Helium 15.4 comes with many improvements on what Helium is best at – tagging!
Our focus has been to improve the tagging in track lists so that you do not need to open the tag editors if you only need quick and easy or batch tagging tools.
To edit tags from a tracklist, you can either click the rightmost cog icon and select Enable edit mode, select it from the context menu, Track list > Enable edit mode or by pressing Shift+F2.
When edit mode is enabled, you will see a toolbar below the tracklist with the following content:
A Tools button with mutiple available commands, more on that topic later.
A button which will toggle the Capitalizer/word replacer on/off
A button which will allow you to undo all changes and reload the original data for the tracks in the view.
A button that will apply the changes to the changed tracks.
Tagging works much as in the Tag Editor: Select a cell, press F2 or start to typ to change the contents.
Pressing delete will remove the contents for the selected cells, meaning that you can quickly remove unwanted content this way.
Some cells will have gray background to mark that they cannot be edited. Examples of such cells are typical read only values such as song length, bitrate and similar fields.
New batch tools available in the track list editors
To make the tagging just as quick as in the Tag Editor, we have exposed the following batch tools:
Apply down, also available by pressing Ctrl+D
Auto-track, also available by pressing Ctrl+T
Multiple switch commands which will switch the content of the selected cells with the target cell.
Multiple extract commands which will extract one or more values from the selected cells.
Custom extraction command which will let you visually extract contents from the selected cells using a template.
A possibility to capitalize the selected cells using the capitalizer/word replacer logic.
A filename to tag feature which will allow you to extract one or more fields from the filenames of the selected cells.
Possibility to download track information on album level (based on selected tracks) for really quick tagging. For albums with multiple CDs, be sure to select the files for each CD for each download batch.
These batch tagging tools are available under the Tools button from the toolbar below the track list and from the context menu under Tagging tools.
Track list editing is available from the following views:
Music Explorer
Album details
Label details
Tracks
Genres
Years
My Computer
For the My Computer view, you do not need to have the files added to your library (but it will of course work with files in your library also)!
Note: It’s not possible to edit subtracks from the track lists. You will need to use the Subtrack editor for that.
Other changes in this version
Bits per sample added as a database field. You can view this field in track lists, search on it as well as view it on album tool tips. It’s also when using scripts.
Multiple improvements for the Re-rip tool.
We have added support to download picture from the Advanced Tag Editor.
It’s possible to paste pictures from the clipboard in the Tag Editor and the Advanced Tag Editor.
Improvements to downloading of album pictures from the Album details view.
You can now save attached pictures from the Tag Editor and the Advanced Tag Editor.
It’s possible to copy the Album picture in the Tag Editor to the opened files tags.
An iterator variable is implemented in the Tag to filename tool.
A new variable, {{filenamenoext}}, has been added to the Tag to filename tool. This variable returns the filename of the file without path and extension.
Channels are displayed in File properties
It’s possible to select channel encoding mode when converting/encoding MP3 files.
Polish translation has been added.
Updated German translation.
Tooltips in the Music Explorer has been added to display truncated text better.
When ripping files, the album picture is properly copied and named using the naming rules.
Corrections to tool buttons in the CD ripper.
Improvements to reading of APE files.
Improvements to reading Ogg bitrate.
Improvements to Subtrack playback.
Helium’s version is included in backup filenames for a better overview.
BASS libs are updated.
Working with the beta version
Please note that this version is a beta, meaning that all tools and features are not 100% tested.
A database upgrade will be performed with this version so databases will not be compatible with Helium 15.3.
Please backup your database and settings before installing this version.
If you use Helium Streamer and update to this Helium beta, the old version of Helium Streamer will stop working since your database is updated to a newer version. If you want to continue using Helium Streamer you need to install the latest beta version which is available from the link below.
This version of Helium comes with all minor improvements and bugfixes which has been released since Helium 15.2 was officially released.
This version also comes with updated database drivers, rewritten database connectivity and stability handling, improvements to column auto-sizing, possibility to control database connections on a more detailed level and many other minor improvements.
We recommend all our uses to update to Helium 15.3 today.
We are proud to present the first release of Helium 15!
Major news in Helium 15
Possibility to open Playlists in new windows which floats on top of the application. Opened Playlists will remain visible during view changes and allows drag and drop from other views to queue up tracks as well as drag and drop between playlists.
Reorganized main and context menus for a more optimized workflow. Menus are now much more logical in their order and what names that are being used on menu items.
Active track view (available from the visualizations menu), a new “fullscreen” view that shows rotating (optional) album and artist art with controllable speed plus lyrics for the track currently playing
Changed MariaDB/MySql database providers for better performance and stability.
Multiple improvements to the CD Ripper.
The Biography tab for the playing track contains artist and album image, linked artist information and editing shortcuts.
Rewritten Helium Remote and Streamer apps with multiple improvements.
Big improvements to the Optimize library feature:
Possibility to select which database optimization steps to be performed. This can greatly speed up the optimization on large databases, if you only wish to run certain optimizations.
A new optimization step that will remove all unused artists in the database. Unused artists can be left in the database either if they have previously been in the database but has been removed, or if an incorrectly names artist have been renamed (the old incorrectly named artist may still be there in that case). Some of these problems have only arised for users who have used Helium for a long period of time, through many different releases.
For long-time users of Helium, running a full library optimization can now greatly improve the stability and speed of the program since unused data can be removed while the actual database files are also optimized for best performance.
Apart from the above changes a lot of smaller improvements and corrections have also been added to this new release.
To read about the changes in detail, please visit the following links:
If you purchased Helium 14 less than a year ago you will get the Helium 15 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.
To accompany Helium 15, we are also releasing Helium Streamer 5 which are fully compatible with each other. Helium Streamer 5 is needed if you want instant access to your entire music library wherever you are. It has an interface both for web browsers and for iOS and Android apps.
This version contains some minor improvements/fixes:
Corrected/improved FLAC reading
Improved column handling in track lists and list-based Tag editors
More improvements to menus/context menus
UI fixes
Working with the beta version
Please note that this version is a beta, meaning that all tools and features are not 100% tested. Any databases that are opened with Helium 15 will be usable in Helium 14 since they will not be upgraded.
This version contains various fixes and new features since Helium 15 beta 4 was released.
Changes in this version
Reorganized the main menu and context menus for a more optimized workflow. Menus are now much more logical in their order and what names that are being used on menu items.
Various improvements to the CD Ripper. Downloading of data, parsing of data and other fixes.
Big improvements to the Optimize library feature.
Possibility to select which database optimization steps to be performed. This can greatly speed up the optimization on large databases, if you only wish to run certain optimizations.
A new optimization step that will remove all unused artists in the database. Unused artists can be left in the database either if they have previously been in the database but has been removed, or if an incorrectly names artist have been renamed (the old incorrectly named artist may still be there in that case). Some of these problems have only arised for users who have used Helium for a long period of time, through many different releases.
A help button is available at the title bar for all tools that supports help (pressing F1 on the keyboard still works as before)
Active track view (available from the visualizations menu), a new “fullscreen” view that shows rotating (optional) album and artist art with controllable speed plus lyrics for the track currently playing:
Various bug fixes and minor improvements.
Working with the beta version
Please note that this version is a beta, meaning that all tools and features are not 100% tested. Any databases that are opened with Helium 15 will be usable in Helium 14 since they will not be upgraded.
Imploded Software blog 