1 * Changes up to version 3.1
5 The 'gap' directive will no longer work. It could be restored if there
8 *** Random Track Choice
10 This has been completely rewritten to support new features:
11 - tracks in the recently-played list or in the queue are no longer
12 eligible for random choice
13 - there is a new 'weight' track preference allowing for non-uniform
14 track selection. See disorder(1) for details.
15 - there is a new configuration item replay_min defining the minimum
16 time before a played track can be picked at random. The default is
17 8 hours (which matches the earlier behaviour).
19 * Changes up to version 3.0
21 Important! See README.upgrades when upgrading.
23 ** Platforms And Installation
25 Mac OS X and FreeBSD are somewhat supported. There is now a bash script
26 in scripts/setup which will automate the setup after 'make install'.
30 Users are now stored in the database rather than a configuration file.
32 The server now has a built-in list of stopwords and players, so only
33 additions to these need be mentioned in the configuration file.
35 The default inter-track gap is now 0s.
37 How sound is played is now controlled via the new 'api' configuration
38 command. This also controls how the volume is set, which now works with
41 A bug in the MP3 decoder was fixed (also in 2.0.4).
45 The web interface now uses cookies to remember user identity, and allows
46 online registration of new users. Also it is no longer necessary to
47 manually specify the URL of the web interface (but you can override it
48 if you don't like the value it figures out).
50 It is possible to allow users to register via the web interface.
52 The web interface's browser support has been improved. It has been
53 tested with Firefox 2, Safari 3, Konqueror 3, Internet Explorer 7 and
58 A bug which would cause a crash if you attempt to rearrange the queue
59 while no track was playing has been fixed. There is a new 'deselect all
60 tracks' option, mirroring 'select all tracks.
62 * Changes up to version 2.0
66 Tracks can now have tags associated with them. See tags in disorder(1)
67 or the preferences documentation for the web interface or Disobedience.
69 The search facility knows how to limit results by tag (see search
70 documentation for any interface) as well as by word search. It is
71 possible to limit random play by tag (see required-tags and
72 prohibited-tags in disorder_config(5)).
74 Unicode support is improved. Case-folding and word breaking now follows
75 the rules given in the Unicode standard (with a bit of tailoring in the
80 There is a new client, 'Disobedience', that depends on the GTK+ library.
81 Feedback on the interface would be very welcome.
85 The "New" screen display tracks recently added to the database. From
86 here they can be played or their preferences changed.
88 Long track names are truncated so they fit better on the screen. Hover
93 DisOrder can broadcast audio over a network, allowing it to be played on
94 multiple client machines. See README.streams for details.
98 Slow file lookups are cached in the server. This should help
99 installations with large collections and/or slow platforms.
101 The 'enabled' and 'random_enabled' configuration options are now gone.
102 Instead the state survives from one run of the server to the next.
103 'disable now' is gone as well - if you want to emulate it disable
104 playing and then scratch the current track.
106 The 'pick' plugin has been abolished. All the logic formerly done there
107 is now built into the server, where it can be done much more
110 'tracklength' plugins must be explicitly specified.
112 A bug where removing a collection (from the configuration) could cause a
113 crash when random play was enabled has been fixed.
115 A new configuration option 'queue_pad' allows the number of random
116 tracks kept on the queue to be controlled.
118 There is a new utility disorder-decode which can decode OGG, MP3, WAV
119 and FLAC. The example config file uses it.
121 Database statistics are computed in a subprocess so that the main server
122 (and all clients) are not blocked for the duration.
126 There is a new command line tool called 'disorderfm' which is designed
127 for filename translation on (for instance) digital audio repositories.
128 It is not yet feature-complete. See its man page for additional
131 ** Build And Configuration
133 You can control which components are built with new --with options. See
136 options.transform and the 'transform' web option have gone, replaced
137 with a 'transform' configuration command. Both this and 'namepart' are
142 Ross Younger, Colin Watson, Michael Stevens and Mark Wooding all
143 contributed in some way to this release.
145 * Changes up to version 1.5.1
149 Correct regexp for non-alpha tracks.
151 * Changes up to version 1.5
155 Regexp-based filtering of tracks (for instance as used by the initial
156 'Choose' page) now does the regexp matching in the server, limiting the
157 amount of data transferred to the web interface only to be discarded.
161 Regexp-base filtering of tracks is now available to the command line
166 New server_nice, speaker_nice and rescan_nice configuration options
167 allow independent control of process priorities.
169 Scratches are now attributed to the user who requested them.
172 A file descriptor was leaked for each track played.
173 The amount of a track played so far was not reported.
174 The speaker process could crash on underrun.
175 The server would crash if you paused a non-pause capable track.
176 Regexp matching in the file and directory list commands was not
178 Handling of variable-argument commands in the client was broken.
180 * Changes up to version 1.4
184 Raw format players are now supported. See README.upgrades and
185 README.raw for details. This allows pausing and eliminating the
188 Pausing is also supported with suitably modified standalone player
189 plugins, though none of the supplied ones are capable of this.
191 When random play is enabled the randomly picked track now appears in the
192 queue, and can be moved around the queue, removed from it, etc.
196 Switches (random play, pause, ...) are now presented as a
197 fixed-appearance switch with an adjacent state indicator.
