Banshee » Banshee 1.7.3

Release Date: July 21, 2010
Source Tarball: banshee-1-1.7.3.tar.bz2
Release Information: NEWS, sha256sum

Banshee 1.7.3 is part of the active-development 1.7 series, leading up to a 1.8 maintenance series release in the fall. It contains many new features and a number of enhancements and bug fixes.

New Features Since 1.7.2

Amazon MP3 Store

Watch the Banshee Amazon MP3 Store Screencast!

This new extension provides a source from which users can browse, search, preview, purchase, and download music from the Amazon MP3 store in all countries where it is offered: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan.

Music that is purchased through the new integrated Amazon MP3 store will automatically begin downloading and importing into the Banshee music library.

When previewing music on the Amazon MP3 store in Banshee, the previews will play through Banshee, showing up in the header, and not through Flash.

Amazon MP3 Downloader

The support for Amazon MP3 is not limited just to the store. If you decide to purchase music through your regular web browser, Amazon MP3 will provide a .amz file, a sort of playlist that indicates how the MP3s can be downloaded.

Banshee now associates itself with these .amz files and will download and import the MP3s referenced in them.

The Amazon MP3 Store and Downloader extensions are entirely separate. This allows you to pick your preferred user experience for purchasing music through Amazon MP3. The Amazon MP3 Store extension can be disabled if desired and the downloader will still work with an external web browser.

Other ways to download .amz files include opening manually with your operating system’s file manager, the Import Media dialog available through the Media -> Import menu, or the command line client distributed with Banshee: $ bamz foo.amz. Bamz will download the .amz contents in the current directory, and will not import the MP3s into the Banshee library automatically.

For more information on the Amazon MP3 integration in Banshee 1.7.3, read Aaron Bockover’s blog posts on the two separate extensions:

Miro Podcast Directory

Building on the same new WebKit integration in Banshee 1.7.3 as the Amazon MP3 Store, a new Miro Podcast Directory extension has been implemented. The source integrates with miroguide.com, allowing users to discover, stream, and subscribe to podcasts in a way never before possible in Banshee.

Much more work for tighter integration with the Miro Podcast Directory will come in future releases.

Bulk Metadata Fixup Extension

A new tool is available from the Tools -> Fix Music Metadata menu item that allows for bulk metadata fixing. This feature proposes to merge artists and albums that vary only by case, & vs and, etc.

Other Enhancements

Visual separators were added in the source view between categories of sources: special (Now Playing, Play Queue), local media, and online services.
Item counts in the status bar are now culturally formatted (e.g. in en_US show 1,000 instead of 1000).
Improved downloading and visual refreshing of new cover art.
Visual tweaks to the grid view album artwork hover effect.
Developers: new Banshee.WebBrowser API for creating embedded WebKit web browsers and sources. Currently used by the new Amazon MP3 store, Miro Guide, and the Wikipedia context pane.
Developers: new Hyena.Downloader API for performing downloads and easy HTTP operations: HttpFileDownloader, HttpStringDownloader, etc.
Distributors: the webkit-sharp dependency was dropped, and instead we now take a dependency directly on libwebkit 1.2.2+ for the new Banshee.WebBrowser API

Notable Bug Fixes

bgo#624667: Fix cover art refreshing
bgo#622826: Fix a slow running query to speed things up
bgo#602840: Fix importing of compilation albums
bgo#622028: Fix loading of libbnpx11.so on some distros
bgo#621955: Wrap instead of elipsize Last.fm titles
bgo#608382: Escape %20 in filenames for items without embedded metadata
bgo#624531: Escape Uri value in SQL query

Banshee has a lot more to offer! Check out the previous major release notes…

Dependencies

Mono 1.9.1 (.NET 2.0 Profile / gmcs)
SQlite 3.4
Gtk# 2.12
GStreamer 0.10.13
NDesk DBus (ndesk-dbus) 0.5
NDesk DBus GLib (ndesk-dbus-glib) 0.3
Mono.Addins (mono-addins) 0.3.1
TagLib# (taglib-sharp) >= 2.0.3.7
Required to build default feature stack:
- libmtp >= 0.2.0
- ipod-sharp >= 0.8.5
- mono-zeroconf >= 0.8.0
- boo >= 0.8.1
- webkit-1.0 >= 1.2.2
- gdata-sharp >= 1.4
Run-time requirements for default feature stack:
- HAL
- podsleuth >= 0.6.6
- brasero
- avahi

Community

Contributors For This Release

The following people directly contributed to the release of this version of Banshee. Without their help, there would be no release!

