Release Notes 2006-07

12.0.45 (7/31/06)

1. Changed: "Documents" tree item is no longer shown in the same row as audio, images, video.
2. Changed: Tag window better handles files with empty name or date fields.
3. Changed: Action Window header text stays centered even with an uneven number of buttons on each side.
4. Changed: When copying from a thumbnail list to the clipboard, the text component is empty. (instead of showing column headers with no data)
5. Optimized: Improved performance when dropping or pasting large numbers of files into a list.
6. Optimized: Improved speed when dealing with large playlists.
7. Fixed: Long lists of thumbnails would be slower than expected during scrolling.
8. Changed: When scrolling in a list with thumbnails that aren't built, thumbnails will get built top-down instead of bottom-up.
9. Changed: Minor UI tweaks in DirectShow player (contex menu rearrangement, dialog control resizing etc.).
10. Fixed: Library backup / restore dialogs would lock the database while visible -- causing a possible hang of the application.
11. Fixed: In the Tag Action Window, clicking a rating while another field was being edited could cause a crash.
12. Changed: If only one file that couldn't play in Playing Now, Media Center would loop playback until there were 3 consecutive playback errors.
13. Fixed: Videos that failed to load weren't being properly handled.
14. Fixed: Stoppping a video (or playing a new video) right when a video was loading could cause a dead-lock.
15. Changed: MP3 decoder was using debug code -- causing slowdowns compared to MC 11. (in Audio Analysis, etc.)
16. Fixed: Creating a Virtual Device that pointed to the same location as files imported into Media Center could cause import to import duplicates.
17. Changed: New tree control used in MC 12 wouldn't scroll / auto-expand during drag-n-drop.

12.0.44 (7/28/06)

1. Changed: Video Priority filter is no longer used.
2. Fixed: MPC encoder was not installing properly.
3. Fixed: Any thumbnail list with more than one file that used the same thumbnail could cause a crash.

12.0.43 (7/27/06)

1. NEW: MPC encoder included with build.
2. Fixed: Associating with protocols (like pcast://) would not always work / stick properly.
3. Fixed: When an auto-complete tree tooltip was showing, a double-click wouldn't properly start playback.
4. Fixed: Video thumbnailing could stall out on some files.
5. Fixed: Possible video thumbnailing crash.

12.0.42 (7/26/06)

1. Fixed: Playing a WMV video would cause MC to unnecessarily flag the file for a tag write.
2. Fixed: Accessing the automation SDK from an external program was not working properly when the player was not running first.
3. Fixed: Sometimes album analysis could be too ambitious, causing slowdowns during import.
4. Optimized: Improved the speed of the album analyzer. (calculated album gain, mix albums, etc.)
5. Fixed: OSD did not work for TV playback.
6. Fixed: OSD without a time limit did not work.
7. Optimized: Improved thumbnail building speed.
8. Changed: "Set Display" menu only appears for playback types where there are more than one choice.
9. Changed: Added a Tools menu (top-left icon) to "Display" Action Window.
10. Changed: Theater View does an "Open" on an item when pressing 'Enter' and play when pressing 'Space'. (right-click or use menu keyboard button to see menu)
11. Changed: Mouse wheel in Theater View always operates the list of items. (instead of using the focused section)
12. Changed: Shortcuts for forward and back weren't working in Theater View. (mouse buttons / backspace, etc.)

12.0.41 (7/24/06)

1. NEW: Thumbnail list drawing is fully thread parallelized resulting in nearly a 2x speedup on dual-core machines. (and 10-15% speedup with Hyper-threading machines)
2. Fixed: License restore could fail in some cases.
3. Changed: When a trial expires, the countdown "Continue" button is no longer shown.
4. Changed: Links that show up on thumbnails no longer clickable until they fully fade-in. (to avoid accidental clicks on selection)
5. Changed: Reworked QuickTime initialization and cleanup code.
6. New: MC can get thumbnails for certain QuickTime formatted video podcasts.
7. Changed: Thumbnail lists show tooltips. (unless they're thumbnails of groupings)
8. Changed: Tooltips do a better job of sizing to wide-screen style images.
9. Fixed: Installer would show duplicates in the file association list.
10. Fixed: Skin Manager's task bar icon wouldn't look as good as expected.
11. Fixed: In the Tag Action Window, switching pages while editing a list-type field could leave an edit control visible.