199 The 'Manage' screen has new buttons to move tracks to the head or tail
202 You can now edit the preferences for all the tracks in an album in a
203 single screen, rather than having to visit each separately. For the
204 time being the raw preferences editing has gone; it can be reintroduced
205 on some form if there is demand. (You can still edit raw preferences
206 from the command line.)
208 Labels are now documented in options.labels rather than
213 If you tried to start up on any empty database with random play enabled
214 the server would exit with an error.
216 The server no longer risks failing if you strace its player
219 It was possible for the server to hang when a 'reconfigure' command was
220 issued. This should no longer be the case.
222 The default signal to forcibly terminate players is now SIGKILL.
226 Plugins must now declare a type word. This allows them to document
227 whether they are a standalone player or a raw-format player, and whether
228 they support pausing. They can also arrange to get setup and cleanup
229 calls in the main server. See disorder(3) for more details.
231 * Changes up to version 1.3
235 Berkeley DB 4.2 is no longer supported. Use 4.3.
239 There is a new 'authorize' command to simplify the addition of local
240 users. Please report successes as well as failures.
242 There is a new 'resolve' command to return the real track name behind an
245 The 'rescan' command no longer takes an argument.
249 The track database code has been largely rewritten to improve
252 There is a new 'lock' directive. By default the server uses a lockfile
253 to prevent multiple copies of itself running simultaneously; this can be
254 inhibited e.g. if you are using a filesystem that does not support
255 locking and are confident you can prevent concurrent running yourself.
257 Aliases for track names, constructed from trackname_display_
258 preferences, now appear in the virtual filesystem.
260 The server now executes a subprocess for the rescan operation. It also
261 runs a separate deadlock manager.
263 Standard output and standard error from subprocesses are now logged.
264 This is handy if you need to figure out why a player failed unexpectedly
265 but might lead to huge log files if you have needlessly verbose players.
269 Enable/disable buttons are now colored to reflect current state.
271 Entering numeric volume values (rather than clicking on the arrows) now
274 Connection errors are reported more gracefully.
278 Scanner plugins are now always invoked in a subprocess.
280 disorder_track_count() and disorder_track_getn() are no longer
281 available. Instead use disorder_track_random().
283 Plugins are now opened with RTLD_NOW, so link errors are detected
288 disorder-dump now insists on the input/output file being a named regular
289 file, rather than using stdin or stdout.
293 Some missing files have been added, and some notes added regarding
294 getting text encoding right.
296 * Changes up to version 1.2
298 See README.upgrades when upgrading to this version.
302 Avoid accumulating overlarge recently played list.
304 When the server was stopped, the currently playing track would not be
305 added to the recently played list. This has been fixed.
307 Reloading the 'volume' page no longer repeats the last volume-changing
310 The search facility now works properly for multiple hits within a single
315 New namepart directive replaces web interface's trackname-part. There
316 are associated changes to the protocol and clients.
318 The number of database queries per candidate match required when
319 searching has been reduced.
321 The operator can control the signal used to scratch playing tracks. The
322 default has been changed to SIGINT from SIGKILL.
324 The 'log' command now provides a formalised event log, rather than raw
325 access to the server's ordinary log output.
327 ** Web Interface Changes
331 When picking a track the client now stays on the same screen rather than
332 redirecting back to the 'Playing' screen. So that the user gets
333 feedback from their action, playing and queued tracks are now marked as
334 such in the track picking screen.
336 It is possible to revert to the old behaviour by removing the back=
337 argument from the choose.html and search.html templates (and optionally
338 the trackstate lines).
342 Non-ASCII characters are now properly supported in search terms.
346 The template syntax has been changed slightly to ignore whitespace in
351 Some formerly textual buttons are now replaced by images (with ALT text
352 reflecting the old value). The stylesheet is now a .css file (installed
353 in the same place as the images) rather than being embedded into every
356 Artist and album names in the playing and recently-played lists are now
357 links to the corresponding directory.
359 More functions are now available from the 'manage' screen.
361 The menus are now (by default) across the top of the screen instead of
362 down the side. Set the 'menu' label to 'sidebar' to restore the old
363 appearance. 'Volume' is not present in this new menu, use 'Manage'
364 instead (or edit the template).
368 tkdisorder now displays artist, album and title in the queue and
369 recently played widgets, rather than just the title (as formerly).
371 * Changes up to version 1.1
375 Corrected various problems with UTF-8 parsing.
377 In the web interface, "The Beatles" (etc) are now grouped under 'B' not
378 'T' when grouping tracks by initial letter.
382 The list of recently played tracks is now preserved across server
385 Track IDs are more compact.
387 Versions of libdb before 4.2 are no longer supported. 4.2 and 4.3 both
388 work now. 4.2 support will be removed in some future release.
390 Prehistoric backwards-compatibility logic removed. Only affects people
391 upgrading from long before 1.0 (who should upgrade to 1.0 and then to
396 Tracks can be moved in the queue from the command line.
398 'disorder queue' now reports track IDs.
400 $pkgdatadir/completion.bash provides tab completion over commands and
405 New 'cooked' preferences interface saves users having to know arcane
406 details of trackname preferences and so on. Non-ASCII characters are
407 now properly supported in this context.
409 CGI arguments to the web interface are now checked for UTF-8 compliance.
~mdw / disorder / blob