bug

when i have a playlist that shows the playlise file size eg 1.6gb and i slowly start removing files and i get to 1.1gb and removed one more file so you would asume it would go to something like 1.09gb but instead it shows 1.9gb all the way down to 1gb... i can do this reliably, it comes in to play quite a bit cause i try and make playlists for my ipod and keep overshooting, so i need to keep trimming the list until i get it right.. but when i remove 900mb and all of a sudden the playlist says its 1.9gb again its really strange...

im an guessing its just a formatting issue or something?

I find the following usability issues with the new beta which in my view need revision

F3 or CTRL + F only instigates search if a playlist has focus. It will not work if another ui element has focus. This seriously compromises the utility of the search function.

Search text box crashes if backspace is used. (beta 3 - unconfirmed on beta 5)

Keyboard arrows no longer work position slider. (I am aware of the present policy on keyboard shortcuts but this one seems unnecessary and very limiting)

Position and volume sliders are large and ugly.

Having the search box as Ui Element (Toolbar like old foo_playlist_find for 0.8) would indeed be nice: founded tracks are highlighted and you can navigate through them by up and down arrow keys.
An own playlist for displaying results is a little bit too much. Once the quicksearch plugin is ported you will have that feature anyway.

it must be a forget, they'll add it in next version

I was just curious about if it's on purposse that fb2k needs to be maximized and closed two times after eachother before the maximized window state is remembered/retained ? Just currious, since i know that it wasen't behaving this way in v0.9.4.5.

Where can I find COPY options in Foobar 0.9.5 ? I meen Copy text, not files ...

All of the 0.9.5 betas seem to forget their window positions on both of my computers as well. I have to resize and move the window every time I restart foobar.

They have been moved to the Advanced prefernces. You can find them at Preferences -> Advanced -> Display -> Legacy title formatting settings.

Thanks !

This bug's been around for awhile:

I have foobar semi-transparent on a second monitor. After right clicking folders/files in an explorer window and playing or adding to the queue with explorer's context menu, foobar becomes opaque even though it doesn't receive focus and I have to give focus to foobar and then click off it for the transparency to return.

vista and 0.9.5 beta 5

Pick a frequency band. Pick a source sample. I bet you can't ABX the equalized version from the source with a 1dB difference in any given frequency band. +1dB on all frequencies is hard enough to ABX. Yeah, 1dB is a reasonably significant change. Still, it's sufficiently small for the application. You don't seriously need sub-decibel equalizer resolution, do you? For what purpose?

Is it just me, or did anyone else think that Wavpack decoding speed has dropped dramtically?

In foobar2000 0.9.5 beta 6 mpc files decoding speed is less than in beta 5 (I use decoding speed test plugin - foo_benchmark)???

Looks like importing project files from MSVC8 to MSVC9 disabled speed optimizations on some of decoders. The issue will be addressed in the next beta.

Thank you, this so much made my day. I'm glad this annoying issue has been taken care of.

Note that the workaround for single-keystroke keyboard shortcuts stealing input from editboxes in beta 6 is partial/incomplete, it will be fixed properly in beta 7; at the moment, keys such as plus/minus signs (mapped to volume control by default in older versions of foobar2000) still can't be typed if they're assigned.

After this is properly fixed, please return default key-mappings of pre-0.9.5 foobar2000 versions. Thank you!

Using pre-0.9.5 style default keyboard mappings is a bad idea, they clash with Album List navigation (auto-search by typing item name) as well as with auto-search in playlist that will be implemented in one of upcoming releases. You can re-add them manually without ruining any important functionality now, but that doesn't mean they don't break anything.

Thank you, Peter!! For me, this is the single most useful (immediately visible) fix since beta 1. Playlist search was unusable if there were any single key shortcuts, even when using Columns UI.

Show my respect to Foobar2000 community.

What a nice surprise !!! So I was looking around for some automation around album art, and what do I find: a nice new beta, allowing to configure it graphically much quicker than before.

Thx guys, way to go.

The beta version is awesome! I am officially wiping Winamp from my system and using foobar2000 exclusively. There are a few things I noted, though, that I think would improve usability and make the program more polished. I hope some of them will make it to the final version.

