What’s new in this release?

• Number of tracks per playlist shown in view
• New progress indicators implemented
• Bugfixes and improvements to Helium 11 import functions
• Corrections to replaying logic
• Multiple artist bugfixes for subtracks
• Other tracks on artist details page is renamed to All tracks and will now show all tracks from the specific artist – a quick way to explore and handle all tracks from a specific artist
• Improvements to how discography items are calculated
• Frequency column introduced
• New view modes for the releases and artists view – split mode. This is a very powerful view similar to Helium 11’s views for releases and artists where a list of items is presented to the left and a detail page to the right. Full support for real-time filtering and much more.
• Portugese language
• Corrections to double-clicking of tracks
• Improvements for image caches per database
• More help topics available – if you miss any specific help topic, please let us know
• New script for cleaning of album paths
• Corrections and improvements to the query engine
• Possibility to save Equalizer settings
• Language support for the Last.fm plug in
• Improvements to album merge logic after tagging
• New user-interface for statistics and more statistics available
• Possibility to store sub-labels and formatted label profile information
• Support for downloading of label images and label information
• Linking between parent and sub-labels
• Fixes for reported bugs
• Implementation of free versus Premium features

What’s planned for our next release, Juno Reactor?

• Documentation work
• Website work
• Final testing
• Fine-tuning of the implemented features

Hopefully we will soon be ready to release this new version as our first official release!

Downloading

Click here to download Neon, build 14146

 

 

Welcome to a new release of Neon, release Hardfloor!

What’s new in release Hardfloor

• Up to three expressions can be used in the global filter
• Support for five custom columns in tracklist. The contents in this columns can be freely customizable and use the Rename tools template system to render contents
• Various new features in statistics based on todays date
• Settings for how replay gain should be used
• The volume gain set when the Equalizer is active can be overriden with replay gain values
• Album and artist sort order settings are used in search results and more views
• Many performance optimizations related to importing of databases from Helium 11 and from Neon
• Improvements to sort order handling in the Music Explorer
• Improvements to sort order handling in the Artist view
• Possibility to filter in Genre view
• Possibility to customize sub-structures of Music Explorer nodes
• Possibility to select smaller or larger font sizes
• Date/time formatting fixes in the Music Explorer
• Card views now supports the selected thumbnail sizes
• More available shortcut commands
• Possibility to import Neon databases for migration purposes
• The Last.fm and Amazon plug-ins are released as open-source
• Documentation of the plug-in API (http://support.imploded.com/solution/articles/9000079298-creating-download-plug-ins)
• More help topics available
• Optimize active database commands (defragmentation of indexes)
• Bugfixes related to the Equalizer
• Possibility to open the selected Webservice port in Windows Firewall in your Router
• Album version available as a rename field
• CD columns available in tracklists
• Support for current track with value 0 (used for pre-gap tracks)
• Improved keyboard handling in the tag editor (more similar to Helium 11)
• Various visualization plug-in fixes
• Various bugfixes in the tag engine related to reading of rating
• Bugfixes to the Apply commands in the Tag editor

Helium Streamer 3 news

• Fixed: Problem when posting now playing to Last.fm is now corrected.
• Pagination information is now shown in the top right corner on many pages.
• Total number of tracks in playlists are shown in a small bubble to the right.
• Total number of tracks in a genre is shown in a small bubble to the right.
• Feature to clear the cache is now available from Settings.
• Filters are now remembered when browsing back and forth.
• Many minor UI and usability tweaks.

What’s planned for our next release, Infected Mushroom?

• Implementation of the free version features
• Evaluation of two new view modes
• Continue with the documentation work
• Continue with the final testing
• Relase a new website
• Take a summer break 😉

Downloading

Click here to download Neon, build 14098

Click here to download Helium Streamer, build 1048

 

The past weeks we have been working hard with this new release to be able to deliver a more complete and stable version.

What’s new in release Gouryella?

