Release Notes 2006-08

12.0.65 (8/30/06)

1. Fixed: Video thumbnailing could hang with some file types. (introduced in build 64)
2. Fixed: When clicking between different lists that were visible without changing selection, the Tag window wouldn't update for the correct list.
3. NEW: When double-clicking a thumbnail that shows files below, double-clicking again will hide the files.
4. Changed: Thumbnail stacks rebuild at a higher quality when enlarging thumnails. (used to happen only after reentering view)
5. Changed: Thumbnails stacks look better at large sizes.
6. Fixed: Should correctly execute a /playreplace from the command line when the player isn't running.
7. Changed: Added ASX playlist formats to options for drive-based handhelds.
8. Fixed: Deleting drive-based device playlist from tree not working unless the playlist was at the root.

12.0.64 (8/29/06)

1. Changed: The YADB CD lookup is using the new improved database.
2. Optimized: Several significant speedups to auto-complete combo boxes.
3. Changed: Auto-complete combo boxes cap at 100,000 items instead of 2,000 items.
4. Changed: Thumbnail text only animates for thumbnails for a group of files. (not individual images or songs)
5. Fixed: Cameras (and camera memory) were appearing as portable media players.
6. Fixed: Drive based portable media players were appearing as cameras in the acquire images list.
7. Fixed: Conversions of currently playing files to the same file name (with remove old) would fail.
8. Changed: Displaying ratings in the player window is optional.
9. Changed: Revised thumbnail system to improve performance and provide higher quality thumbs at large thumb sizes. (thumbs will be rebuilt)
10. Fixed: Thumbnails of smallish images or album covers could look over-sharpened.
11. Changed: Thumbnail creation uses bicubic resizing for higher quality thumbs.

12.0.63 (8/28/06)

Experimental thumbnail storage, build not released for wider beta testing

12.0.62 (8/28/06)

1. Changed: The files below a grouping like genres or artists have a drop menu to change the list style, etc.
2. Changed: The right-click menu for a view header is the same as the drop menu of the title.
3. Changed: When leaving a view with multiple thumbnailing threads still working, the program won't wait nearly as long before stopping the thumbnailing threads.
4. Fixed: Thumbnails were not being cached locally for Library Server clients.
5. Fixed: Some library server actions (like thumbnailing) could be very slow.
6. Optimized: Reduced the latency when scrolling large lists.
7. Optimized: Removed some debug code from the thumbnail loading system.
8. Optimized: Improved performance of thumbnail views that show text with the thumbnail.
9. Fixed: Auto-show menus could appear even while using a right-click menu.

12.0.61 (8/25/06)

1. Changed: Removed counts from pane listings.
2. Changed: Revised how library view navigation works so that it has only one control point.
3. Changed: Merged title of views and "Options" button in all views into the same item.
4. Optimized: Some skinned controls draw faster.
5. Changed: Added "Columns" to the view settings menu.
6. Changed: "Customize Current View..." replaced by "View Settings" menu in main view menu and right-click on file lists.
7. Changed: Right-clicking the column headers of a list shows only the "View Settings" menu instead of the entire menu.
8. NEW: Added ratings to the player window.
9. Fixed: Switching into fullscreen with MC maximized, and then hitting the "restore" button to go to windowed display view didn't work properly.

12.0.60 (8/24/06)

