=============================================================================== WELCOME TO BANSHEE 1.0 ALPHA 2! (0.98.2) =============================================================================== * Banshee is a multimedia management and playback application for GNOME. "Import, organize, and discover new music with Banshee through its simple and powerful interface and wide array of innovative features. Create your own radio stations or listen to a friends' through Last.fm integration; experience automatic cover art fetching as you listen; and easily browse, search, and control your media collection." * Learn More: http://banshee-project.org/Releases/0.98.2 =============================================================================== ALPHA RELEASE DISCLAIMER =============================================================================== This is the second release in the Banshee 1.0 series. This Alpha 2 release does not have feature parity with previous Banshee releases (the last being Banshee 0.13.2). This means there are a number of features in this release that users may have come to know and love in Banshee that are missing for the time being. However, although this is an Alpha release, it is quite stable and has many great new features and performance improvements which will be detailed later. It has also been designed to be both installed and run in parallel with previous Banshee releases, so you can test the release out without breaking your stable Banshee setup. Missing features include: * No hardware support - Audio CDs, CD Burning - iPod, MTP, Mass Storage and other Digital Audio Player support * Some plugins have not yet been ported to the new 1.0 architecture: - Podcasting, DAAP/iTunes Music Sharing, Internet Radio - Recommendations, Mini Mode, Batch Cover Art Fetching Do not despair, these features will be added back before the final 1.0 release. Many hardware related features are projected to land in the Alpha 3 release of Banshee 1.0. We expect releases in quick succession leading up to the final 1.0 release. Please read the full release notes on the Banshee Wiki for more details: * http://banshee-project.org/Releases/0.98.2 =============================================================================== OTHER NOTES =============================================================================== These changes were made to ensure that you can run older Banshee releases in parallel with new Banshee releases: * The location of the user configuration directory for Banshee 1.x changed from ~/.config/banshee to ~/.config/banshee-1 (where ~/.config is defined by XDG policy) * The base GConf path used for storing settings via the GNOME backend changed from /apps/banshee to /apps/banshee-1; an XML configuration file will be used if the GNOME backend extension is not installed =============================================================================== SOURCES / PACKAGES =============================================================================== Sources ------- * Banshee 0.98.2 Tarballs: http://banshee-project.org/files/banshee/banshee-1-0.98.2.tar.bz2 http://banshee-project.org/files/banshee/banshee-1-0.98.2.tar.gz Packages -------- Packages are available from the openSUSE Build Service in the Banshee:Preview project. Currently only packages for openSUSE 10.3 and openSUSE Factory are being built. We expect to target more distributions and older openSUSE/SLED releases as we approach the final 1.0 release: * http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Banshee:/Preview/ ChangeLogs ---------- * http://banshee-project.org/files/banshee/banshee-1-0.98.2.changes =============================================================================== DEPENDENCIES =============================================================================== * Mono 1.2.2 (.NET 2.0 Profile / gmcs) * SQlite 3.4 * Gtk# 2.8 * GStreamer 0.10.3 * 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 Please note that for openSUSE, all of the dependencies above can be found in the openSUSE Build Service, and are linked into the Banshee:Preview project. Even if you build from source, if you wish to avoid building the entire dependency chain above, add the Banshee:Preview repository to your repository list. Historically, Banshee has fostered development of a number of projects and bundled their source code instead of depending on external builds. Many of these dependencies have matured and grown into well maintained projects on their own, and we are now depending on them externally. We waited to remove the bundles long enough to allow for distributions to ship packages to reduce the pain of building Banshee. =============================================================================== NEW AWESOME FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS =============================================================================== Banshee 1.0 Alpha 2 represents the second release since we began rewriting much of the core of Banshee. The primary reason for rewriting this core was to deliver much needed performance improvements. Banshee now uses much less memory and has greatly improved startup speed. It can handle collections that are much larger in size without adversely affecting application speed or memory usage. These core architectural changes also allowed us to cleanly implement many great new features and provides a framework for new features to be easily developed in the future. New features in this release include: * Video management and playback * Now Playing source where video plays and info on playing songs will appear Other features, bug fixes, and errata: * Play Count, Skip Count, Last Played, and Last Skipped all now kept up to date * Allow editing of artist and album names * Start playing when artist or album browser is double clicked * Bookmarks extension is now available * Date-based searches and smart playlists should be working much better * Initialize the translation Catalog so translations can actually be used * Improved support for dark themes * Use XDG_CACHE_HOME directory for cache files * Disable the equalizer temporarily until gstreamer pipeline issues resolved =============================================================================== REPORT BUGS - HELP THE PROJECT - GROW THE COMMUNITY =============================================================================== While this is an Alpha Release, we have known it to be quite stable. There are a number of missing features though that will be added back as we progress towards the final 1.0 release of Banshee. If you encounter any bad behavior with this release, please do not hesitate to file bugs! * http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=banshee&version=0.98.2 =============================================================================== VALUED BANSHEE CONTRIBUTORS =============================================================================== 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, Alexander Hixon, Gabriel Burt, Scott Peterson, Sebastian Dröge, Wouter Bolsterlee The release notes and screenshots for this release were crafted by: Aaron Bockover, Gabriel Burt, Jorge Castro, Paul Cutler Contributors In Past Releases ----------------------------- Alan McGovern, Alexander Hixon, Alexandros Frantzis, Alp Toker, Aydemir Ulaş Şahin, Ben Maurer, Bertrand Lorentz, Bill Dawson, Bob Copeland, Bojan Rajkovic, Brian Nickel, Chris Lahey, Chris Toshok, Chris Turchin, Christian Krause, Christopher James Halse Rogers, Dan Wilson, Dan Winship, Daniel Munkton, Eric Butler, Fredrik Hedberg, Hans Petter Jansson, Igor Guerrero Fonseca, Ilya Konstantinov, Ivan N. Zlatev, James Willcox, Jan Arne Petersen, Jason Conti, Jeff Tickle, Jorge Castro, Juri Pakaste, Ken Vandine, Larry Ewing, Lauri Kotilainen, Michael Monreal, Miguel de Icaza, Mike Urbanski, Nathan Palmer, Oscar Forero, Patrick van Staveren, Pepijn van de Geer, Ruben Vermeersch, Sebastian Dröge, Tim Yamin, Trey Ethridge, Will Farrington, Wouter Bolsterlee