• Visualization plug-in support. Run your favourite Sonique, Winamp 2/5, Windows Media Player or BassBox visualization plug-ins.
• Possibility to customize shortcuts for various tools and commands.
• Pictures filter in release and artist views which quickly allows filtering of items with or without pictures.
• Possibility to load and save global filters.
• Extensions to the script engine – scripts are now defined with a json file, which allows definition of a display name, a description of the scripts purpose and more. Click here for more details about the script changes.
• Improvements to the Amazon plug-in.
• An advanced search will show artists and releases in the results, if any.
• File type available in the Global filter.
• New operators for last played and added date, in the last X days | weeks | months | years, not in the last X days | weeks | months | years.
• Play counter operator improvements in Global filter, Smart playlists and Advanced search.
• Folder structure support for scripts in menues and Run script dialog.
• Possibility to define custom sorting in releases and artists view.
• Improvements to importing of Helium 11 databases.
• Performance improvements for downloading of artist information.
• Performance improvements for tagging operations.
• Custom fields can be properly mapped to custom tag frames as in earlier Helium versions.
• Release view and artist view filters are remembered during navigation.
• Playing trend added to statistics.
• File type trends added to statistics. This chart is interactive and specific series can be toggled on/off.
• Bugfixes to similar albums.
• Minor visual improvements to the Equalizer.

Helium Streamer

Helium Streamer have received lots of new features and corrections since last release. The most significant news are listed below:

• New genre view
• New track view
• New year view
• New search results page
• Custom release types are now shown correctly
• Play, queue next and queue last available from release details
• Global search now also show tracks
• Pressing enter in the global search takes you to the search results page
• New tab on artist page that shows all tracks for artist
• It’s now possible to remove tracks from the play queue
• Corrections to play queue handling

Please report any issues found in this forum thread:

http://support.imploded.com/discussions/forums/9000201975

What’s planned for our next release, Hardfloor?

• Release all our download plug-ins as Open Source
• Continue with the documentation work
• Continue with the final testing
• Translation support

Interested in translating Neon?

If you are interested in helping us translating Neon, please contact us. As a thank for your help, you will receive a free license of the full product when released.

Downloading

Click here to download Neon, build 12454

Click here to download Helium Streamer 3, build 1033

Click here to download additional visualization plug-ins

Welcome to Neon, release Fatboy Slim!

From now we will release all Neon builds as publically updates since we are getting closer and closer to an official release.

New features implemented in release Fatboy Slim

• Download multiple album/artist pictures tool. Quickly download multiple albums/artist pictures at once using all available plug-ins.
• Quick editing mode in all tracklist controls except for the Play queue. Simply enable editing from the context menu and correct any tags you like, without the need of starting any of the Tag editors!
• Possibility to group tracks in tracklist controls (excluding the Play queue and album details)
• Background picture support for album and artist detail views
• 10-band Equalizer tool
• The CD-ripper tool is now available with full support for ripping to different formats
• Filename to tag tool, available from the Tag editors and the script engine
• Automatic and manual update checker
• Amazon plug-in
• Improvements to the Discogs plug-in to return more picture results
• Quick migration from Helium 11, quickly migrate your active database and your pictures
• Drag and drop picture files directly to albums, artists and label controls
• Copy multiple files function
• Move multiple files function with full database update support
• Remap-path tool
• Possibility to export playlists (M3U, M3U8 and PLS) from various views as well as from the script engine
• Additional detailed information shown in desktop alert after add and update operations
• Various new features in the scripting engine, click here see the official documentation for more information
• Play counter is updated on Id3v2 tags during playback
• Play counter support in Advanced searches and Smart playlists
• iOS applications are updated to support Neon, althought not yet released on AppStore.
• UWP (Windows 10) version of Helium Remote released as open-source

Apart from all news above, we have of course fixed all reported and found bugs to make this build really stable.

Helium Streamer

Please uninstall any previous version of Helium Streamer 3 before installing this release. All settings are now stored in %ProgramData%\Imploded Software\Helium Streamer. This is also where cached pictures, log files and transcoded files are stored by default.

News in Helium Streamer

• New play queue handling. The play queue handling now works similar to Neon, which means that manual and automatically queued tracks are supported. Manually queued tracks are marked with a dot on the left of the track in the play queue. These tracks will be retained even if you double-click in any tracklist.
• If Neon is installed, settings will be picked up and the same database will be used.
• If Neon is not installed, a new database will be created. A default password of admin is set on the Default user. This password can be changed from the Launcher.
• Playing statistics are now reported correctly to Last.fm
• Ability to add/remove favourite on artist
• Ability to add/remove favourite on album
• Minor corrections to sorting of tracks in albums
• Ability to set a default password
• Experimental: Add files to database. It’s now possible to try out a first version of add to database from Settings. Please only use the features on this page on databases you have a backup of since they are not yet fully tested. Please report any issues with these features.

