Post by RavRob on Dec 12, 2015 14:32:04 GMT
Copy and Paste from the Kodi Foundation:
With this announcement we are releasing beta 3. Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.
This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.
Music library improvements
Well not exactly new but certainly something that got overlooked a lot is getting your music scanned to library. For videos it’s quite obvious there’s a library where you can scan in all your movies and tv show from your local or remote storage. Setting this up is relatively straight forward because when you add a source it immediately asks if you want to add it to the library. For music this was anything but obvious. You add a new music source which contain all your music files and that was it. Although that was how it seemed. Somewhere hidden in the context menu (which you pull up with right or using “C” key) there was an option scan to library. This magically started scanning your music files and reading all the tag data which contain artist, title, year and whatever more in a nicely organised library. Time to make it more obvious.
After you added a new music file source it will now ask you if you want to scan all the files in that folder using the tag data in those files and organise it for you.
Caveates to music library:
• Your music needs to be properly tagged. For example with*ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, Vorbis Comments or APE
• If not properly tagged Kodi can’t properly organise it and things might be completely misplaced.
• Properly tagging music files can be a tedious job however there are several tools for assisting on that:*MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3Tag, TagScanner and so on
• Scanning these files could take quite a while before it’s finished depending on the amount
Advantages to music library:
• You will get an awesome looking library view just like for movies and tvshows
• You can search your music files
• Library splits up the music in sections: Genres, Artists, Albums, Singles, All songs, Years, Top 100 (based on your playback), Recently added/played albums, Compilations
• You can split everything up even further using smartplaylists
• You can rate your music and filter based on that
• Since Kodi also acts as UPnP server you can share them over you home-network if the clients support this
• You can scan for additional information like artist biography or album review/synopsis (right click or C key in album or artist library)
•*This can be enabled by default in settings -> music -> library -> “Fetch additional information during updates”
•*You can change the default language for online information by going to settings -> addon-ons -> my add-ons -> Information providers -> Album or artist information -> open the universal album or artist scraper
Although music library is not yet at the same level as movies or tv shows, there is certainly work being done in this area to make it better. Stay tuned for next version.
Example of tagging your album with MusicBrainz Picard
Fixes done in this beta 3:
• Fixed: non-working touch input in file manager
• Fixed: workaround for MySQL 5.7.x query optimizer changes
• Fixed: remove broken musicvideo scraper
• Fixed: don’t show “sync playback to display” option on Android as it’s not supported
• Fixed: fix codepage for Korean language input
• Fixed: added workaround for triggering repository updates during playback
• Fixed: fix crash in PVR calling the context menu
• Fixed: show OK dialog instead of empty list clicking on the update button in add-on information panel
• Fixed: several coverity and cppcheck code analysis problems
• Fixed: time sometimes jumped backwards on playing bluray m2ts files and fixes stutter on switching files
• Fixed: several issues regarding music library
• Fixed: timer and EPG handling in PVR
• Fixed: crashing on cleaning up events
• Fixed: don’t show brightness/contrast controls when using Android MediaCodec (Surface)
• Fixed:*dont invalidate art for addons that are new or not updated since last fetch
• Fixed: Android stylus devices don’t respond on input
• Fixed: segfault when ADSP is enabled in settings
• Fixed: missing art when playing something from a music add-on
• Fixed: variety of cleanups and problems for AMLogic chips
• Fixed:*fixed possible directory traversal bug due to insufficient url checking
• Fixed: handling of media key on Android
• Changed:*add support for pre-gzipped addons.xml in repositories which should considerably reduce repository traffic
• Changed: remove “add source”from Programs section
Visit the other announcements listed below for previous beta fixes.
A lot of changes went in Kodi 16. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.
Known problems in this beta
As with all developments we sometimes hit problems that need a little more time. One of the known*problems is using profiles. With the splitting of skin settings we hit a small regression that affects users who are using the profile feature. Switching will possible cause your profile to be reset so in case you use this feature we suggest to not upgrade to this version. There is currently a fix pending for this but we could use some help testing. If you have problem regarding the profile switching not keeping your skin settings you can get a test build here: LINK. Please comment in that forum thread if you still encounter problems or if it has been fixed. Please limit comments to only this particular problem.
Please report any problems on our forum forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement.
Donations or getting involved
Getting involved is quite easy. Simply take the plunge and start using these 16.0 Jarvis builds. If you use these builds, we encourage you to report problems with these builds on our forum first and after that, if asked, submit bugs on Trac (following this guide:*How to submit a bug report). Do note that we need detailed information so we can investigate the issue. We also appreciate providing support in our*Forums*where you can.*You can of course also follow or help promote Kodi on all available social networks. Read more on the*get involved*page.
We are always happy to receive a*donation*by which you show your support and appreciation. All donations go towards the XBMC foundation and are typically used for travel to attend conferences, any necessary paperwork and legal fees, purchase necessary hardware and licenses for developers and hopefully the yearly XBMC Foundation Developers Conference.
With this announcement we are releasing beta 3. Why the rapid succession of these releases you might wonder? By doing more more releases in the shorter period we reduce the amount of changes that are included in each one. Instead of a huge list of changes it now only has several which gives a better overview. The advantage of that is possible regressions get picked up way faster and that you as user also get the benefit of not having to wait a long time to get these fixes.
