Hypnos - Beta 4 Release Notes

Released: 2018-11-09

Hypnos beta 4 is released. I believe this will be the last beta, the next release should be version 1.

I'm pretty happy with this release. The big change here is in the backend -- we are now using VLC's libraries to decode our audio. Java doesn't have great audio decoding support and the previous decoders were hodged together from various places and had some known issues. Outsourcing this set of problems to VLC lets me focus on the user experience and UI design, which is where I want to be focused. The only downside to this approach is that I have to bundle VLC's libraries, so the download got even larger. I hope to be able to shave it down with a future release. For now, I apologize to any users that are on a slow internet connection.

Note: Hypnos Beta 4 will not load your old library data, and will instead do a single rescan of your entire library. Playlists and settings will not be lost. It just has to rescan your library to pickup some additional metadata we are using.

New Features

• Audio decoding via VLC, which means a lot more file support and less buggy decoding
• Allow album list to be sorted by file date -- so you can sort by the newest albums in your library
• Drag and drop from current playing song title
• Escape clears focus on library search boxes.
• Scroll wheel over volume slider changes volume
• Progress indicator for 'Export as Folder' option
• Truncate year column to 4 digits

Bugs Fixed

• Windows - Popup windows have proper font size
• Linux - Volume slider now works on all file types
• Add dark theme styling to export popup
• Don't freeze UI when exporting playlist as folder
• Crop was misbehaving, repaired.
• Update playlist pane properly when editing playlists that already exist

Known Issues

• Ubuntu 16.04, Fedora 27.1.6 - Opening system file location dialog sometimes crashes the virtual machine
• Release is very large due to bundled libraries (VLC & Java). I hope to have it trimmed down significantly for future releases.
• 32-bit linux version not released. I don't think anyone is using it, and it's alot more work to curate the necessary libraries, test on 32-bit machines, make the builds, etc. If there's an actual demand I could look at bringing this back down the road, but I just don't think there are very many 32-bit desktop linux users still out there.

Hypnos - Beta 3 Release Notes

Released: 2018/01/29

New Features

• Update available notifications (unobtrusive and can be disabled)
• LastFM integration -- scrobbling, love, and unlove.
• Windows: installer instead of zip
• Filter boxes feel smoother and don't cause UI to choke for large libraries
• 'Go to Album' menu option -- finds the album for a track, highlights it in the library album pane (Ctrl + G)
• Linux: Show loading placeholders in library at start, if needed
• Allow exporting of the current list or playlist as a folder of files, named intelligently (copied)
• Windows: proper process name
• Filter Box replacing Jump Box on current list (Hotkey: F)
• Hotkeys for Library Searches (Ctrl + 1, Ctrl + 2, Ctrl + 3)
• Ctrl + F searches whichever table is currently selected
• Hotkey for Lyric for this song (Shift + L)
• Improved lyrics search
• Allow library panes to be hidden (maybe you don't use playlists, etc.)
• Improved interaction with filterboxes and tables -- down arrow works as expected now
• Save table settings and sort settings from session to session
• View Last Log button
• Remove all unnecessary disk writes, significantly improving performance.
• Update library code to reduce CPU spikes
• Linux: Properly handled CLI arguments
• Improved "open with" support
• Hover effects on transport buttons
• Add bug report link to about tab
• Escape now closes all popup windows
• Improved misc. error notifications for the user

Bugs Fixed

• m4a playback speed fixed.
• Mono mp3 playback fixed.
• Oggs seek better.
• Drag and drop of large images to hypnos from web works now
• Windows: populate global hotkey list on launch
• Ignore missing files with tag editor on multiple selection, to avoid failure
• UI style wasn't loading if the hypnos proram directory had a space in it. Fixed.
• Splitpane divider position on linux on first launch now sane
• Use GZip when saving / loading very large current lists, to avoid long exit and load times
• Loading images from tags wasn't always working. Is now.
• Show that the current list has been shuffled if a subset of tracks are shuffled

Roadmap

I hope to release one more beta and then finally version 1. I have a handful of remaining issues I know about, and I'm sure there are plenty of bugs I haven't found yet.