What’s planned for our next release, Gouryella?

• Release all updated mobile applications officially
• Release all plug-ins as open-source so that each one of you that are interested can be inspired to contribute with own plug-ins
• Continue with the documentation work
• Continue with the final testing

Since all releases will now be publically released we would really like you to contribute to our testing process. If you find something that does not seem correct, please let us know. If the built-in bug reporting tool shows up, please report as much information as possible about which steps you performed and we will try to address the issues as quick as we can.

Click here to download Neon, build 12403

Note: It should not be neccesary to uninstall a previously installed version of Neon.

Click here to download Streamer 3, build 1005

 

In our previous post which covered the cool new background picture modes, we mentioned that we had added more features for the upcoming Neon version.

Equalizer

Some of the new features that will be included is the new Equalizer. The Equalizer can be quickly activated via a toggle-button located in the bottom player. You can also quickly configure the Equalizer manually or adjust it by the available presets.

Quick editing

Another feature that has requested since long is a more effective version of the old Quick edit function, which now has been implemented.
The quick edit function can be accessed from any view with a track-list and allows editing of all visible tracks and fields, which is a hughe improvement compared to the old function which only allowed editing of a single file at a time, with a limited set of fields.
To enable the quick edit function, simply right-click the track list and select “Toggle edit mode” from the context menu. When enabled, you will edit entries directly in the track-list in a way similar to the Tag editor, with full support for lookup fields and more.
This enables a very quick way to correct incorrect spellings and similar adjustments with just a few clicks.

File name to tag

Something else that previously has not been included in Neon is the Filename to tag tool. The next version of Neon comes with an updated version of the Filename to tag tool, embedded in the Tag editors.
The user interface in the new Filename to tag tool has been simplified, but it still works similar to the old tool. To give the most precise visual result, columns included in the template are built dynamically in the editor whilst editing. If some files are not matched with the template, for example if they match a pattern with more fields, you can simply re-run the function on these files and apply the differing template.

Apart from these major new features presented above, we have also made some huge improvements to mass picture download tools, these changes will be presented in our next blog post.

We have experimented for a while with how album and artists pictures can be more efficiently used in Neon.

In our next release we will present a new feature available for album and artist detail pages – background images with effects.

This setting is of course optional so if you prefer the current look without any backgrounds it will still be the default option.
But wait, there’s more to come, you will be able to control which specific artists and albums which will have this effect enabled and which effect they will have!

To configure the background options, simply click the settings icon in the upper right corner (or via Ctrl+Shift+O) to configure how the background should be shown.

By default, a global setting will be used, available from Options, which can be overridden for a certain artist album.

The observant user can see that some other new elements are shown in the UI, more about them and other new features in our next post.

Today we are proud to present Helium Remote for Universal Windows Platform (UWP)!

Helium Remote for UWP requires a Windows 10 comptible device (desktop, tablet, phone) and can be downloaded from the Windows Store:
https://www.microsoft.com/sv-se/store/apps/helium-remote-2/9nblggh4vkgt

This new version replaces the old Windows Phone and Windows RT version.
The desktop version allows a resizable and responsive user interface which can be used either similar to the mobile version (portrait mode) or as a more classic desktop version.

The most recent version of Neon is required to use Helium Remote.
Click here to download the most recent Neon version

Open source? Yes!

Apart from releasing Helium Remote to the Windows Store, we are also releasing it as open source on GitHub!

This means that you are fully free to download the source code to it and help us extending it so that it can get even better!

• Click here to download the source code for Helium Remote
• Click here for a reference of the Neon web service API

We look forward to see you helping us to improve and extend Helium Remote!

A new release of Neon, Electric-Sun, is now available for downloading.

This version fix the following important bugs

• Database connections are now properly reconnected if the system has been idle for a long time
• Various fixes related to user management
• Various fixes related to rating
• Various fixes related to tagging
• Various fixes to the scripting engine

Apart from the major fixes above, we have also made several minor fixes.

We recommend all our users to update to this release.

If you encounter a bug or anything else that does not seem to work as it should, please let us know by contacting us via our Support center.

Click here to download the most recent release of Neon

Warmly welcome to Neon, release Electric sun, one step further to the completely new generation of Helium!

This release comes with many new features, even more than we initially planned for.

