Best posts made by jonas

jonas

I'm proud to release version 1.0.0 of Strawberry Music Player.

It has been 6 months since the last release (0.9.3). This is the longest delay between a release since the initial release of Strawberry in April 2018. Strawberry has been in development for over 4 years and has grown to a mature state. Most of the players features are finished. To mark this, it is time for version 1.0.

OS support

Linux AppImage:

AppImages are currently no longer available. This might change in the feature. AppImage of version 0.9.3 is still available. But it is recommended to switch to a regular package.

Windows:

Windows 10 is now required, this is not an active decision by Strawberry, it's because Qt 6 have dropped support for older Windows versions. We still provide both x86 and x86_64 releases.
The Windows release includes the newest versions of all libraries including Qt 6.2.0 and GStreamer 1.18.5.

macOS:

macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer is required. This is because Catalina is the oldest macOS release available on GitHub Actions. We only provide a release for x86_64, but it should work on ARM64 through Rosetta.

Qt 6

Strawberry has been ready for Qt 6 since August 2020, and have proven to be stable.
This release fixes and improves code related to changes in Qt 6.2 LTS.
Qt 6 is now available on most Linux distros, it is recommended that Strawberry is compiled with Qt 6 instead of Qt 5.
Strawberry can still be compiled with Qt 5.8 or higher, but Qt 5 has not had an open-source release since version 5.15.2 in November 2020. Strawberry is directly affected by semaphore bugs in Qt 5.15.2.
Releases for Windows and macOS now includes Qt 6.2.0, Qt 5 releases are now dropped.

Summary of the most important changes:

ALSA PCM devices:

You can now list and select ALSA PCM devices in the device settings. Using PCM devices instead of hw/plughw enables you to re-sample to the audio to 48 khz to simultaneously play music in Strawberry using ALSA without blocking other applications from using the same sound-card. It also allows you to use the fading options with ALSA.

Song fingerprinting and file tracking:

Strawberry now provides the ability to create a unique fingerprint for all the songs in your collection, this fingerprint is stored in the database along with all the song metadata. The fingerprint is used to track audio files on disk. If you move your music collection, or your music collection becomes temporary unavailable, it is now possible to track where the songs have been moved once they reappear. It is recommended to turn on "Song fingerprinting and track" feature in the collection settings, it will however significantly increase the time it takes to scan your music collection.

Subsonic:

You can now enable MD5 authentication, this is more secure than the old hex method. It is recommended to always enable MD5 unless your server does not support it. MD5 is currently the most secure authentication method available in the Subsonic API.

Changelog:

Bugfixes:

Fix updating temporary metadata when reloading songs outside of the collection.
Don't strip off "Live" from song title when sending scrobbles.
Fix incorrect use of QFutureWatcher.
Fix compile of Utilities::Hmac with Qt 6.2.
Fix a memory leak when using right click context menu in internet search.
Fix a gstreamer bus leak when adding streams and remote playlists.
Fix "Source ID x was not found when attempting to remove it" error.
Escape ampersands in playlist tabs.
Fix analyzer with S24_32LE audio format.

Enhancements:

Add replaygain fallback gain setting.
Add option to turn off playlist alternating row colors.
Make the default tabbbar background color lighter.
Remove use of deprecated WinExtras Qt module.
Add CMake test for Qt sqlite support.
Automatically detect Qt version if BUILD_WITH_QT5 or BUILD_WITH_QT6 is not specified.
Correct playlist tabbar favorite tooltip from "click" to "double-click".
Remove scroll over icon to change track option since it does not work reliable.
Improve resume playback on startup.
Re-request stream URL for Tidal and QObuz when resuming playback after pausing for more than 30 seconds.
Add Finnish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Catalan and Portuguese (Brazil).
Add support for TagParser (https://github.com/Martchus/tagparser) as an alternative to TagLib.
Add Subsonic option to turn off HTTP/2.
Fix minor Clang-Tidy and Clazy warnings.
Use higher resolution images from last.fm API.
Add MD5 token authentication for Subsonic.
Use 500 albums per request when receiving albums from Subsonic.
Use QX11Application with Qt >= 6.2 for X11 global shortcuts.
Allow fading when a ALSA PCM device is selected.
Store Tidal MPEG-DASH file in data uri.
Use XSPF image elements as manually set artwork.
Make error dialog larger.
Show error dialog for failed SQL queries.
Show error dialog when failing to read or write album covers.
Add module music formats (mod, s3m, xm, it) to detected filetypes.
Disable gapless playback for module music formats to workaround gstreamer bug.
Update directory ID and song path immediately when organizing collection songs.
Add right click option to star a playlist in playlist tabs.
Use seconds instead of minutes for scrobble submit delay.