Aaron Bockover, Alex Launi, Alex Mauer, Alexander Kojevnikov, Bertrand Lorentz, Christian Krause, Gabriel Burt, Nicolo’ Chieffo, Paul Cutler, Ruben Vermeersch

The following people contributed updated translations to this release. Without them, our project’s reach would be much more limited.

Andrej Žnidarši?, Baris Cicek, Benjamín Valero Espinosa, Daniel Nylander, Kristjan Schmidt, Mario Blättermann, Petr Kovar

Contributors In Past Releases

Aaron Bockover, Alan McGovern, Alex Bennee, Alex Kloss, Alex Launi, Alex Mauer, Alexander Hixon, Alexander Kojevnikov, Alexandros Frantzis, Alp Toker, Anders Petersson, Andrea Cimitan, Andreas Neustifter, Andreas Nilsson, Andrew Conkling, Andrés G. Aragoneses, Andy Midgette, Arthur Carli, Arun Raghavan, Aurélien Mino, Aydemir Ula? ?ahin, Ben Maurer, Benjamín Valero Espinosa, Bertrand Lorentz, Bertrand Lorentz, Bill Dawson, Bob Copeland, Bojan Rajkovic, Brad Taylor, Brandon Perry, Brian Lucas, Brian Nickel, Brian Teague, Chow Loong Jin, Chris Howie, Chris Jones, Chris Lahey, Chris Toshok, Chris Turchin, Christian Hergert, Christian Krause, Christoph Burgdorf, Christopher James Halse Rogers, Claude Paroz, Cody Russell, Cosmin Banu, Dan Wilson, Dan Winship, Daniel Munkton, Daniel Siegel, David Spreen, David Stone, Diego E. Pettenò, Eitan Isaacson, Elena Grassi, Eoin Hennessy, Eric Butler, Erik Schmidt, Fabian Jost, Felipe Almeida Lessa, Fernando Casanova, Florent Thoumie, Fredrik Hedberg, Félix Velasco, Gabriel Burt, Garrett LeSage, Götz Waschk, Haitao Feng, Hans Petter Jansson, Harold Schreckengost, Iain Lane, Igor Guerrero Fonseca, Ilya Konstantinov, Ivan N. Zlatev, Jack Deslippe, Jakub Steiner, James Willcox, Jan Arne Petersen, Jason Conti, Jason Taylor, Jeff Tickle, Jeff Wheeler, Jensen Somers, Jeroen Budts, Jo Shields, Johannes Kuhn, John Millikin, Jordi Mas, Jorge Castro, Julien Moutte, Juri Pakaste, Ján Sokoly, Jérémie Laval, K. Vishnoo Charan Reddy, Ken Vandine, Kevin Duffus, Konstantin Oshiyko, Larry Ewing, Lauri Kotilainen, Lukas Lipka, Marijn Ros, Matt Enright, Michael Kaiser, Michael Martin-Smucker, Michael Monreal, Michael Monreal, Micha? Sawicz, Miguel de Icaza, Mike Gemünde, Mike Urbanski, Moritz Schallaböck, Nathan Palmer, Neil Loknath, Nicholas Doyle, Nicholas Parker, Nicolò Chieffo, Nils Naumann, Oben Sonne, Olivier Duff, Oscar Forero, Pacho Ramos, Patrick van Staveren, Paul Cutler, Paul Lange, Pavel Antonov, Pepijn van de Geer, Peter de Kraker, Pratik Patel, Przemys?aw Grzegorczyk, Robin Stocker, Roderich Schupp, Romain Tartière, Ruben Vermeersch, Ryan Collier, Sandy Armstrong, Scott Peterson, Sebastian Dröge, Shaun McCance, Tim Yamin, Tobias Mueller, Todd Berman, Travis Glenn Hansen, Travis Reitter, Trey Ethridge, Valentin Sawadski, Will Farrington, William Pettersson, Wouter Bolsterlee

Reporting Bugs, Joining the Community

If you encounter any bad behavior with this release, please do not hesitate to file bugs!

We welcome new contributors - developers, translators, artists, writers, support gurus - to join our community. Join us!