Picard 2.3 Beta 1

Have you heard? Jean-Luc Picard is back, once again rescuing the galaxy. And MusicBrainz Picard is back with a new beta release, once again fixing your digital music collection.

We have just released Picard 2.3 beta 1 as a pre-release for the upcoming Picard 2.3. There have been quite a few additions and changes and we would like to gather feedback with this beta release before releasing the final Picard 2.3.

What’s new?

You can see a full list of changes in the changelog. Here is an overview of the most notable new features and fixes:

  • It is now possible to customize the columns in the main panel, so you can choose to see additional details about the files you are tagging, such as album artist, composer, catalogue number, genre and more. For now the number of columns is intentionally limited, but this opens the door for other enhancements, like ordering releases by completion status.
  • The new “Generate AcoustID fingerprints” action allows you to just generate the fingerprints without doing a search and match. This allows you to generate and submit fingerprints for already tagged files easily. To make this feature complete a new “Fingerprint status” column can be enabled indicating whether a fingerprint has been generated (showing a red fingerprint icon) and whether it has been submitted (the fingerprint icon turns from red to gray).
  • AcoustID lookup (aka Scan) has been improved and now respects your configured preferred release types.
  • The Scripting options have been reworked to be more consistent and easier to use.
  • Several smaller improvements to tag editing, like multiline editing for comments and lyrics, manual reordering of multivalue tag values, autocomplete for media, release country, release type and release status tags and format indicators for date tags (e.g. showing “YYYY-MM-DD” for the date tag).
  • Custom tags support for MP4.
  • Support for tagging raw AC3 files with APEv2 tags.
  • For AAC and AC3 tags you can choose whether to save APEv2 tags or not, or even completely remove existing APEv2 tags from the files. This addresses compatibility issues with those tags in some players. E.g. many players not supporting APEv2 tags in those formats will show a wrong duration.
  • On Windows and some Linux desktops (e.g. KDE Plasma and Ubuntu GNOME) the task bar or dock icon will now show the progress of loading or saving many files.
  • We addressed some cases where the Picard user interface became totally unresponsive for a while when clustering files or moving and matching files to releases. This was most notable when working with large releases with several hundred tracks.
  • We fixed some scripting functions that are supposed to be used as conditions but behaved differently. This affects $is_complete(), $startswith() and $endswith(). If you use one of these functions in your script please read this forum post on how to update your scripts.
  • macOS: It is now possible to directly open supported files in Picard from Finder. Also you can drag and drop files and folders onto the Picard dock icon to open them.
  • macOS: The Picard app is now fully supported on macOS 10.15 Catalina and can be opened without security warnings.
  • Windows: Picard is now available as a Windows 10 app from the Windows Store. See “Getting the beta” below for details.
  • Windows: Picard is also available as a portable app, which can be run from any folder or external drive without installation. All settings and plugins will be stored in the folder in which the Picard portable app is located.

Getting the beta

You can download the beta version from Picard’s GitHub relase page. Windows users might want to try the new portable version, as it can be run alongside the current installed Picard using different settings.

If you are using Windows 10 please help testing the newly available Picard in the Windows Store. The app is not yet publicly findable in the store, please use the direct link to Picard’s store page.

Helping out

The easiest way to help us getting a great Picard 2.3 release is using and testing this beta. Please report bugs on the Picard issue tracker and provide feedback in the community forums.

Please also help translate Picard. There have been many changes to the user interface, which means many translations are in need for an update. Translating is easy and can be done online: Head over to MusicBrainz’s translation page on Transifex and click on “Help Translate MusicBrainz”. Once you have registered an account on Transifex you can start translating. For Picard the primary resource to translate is “picard“, but there is also the “picard_appstream” resource which is used for providing descriptions for various Linux software-center applications.

If your are a software developer you are very welcomed to provide fixes and features. Picard is free software and the source code is available on GitHub. See Developing on the Picard website to get started.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank everybody who contributed to this release, be it with coding, translation, reporting issues on the bug tracker or general feedback on the community forums. Many of the changes in this release are the direct result of some forum discussion.

Special thanks to team members zas and samj1912 for incessantly reviewing all my code changes. Also a special shout out to the Dutch, Finnish, French and Italian translators which provided a 100% translation of this Picard beta into those languages. Unfortunately the translation process currently is very hidden and anonymous and I would like to see this changed. But I definitely appreciate all the work put into this.

Known issues

  • When deleting scripts the UI shortly shows the previous selection. This is just a visual glitch, the correct script will still be deleted. See PICARD-1708.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2020-01-20

This release mostly fixes small bugs. Please note that the display code for release lists (for area, artist, collection, instrument, label and series) has been reworked too.