Primary goals with release Electric sun

• Full WASAPI support
• File analyser tool for MP3 and FLAC files. This tool is similar to the Analyse audio files tool in earlier versions of Helium, but quicker, more precise and with some new repair functions.
• A more integrated way to download data in the Tag editor. The download function is now embedded directly in the Tag editor.
• Implementation of the Tag to filename tool
• Functional tagging in tag editors. It is possible to enter expressions in tag editor fields like in the Tag to filename tool which will be translated into actual data during the tagging process.
• Android versions of Helium Remote and Helium Streamer for Neon
• iOS versions of Helium Remote and Helium Streamer for Neon (not yet completed)
• UWP (Windows 10) version of Helium Remote (not yet fully finished)
• Script engine support – you can now control Neon via C# scripting
• A global filter which will affect all views, used to work with items matching a specific folder, custom tag or similar. This is the official replacement for the filtering options in Helium 11 where Collections and Volumes were used.
• Possibility to edit Label details
• Possibility to drag and drop images from a web browser into thumbnail items
• Linking improvements to the Statistics page
• Drill-down statistics (top lists)
• Possibility to scan music files and detect Music key, used for harmonic playback and mixing
• Backup function
• Restore function
• Possibility to use waveforms as a more precise position slider
• Possibility to use a spectrogram as a more precise position slider
• Possibility to customimze Play queue columns
• Possibility to customize Album detail columns
• Possibility to select small, medium or large size thumbnails
• Possibility to drag and move items in tracklists

As always we have also corrected bugs and refined many of the existing features to create the absolute best music software.

News about Streamer 3

• Reordering of tracks in play queue and playlists by drag’n’drop
• Create new playlists and playlist folders
• Rename or remove playlists and playlist folders
• Move playlists into folders
• Add track to playlist
• Remove track from playlist
• Improvements to the Launcher tool. It’s now possible to switch database and change host port using this tool

We would also give our testers and all of our users that have contributed with feedback and bug reporting a big thank you!

What’s planned for our next release, Fatboy Slim?

• Complete the remaining parts of our mobile applications
• Release our complete tag engine as an open source project!!
• Implement a Filename to tag tool
• Complete other remaining not yet implemented workflows
• Create documentation
• Final testing

Download and installation

Click here to download Neon build 543

Click here to download Helium Streamer 3 build 938

Before installing this version, be sure to uninstall your previous version and delete your old settings files. The settings files can be found under C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Imploded Software\Helium. Simply delete all entries in this folder before installing the new release.

With the next release of Neon, release Electric-sun, we have added some really nice features apart from the ones already mentioned in this blog.

The screenshot above shows an alternative position slider which allows more precision and at the same time allowing you to visualise the music you are currently playing – in the screenshot represented by a spectrogram. A spectrogram shows time on the x-axis, the frequency on the y-axis and the coloring represent the magnitude/amplitude.

It’s nice to look at, but can it be used for something more?

Yes, it can actually be used to visually see if a file is of good quality or not.

The screenshot below shows a lossless encoded FLAC file in the spectrogram:

And this screenshot shows the same file, but re-encoded into a 128 kBps MP3:

As you can see by comparing the two pictures, the low quality version above has more dark colors at the top, meaning that the high frequencies have been cut away by the encoder.

When playing this file at a louder volume it might sound really bad, compared to the lossless version of the file.

Wait, there’s even more to come!

Apart from displaying data as a spectrogram, it can also be displayed as a waveform with very precise capabilities of adjusting the position. The screenshot below shows a standard waveform:

Some small markers are shown in this waveform, as well as in the spectrogram, indicating whole minutes and half minutes.

If you hover the waveform or the spectrogram a slightly darker, but still colored area will indicate the new position if you click there.

This new position sliders allows you to visually find and set a position much easier than with the normal position slider (which still exists of course).

Another way to see the waveform is by viewing it as separated left and right channels:

You can easily control the height of the new position slider between:

• 160 pixles
• 120 pixles
• 80 pixles
• 60 pixles

The graphics are updated in realtime and is of course flicker-free!

…and even more visual features!

The upcoming release will allow you to control the size of the thumbnails in Neons albums, artists and labels view.

There will be three different sizes available, Large (as in previous versions), Medium (shown in the first screenshot in this post) and small.

This is the perfect way to control how Neon should behave and to control the number of items shown when using different screen resolutions.

Release Electric-sun is planned to be released in the end of April 2016.