PREFERENCES
- BUG: In "Context Menu" (under Display), window does not scroll up when dragging items to the top edge
- option to send/add Album List and Playlist items to a Default list by double-clicking or clicking using middle button (similar to the "Always send to playlist: Default" option in General)

LIBRARY
- option to exclude subfolders from scans

PLAYLIST VIEW
- show stop symbol in "Playing" column when playback stops so we can tell which song was just played and which song is next. Currently, if you don't have the current song selected, there is no way to tell what the current position is on the playlist when it's stopped. This is particularly problematic when using the "stop after current" option
- show queue order in "Playing" column
- mouse shortcut for queueing songs (middle button or alt-click)
- always highlight current position even when another song is selected
- "clear search" button for Playlist Search
- toolbar buttons for clearing and removing playlists (useful when using switcher instead of tabs, which can be removed by middle-clicking)
- it would be very useful for the "Show Now Playing" command to select the current position even when playback is stopped

LAYOUT
- command to save/export current layout
- ability to undo layout changes
- option to make some layout and toolbar elements fixed size instead of relative size

PLAYLIST MANAGER
- preferences for playlist manager similar to those for album list (i.e., double-click and middle-click action, start playback when sending selection to playlist)
- something to visually distinguish autoplaylists from normal playlists
- column for autoplaylist search query and ability to edit query
- a playlist manager view element that displays the contents of a playlist selected in the manager (separate from the main playlist view, which would show the active playlist). This way, I can preview a playlist before activating it or add only a selection of songs from it to my current playlist

PLAYLIST SWITCHER
- something to visually distinguish autoplaylists from normal playlists

ALBUM LIST
- "clear search" button for search filter, please!
- syntax to allow for pre-expanded categories
- transparent or grey corners for the expand/minimize (+/-) signs would make colour themes a lot more attractive

OTHER
BUG: status bar sometimes cuts off text even though there is more room
- Pressing 'Esc' on keyboard when dragging seekbar slider should cancel seeking and return slider to current position without interrupting playback
- ability to display total playlist duration on status bar
- volume slider tool tip should be displayed above the slider instead of below it where it is blocked by the mouse cursor
- playback history component

I use foobar for about 2 years, but i'm confused about the pros and the cons between the new Winamp 5.5 and the new Foobar. For me, Foobar had the best layout with UI panels. To be more specific:

Current playlist is not good at all compared to the old (UI panels) had. The ability to have the cover art inside playlist and the name of the artist and album in different lines (the one above the other, sorted by album etc..) was something unique and veeery practical. Its very important to be able to see all the info at once. When we have the artist and the album info in the same line, it's not so well organised. What happens if names are long? The line could be "endless" and hard to read.
Also the current album list element is not so good as the previous album list panel and album art should be able to read info from folders too.
Personally i will keep the previous foobar2000 and hope that the new one will have the basic features that we had with panels UI. How can you compare the usability of panels UI playlist with current one? IMO the new playlist its not good and needs improvement.
Why devs didn't make default UI as panels UI? Ok, some things should have to be out to make it more stable and easy to use, but it would be faaar better..
Anyway, thank you for your efforts Foobar devs, you made a very special and unique player and i hope that you will keep it like this.

Nothing prevents you from using Panels UI (people still do that, for some unknown likely-masochistic reason) with the new version, regardless of changes to the Default UI.

Why didn't foobar developers make something like Panels UI? You can answer that yourself - Just think of what foobar development has concentrated on so far, and what Winamp and other 3rd party devs worked on. Do remember in an application like foobar, Functionality should come before looks - Or at least, That's how i understand foobar.

As you've stated PanelsUI is very hard to use.
Let me give you an example:
The K-Meleon browser is extremely customizable. With it's macro language, you can do anything you want interface wise. But you probably have never heard of it, because it can be extremely frustrating to use. Instead, you might use Firefox or Opera, because they're much easier to use and customize, even if their not as powerful.

Simplicity and good UI design make extreme customization obsolete and unnecessary.

I just noticed, that the "Capitalize" command in Properties doesn't work correctly with multiline tags as it doesn't capitalize words on the beginning of lines.

I am using this beta on Windows Vista Home Premium (32bit). When I attempt to write tags to mp3 files, I get an Access Denied error: "Could not update tags (Access denied)". I checked and the permissions on the files seem fine, so I reverted to 0.9.4.5 and that writes the tags with no problem. Anyone else having this problem and/or know of a solution?

I have had no issue with any foobar installation and version on Home Premium x86 here. Where are the files you're trying to write to are located, and where is foobar installed?

The files are on an external drive, and foobar is installed in Program Files. The odd thing is that the current stable version writes the tags fine while beta 6 fails with the Access Denied. Beta 6 has no problem renaming the files based on tag patterns - it just fails on writing the tags.

I am having a file association problem with the new beta 6:

An error occurred while changing file type associations. If you are using a limited account, please contact your system administrator.

I am running WinXP Home SP2 as an admin (I am the only account on this computer). The file extensions that I can't seem to associate foobar with are the following:

.wave
.oga
.fth
.fla

I don't [currently] use these file extensions for any of my songs so it isn't a big deal, but those are the ones that show up in the 'file types' list in preferences.