Thanks to chaban for continuously reporting issues, hibiscuskazeneko for paying attention to external links, rotab who fixed a couple of bugs, and all others who reported issues or helped test or translate today’s release!

The git tag is v-2020-01-20.

Bug

  • [MBS-10492] – Regression: When minute component starts with 0 (zero) it’s omitted
  • [MBS-10501] – Collaborator avatars missing from collection page
  • [MBS-10522] – Subscribers not transferred after entity merge
  • [MBS-10531] – Invalid requests are sent to maps service when access token is not set
  • [MBS-10536] – Release group link “see all versions of this release” has span.name-variation
  • [MBS-10553] – User report reason is sent to admins translated
  • [MBS-10560] – Regression: release edits display abbreviated rather than full country names in their release events
  • [MBS-10565] – Can’t add a new type for series
  • [MBS-10567] – Only show allowed series entity types when creating series types
  • [MBS-10571] – Localized ModBot notes are not properly formatted when sent via email
  • [MBS-10572] – Pages that display release events trigger an error when a non-English UI language is selected: “Domain `countries` was not found.”

Improvement

  • [MBS-10552] – Add Deezer links to the sidebar

MusicBrainz Server update, 2020-01-06

Happy new year with a new “Artists” page for instruments on MusicBrainz, plus a way to collapse the display of very long release country lists, alongside with some bugfixes, the usual improved handling of external URLs and continued conversion to React.

Thanks to CatQuest, chaban, Lotheric, mfmeulenbelt, outsidecontext, Sotho Talker, and all others who reported issues or helped test or translate today’s release!

The git tag is v-2020-01-06.

Bug

  • [MBS-10335] – Installing Perl dependencies fails on outdated DBD::Pg version
  • [MBS-10497] – Internal server error when editing artist and credits
  • [MBS-10521] – Add Medium -> Existing medium search in the release editor is broken, spins forever
  • [MBS-10524] – /account/change-password gives an internal server error if not logged in
  • [MBS-10526] – Private collaborative collections for a user shown publicly

New Feature

  • [MBS-10316] – Add “Artists” tab for instruments
  • [MBS-10424] – Collapse release country list when there are too many release event countries for a single release

Improvement

  • [MBS-10292] – Normalize and validate links to Québec Info Musique
  • [MBS-10309] – Update URL cleanup for musik-sammler.de
  • [MBS-10455] – Block more smart links

React Conversion Task

  • [MBS-9919] – Convert the place public pages to React

MusicBrainz Server update, 2019-12-09

More small improvements and bugfixes with today’s release, as well as continued conversion to React and other code refactoring.

Thanks to angriestchair, brianfreud, CatQuest, chaban, danbloo, draconx, dr saunders, dseomn, fmera, psychoadept, and all others who reported issues or helped test or translate today’s release!

The git tag is v-2019-12-10-hotfix.

Bug

  • [MBS-4091] – Annotation trimming breaks initial li’s
  • [MBS-10188] – “Merge releases” edit is stuck
  • [MBS-10228] – Releases with no media not shown as merge source in release merge edits
  • [MBS-10279] – Release merge edits display stale, possibly incorrect recording merge info
  • [MBS-10422] – Recording inline search in release editor doesn’t display ISRCs
  • [MBS-10468] – URL cleanup breaks Bandcamp URLs containing “merch”
  • [MBS-10482] – Patreon post URLs are incorrectly normalized
  • [MBS-10502] – 45cat/45worlds URLs point to the wrong place on MB

Improvement

  • [MBS-4776] – Require confirmation when using Various Artists as a track artist
  • [MBS-10243] – Show “[missing media]” when relevant on release duplicates tab
  • [MBS-10244] – Show “[missing media]” when relevant on merge w recordings release merge
  • [MBS-10248] – Show the type of link from instrument recording page
  • [MBS-10255] – Explain when to use “Copy all track titles to associated recordings” and “Copy all track artist credits to associated recordings” when editing a release
  • [MBS-10304] – Restore the ability to set special codes as editor language
  • [MBS-10479] – Show release group types on recording page
  • [MBS-10489] – Make EnterEditNote help text less redundant
  • [MBS-10491] – Add “add a new instrument” link to instrument search results page
  • [MBS-10493] – Enlarge and allow resizing relationship type multi-select box
  • [MBS-10500] – Support localizing edit notes left by ModBot

React Conversion Task

  • [MBS-10439] – Convert user collections list to React

Other Task

  • [MBS-10350] – Remove Google+ links from the sidebar
  • [MBS-10495] – Update Discourse SSO to use header based authentication

MusicBrainz Server update, 2019-11-25

Starting with this release, we read our genres list from the genre table rather than a hardcoded list inside a JSON file. This should have no user-visible impact, but let us know if you encounter any new issues related to genres. (This change should however help us improve genres further.)

