jmshrv/finamp 0.9.18-beta

Finamp Beta Update 0.9.18

on GitHub

Hi everyone!

After almost two months we're finally back with a new beta release! And this release is absolutely packed with new features! You should definitely check out the juicy details below to learn more.
Enjoy!

Keep in mind that not all of the text in the beta has been translated yet. If you're missing a translation, you can now contribute it on Weblate!

Bug Fixes

• Fix volume normalization using the wrong gain when shuffled
• Tab visibility can now be properly toggled again
• Fixed a visual glitch when opening menus on the artist and genre screens (thanks @lukaslindermusic!)
  • This fix also greatly reduces network requests which in turn should improve performance
• Finamp can now show large GIFs as album covers without crashing (thanks @Maxr1998!)

What's New

Use Local Address in Local Network (thanks @flloschy!)

It's now possible to configure an additional local address where your server can be reached!
Finamp will try to connect to the server via this address whenever there's a change in network connectivity, and if the connection works, the local address will keep being used.
We chose this approach instead of i.e. configuring specific WiFi networks because it avoids having access to the device's location (and requesting permissions for that).

To configure this, head to the new network settings, enable "Prefer Local Address", and then fill in the address.

New Genre Screen (thanks @lukaslindnermusic!)

The genre screen has received much love and a full makeover, adding new capabilities and improving performance!

You can now browse tracks, artist, and albums for each genre, with the first 5 of each being shown right on the screen. To see the remaining items, just tap the "See All" button.
The top 5 items can be ranked (sorted) in various ways, and the chosen sorting will be remembered. You can even re-order the ranking options. Keep in mind that not all of these ranking options are available in offline mode, but Finamp will gracefully fall back to the next ranking in that case.

When opening an artist via a genre, the artist will be filtered based on that genre by default, but you can change the behavior in the settings.

Finally, all content on the genre screen will now be limited to the currently active library, just like the rest of the app. This is a breaking change.

Improved Artist Screen (thanks @lukaslindnermusic!)

The "Top Tracks" section on the artist screen now supports additional rankings other than play count, just like on the genre screen.
It's now also possible to change the order of the sections.
Additionally, all genres assigned to an artist are now shown. You can tap or long-press (depending on your settings) each genre to open the genre screen or filter the artist based on that specific genre.

Playing an artist in offline mode will now also include albums/tracks from the "Appears On" section.

And just like for genres, all content on the artist screen will now be limited to the currently active library. This is a breaking change.

Download Improvements (thanks @Komodo5197 and @lukaslindnermusic!)

As part of the reworked genre screen and following in the steps of clearly splitting album artists and performing artists, we made a few consistency improvements to the download system.

For artists and genres, downloads are now properly limited to the current library. Existing downloads will be shown as not fully downloaded or have an "All Libraries" moniker, but are otherwise unaffected.
To remove all items from other libraries, hit the download button for that artist or genre, wait for the synchronization to finish (no files will be downloaded, it's just a migration), and the go to the downloads screen and delete the old artist/genre download in the "All Libraries" section.

Supercharged Sleep Timer (thanks @matty-r!)

Finamp's sleep timer received a bunch of new features. The design is updated, and it integrates directly into the player menu now, just like the speed menu.
It's now also possible to sleep after playing a certain number of tracks, instead of a fixed duration.
And of course, you can now play the last track until the end, which we hope will be super useful to you!

The sleep timer menu will also show an estimated duration after which playback will end. For a regular duration this is of course pretty obvious, but when you want it to stop after the current track, after a certain number of tracks, or play the last track until the end, this will let you know how long it will actually take the sleep timer to kick in (given that you don't make changes to the queue).

Playlist Track Sorting & Visibility Editing (thanks @F-4Dev @lukaslindnermusic!)

You can now sort the tracks within a playlist just like you can sort item on the main music screen.
For that we had to move the playlist name to a different position.
Finamp will remmember your sorting for all playlist.

You can now also edit a playlist's visibility (public/private), in addition to the name, by using the edit button.

New (and Consistent) Menu Design

Up until now we had only redesigned the track menu for the beta. With this update, all remaining item menus (albums, playlists, artist, and genres) also have a new look that resembles that of the track menu.

Additionally, all menus have been slightly tweaked to include a new "playback action" row. This is a row with multiple horizontal pages, where you can find options for playing, shuffling, and queueing any item.
We did this to reduce the overall size of the menu while adding more playback actions and grouping them together logically. We would greatly appreciate your feedback regarding this change to make sure it works for as many people as possible!

The actual contents of the menus are mostly the same, there are just a few options or infos that only apply to certain item types and are therefore missing for others.
The additions include buttons to open the current item and to add it to a playlist / favorite it, as well as the number of albums or tracks for artist and genres.