What happens if you run foobar elevated? (right click on the exe, Run As Administrator)

I actually just tried that before checking back here and it worked fine. Does the new beta handle permissions differently from 0.9.4.5? I ran that without telling to run as Admin and it had no problem writing the tags.

Moderation: Removed unnecessary fullquote.

This release is amazing! totally different than 0.9.4.5!
It allowed me to compact my fb2k by adding those artist/album/year header(because then I didn't need more columns for artist, album and year)
Also will probably attract more people to fb2k

OK - it looks like the reason that 0.9.4.5 worked is because the installer forces Foobar to run in Admin mode. So when I ran it immediately after installing it, (from the option "Launch foobar now" in the installer) it was already running with elevated privs. The beta installer looks to be fixed so Foobar launches with normal permissions. Thanks to the guys in #foobar2000 for that info! Once that was straightened out, it was just a matter of kicking Vista hard enough to set the file permissions correctly.

I really think you guys did a great job and all but one of the things I like about foobar is the minimalism. The columns and stuff just throw me off, reminds me of iTunes. Any way you would ever consider adding an option for "old style UI" or just a way to remove columns so the info was all just written on one line like the good ol' days?

one line = one column

i wanted the same thing too. all i did was made a custom column which contained the string from the 'playlist' title formatting in the older style foobar. however, i had to add two other columns; one for the now playing indicator and another for the track length. in essence, there are three columns altogether, but it looks very similar to the old style default ui

Okay, thanks for the tip. I already jumped the gun and went back to 9.4.5 but I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

I've noticed a weird change in how playlist switching is working

Back in the 0.8.x days I had global shortcut keys bound to play/pause/random and next/previous playlist. while say.. playing a game - I used to be able hit my global for next playlist, and then random/play so I could listen to a different set of tracks.

A while back when I upgraded to 0.9 I noticed this stopped working properly, but I procrastinated in troubleshooting it. (until now)

Currently (.9.5 b6,b7) when you switch playlists via a shortcut or even in the UI, it doesn't truly activate until you select a track with a double click or the enter key. until you do that, no matter what you're looking at - global shortcut keys are manipulating the last-played playlist.

I can't seem to find anything like "activate currently selected playlist" in options/shortcuts.

Is this working as intended? or am I missing something amazingly obvious?

I noticed a small issue with the playlist search window in the default UI. I have a dual monitor set up and with fb2k open on the right monitor with the playlist search window open, if I click on an IE window on the left monitor and use the mouse scroll wheel both the IE window and the playlist search window scroll. This is with 0.9.5 Beta 7 on Vista (Logitech mouse and software if that matters).

Edit: Hmm .. but not always. Can't seem to make this happen consistently. Nevermind, must be something I'm doing!

I noticed something that may be related.
You can select a track in each playlist, when you switch playlists and do "shift click" (to select a couple of items from and including the already selected track), It acts weird, like it is still remembering the previously selected track in the other playlist.

I hope you see what I mean.
(WinXP SP2, 0.9.5b7)

From issues fixed in beta 7:
In foobar2000 0.9.5 beta 7 mpc files decoding speed is less than in beta 5, anyway...

When tracks change within an album (track files in an album specific folder and cover art as 'folder.jpg') there is a 'flash' in album art viewer as it seems to reload the image for the new track.
I don't remember this behaviour before....?

Mark

I think it has been like that since beta 1 for me.

Yes, IIRC it was fixed but with beta 7 I have the same problem.

in foobar2000 0.9.5 beta 7 mpc files decoding speed is less than in beta 5

It's will be always?

Thank you take it for all the fans of foobar2000!

Observations about the beta:

1. Please add a way to increase the font size of the Metadata dialog as the text is nearly too tiny to read.

2. The buttons at the top are too tiny and close to each other to easily click.

3. I absolutely love the new ability to display embedded album art.

Click on the top left icon of the properties window's title bar. There's a menu called 'Font'. I suggested to move this to the fonts page in the preferences for consistency and usability reasons, but I got no feedback...

Thank you for this release!
I have to admit that even if I bitched on foobar when all my plugins went incompatible with 0.9.x (and some still aren't ported) this new version is very cool. The new interface is functional and lightweight, just as one would expect from this excellent player
I just hope the plugins format will not be changed anymore, or if it's done, that it will be possible to "emulate" the old ones (I'm not speaking about UI but at least audio control). A simple API taking care of UI things instead of direct windows API access like in winamp would be cool too (I don't know if it's the case currently in foobar) for future compatibility. Anyway it's sad that most people that make foobar plugins don't release their source, we would just need to recompile them else :/