Pending Issues

• ALAC support
• m4b support
• Improved OGG support
• Improved library updater -- make it faster and less resource intensive
• Improved library updater -- provide a status to user, and maybe let them pause.
• Smaller memory footprint
• Drag and drop from hypnos to other locations, like desktop or file browser
• Minimize to tray Icon for systems that support it
• Reduce the size of the executable file
• Fix a big pile of small bugs
• Windows - Pinning to taskbar doesn't seem to work great at the moment.

Hypnos - Beta 2 Release Notes

Released: 2017-12-28

New Features

• Lyrics Search / Display (Press L)
• Jump Box (Press J)
• "Play Next" feature - puts at front of queue (Shift + Q)
• Hide any columns you don't prefer to see (right click on column header)
• Additional options when you right click queue button
• Edit tag-embedded images with tag editor window
• Album titles have colors for disc, subtitle, and release type
• Previous and Next buttons for tag editor window
• Drag and Drop labels for album and artist pane, making it easier to know where to drop
• Smart alpha numeric sorting (Disc 10 is now after Disc 9 instead of Disc 1)
• Hide library and art pane option - double click dividers or use hotkeys (Ctrl + L / Ctrl + K)
• Better column resizing, respect users's preferences and avoid resizing columns that should stay a fixed width
• Unified hotkeys across program with tab in settings to list
• Fix volume max on windows.
• Fix volume slider feel (now logarithmic) for linux and windows.

Changes / Improvements

• Alert and show main window if you try to launch a second instance
• Current list menu to reduce button clutter
• Smaller volume button
• Art pane can be 0 height
• Improved split pane resizing when window is resized
• Alerts are now all skinned
• Make sure hypnos fits the screen when showing at low resolutions
• Improve the dark theme in places
• Only show simple album name in track table.
• Improved album loading, fix some corner cases where an album was falsely rejected
• Linux process is now named hypnos instead of java
• Print exception stack trace to log for better debugging
• Name threads for better debugging
• Icons for child windows in Windows.
• Significantly decrease memory usage

Bugfixes

• Loading m3us at commandline works now
• Tag window resizes content properly
• Solve the "playback lock" bug
• Current List Playing indicator always works nowk, stop always removes it.
• Fix volume / unmute bug
• Always hide library tab pane dropdown menu
• Play used to not start after current list finished until you tried twice. Fixed.
• Current list play/pause buttons changes theme immediately
• Global hotkey bring to front toggle now is two steps instead of three (linux 64 bit, windows and 32bit next release)

Known Issues

• OSX not supported for the time being. I don't have an OSX development / testing machine, and seeing all of the small bugs I had to fix in windows made me convinced that it's not responsible to write software for an OS that I can't test on myself. I'd like to work on an OSX version and I bet it wouldn't be too hard to get hypnos running well there, but I need regular access to the platform to do that.
• Decoding for non-flac files is still pretty spotty. Going to be rewriting all decoders at some point.
• Column order, width, and sort preferences are not saved from session to session
• Memory and CPU usage is still higher than it needs to be. Rewriting the library loader should fix this
• Global hotkeys on windows are a little finicky. On linux they aren't consumed.
• Double clicking a columns header divider to shrink wrap column content breaks the 100% width rule, any small resize repairs
• Linux Only - After a dialog appears, main window cannot be drag-resized. Known javafx bug, still looking for workaround
• Windows 7 or earlier - Unicode characters don't display correctly.
• I don't think an album falsely ID'd as an album can be made un-albumed unless you edit the tags and then reload library

Hypnos - Beta 1 Release Notes

Released: 2017-11-11

New Features

• Dark Color Theme
• Volume Control
• Settings Window
• Read images from tags
• Global Hotkeys
• Tag Error Window
• User friendly log
• M3U Support - import and export
• UI setting persistence
• Library Load Speed user controls
• Improved UI Images
• Current Track hover info

Bug Fixes

• A million. Too many to list.

Known Issues / Bugs

• Current list play/pause buttons don't change theme colors immediately, need new track to start
• Bring to front toggle has three steps instead of two - java bug, looking for workaround
• Bad default window size on small screens (<= 800x600).
• mp4s don't decode at proper speeds all the time
• Some codecs not fully supported or not supported
• Tables scroll a little bit while library is loading
• Linux Only - After a dialog appears, main window cannot be drag-resized. Known javafx bug, looking for workaround