A new version of Helium 14 is now available. This version containes bugfixes and some minor improvements.
The major changes are listed below:
Corrections to MySql backup. Due to recent driver changes the previously used backup tool stopped to work. The new solution is using the native mysqldump.exe file which needs to be located when the tool is started the first time. mysqldump is shipped with MariaDB and MySql and is generally located in the applications <bin> folder.
Updated SQLite providers
Improved housekeeping of orphaned artists
Possibility to disable tooltips for album/artists items
Corrections to the rename tools tree preview
Minor improvements to migrations of Helium 13->14
Corrected displaying of releasetypes overlays for albums
Minor improvements to editing of artists
Filter fixes for Albums, Artists and Labels views
Various corrections to caching of album images
We recommend all Helium 14 users to update to this version as soon as possible.
If you purchased Helium 13 less than a year ago you will get the Helium 14 update for free.
We have sent out e-mail with license information to these customers. If you feel you should be eligible for the free upgrade our e-mail might have been caught in your spam folder. You can always find your license in the Customer center.
You can upgrade to Helium 14 for a discounted price from our Customer center.
Multiple album artists – a unique feature that allows browsing of one or more album artists per release
Quick filters in Genre and Year views – No more endless scrolling for that specific track while in the genre or year view. Just type parts of the artist name or track title and the list will be immediately filtered.
Small navigation bar – after popular demand, Helium Streamer now has an option to show a small navigation bar just like in Helium. This saves some vital space on smaller screens which will make the browsing experience even better.
More in line with Helium – Helium Streamer now uses more of the common settings from Helium which for example makes adding of music simpler. It no longer matters if you add music to your library from Helium or from Helium Streamer.
Auto calculate BPM setting – If this setting is turned on BPM will be automatically calculated on all played tracks. It it also saved to the tags of the files so it will easy to search, sort and filter tracks on BPM in the future.
Many other small improvements – We have been working a lot on performance in Helium Streamer 4 so you should notice a great improvement in speed.
Upgrading to Helium Streamer 4
If you purchased Helium Streamer 3 less than a year ago you will get the Helium Streamer 4 update for free.
We have sent out e-mail with license information to these customers. If you feel you should be eligible for the free upgrade our e-mail might have been caught in your spam folder. You can always find your license in the Customer center.
You can upgrade to Helium Streamer 4 for a discounted price from the Customer center
This version comes with the possibility to choose if ID3v2 tags shall be saved as Unicode or UTF-8 as well as corrections and improvements to the Rename tool.
Some other minor bugs and improvements are also included as well as some new columns in the My Computer view.
This version comes with the major change that automatic extraction of multiple album artists during add and tagging tasks is by default inactivated. The feature can be activated if perfered via Tools > Options.
We have also added the possibility to more easy manage album artists per album to be able to easily extract or correct multiple album artists per album. This feature is available by right-clicking an album and selecting Change album artists…
Apart from the above changes we have also fixed some minor bugs related to playlist sorting, remembering of last used folders and more.
The first beta version of Helium 14 is now available for testing.
Major new features and improvements
Multiple album artists – This is one of the most requested and unique features introduced in Helium 14. Multiple album artists allows you to tag albums with more than one artists – ideal for compilations created by more than one artist, covers albums and similar releases. Each artist that appears as an album artist will be browsable and the release will show up on all involved artists discographies. Best of all – you can concentrate on the tagging, Helium will perform the extraction of multiple album artists for you.
Clickable multiple album artists viewed from release details view
Web radio channels – Helium 14 comes with a new Web radio channel view available from the Music Explorer. Basic stream formats as well as ShoutCast, ICE-cast and http live streaming (HLS) are supported.
Web radio channels view
Column-filters in track lists – You can optionally select to display a filter for each column in the track lists. Click the filter icon to apply a simple or more complex, expression based filter. Multiple filters can be active at the same time.
Column filters with instant filtering
Preview tree in the Rename tool – To get a better visual overview of the rename result you can now toggle between a preview tree and a plain file list.
Toggle between folder and files view in the Rename tool
UI improvements – Action buttons comes with a more distinct look, some views are less cluttered due to removed borders, new and powerful file/folder dialogs and last but not least – it is possible to use smaller icons in the navigation bar to gain a couple of more pixles in width. Other UI improvements includes customizable colours for the toolbar buttons.
External applications – It is now possible to configure and run external applications on selected files directly from the context menu. External applications accepts various input parameter and starting modes.
The CD ripper comes with a slightly improved interface, better handling for CD’s with lead-out data and template support for the generated folders/filenames.
The Subtrack Editor comes with support for working with offsets for easier and quicker tagging. Enter the start offset and end offset for each song and the duration will be automatically calculated.
The Select columns dialog supports drag and moving of columns for quicker rearranging of columns.
The Player supports higher precision and more accurate skipping with the normal position bar. It also comes with updated drivers.
The Advanced Tag Editor comes with a new template control, File info. This control will display information about the current file and more.
Apart from the above major changes and improvements this version also comes with:
Revised plug-in engine which supports more and new datatypes as well a generic Id handling (track ids, artist ids and release ids)
A new translation system where languages are loaded from disk instead of being compiled into the application. This offers quicker and easier translating of Helium since a translator will be able to directly see the changes performed. (Only a release is required)
Working with this beta version
SQL Server Compact support is fully removed. It is therefore no longer possible to import Helium 11 databases.
Please note that this version is a beta, meaning that all tools and features are not 100% tested.
These beta versions will install into a specific folder so that you can have both Helium 13 and 14 installed at the same time.
If you also use Helium Streamer, please be aware that there are two options available:
Use the latest official version of Helium Streamer (3.4.0.1298). This version will be compatible with the database in Helium 13. If you upgrade this database you won’t be able to use this version of Helium Streamer any longer.
Welcome to a new release of Helium 13. This version focuses on performance optimzations, mainly for SQLite but also for the other database types that can be used with Helium.
Imploded Software blog 