This Release Early Release Often (RERO) is what we as a team have decided to go forward with as we see the benefits of this approach. Our developers don’t have to wait a very long time before their features get included in a release and you a user will also get to try them out without having to wait many months. Enough about the RERO approach as we’ll soon devote a special review about this.
Music library improvements
Well not exactly new but certainly something that got overlooked a lot is getting your music scanned to library. For videos it’s quite obvious there’s a library where you can scan in all your movies and tv show from your local or remote storage. Setting this up is relatively straight forward because when you add a source it immediately asks if you want to add it to the library. For music this was anything but obvious. You add a new music source which contain all your music files and that was it. Although that was how it seemed. Somewhere hidden in the context menu (which you pull up with right or using “C” key) there was an option scan to library. This magically started scanning your music files and reading all the tag data which contain artist, title, year and whatever more in a nicely organised library. Time to make it more obvious.
After you added a new music file source it will now ask you if you want to scan all the files in that folder using the tag data in those files and organise it for you.
Caveates to music library:
• Your music needs to be properly tagged. For example with*ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, Vorbis Comments or APE
• If not properly tagged Kodi can’t properly organise it and things might be completely misplaced.
• Properly tagging music files can be a tedious job however there are several tools for assisting on that:*MusicBrainz Picard, Mp3Tag, TagScanner and so on
• Scanning these files could take quite a while before it’s finished depending on the amount
Advantages to music library:
• You will get an awesome looking library view just like for movies and tvshows
• You can search your music files
• Library splits up the music in sections: Genres, Artists, Albums, Singles, All songs, Years, Top 100 (based on your playback), Recently added/played albums, Compilations
• You can split everything up even further using smartplaylists
• You can rate your music and filter based on that
• Since Kodi also acts as UPnP server you can share them over you home-network if the clients support this
• You can scan for additional information like artist biography or album review/synopsis (right click or C key in album or artist library)
•*This can be enabled by default in settings -> music -> library -> “Fetch additional information during updates”
•*You can change the default language for online information by going to settings -> addon-ons -> my add-ons -> Information providers -> Album or artist information -> open the universal album or artist scraper
Although music library is not yet at the same level as movies or tv shows, there is certainly work being done in this area to make it better. Stay tuned for next version.
Example of tagging your album with MusicBrainz Picard
Fixes done in this beta 3:
• Fixed: non-working touch input in file manager
• Fixed: workaround for MySQL 5.7.x query optimizer changes
• Fixed: remove broken musicvideo scraper
• Fixed: don’t show “sync playback to display” option on Android as it’s not supported
• Fixed: fix codepage for Korean language input
• Fixed: added workaround for triggering repository updates during playback
• Fixed: fix crash in PVR calling the context menu
• Fixed: show OK dialog instead of empty list clicking on the update button in add-on information panel
• Fixed: several coverity and cppcheck code analysis problems
• Fixed: time sometimes jumped backwards on playing bluray m2ts files and fixes stutter on switching files
• Fixed: several issues regarding music library
• Fixed: timer and EPG handling in PVR
• Fixed: crashing on cleaning up events
• Fixed: don’t show brightness/contrast controls when using Android MediaCodec (Surface)
• Fixed:*dont invalidate art for addons that are new or not updated since last fetch
• Fixed: Android stylus devices don’t respond on input
• Fixed: segfault when ADSP is enabled in settings
• Fixed: missing art when playing something from a music add-on
• Fixed: variety of cleanups and problems for AMLogic chips
• Fixed:*fixed possible directory traversal bug due to insufficient url checking
• Fixed: handling of media key on Android
• Changed:*add support for pre-gzipped addons.xml in repositories which should considerably reduce repository traffic
• Changed: remove “add source”from Programs section
Visit the other announcements listed below for previous beta fixes.
A lot of changes went in Kodi 16. Removing old code, splitting up parts in more logical chunks and making it all more resilient to future changes. All these changes are part of a massive change list that only makes sense to developers actually knowing what the source code does. In short we will no bother you all with summing up the list. It’s just something that is worth mentioning that not all improvements have to be actual features and are visible to users. We prefer that the program actually works than adding bells and whistles.
Known problems in this beta
As with all developments we sometimes hit problems that need a little more time. One of the known*problems is using profiles. With the splitting of skin settings we hit a small regression that affects users who are using the profile feature. Switching will possible cause your profile to be reset so in case you use this feature we suggest to not upgrade to this version. There is currently a fix pending for this but we could use some help testing. If you have problem regarding the profile switching not keeping your skin settings you can get a test build here: LINK. Please comment in that forum thread if you still encounter problems or if it has been fixed. Please limit comments to only this particular problem.
Please report any problems on our forum forum.kodi.tv and not on the release announcement.
Donations or getting involved
Getting involved is quite easy. Simply take the plunge and start using these 16.0 Jarvis builds. If you use these builds, we encourage you to report problems with these builds on our forum first and after that, if asked, submit bugs on Trac (following this guide:*How to submit a bug report). Do note that we need detailed information so we can investigate the issue. We also appreciate providing support in our*Forums*where you can.*You can of course also follow or help promote Kodi on all available social networks. Read more on the*get involved*page.
We are always happy to receive a*donation*by which you show your support and appreciation. All donations go towards the XBMC foundation and are typically used for travel to attend conferences, any necessary paperwork and legal fees, purchase necessary hardware and licenses for developers and hopefully the yearly XBMC Foundation Developers Conference.