1. Fixed: Bursts of sound during video thumbnailing.
2. Fixed: When manually expanding a tree item, the tree and action window wouldn't properly negotiate for space.
3. Fixed: The auto-expand / auto-collapse tree option was not being honored.
4. Changed: Removed the "show tooltips" option for the tree.
5. Changed: Switching to Mini View or Theater View while MC was minimized could cause strange results.
6. Fixed: In some cases, switching to a view scheme could cause a crash.
7. Changed: Changing the rotation field for an image causes the thumnbnail to be rebuilt.
8. Fixed: When using fast image rotation (what thumbnails use), some rotation angles were not being properly supported.
9. Fixed: Image tag window wasn't applying image rotation.
10. Changed: The empty text like "no search results" or "no files -- double-click here to play entire library", etc. now get drawn in thumbnail-style lists as well.
11. Changed: When viewing an empty library view, it'll say "searching for files" (instead of double-click to search for files) if an import is running.
12. Changed: Right-click on a view scheme has the "Add Folder To Library" option.
13. Changed: More error checking in video player seek operation.
14. Changed: Bumped the core database version so Library Server understands the difference between an v11.1 and v12.0 library.
15. Changed: Dialogs thrown from input plugins during playback are now skinned and translated.
16. Fixed: Starting Media Center in last exit view mode could cause it to be in a confused state where all menus and functionality didn't work as expected.
17. Changed: With last exit view mode selected, the splash screen would not show. (the splash still doesn't show when going straight to display or theater view by design)
18. Fixed: Album thumbnail tooltips were not appearing.
19. NEW: Added file count next to groupings in the panes. (experimental -- may not remain)
20. Changed: Tag action window allows calculated fields to be shown.
21. Changed: Reworked how fields are grouped in the tag window menu.
22. Changed: Each stack view inside a view scheme shares thumbnail sizing and sorting.

12.0.59 (8/22/06)

1. NEW: Added YADB cover art lookup / submission. (please submit any albums you have good covers for)
2. Changed: Merged settings for auto-expand / auto-collapsing of the tree into one setting in Options > Tree & View.
3. Changed: List-type fields in the Action Window will use one line for their list of values if the list is short enough.
4. Fixed: Multimedia keys were not being handled as well as in MC 11.1 in some cases.
5. Changed: Right clicking anywhere on the top border of the program will show the "Customize Toolbar" menu. (instead of just on the file menu)
6. Changed: Right-click drag now supported by the navigation tree.
7. NEW: By default, thumbnail views determine the best aspect ratio by sampling the thumbnails. (moving the thumbnail size slider automatically puts the list in auto-aspect ratio mode)
8. Fixed: Resizing thumbnails could produce a dead area at the top of the list in some cases.
9. Fixed: In some cases, right-click menus in the tree would fail to work properly.
10. Changed: Reworked the auto-collapse / auto-expand logic in the tree. (any auto-expanded item gets collapsed when changing selection)
11. Fixed: Tree > right-click > "Add Device..." was not working.
12. NEW: Importing of iTunes playlists (as saved as txt or xml) added.
13. Changed: Updated the Spanish translation. (thanks ferent!)
14. Changed: Updated the French translation. (thanks laurentxp!)

12.0.58 (8/19/06)

1. Changed: Switched audio analysis dialog back to only counting files that need analysis in the "xx / xx completed" text.
2. Fixed: Minimizing to the system tray wasn't hiding the regular task bar button.
3. Fixed: OS-level eject of iPods and drive-style handhelds was not working properly.
4. Changed: Thumbnailer will stop trying to thumbnail a file after it fails to thumbnail three times.
5. Changed: Improved handling (and performance) of thumbnailing system when dealing with files that don't have a thumbnail. (like audio with no art)

12.0.57 (8/18/06)

1. NEW: Library views with items like file paths, groupings, playlists, expressions, etc. fully support grouping thumbnails. (previously only available with simple fields)
2. Changed: Tag Action Window looks nicer when no files are selected.
3. Fixed: Anything that could possibly show a wait message if it would take a while (expand some tree items, navigation, etc.) could stall for several seconds. (introduced in 56)
4. Fixed: When tile links faded in, the left-most text could look too dark with font anti-aliasing enabled.
5. Fixed: When jumping to full screen display view and back, a list's scroll position could have moved.
6. Fixed: Shutting down the program after it hadn't been running long could cause a crash in rare cases.
7. Optimized: Improved speed when jumping between UI modes.
8. Fixed: Starting the program and immediately going to the remote control options page could cause a crash.
9. Fixed: Thumbnail views wouldn't update properly after tagging changes.
10. NEW: Added iTunes playlist import support.
11. Fixed: When doing "Remove Tags", folder watching could unnecessarily reanalyze the file later.
12. Changed: Doing audio analysis on a large list where only a few files needed analysis would take longer than expected.
13. Fixed: View schemes targetting a specified disk location would have a "Click here to reset selection" even when it wasn't necessary.
14. Changed: Reworked IPTC tag display in the "Format" section of the Tag window to look like the MJMD section.
15. Fixed: Video zooming did not work smoothly when the "Crop" aspect ratio option had been choosen.
16. Changed: Video zooming can zoom out further than the window size, up to the native video size, if the window size is larger than the native video size.