We also have a small list of bug fixes and improvements, listed below. One neat new feature is the ability to sort edit searches by date closed or closing.

Thanks to chaban, culinko, drsaunde, jesus2099, mglubb, lotheric, psychoadept, sothotalker, and all others who reported issues or helped test or translate today’s release!

The git tag is v-2019-11-25.

Bug

  • [MBS-7097] – Release listed multiple times in “Non-digital releases with download relationships” report
  • [MBS-10466] – MusicBrainz Happy Birthday wishes doesn’t take into account timezones
  • [MBS-10467] – Pages ported to React do not show the new edit notes banner
  • [MBS-10473] – Static resources fail to build when NODE_ENV=production
  • [MBS-10485] – User profile’s “Statistics Edits (view)” links to bogus URL
  • [MBS-10488] – Regression: User profile subscribe links no longer work

New Feature

  • [MBS-9491] – Move genres to be read from the database

Improvement

  • [MBS-4299] – Warning when merging releases with diff. recording artists should show disambiguation
  • [MBS-10204] – Better overview of user edits on user page
  • [MBS-10471] – Add option to view edits by date closed

React Conversion Task

  • [MBS-9922] – Convert the series public pages to React

MusicBrainz Server update, 2019-11-11

This release contains a new “Voting suggestions” page with some useful, predefined edit searches that ought to help editors find and review edits that need more attention.

We also have some minor improvements and display fixes, detailed below. The conversion of our template code to React slowly continues.

Thanks to cyna, chaban, and all others who tested or contributed to this release!

The git tag is v-2019-11-11.

Bug

  • [MBS-10264] – The date/time display format isn’t localized in some places
  • [MBS-10446] – Historic “Remove relationship” edits don’t display anything useful
  • [MBS-10447] – Historic “remove relationship” edits don’t fail properly if data is missing
  • [MBS-10460] – Remove alias edits don’t store “ended” info, always display “Ended: No”

New Feature

  • [MBS-10299] – “Voting Reports” (pre-set edit searches)

Task

  • [MBS-10389] – Add “Chat” or “IRC” link to footer
  • [MBS-10394] – Convert Add/Remove Alias edit to React
  • [MBS-10395] – Convert Edit Alias edit to React
  • [MBS-10440] – Remove series/delete
  • [MBS-10448] – Add the Dynamic Range Database to the other databases whitelist

Improvement

  • [MBS-3839] – Merge edit pages should have a way to remove some items
  • [MBS-10361] – Allow tabbing straight from edit note field to submit button
  • [MBS-10371] – Update the Songfacts logo used in the sidebar
  • [MBS-10382] – Explain what rename option does when merging
  • [MBS-10403] – Explain when a release should be removed / merging is preferred
  • [MBS-10456] – Show more info when entering artist merges

React Conversion Task

  • [MBS-10206] – Convert user profile to React

State of the Brainz: 2019 MetaBrainz Summit highlights

The 2019 MetaBrainz Summit took place on 27th–29th of September 2019 in Barcelona, Spain at the MetaBrainz HQ. The Summit is a chance for MetaBrainz staff and the community to gather and plan ahead for the next year. This report is a recap of what was discussed and what lies ahead for the community.

Continue reading “State of the Brainz: 2019 MetaBrainz Summit highlights”

Picard 2.2.3 released

MusicBrainz Picard 2.2.3 is available for download. This is a bugfix release which mainly fixes a couple of crashes and some UI issues on macOS.

The complete list of changes:

Bug

  • [PICARD-1633] – macOS: Automatic locale detection broken
  • [PICARD-1634] – macOS: File browser sets wrong horizontal scroll position
  • [PICARD-1635] – Terminated randomly when deleting files when saving
  • [PICARD-1636] – Default locale detection fails if locale categories have different locales
  • [PICARD-1637] – Crash when saving after removing some underlying files
  • [PICARD-1640] – Picard with –config-file parameter copies over legacy configuration
  • [PICARD-1642] – Picard crashes on launch (AttributeError: ‘NoneType’ object has no attribute ‘setPopupMode’)
  • [PICARD-1643] – Performer with instruments containing non-ASCII characters are not written to Vorbis and APE tags
  • [PICARD-1644] – Crash when initializing translations on Python 3.8
  • [PICARD-1647] – macOS: Plugin enable/disable button does not always update the icon
  • [PICARD-1648] – Crashes when using search dialogs
  • [PICARD-1651] – File and release counts in status bar not updated when files get removed
  • [PICARD-1654] – macOS: Logout button / username stays visible after logout
  • [PICARD-1655] – macOS: Login dialog can be hidden behind options

Improvement

  • [PICARD-1630] – Ensure FLAC metadata is visible/editable in Windows Explorer
  • [PICARD-1632] – Tooltips for genre filter help hide too quickly

 

MusicBrainz Server update, 2019-10-28

You shouldn’t be afraid of this small release that fixes some bugs and delivers some improvements, making editors’ lives easier!

