Songbird 0.6rc4 is now available for download!
For those interested, here are some of the more noteworthy fixes we made in RC4:
- Problems with modal dialogs always remaining on top in OS X
- OS X 10.5.3 crashes
- Songbird linking against the wrong runtime DLLs
- Updated the iTunes library importer
- Scan for Media gets stuck on archive files
- Copying playlists to iPod devices fails
- Cancelling an iPod during sync doesn’t work
- Issues with MTP devices when Songbird is closed midway through a sync
If you have already installed a previous 0.6 Release Candidate you will be auto-updated the next time you launch Songbird. If you’re running a previous 0.6 Songbird RC and want to update manually, you can choose Help Menu -> Check for Updates.
As always, please file any issues, bugs, or crashes you find in Bugzilla so that we can address them before 0.6 final!
Update: If you’re a Windows user who installed RC4 you will not get an update, please download the final 0.6 installer on the homepage. Unfortunately, after we shipped RC4 we noticed that automatic application updates for the Windows build was broken.
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Songbird Blog » Songbird 0.6rc4 is available for testing…
Songbird 0.6rc4 is now available for download!If you have already installed a previous 0.6 Release Candidate you will be auto-updated the next time you launch Songbird. If you’re running a previous 0.6 Songbird RC and want to update manually, you…
[...] 0.6 [Homepage] [Changelog] [Mirror] Operating System: Windows; Mac; Linux Release: Release Candidate 4 Type of [...]
24 Comments
SubscribeI guess this is the latest since there are around 5 bugs left ?
Keep on good work
SB, PLAY THE WEB !
Can’t wait till 0.6 proper, this will do till then
This is probably not the right place to bring it up, but are there any plans to offer some sort of playlist pane that is editable on the fly? I.e., in Amarok and Exaile, users can go through artists and albums and add files to the now playing window and mix and match artists, whereas in Songbird you can only choose one album or one artist at a time. It’s the main reason I don’t like Songbird.
http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/96
I’m currently testing this release under windows (I’ll try it under linux tomorrow).
And honestly, it’s the best songbird release that I have used. Everything is very responsive: open, close, browse library, playing with options and add-ons, minimizing maximizing. Cpu usage=3%
So a “gratz” to the devs.
What’s still problematic:
memory usage under safe-mode: around 50m
highest memory usage: around 150m oO
What I would expect in future releases:
- Better library: currently there is the “scan for media option”. However it wont delete obsolete files and is pretty duplicate prone. I think we need some better library management options.
- Possibility to export playlist: minor feature, but useful.
- A new GUI: the current GUI is a working one, but nothing fantastic or original.
This blog entry was pretty interesting:
http://blog.songbirdnest.com/2008/05/02/request-for-feedback-option-a-or-option-b/
and I was pretty enthusiast about option B. Hope it’s still in the air.
I just filled out the survey, i had completely forgotten that was going to be in 0.6.
Just a side thought, the media scanning doesn’t list how many songs it has found anymore. I liked that feature, would it be possible to have something like a temp playlist created with all the added songs in it? Would be handy to see which songs it has found and added.
@all
Thanks for the feedback!
@Sam
As Timmeh mentioned, you should checkout the Now Playing add-on. We love it!
@Sefk
Thanks for sharing your feedback on the 0.6 performance improvements we’ve been working on. Regarding your comment on memory usage, during the next release we’re gonna explore enabling jemalloc in the rest of the application (currently it’s only enabled on XULRunner for Windows/Linux), our fingers are crossed because if switching it on is relatively easy we’re likely to see additional memory reductions. Appreciate the extra feature requests, they’ve been noted. Sounds like you’ll be happy with the next release because we are focusing more on Performance Improvements and Optimizations as well as User Experience enhancements. In the next release, nicknamed Fugazi, we’ll be working on a new default look and feel, I can’t wait to talk about it but I’ll let komi followup on new design details (and which layout he’s currently working on!) I’m sure he’ll have some updates to share in a few weeks - once he’s had a bit more time to hammer things out.
@cellarmation
Thanks for taking the survey! To be honest, the feedback is already helping us better understand what users want from the product. Having this info ensures that we’re focusing on building the right things. We appreciate you helping us make Songbird better! We’re working on improving the media import flow in 0.6. I’m curious, would a “recently added” playlist be enough or do you also still want to see the actual number of items found and added in the import dialog?
I was hoping for a play list like page as well as the import number. Ideally the dialog would say something like 12 songs added with a ‘more info’ button, that takes you to a play list type page. I would want the play list to only have the things that have just been imported, or a recent page, with the new additions highlighted some how.
Then its just a matter of getting the album artwork plug in to suggest finding the covers for any new albums that you have just imported
Also by the way, my favorite new feature of 0.6 : Pop up messages telling you have addon updates waiting while songbird is in use!