New features:

Add ALSA PCM devices.
Add song fingerprinting and tracking.
Add support for native global shortcuts on MATE.
Add radios view with channels from Radio Paradise and SomaFM.

jonas

Strawberry is free software and open source, it was supposed to be a collaborative community effort, but for over 6 years it's been mainly me doing most of the work, which is why it has been a lot more work for me than expected. For long periods I've even worked on it for like 7 hours a day and more in addition to a full-time job working into the night. For all these years, there have not been many days where I have not worked on something related to Strawberry.
If there had been more developers willing to spend a little time on helping out with things such as issues that are reported, it would have been a lot less work for me, but this hasn't happened, even many users said they would contribute never participated at all. Occasionally there have been a minor contribution from someone else, but that's been rare.
For macOS there have been 2 developers who helped for a short while, but the things that were done were pretty minor, as for Windows it's been 100% me since the beginning of this project. To continue support both macOS and Windows a little funding is necessary.
Only a few users donate anything unless the downloads are restricted, it's not the most ideal solution, but it has actually proven to work better, since the donations have increased.
At some point I got to make a change, and I felt like the 1.1 release was the right time, since it fixes some design flaws that have been there since the beginning, it's well worth the upgrade for users, and there is a good reason to spend the money.
Linux can't really be compared, since I do not have to maintain building all the libraries too, as those are already part of the Linux distribution, and most Linux distributions already have strawberry in their package repository, they require only the source code. And I won't close down the source code, it will stay open.
The Linux downloads on the website and GitHub are mainly there because it's part of the continuous integration to test if strawberry builds and to easily test new code, so I might as well distribute them, but very few users actually need them since strawberry is already part of the Linux distribution anyway.
I could create something like AppImage for Linux which would be closed like macOS and Windows are, I asked if someone is interested in paying for that, but no-one has replied, and I doubt anyone cares to pay extra for that since they can just install strawberry from their package manager in their distribution.

jonas

Fix initial volume not set when using Auto as output (#1104).
Fix saving moodbar if the URL contains host, ie.: UNC paths for SMB (#1101).
Fix CollectionBackendTest compile error (#1100).
Remove explicitly enabling debug messages (#1106).

jonas

I have found a critical bug affecting the tag editor, possible corruption of files can occur.
Versions affected are all versions from 0.9.1 to the current latest 1.0.15.
The issue occurs whenever you edit and save both the tags and the album cover with the embedded cover option in one operation.
The embedded cover option is off by default, and it only occurs if you also edit any tags in the same save operation.
It is also possible that the issue only affects certain audio formats on specific file-systems.
But as a precaution, I suggest to not use the tag editor at all until a new release is available. The issue is fixed, but it requires more testing before a new release can be made.

jonas

New in version 1.0.20

Bugfixes:

Fixed appdata validation.

New in version 1.0.19

Bugfixes:

Use shared pointers for objects to fix potential crashes on exit (#1239).
Fixed smart playlist search not matching unrated songs (#1244).
Fixed reading FMPS_Playcount for MP3 ID3v2 tags (#1248).
Always stop playing after 100 errors to prevent flooding the error dialog (#1220).
Fixed volume going to 100% when decreasing volume beyond zero (#1262).
Fixed error dialog sometimes showing empty.
(Windows) Removed broken volume sync (#1220).
(Windows) Fixed shuttering / choppy audio (#1227).
(macOS) Fixed missing search bars (#1221).

Enhancements:

Add Mpris2 property to read/write rating (#1246).
Capitalize playlist column names (#1264).
Added lyrics from songlyrics.com, azlyrics.com, elyrics.net and lyricsmode.com.
(Windows) Add gst-play-1.0.exe for debugging purposes.

New features

Support performing song loudness analysis using libebur128 (#1216).
Support song playback loudness normalization, as per EBU R 128 (#1216).

Other:

Removed last.fm HTTPS workaround and GnuTLS dependency
Removed broken lyrics.com lyrics provider.
(Windows) Use DirectSound as default sink.
(Windows) Remove WASPI2 plugin because of GStreamer bug.

jonas

Bugfixes:

Fixed seekbar position resetting to zero before showing actual position when seeking.
Fixed compressed files showing up in collection (#1274).
Fixed connecting devices (#1288).
Fixed device schema missing ebur128 fields.
Fixed collection search by tag not working with space between colon and search term (#1290).
Fixed seeking when 5 seconds is remaining of the song resetting position to beginning (#1258).
Fixed intermittent crash when seeking with Auto as output (#1123).
(Windows) Fixed playlist header colors in dark mode (#1275).

