[linux-audio-user] [ANN] Aqualung 0.9beta4 released

[Tom Szilagyi]

                     Aqualung 0.9beta4 released
                       http://aqualung.sf.net


I am pleased to announce the fourth public beta release of Aqualung,
a music player for GNU/Linux. Aqualung plays audio files from your
filesystem and has the feature of sample-accurate track changing (no
gaps inserted between adjacent tracks). It also supports high quality
sample rate conversion between the file and the output device, when
necessary.

Supported formats include: almost all sample-based, uncompressed files
(eg. WAV, AIFF, AU etc.), FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio Codec), Ogg
Vorbis, MPEG Audio (including the infamous MP3 format) and MOD audio
formats (MOD, S3M, XM, IT, etc.). The program can play the music
through OSS, ALSA or the JACK Audio Connection Kit.

Other features include LADSPA plugin support, multiple skin support &
state persistence via XML config files. The so-called Music Store
provided by Aqualung is an XML-based music database for arranging your
music collection.

This new release adds many new features, including file metadata
(FLAC/Vorbis/ID3) display & importing, volume calculation and playback
RVA (relative volume adjustment) support.

All users are encouraged to upgrade. Download the new version from the
project homepage: http://aqualung.sf.net

You can read the changelog below. Hope you enjoy this release.


Tom

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2005-01-28	Tom Szilagyi <tszilagyi at users dot sourceforge dot net>

    * Aqualung 0.9beta4
	http://aqualung.sf.net

    INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES: [none]
	
    NEW LIBRARY DEPENDENCIES:
	
	* liblrdf 0.4.0 is now required (was: 0.3.7)
	  http://lrdf.sourceforge.net
	
	* libid3tag library required if you want ID3v2 support
	  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12349

    MAJOR CHANGES:

	* Internationalization support via gettext. German, Hungarian
	  and Ukrainian translations available; new translations for any
	  language happily accepted at any time

	* Implemented read support for .m3u and .pls
	  playlist formats. The formats are distinguished using
	  file extensions (case insensitive). Now you can supply .m3u or .pls
	  files on the command line, or select one in the Load/Enqueue Playlist
	  option of the playlist window's popup menu. Aqualung does not
	  implement shoutcast ATM, so URLs will be simply discarded.

	* new 'File info' dialog box (accessible from the Music Store and
	  the Playlist) displays FLAC stream metadata, Ogg Vorbis comments and
	  ID3v2 tags found in the soundfiles.

	* playback RVA support. Aqualung has its own system for this, from
	  volume level calculation of files in the Music Store, to adjusting
	  the dynamics characteristics to your listening environment.

	* Import FLAC/Vorbis/ID3v2 metadata into the Music Store via the
	  'File info' dialog accessed from the Music Store.
	  On the right side of the tag data fields, there are buttons
	  to import every piece of information into relevant fields
	  of the Music Store database.
	  In particular, ID3v2.4 RVA tags can be imported as manual RVA
	  adjustment values.

	* many changes to enable displaying track lengths and RVA values
	  in the Playlist. You can configure the column order in the Playlist,
	  and displaying Lengths and RVA values can be turned off.
	  (Track lengths are shown on the right side, RVA is hidden by default.)
	 
	* New Settings notebook page "Playlist" for configuring the behavior of
	  this stuff.

	* new remote option to terminate an already running instance:
	  the -Q or --quit option will cause the instance specified by -N, or
	  the 0-th instance by default, to terminate (just as if you exited it
	  normally).
	
	* added support for remotely changing the volume via the --volume or
	  -V option. Defaults to the 0th running instance.

	* major code rearrangement of Aqualung Core
	  (file decoder is abstracted, runnable in multiple instances at the
	  same time, separated in file_decoder.[ch])

	* added all four basic aqualung skins (dark, default, metal, woody) to
	  CVS. These are automatically available after a make install from now,
	  no need to install them separately.
	 
	* also, the skins have been updated to match recent new dialogs & widgets
	 
	* docs update (manpage, HTML) for the beta4 release.

    MINOR CHANGES:
	
	* ./configure won't stop anymore if an optional library is missing,
	  unless --with-PACKAGE is applied. Closes mantis bug #16.

	* Changes to the interface for adding files to the playlist
	  locally or remotely

	* Implemented conversion from/to UTF8/locale charset. (Closes mantis
	  bug #7).  Note: please set the environment variable G_BROKEN_FILENAMES
	  or G_FILENAME_ENCODING appropriately if your filesystem encoding is
	  not UTF8. See http://developer.gimp.org/api/2.0/glib/glib-running.html
	  for details.

	* Starting playback of a new track via double-clicking
	  on it in the playlist is now allowed when another track
	  is being paused. (Closes bug #14)
	
	* Implemented cue-from-paused-state functions (re: bug #15) as
	  suggested by SGh.

	* Added check for pkg-config -exist "jack" to configure.ac.
	  Up till now, the ./configure script failed to detect the condition
	  when the jack daemon is present, but development files are not.
	  (As if you installed JACK from a distro, but forgot to include
	  the corresponding -dev package.)

	* Implement trashlist object to collect and eventually
	  free pieces of memory that are malloc'ed in an ad-hoc
	  manner in different places, but need to be freed sometime.
	 
	* Use the trashlist to collect and free some memory that
	  was leaked until now in LADSPA plugin dialogs and the
	  File info dialog.

	* renamed "Options" dialog to "Settings". This name better suits the
	  purpose of this dialog.
	 
	* minor rearrangement of "Add Artist", "Edit Artist", "Add Record",
	  "Edit Record", "Add Track" & "Edit Track" dialogs, hopefully for
	  the better.

	* changed About box font to normal (Courier is not always available)
	 
	* Workaround LADSPA plugin loading bug on ReiserFS
	  (use the --with-brokenplfix configure option)