12.0.40 (7/21/06)

1. Changed: German language translation updated.
2. Changed: Digital TV signal strength is represented as a percentage for known HDTV devices, instead of absolute numbers. For unknown devices it is still represented as an absolute number.
3. Changed: Recent Playing Nows are no longer shown in handheld sync playlist list.
4. Changed: Handheld sync playlist list isn't all expanded by default.
5. Changed: Library Manager could not be shown while some background tools were working.
6. Optimized: Improved performance of thumbnail lists.

12.0.39 (7/20/06)

1. Fixed: Switching a thumbnail list to details could result in an empty list being shown.
2. Fixed: Media Center would fail to load a blank library.
3. Fixed: Browsing input plugins with Plugin Manager did not work properly.
4. Fixed: Switching between sharing plugins could cause a crash.
5. Fixed: Video thumbnail building would not build a thumbnail if a previous thumbnail had been built on basis of an image file on disk, and the local image file no longer existed.
6. NEW: Skinning engine supports custom hit boxes for certain skin items. (implement by adding a 5th image to a skin item that defines the hit area)
7. Fixed: It was possible to highlight multiple control buttons at once with the Noire skin.
8. Changed: Removed manual vs sync mode selection -- instead just pick playlists if you want syncing.

12.0.38 (7/19/06)

1. Changed: Renamed "Configure Debug Logging..." to "Logging...".
2. Changed: Removed images from installer Express / Custom selection screen.
3. Optimized: Several more startup optimizations.
4. Fixed: A few issues related to the threaded loading system.
5. Fixed: Views with stacks could be much slower to load than expected. (introduced a build or two ago)
6. Fixed: Auto import could do a UI update after external folder changes even if they didn't change anything in the library.
7. Fixed: Pressing enter on an image to go to fullscreen and then pressing enter again to return would leave the keyboard focus stranded.
8. Changed: (Experimental) Added code to clear media events queue in DirectShow thumbnail grabber and DirectShow playback tester.
9. Fixed: Library Server would miscount the number of open connections, preventing access.
10. Fixed: Streaming Quicktime media could not be played.
11. Fixed: List selection while holding shift down arrow would unselect everything once reaching the end of the list.
12. Fixed: Visualizations could run very slowly. (introduced in build 37)

12.0.37 (7/18/06)

1. NEW: New highly threaded loading system, providing much faster program start times.
2. Fixed: "Detach Display" command could fight with other commands in the same menu.
3. Changed: Detaching the display while in Display View will bring the program back to standard view.
4. Changed: Changing display options would reattach a detached display.
5. Fixed: Using a detached display in fullscreen could cause the main application to also lock to a maximized state.
6. Changed: Updated TLB for use with VB6.
7. NEW: Revised the "Detach Display" system to work nicely with multiple detached displays from different zones. (so you can watch TV detached while browsing images in a different zone, etc.)
8. Fixed: When choosing a child of view scheme and then expanding a different media type, the tree wouldn't logically update.
9. Fixed: Media Editor transforms were not working.
10. Fixed: The CD Baby and Audio Lunchbox services weren't getting installed.
11. Fixed: HTTP Pipelining was not working for content without a length. This broke (at least) Library Server, maybe other things.
12. Changed: Updated thumbnailing engine for improved performance. (thumbnails will need to be rebuilt)
13. Fixed: HTTP Server was sending files without content length.
14. Fixed: Marquee selection in icon lists of small icons could work incorrectly.
15. Fixed: WAV input plugin got included in the build, causing WAV playback to fail.

12.0.36 (7/17/06)

1. Fixed: Thumbnails with no thumbnail text could cause a drawing crash in some cases.
2. Optimized: Substantial speed and memory improvements in lists with thumbnails. (thumbnail lists or details lists with album-icons)
3. Fixed: Importing Jpeg files added a space and comma to the places field (when there were no IPTC city state