12.0.56 (8/16/06)

1. Fixed: File ordering inside albums on an iPod could show up alphabetical instead of in disc # / track # order.
2. Changed: Detached display considers windowed location instead of current location when calculating "Nearest Monitor" for fullscreen.
3. Changed: During the last 10 days before a beta timeout, the timeout warning is shown each launch of the player.
4. Fixed: It was not possible to fill in a missing track number from the tag Action Window.
5. NEW: In MP3 files, ID3's popularimeter mapped to MC star ratings.
6. NEW: Video Panning (hold down left mouse button and drag when video is zoomed in) is available for TV, DX video player, and DVD player.
7. Changed: Skinning engine better handles some ATL COM third party plugins.
8. Fixed: Internet image lookup was not working properly.
9. Changed: Updated Dutch translation. (thanks BennyD!)
10. Changed: Removed tree icons from root items.

12.0.55 (8/14/06)

1. NEW: Scheduler view has its own scheduler view header image.
2. Fixed: Downloads of plugins, etc. could fail.
3. Fixed: Video zooming would not anchor at the right point.
4. Fixed: Video zooming with "Crop Edges" option on did not work smoothly.
5. Changed: Switching zones no longer ensures that Media Center is visible.
6. Fixed: Upgrade pricing for v12 was not working properly.
7. Changed: Detached display remembers if it was fullscreen last time it was detached and returns to the same state.
8. NEW: Video zooming is available in TV.
9. NEW: Updated the German translation. (thanks bytestar!)

12.0.54 (8/11/06)

1. NEW: Video zooming is also available for DVD playback.
2. Fixed: Clicking "Play" on a tile while the jump on play mode was set to Playing Now could cause a crash.
3. NEW: Updated the animation that shows on the generic please wait dialog.
4. Fixed: Going directly from Mini View to a fullscreen view (display or Theater View) could cause problems.
5. Fixed: When switcing the list style of the file list below a grouping list, it wouldn't update right away.
6. Fixed: The space available on a device wouldn't properly update after a format.

12.0.53 (8/10/06)

1. NEW: Mouse wheel zooms video in and out.
2. Fixed: Bursts of sound during video thumbnailing on some computers.
3. Fixed: Video thumbnailing could hang the thumbnailing thread if FFDShow MPEG-4 Vidoe decoder filter is used for some DivX5.0 formatted videos.
4. Changed: Non-critical failures (mixer configuration) of Video Mixing Renderer 9 are ingored so VMR9 can continue to be used in video playback.
5. Fixed: Playback with a display could fail in some cases. (introduced in build 52)
6. Changed: Added a November 1, 2006 timeout for the beta.
7. Fixed: Editing a list-type field in the action window would make in-place list editing fail to work.
8. Fixed: With split views, the tree would not update its selection when switching focus between the views.
9. Fixed: Setting list-type fields in the tag window for multiple files at a time didn't always work properly.
10. Changed: Added a "Cancel" button to the Add Tag dialog.
11. Fixed: List tile links would fade in and out even if Media Center wasn't the focused application.
12. Fixed: Switching away from a 3D visualization using the right-click menu could stall for several seconds.
13. Changed: Caption is no longer a list-style field.
14. Changed: Switched default auto import behavior to not remove missing files from network or removable drives. (only applies to fresh installs)
15. Changed: Video zooming will cause black strips (top, bottom, or left, right) to be reduced or eliminated.
16. NEW: When doing a lossless rotation of an image, the EXIF orientation flag and database field for rotation is cleared.

12.0.52 (8/9/06)

1. Fixed: Some older iPods (firewire mini, etc.) would show a "failed to recognize iPod" error.
2. Changed: The tree and Action Windows renegotiate for available space after a tree item is expanded or collapsed.
3. Fixed: A few tree icons had gray borders on their sides.
4. Fixed: Theater View "Controls" button was not working properly.
5. Changed: Improved interaction of using multiple zones or detached displays along with custom screen resolutions.
6. NEW: Added "Nearest Monitor" as a target for Fullscreen Display and detached display. (this setting is the default)
7. Changed: Navigational favorites return.
8. Fixed: Advanced library functions like fill tags from file name not working in foreign languages.
9. NEW: IPTC written out even if it didn't already exist.
10. NEW: IPTC info added to Image format info.
11. Fixed: iPods with databases written with an older version of MC (or iTunes) would not be properly handled. (introduced in build 51)
12. Fixed: Clicking "Add New Tag" could cause a crash with some database fields.
13. Fixed: The visible tags menu in the Action Window would disappear after each click.