As part of these improved menus we also simplified the playback buttons on the album, playlist, and artist screens.

Other Changes

• Automatic offline mode can now be disabled & re-enabled both after manually toggling it on and off (thanks @flloschy!)
  • There are also updated icons and a clear button for re-enabling the automatic mode
• When settings affecting the playback source are changed (transcoding, offline mode, etc.), Finamp will now show a prompt to reload the queue
  • There's also an experimental setting to automatically reload the queue instead of showing a prompt
• You can now tap album covers and other images throughout the app to enlarge them (thanks @fridaynext!)
  • You can even further zoom into the enlarged image
  • This works for all "larger" images, i.e. the ones on the album/playlist/artist/genre screens, and in the menu headers
• Improved sorting options (thanks @lukaslindnermusic!)
  • Adapted sort options to current tab
    • We now have additional sort options for tracks, and removed some nonsensical options for genres and artists
  • The items on each tab will now show different additional info depending on the sort mode (e.g. the play count or last played date), as well as an icon
  • Some options are now disabled in offline mode
  • "Premiere Date" has been renamed to "Release Date". Finamp is a music client, after all!
• It's now possible to change the sorting of tracks within a playlist (thanks @lukaslindnermusic!)
• Added shuffle button back to the media controls on Android and Android Auto (thanks @e-v-o-l-v-e!)
  • This is customizable in settings, see below.
• The album screen will now show all genres assigned to that album (or its tracks), instead of just showing the first genre.
• You can now clear the queue and stop playback via the player screen menu (thanks @Maxr1998!)
  • This means you're no longer forced to use a swipe gesture to fully stop playback
• Finamp's internal language picker now actually shows all supported languages. Previously any dialects weren't shown.
  • On Android you can now also set the language for Finamp via the system settings, instead of through the app itself.
• Android Auto's search results should now include genre results. This seems to only work for some users. Please report any issues with it!
• Finamp will now remember its window size and position on desktop platforms (thanks @Komodo5197!)
• Explicitly configured backup behavior for Finamp's files on Android (thanks @Komodo5197!)
• Redesigned album release date so as to not imply that it's clickable
• Renamed "Favourite" to "Favorite" throughout the app
  • Sorry Brits!
• Many other minor bug fixes (thanks @lukaslindnermusic and @Komodo5197!)

New Settings

• Auto reload queue when playback configuration changes
  • i.e. when changing transcoding settings, toggling offline mode, etc.
  • Settings > "Audio Service" > "Auto Reload Queue"
• New "Genre Screen" settings page
  • Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Genre Screen"
  • Configure section order
  • Reorder ranking options for sections (most played, latest releases, favorites, etc.)
  • Enable/disable filtering by genre when opening artist and playlist screens from a genre screen
  • Configure genre lists to inherit sorting preferences from the main music screen
• New "Artist Screen" settings page
  • Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Artist Screen"
  • Reorder sections and toggle tracks section
  • Reorder ranking options for tracks section
• Filter artist & playlist when tapping one of their genres
  • Settings > "Interactions" > "Apply Filter On Genre Tap"
• Switch to the next available ranking option if the current one is not available or returned no matches
  • Settings > "Interactions" > "Auto-Switch Item Curation Type"
• Moved "Show Album Release Date on Player Screen" from Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Customization" to Settings > "Layout & Theme" > "Player Screen"

Upcoming Features

We have a lot of features planned for the future, and we're always open to new ideas. Here are some of the things that we're planning to add:

• A proper home screen
• More contrast and accent color improvements
• Desktop Support
  • This is now in a "soft release" stage, where it might already be available for your platform. An official release will happen in the future, but is currently not a priority.

You can take a look at the full list and current progress in the Redesign project.
We also have a more up-to-date hackathon project board: https://github.com/users/jmshrv/projects/5

This update again contained many changes that originated during the Finamplify Hackathon, so that was definitely a huge success.
Thanks to all old and new contributors who helped to bring you all these improvements and fixes! Keep being awesome! <3

If you're wondering what happened to beta version 0.9.17: We had to pull 0.9.16 shortly after release to fix an issue with updating, and then re-released it with the build ID for 0.9.17. So we're skipping that version to get everything synced up again :D

Thank you for using Finamp!

- Chaphasilor

Download Links

• Google Play: Join the beta
• TestFlight: Join the beta
• F-Droid: not available, see above
• APK: see below

New Contributors

• @e-v-o-l-v-e made their first contribution in #1174
• @fridaynext made their first contribution in #1150

Full Changelog: 0.9.16-beta...0.9.18-beta