@cellarmation
We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
Thanks for the extra comments, this is great feedback! We’re already actively looking at ways to improve the flow in the next release - your comments will definitely help guide us.
Hey!
I’m running Mac OSX 10.5.3 and I get, just like in the 0.6pre and RC3 a hang when I search the library. It takes 2 seconds approximately from when I start typing something and then it freezes for 2-3 seconds before showing the results. If I’m searching for ‘bruce springsteen” I get to writing “bruc” and BOOM it hangs up… is this a known bug and something you are aware of?
Best wishes
/Erik
Or it is more like a hang of 10-15 seconds… not 2-3.
@Erik
This is a known issue. When the search system needs to rebuild it’s index it will make the search considerably slower. It should however correct itself after the index is rebuilt. Any metadata change for an item (or addition / removal of an item) will cause the index to be rebuilt. We’re looking into ways to avoid having to do that.
this really is the best so far. finally when i double click a title, it instantly plays without delay, but sometimes i still have that. the performance there is a bit wobbly. changing songs quickly and often, songbird doesn’t handle that well.
also, upon starting rc4 a second time, i’m going through EULA and plugin download again. did songbird forget i had run the program before? so that was a bit disappointing, i hope i don’t have to go through the entire procedure everytime i run rc4
keep up the great work fellas, i hope you can hammer out some of the kinks. i’d love to see another 5 release candidates and then see a more stable 0.6 final than have a 0.6 that’s more like an 0.07 alpha
rc4 just crashed on me, it seems to be the same “crashreporter.exe Visual C++ Runtime Error” as i got on rc3.
Exist a zip version of songbird?
I always test mozilla related product using the zip version.
Running it on OS X 10.5.3
It’s going quite well - I had one crash, but otherwise it’s working quite well. Obviously still needs some polish, but other than that I’m impressed!
The only thing I’d like to see is the ability to play media without adding it to the library ‘a la’ Winamp or WMP. This is really the only thing (other than stability) holding me back from using Songbird exclusively!
On that note, this is the second time Songbird has crashed after restarting it after installing new (or upgrading existing) add-ons. Looks like it’s related?
@sebastian
This is the first time we’ve heard of problems where users are getting the EULA agreement more than once. What OS are you running? Can you describe what you were doing and perhaps file a bug at our bugzilla or send us an email at support [a t] songbirdnest.com? It would help us dive into this a bit further, thanks!
@cellarmation
Sorry to hear about that, we’ve been looking into, and addressing, some crash reporter issues. Hope to have an update shortly.
@gatolandia
We don’t provide a zip version of the product, but as an alternative you could download the source and build it yourself!
@koppah
We’d like to look into your crash more. Can you describe what you were doing and perhaps file a bug at our bugzilla or send us an email at support [a t] songbirdnest.com? We’d really appreciate it! Thanks for the feedback.
Imported 24,000 songs from iTunes. The message came up about “x out of y tracks not found”, and then Songbird froze up for a minute or two.
Current memory usage is about 500MB.
First of all congratulations for the impressive work you’ve done! For me the most wanted feature is library management. I think the best option would be to have songbird watch a folder (recursively) for changes and automatically update the library when files are added to/removed from the folder. This would be similar to what Amarok does and I think it’s better, and probably easier to code, that the very obtrusive way that iTunes uses.
running win xp sp3. i can unfortunately no longer reproduce the bug, as upon running it a third time, the program starts normal….
@raffel
I’ll be sure to have a look at it when I boot my Mac next time - I’ve gotta move this weekend so bug-hunting is taking back-seat!
That said, I did upload the reports via TalkBack, so you will have them amongst the others you have for today. Unfortunately, I didn’t add my email, so they might be a bit hard to narrow down
Fantastic! I tired 0.5 a while ago and was rather disappointed, it felt sluggish and generally slow. This release is much faster and much more responsive! Wonderful
Everything works really well.
If it turns out to be acceptably stable I’ll finally be able to uninstall iTunes! Yay!
Thanks for the great work!
@Jordan
Sounds like there were some files in your iTunes library that aren’t actually on your HD, thus the message about x out of y files were not found. We’re continuing to look into additional ways to reduce memory the memory footprint, I alluded to some of that here in my response to Sefk. Thanks for the info, and don’t hesitate to give us feedback!
@fred
First, we really appreciate your comments. There’s some good news to report, we’re currently exploring implementing watch folder functionality in the next release!
@sebastian
We’ll keep an eye out for it, thanks for the extra info.
@koppah
Good luck with your move and thanks for sharing the report, we’ll try to hunt it down!
@espy
Thanks for your comments! We’re pleased to hear that the performance improvements we’ve been working on in 0.6 are so noticeable. There’s more to come in the next release and if you see additional areas where you’d like to see us explore improvements, let us know so we can investigate!