Thanks to Besnik, CatQuest, dkg, jesus2099, outsidecontext, zexpe, and everyone who tested the beta version, reported issues, or updated website localizations.

The git tag is v-2019-10-28.

Bug

  • [MBS-9468] – Edit search finds no “remove (download for free) relationship” edits
  • [MBS-10408] – Artists are not marked as pending in that recording merge edit
  • [MBS-10420] – My Data Menu’s “All My Edits” links to bogus URL
  • [MBS-10428] – WS: Recording request missing artist aliases
  • [MBS-10429] – Empty aliases element returned for artists in relationships
  • [MBS-10430] – Actions column for fingerprints wraps for translations

Improvement

  • [MBS-2176] – Add a “Finish” button alongside “Next” in release editor
  • [MBS-10356] – Replace <b> with <strong> in messages
  • [MBS-10425] – Allow instrument credits for relationships from/to instrument
  • [MBS-10431] – Remove ‘yourmusic’ from 7digital URLs
  • [MBS-10454] – Block removing an area still in use

MusicBrainz Server update, 2019-10-14

This post-summit release mostly contains bugfixes and small improvements for quality of life, along with continued conversion of templates to React.

Thanks to alastairp, andrebreiler, antonphoton, chaban, dibou, foolip, hibiscuskazeneko, jdamcd, jesus2099, mat813, mineo, okno, rochusw, silentbird, Skeebadoo, and everyone who tested the beta version, reported issues, or updated website localizations.

The git tag is v-2019-10-17-hotfixes.

Bug

  • [MBS-4980] – Releases on the same date aren’t sorted by catalog number
  • [MBS-5322] – Release group browse requests no longer return results in first-release-date order
  • [MBS-9111] – It’s still possible to leave empty edit notes
  • [MBS-10263] – Annotation not removed after it has been downvoted
  • [MBS-10344] – Navigating to artist/ or recording/merge with only 1 item in the queue ISEs
  • [MBS-10345] – /merge loads (brokenly) even if not ready to merge
  • [MBS-10346] – Table of collections has large table cell padding
  • [MBS-10353] – Enable ratings for release browse
  • [MBS-10369] – Database statistics for countries are wrong
  • [MBS-10406] – The WS can still sometimes try to communicate with the template renderer, timing out
  • [MBS-10411] – Inconsistent type for place coordinate
  • [MBS-10421] – Lookup of cluster in browser from Picard generates an server error
  • [MBS-10423] – Internal Server Error when trying to query by release language

Improvement

  • [MBS-3112] – TAB from “Edit note” doesn’t go to “Enter edit” in “Release editor”
  • [MBS-4486] – Disambiguation input field sanitation: Automatically remove leading and trailing parentheses
  • [MBS-4913] – Show how many CAA images we have for a release
  • [MBS-5083] – Release pages: Display recording artist on tracks (recording)
  • [MBS-5479] – Move “Edit relationships” to be a tab by “Edit” on releases
  • [MBS-8566] – Release artist should be selected automatically for all tracks with the same artist name (CD stub import)
  • [MBS-8967] – The duplicate events report should not show events if all of them have disambiguation comments
  • [MBS-10229] – Block smart links
  • [MBS-10240] – Allow specifying that a release has no barcode while seeding
  • [MBS-10347] – “Actions” columns should only take as much space as they need
  • [MBS-10349] – Clarify what “exclusive” vs “inclusive” means in relationship stats
  • [MBS-10355] – Display track artist on recording pages
  • [MBS-10363] – Cancelling merge on merge helper should stay in the same page
  • [MBS-10370] – Add `direction: forward` to all forward relationships in WS
  • [MBS-10373] – Link to How to Write Edit Notes above the edit note fields
  • [MBS-10404] – Limit the total number of tracks that can be returned in a WS release list
  • [MBS-10405] – Switch to XML::LibXML for serializing XML WS responses
  • [MBS-10407] – Add limit/offset parameters to /ws/2/discid

React Conversion Task

  • [MBS-9915] – Convert the artist public pages to React
  • [MBS-9920] – Convert the recording public pages to React
  • [MBS-9924] – Convert the work public pages to React
  • [MBS-10357] – Convert edit diff macros to React