Helium 16 is now available as a first beta with many new changes and improvements.

Major new features
- Support for PostgreSQL databases. PostgreSQL are free, easy to install, powerful and scalable as well as very performant.
- The My Computer view is no longer limited to a specific files list,it now has a full tree to the left allowing much more flexibility when browsing files in and not in your library. It’s also possible to pin favourite folders to be able to access them more quickly.

- The Music Explorer comes with support for new root-node types:
- Tempo
- Preference
- My Computer – Including pinned favourite folders
- Relations – Browse through an artists similar artists, related artists and all other relation types
- Unavailable tracks

- Possibility to configure which fields that should be active and the order of them in the Tag Editor and CD-Ripper album pane. Some new editing fields are also available.

- Highly redesigned and improved download pictures tools (artist and albums). The tools are more effecient and easy to work with plus that they support new features such as saving selected pictures to tags.
- New plugin: iTunes plugin with support for downloading of album images, artist images and artist information
- A general user interface polish for better accessibility and smoother workflows
- Options are better organized
- Large parts of Heliums database access code was rewritten for this version which increased both performance and stability.
- Use Helium for your parties and prevent that users mashes up your Play queue. Use the new Party mode feature to lock the Heliums tools and still allow users to browse the collection and queue tracks last in the play queue.
- Support for up to 10 user defined columns.
- Quickly browse similar artists and albums from the Music Explorer
Minor features
- Move tracks to album reintroduced, available from Track lists
- You can configure if the graphic positionbar should be auto hidden unless a song is playing or is paused.
- New user interface when selecting artists and albums from various tools
- Import an existing library from MediaMonkey5
- If an import fails, Helium will revert to a new clean database
- Possibility to quickly select an artist using a powerful graphic user interface when editing artist relations.
- Copy folder will execute in a background thread to avoid blocking Helium
- Improvements to the Music Brainz plugin
- Improvements to subtrack handling
- A new script which will send the tracks currently shown to a printer
Working with the beta version
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 15 and 16 installed at the same time.
Any databases that are opened with Helium 16 will be usable in Helium 15 since they will not be upgraded.
Please backup your database and settings before installing this version.
Click here to download Helium 16 beta
Helium Streamer
Helium Streamer has been updated to work well with Helium 16. Support for PostgreSQL should be fully working, but please remember that his is a first beta release.
3 thoughts on “The best got better – Welcome to Helium 16”