES:
    * Fix display of media device transfer queues larger than 4 GB.
      (BR 125247)
    * Fix duplicate detection when transferring to media device for tracks
      having empty album tags. (BR 125203)
    * Fix spuriously garbled collection scans. Patch by Shane King
      <kde at dontletsstart.com>. (BR 125114)
    * Fix error with 'Back' link when browsing related artists. (BR 123227)
    * Files with names containing '#' or '?' from smart playlists would not
      get transferred to media device. (BR 122488)
    * Stop Playing After Track option wouldn't be shown for the right tracks,
      when there were queued tracks. Patch by Marcelo Penna Guerra
      <eu at marcelopenna.org>. (BR 124297)
    * Don't submit podcast episodes to last.fm. (BR 118987)
    * Accept system:/media/ urls into the playlist. (BR 120249)
    * Fix leak of file descriptors with embedded cover art. Patch by Shane
      King <kde at dontletsstart.com>. (BR 123472)
    * Stop collection folders being automatically removed. Instead, allow
      user to remove non-existent folders by deselecting parent. (BR 123745)
    * Stop delete key in playlist deleting last deselected item. (BR 123265)
    * xine-engine: Show bitrate and samplerate for CD-Audio and WAV. Patch by
      Markus Kaufhold <M.Kaufhold at gmx.de>. (BR 123625)
    * Some podcasts would cause amaroK to hang.
    * Check if directories still exist when showing Collection directories.
      (BR 123834)
    * Playlist popup menu had a visual glitch with Lipstik and (probably)
      earlier versions of Plastik.
    * Fixed a huge memory leak when using xine-engine with crossfading.
      (BR 119230)
    * Sometimes iRiver devices would crash upon disconnecting. (BR 123416)
    * Adjust the Astraweb lyrics script for a layout change on the site. Patch
      by Andrew Turner <andrewturner512+kdebugs googlemail com>. (BR 123636)
    * Directory selection would incorrectly highlight a directory in a
      corner case. (BR 123635)
    * Don't pretend to be able to uninstall default ContextBrowser themes.
      (BR 123585)
    * Fix preamp and frequency band scaling in the xine equalizer. Patch by
      Tobias Knieper <webmaster at micekiller.de>. (BR 116633)
    * OSD text would not be stripped of empty lines.
    * Playlist couldn't be shuffled if queued items existed. (BR 120221)
    * Fixed renaming of Smart Playlists. (BR 122509)
    * Fixed some bugs with PostgreSQL and Smart Playlists. Patch by Peter C.
      Ndikuwera <pndiku at gmail.com>. (BR 123317)
    * Escape invalid characters when transferring files to IFP devices.
      (BR 123199)
    * Escape newline characters when showing detailed information for podcast
      items in the playlistbrowser. (BR 123109)


The amaroK team
---------------

amaroK is a soundsystem-independent audio-player for *nix. Its interface uses 
a powerful "browser" metaphor that allows you to create playlists that make 
the most of your music collection. We have a fast development-cycle and 
super-happy users. We also provide pensions and other employment-benefits.

"Easily the best media-player for Linux at the moment. Install it now!"
    - Linux Format Magazine


WWW:  http://amarok.kde.org
WIKI: http://amarok.kde.org/amarokwiki
IRC:  irc.freenode.net - #amarok, #amarok.de, #amarok.es
MAIL: amarok-devel at lists.sourceforge.net


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language
that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast
and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory!
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642