Enhancements:

Support using system KDSingleApplication when available.
Improved lyrics matching.
(macOS) Fully codesign binaries and DMG.

jonas

Bugfixes:

Fixed Spotify songs not being available for scrobbling.
Fixed leading "A" and "The" articles being skipped for album sort text.
Fixed thread safety issue when validating playlist songs on startup.
Fixed filter search not ignoring space after colon when using column based search.
Fixed KGlobalAccel to use capitalized application name.
Fixed slash not properly handled when saving a playlist (#1624).
(Unix) Fixed collection scanner so it ignores special filesystem paths (/sys, /proc, /run, etc) (#1615).
(Windows) Fixed smart playlist wizard not respecting dark mode with Windows 11 style (#1639).

Enhancements:

Use XSPF "title" as playlist name when loading and saving playlists (#1624).
Added support for using album ID when receving album covers for Subsonic songs (#1636).
Added option for preserving directory structure when trascoding songs (#1637).
(Windows) Always run MSVC runtime installer to possible fix issues when there is an older runtime installed.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/compare/1.2.3...1.2.4

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-4-119687152).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Bugfixes

Fixed dragging songs from playlist to queue.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/compare/1.2.5...1.2.6

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-6-120189186).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Bugfixes

Fixed strawberry exiting when clicking tray icon.
Fixed Clementine import script errors.
Disabled OSD Pretty on Wayland since it's not working properly.

Enhancements

Only maximize error dialog if Strawberry is the active window (#1627).
Added QPA Platform Native Interface as optional component.

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-7-121202250).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

@gemini62167
Apple Music is primarily a music streaming service. There are no incentives for large companies to make software anymore, there is too little money in it for them.
As for Strawberry, the information about macOS support on the website is not outdated, it's more relevant than ever.
Strawberry depends on volunteers, and there are very few, almost none, and no-one helping with macOS issues.
Users should not consider the macOS releases release quality, but for some users it's better than not having any support for macOS at all.
The only reason we have them at all is because in 2018 I borrowed a mac and put a lot of work and effort into getting the macOS releases going with the thought that it would trigger community interest, but there is still no-one so the situation is that I'm stuck with it along with everything else.
Making Windows releases is a lot of work on it's own, which includes maintaining the build infrastructure with circa 50 libraries Strawberry depends on.
There have been almost no-one committed to helping out with anything related to macOS for almost 5 years with the exception of some minor things like the dmg installer and the global shortcuts, but that was years ago.
I've ended up doing everything, and I don't even have a mac which of course makes it very difficult.
I guess it is understandable, very few are willing to work for mostly for free on their spare time, and fewer and fewer users actually care about music players anymore, most use streaming services these days.

jonas

I've decided to do this based on how much work I've put into it, and there are minimal contributions from the community, and no help from anyone else for over 5 years with regards to windows. macOS releases have already been closed for quite some time and it has proven to work better.
I'm also not happy that some freeware sites have listed strawberry as "freeware" with no information on how to sponsor, some of the sites even containing malware. I've sent some of these sites e-mail asking that strawberry is removed but I'm getting no reply.

If someone has been sponsoring in the past I can make access to the downloads outside of Patreon, but Patreon is much easier for me since everyone get's access immediately and I don't have to manually maintain a separate list of username/passwords.

jonas

We now got a new website:
https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/

jonas

Bugfixes:

Fixed reading disc from QObuz songs (#1168).
Fixed volume being reset on playback with PulseAudio (#1174).
Fixed <br> tags in SQL query error message.
Fixed compile with Qt 6 without XCB (QX11Application).
Fixed smart playlist editor not properly loading search terms (#1172).
Fixed use of fixed icon for playlist favorite star icon (#1178).
Possible fix for collection thumbnails using disk cache having identical covers for albums with hashtag (#) in the album title (#1183).
Fixed listenbrainz scrobbling for songs with multiple artist mbids.
Fixed listenbrainz scrobbling for songs without duration.
Fixed gapless playback sometimes not working.
Fixed writing PNG images as embedded covers (#1209).
Fixed greyscale album covers not working in OSD D-Bus (#1205).
Fixed collection thumbnail disk cache with Qt 6.5.1 and newer.
Fixed moodbar disk cache with Qt 6.5.1 and newer.
Fixed playlist edit tag F2 shortcut only working for title tag (#1210).
Append number to filename if the destination file already exist when transcoding audio (#1200).
Fixed abseil linking issues with protobuf 1.22.0 and newer.
(macOS) Fixed "Show this message" checkbox having no affect on Rosetta warning dialog (#1180).
(macOS) Disable unused D-Bus.
(Windows) Fixed command line options not working with diacritics (#1191).
(Windows) Fixed issue with saving album covers in album directory being saved in temp directory instead.
(Windows) Fixed crash when trying a play a song which doesn't exist, gstreamer issue #1683 (#1214).