12.0.51 (8/8/06)

1. NEW: Theater View skins can support different background images at different locations. (see Noire for an example)
2. Fixed: Scrolling with the mouse wheel in the tag window would be slower than expected.
3. Fixed: Some actions that would update the size of position of windows inside the program could disrupt the focus for the search box and other UI pieces.
4. Changed: Revised how tag window fields are picked.
5. NEW: Some check-style menus can stay visible while items are checked instead of disappearing after each tick. (see Tag window for example)
6. Fixed: Image playback statistics were not being collected properly.
7. Changed: Seeking forward no longer allows seeks past the end of the file.
8. NEW: Caption field for Images.
9. NEW: Media Center writes pre-sort indexes to iPod database to improve navigation speed.
10. Changed: Several iPod compatibility tweaks.

12.0.50 (8/7/06)

1. Changed: Action Windows don't have minimize and close buttons. (one or the other)
2. Fixed: When using small thumbnails in lists with many images, scrolling fast could cause a crash.
3. Fixed: If auto-import was removing a missing file that was also in Playing Now, it could cause a dead-lock.
4. Optimized: Building stacks for thumbnails views operates up to four times faster.
5. Fixed: Some existing IPTC tags (ones not recognized by MC) did not get saved when IPTC tags got written out.
6. Changed: Some tag window tweaks.

12.0.49 (8/?/06)

For internal testing only

12.0.48 (8/4/06)

1. Changed: For DirectShow video thumbnailing, Sample Grabber method is no longer used when DirectVobSub filter is involved.
2. Changed: For DirectShow video thumbnailing, Sample Grabber method is no longer used for DVR-MS file type.
3. NEW: Skins support specifying an alpha for menu translucancy. (see Noire for an example)
4. NEW: Tooltips do a quick fade in when displaying.
5. Changed: Removed thumbnail list scroll animation -- made program feel slower instead of smoother.
6. Changed: Disabled Source Filter selection for Windows Media Video (wmv etc.) playback.

12.0.47 (8/3/06)

1. NEW: Added thumbnail list animation to smooth scrolling, thumb sizing, and view changes.
2. Optimized: File arrays (used everywhere -- database, lists, searches, etc.) use 1/2 the memory and operate faster.
3. Optimized: Improved loading speed of and memory usage for databases with many large playlists.
4. Changed: Search friendly style tokens are displayed using translated field display names instead of internal field names.
5. Changed: Search box menu now displays field names as translated display names. (instead of translated internal names)
6. Fixed: Sort cache could require more sorts than expected before a search would load out of cache.
7. Fixed: The search box menu would not be clickable when a friendly token was scrolled over it.
8. Changed: When changing thumbnail sizes, the view does a better job of staying centered on the same images.
9. Fixed: IE7b3 no longer causes connectivity problems.
10. NEW: Added IPTC image tag writing for JPEG images.

12.0.46 (8/1/06)

1. Fixed: DirectShow video player could not handle Windows Media security upgrade when playing licensed WM video.
2. Optimized: Starting playback of a large slideshow of images is many times faster.
3. Optimized: Drag-n-drop of large numbers of files into a playlist is many times faster.
4. Optimized: Doing actions that caused a refresh while large numbers of files were selected is now many times faster.
5. Optimized: Deleting large numbers of files from a playlist can be several times faster.
6. Optimized: When many files were selected in a list, switching focus to and from the list is now faster.
7. Optimized: "Automatic" list style is faster at choosing details vs thumbnnails for large lists.
8. Optimized: Playing large lists of images while audio is playing uses far less memory and starts much faster.
9. Optimized: Improved the performance of switching views.
10. Fixed: 2D visualization selection wasn't working for languages other that english.
11. Changed: CDLabeler is now skinned and translated.