Picard 3 beta 5 released

Today, we’re making available the fifth beta version for the upcoming MusicBrainz Picard 3. This new versions brings some important changes:

• The Options menu was reworked with generalized quick settings and easier access to scripts and options.
• Handling of the Options dialog and the File Naming Script Editor was streamlined. Editing file naming scripts is now available in the menu in Options > File naming scripts > Edit scripts… or via Ctrl+Shift+S.
• Option profiles can now be used with plugin settings, the “Attached option profiles” dialog allows changing selected options.
• Plugins can be installed from a local directory without git, which simplifies local development and plugins created just for personal use.

Download links and a detailed list of changes since Picard 3 beta 4 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.

While we have all the major features implemented and with the latest bug fixes we are confident in the current code, this is still a pre-release and there might be bugs. If you use this, do so with care, backup your files and please report any issues you encounter.

Some of the changes are also backward incompatible, hence we recommend you make a backup of your Picard.ini config file before trying the beta version. You can do so in Picard’s Options under Advanced > Maintenance.

What’s new?

Bugfixes

• PICARD-507 – Wrong matching to already loaded release
• PICARD-1696 – No stable sort order for cover art saved to ID3
• PICARD-3308 – macOS: System locale detection fails
• PICARD-3326 – The releases on PyPI lack the source distribution
• PICARD-3327 – MBID auto-loading and auto-analyze do not work after loading session with “No auto-matching on load” enabled

Improvements

• PICARD-3080 – Consider track no. when matching files to AcoustID results
• PICARD-3092 – Support reading duration from 3GP files (.m4a)
• PICARD-3138 – Make user-collections retrieval optional, similar to genres and ratings
• PICARD-3270 – Add ISRC and ISWC to pre-defined columns
• PICARD-3302 – Allow focusing Log View dialog while Options dialog is open
• PICARD-3306 – File naming script UI is overly complex and duplicated
• PICARD-3309 – Unify Options menu toggle actions into configurable Quick settings
• PICARD-3313 – Support executing local non-git plugins
• PICARD-3314 – Add docstrings to PluginApi methods
• PICARD-3315 – Add support for profiles for plugin options and pages
• PICARD-3318 – Attached Profiles dialog should provide a way to configure profiles for this page
• PICARD-3329 – Allow changing the string collator with the PICARD_COLLATOR environment variable

Download

We appreciate your interest in trying this new version. Use with care, backup your files and please use the MetaBrainz community forums and the ticket system to give feedback and report bugs.

For Windows and macOS you can download the beta version from the Picard download page. Linux users can run from source or try the beta channel of the Picard snap package.

Picard is free software and the source code is available on GitHub.

Acknowledgements

Code contributions by Laurent Monin, Philipp Wolfer and Bob Swift. Translations were updated by Marc Riera (Catalan), Jeluang (Malay), Nebulain (Chinese (Simplified Han script)) and Theo Asimakopoulos (Greek).