Enhancements:

Reduce memory overhead with album cover handling (#1046).
Improved listenbrainz error handling.
Show error dialog for listenbrainz errors similar to last.fm/libre.fm.
Reduce NetworkAccessManager instances.
Replace SingleApplication with KDSingleApplication.
Require Qt 5.12 or higher.
Add new database fields for art_embedded and art_unset.
Rewrite album cover loader.
Move cover filename settings from collection to covers settings.
Add setting to set priorities for album cover types.
Add rating filtering to playlist search (#1212).
(Windows|MSVC) Add WSAPI2 plugin.

jonas

This is a release candidate (pre-release) for version 1.1.2, it won't be posted on the website, but I still encourage users to upgrade to help test and report possible regressions before the stable release.

Bugfixes:

Fixed Tidal Open API cover provider to only login when needed instead of on startup.
Fixed KDE added keyboard accelerator characters (ampersands) appearing in sidebar (#1400, #1389, #1476).
Fixed KDE added keyboard accelerator characters (ampersands) appearing when editing playlist name (#1499).
Fixed collection "Search for this" adding prefix without value (#1510).
Fixed play (-p) command line option not working on startup (#1465).
Fixed scan transaction being started when "Update the collection when Strawberry starts" option is unchecked (#1469)
Fixed Spotify bitrate being limited 128kbit/s.
Fixed Spotify returning too many artists and albums.
Fixed manually switching Spotify songs blocking UI.
Fixed analyzer not being set.
Fixed context top text being updated causing marked text to be unmarked.
Fixed filter search to use filename for songs with empty title.
Fixed missing developer in Appstream appdata file.
Fixed MPRIS2 DesktopEntry to return desktop file entry without ".desktop" (#1516)
Fixed WavPack .wvc accepted as valid audio files (#1525).
Fixed dynamic playlist controls not following system colors (#1483).
Fixed freeze on playlist right click (#1478).
Fixed copying songs to a iPod device keeping too many files open (#1527).
Fixed MBIDs from MP4 being parsed incorrectly causing ListenBrainz errors (#1531).
(macOS) Fixed missing Spotify.

Enhancements:

Improved volume adjustment and track seeking using touchpad (#1498).
Use own thread for lyrics parsing.
Added url and filename columns to collection and playlist filter search.

Packages for Linux can be downloaded from GitHub (https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/releases/tag/1.1.2-rc1).
macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-1-2-111604341).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Bugfixes:

Fixed crash when creating a new smart playlist (#1609).
Fixed last playlist column being added when dragging a song and switching playlists.

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-2-116580727).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Fixed libcdio NULL related compilation error on FreeBSD (#1610).
Fixed missing seek when starting playback of a CUE song (#1568).
Fixed "QDBusObjectPath: invalid path" error.

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-3-117562480).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Bugfixes

Fixed crash when saving playcount or rating to file (#1633).
Fixed QFile::open failing in unit tests.
Fixed playlist sequence settings saved to wrong configuration file (#1649).

Enhancements

Fixed use of deprecated GIO functions with GLib 2.84 and newer.
(macOS) Added back Sparkle updater to check for new releases.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/compare/1.2.4...1.2.5

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-5-120167531).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

What's Changed

Bugfixes:

Added "HI_RES_LOSSLESS" for Tidal quality setting.
Increased backend settings device lineedit height.
Possible fix for KGlobalAccel shortcuts sometimes not working.

Enhancements:

Removed deprecated Tidal username/password login.
Turned off "Grey out unavailable songs in playlists on startup" by default.
Added support for reading tags from streams.
Added tooltips in equalizer, backend and appearance settings.
Added full tag support for AIFF including embedded covers.
Use card ID instead of index for ALSA devices.
Removed KDSingleApplication from 3rdparty.
Support arbitrarily large EBU R 128 loudness normalization.

New features:

Added Discord rich presence support.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/compare/1.2.7...1.2.8

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/125992905).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

What's Changed

Fixed playlist songs sometimes not updated with new cover.
Fixed context album cover showing even when it's disabled in the setting (#1744).
Fixed crash when dragging songs to a closed playlist (#1741).
Enable startup notify in desktop file.
(Windows|MSVC) Add experimental support for native ARM64 builds.
(Windows|MinGW) Fixed crash on exit.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/compare/1.2.10...1.2.11

macOS and Windows release is available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/strawberry-1-2-129053027).
If you are sponsoring through GitHub, Ko-fi or PayPal, please e-mail support AT strawberrymusicplayer.org for access to downloads.

jonas

Nice job.
I made a guide now to import most data from Clementine:

https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry/wiki/Import-collection-library-and-playlists-data-from-Clementine

This is useful for users who want to import all their playlists from Clementine, since playlists are based on ROWID's from the collection library, it is necessary to import the collection too.

It would be great if you want to make a script.