We are very pleased to announce the latest version of Helium Music Manager 2007, build 5500. This version is a free update for owners of Helium Music Manager 2007.
We have worked hard to introduce new functionality as well as introducing several smaller changes designed to make working with your music collection even easier. We have also focused a lot of our effort on bug corrections in this release and have solved many issues reported to us, as well as issues found when performing acceptance tests.
New features/improvements
CD Ripper
The CD Ripper is a new tool, requested by many users for a long time. The CD Ripper in Helium Music Manager can rip Audio CD tracks to WAVE, MP3 (using LAME as the encoder), FLAC and Ogg Vorbis.
Downloading of track and album information is automatic, track and album gain is supported (with MP3Gain installed) and the track information editing is based on the Tag Editor (Spreadsheet mode) for easy tag adjustment.
Music Library
•The current “My Computer” path is now remembered during sessions (if the “My Computer” view is active).
•The current “My Folders” path is now remembered during sessions (if the “My Folders” view is active).
•Browse folder in My Folders is now available for “My Computer”.
•Synchronize Folders is now available for “My Computer”.
•The Subtrack Editor is is now available for “My Computer”.
•The “My Computer” view now uses proper system icons for several nodes.
•Added the capability to copy a folder from the ”My Folders” view.
Add Files Wizard/Synchronize Folders
•Speed optimizations to both the Add Files Wizard and Synchronize Folders.
•It is now possible to select which file types to add, from the Add Files Wizard.
Internal Player/Now Playing/Active Playlist
•Possibility to adjust the player buffer.
•A small version of the album cover is displayed in the Internal Player. Right-click the image to update/remove or view it. Hover over the picture to see a larger thumbnail.
•The Active Playlist can now be docked into the Right Sidebar.
•Replay-gain values can be read from ID3v2 TXXX frames (written by dbPoweramp among others).
•A toolbar has been added to Active Playlist.
Tags
•Totally new WMA tag engine. This new tagging engine is quicker, supports more fields (Subtracks, Lyrics and multiple attached pictures just to mention a few) and is generally more reliable and stable.
•Support for adding and tagging of WAV files using RIFF tags.
•Attached pictures in ID3v2 tags are written so that “Cover (front)” and “Other” will come before other types. This helps iPod devices to show the correct image.
•Export/Import Tags now synchronizes the database after the tags have been exported/imported.
•iTunes compilation tag is now written for the Compilation, Sampler and Soundtrack release types.
Database
•New options to select between three different browsing modes: “Browse in online mode (Check for existing files)” which checks if each file is available or not, “Browse in online mode (Without checking for existing files)” which works like the other online mode, except that it does not check if each file is available or not. The third mode is “Browse in Offline mode” which works as in previous versions of Helium Music Manager.
The recommended and quickest mode is “Browse in online mode (Without checking for existing files)”. This will give speed improvements of up to 5 times faster browsing than before.
•Replay-gain values (Track gain and Album gain) are now stored in the database. You can filter and search for values related to this content.
•Compare Databases is a new function allowing you to visually compare the contents of two databases.
•Possibility to import MediaMonkey v2.x databases
•Optimize MS SQL command available from Database Management. This can help for optimizing large, fragmented databases to improve overall speed.
•MS SQL / SQL Express / MSDE databases are now fully backed up and restored in the respective tools.
Music Information Browser
•Possibility to select which content will be shown on an Artist page. By disabling some features you can improve the speed of the Artist page in the Music Information Browser.
•Capitalization rules are now used in the Edit Artist/Group dialog.
Tag Editor
•Templates can be switched directly from the toolbar in the Tag Editor.
Album Browser
•The last viewed album will be remembered / reselected between sessions.
Auto Play handlers
•Inserting an Audio CD into the CD/DVD device now gives a choice of ripping the CD using Helium Music Manager.
•Inserting a mixed content disc or device (e.g. mp3 player or media device) now gives a choice of adding the tracks to Helium Music Manager or to play them.
General
•Support for WAVE files.
•New Track Properties page which allows you to view a track properties and tag information as well as which playlists and user categories the track is included in.
•Replay-gain values (Track and Album gain) can be shown in track list columns.
•New Office 2007-like theme with blue, black and silver color schemes.
•New Outlook 2007-like user interface for navigating between views.
•Reintroduced support for multiple column templates for the Tracklist
•Possibility to load column templates by rightclicking in the Tracklist header
•The toolbars can be freely docked at the top, left, right or bottom.
•The Add Music Wizard has been updated with new quick access commands.
•Possibility to use selective texts for all toolbar buttons on the main toolbar.
•Plug-ins can be installed and made available without needing to restart Helium Music Manager.
•The Last.fm plug-in can now download artist information, including pictures, biography and similar artists.
•Several speed optimizations related to reading of the track list.
•The Action Manager now updates database content.
•It is now possible to load the currently played track to the Quick Edit.
•Quick Browse feature available from the system tray menu allow you to quickly browse and enqueue files from your music collection.
•Gestures for Play/Pause, Next Track, Previous Track, Volume Up, Volume Down, Forward and Backward available from the sytem tray icon.
Major bugfixes
Music Library
•Several corrections related to the Music Library filter.
•A few refresh related issues are corrected.
Add Files Wizard/Synchronize Folders
•Several corrections to the Synchronize Folders function.
•Synchronizing folders located on UNC paths now works properly.
•A possible issue with duplicates when adding files using the Add Files Wizard has been identified and eliminated.
Internal Player/Now Playing/Active Playlist
•Album picture will be properly shown in Now Playing for subtracks.
•An empty year is no longer shown as -1 in the Now Playing and the Desktop Alert.
Tags
•ID3v2 tags are properly written as ID3v2.4 tags if selected.
•Adjustments for tag transcoding between FLAC and MP3 files using the
Export/Import tags tool.
•Tagging time is now fully optional.
•Several Vorbis Comment tag-frames were not written if they contained the value 0.
•Several corrections to threaded tag writing, mostly related to file open conflicts.
Database
•Several corrections for using MySQL databases with Linux environments.
•Version of the ODBC Connector for MySQL is now correctly identified. When the wrong version is used, a warning is given with instructions on how to download the correct version.
•Corrections related to importing of iTunes databases.
•Corrections to Remap Path.
Music Information Browser
•Several minor corrections to templates.
•Correction so that the same track is not displayed twice for subtracks.
•The status bar is properly updated whilst a Synchronize Folders operation is running.
Album Browser
•When Browse Album in Album Browser is invoked, it will properly reset the active filter so that the browsed album will be correctly located.
General
•Browse & Search, Browse in My Folders now works correctly with UNC paths.
•Corrections to the Track List filter.
•Corrections to Playlist Export.
We hope that you will enjoy this version!
Kind regards,
Intermedia Software
