This page describes the changes made in each point release of Semplice since its first release as version 1.00 in November 2022.
Release 1.02 - April 23rd 2023
- Bugfix: Added xterm as an explicit dependency
- Bugfix: NAMEBITS was not set on by default as it should have been. Now fixed.
- Bugfix: When replacing album art, the prior art removal code was not quite right. Now fixed.
- Enhancement: GPLv2 License can be displayed by taking a menu option
- Enhancement: When tagging with non-square art smaller than 500x500, Semplice now just squares-up the album art to its largest dimension but doesn't try to enlarge it to a fixed 300x300.
- Enhancement: PERFORMER tag was always COMMENT, cut off at first comma. Now it also strips out anything in brackets. So "Fred (piano), Bill (tenor)" now becomes "Fred", not "Fred (piano)" as before. The same is also true for colons. "Amadeus Quartet: Frank Smith" becomes "Amadeus Quartet".
- Enhancement: Code to set the PERFORMER tag now finds the correct name, no matter what order it's listed in the COMMENT tag, using the surname in ALBUM to determine which name to pick.
- Enhancement: AUTOBOOST can be set to 1, and this means taking Main Menu Option 14 will result in the automatic application of any detected possible volume boost, plus the automatic deletion of the original, unboosted source file.
- Enhancement: Operations which themselves clean tags now prevent an extra, unnecessary tag cleaning task on program exit. That is, the 'q' option now cleans tags when it has to, not every time it's invoked.
There are some minor bugfixes in this version. There are also a number of enhancements related to the way Semplice automatically works out a PERFORMER tag without explicitly asking for it: it always chopped off the COMMENT tag at the first comma-delimited item. Now it can chop off at colons and strips out bracketed terms, so the PERFORMER tag should be 'cleaner' than before. The PERFORMER can now not be just the first item in the COMMENT tag, too, no matter how it's delimited. If ALBUM is set to (Bliss - 2020), then Semplice will now search for a delimited item containining the word 'Bliss' anywhere within the COMMENT tag. Thus, if COMMENT is set to "Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Martin Bliss (clarinet)", then PERFORMER will be set to "Martin Bliss", even though he's the last-named individual.
The other relatively significant enhancement is the addition of a new parameter in the persistent configuration file: AUTOBOOST. Set it to 1 to enable, 0 to disable. (When upgrading, you should simply add the line AUTOBOOST=0 to the end of the existing $HOME/.local/share/semplice/semplice.conf text file: alter the 0 to 1 if you want to enable the new feature, of course). If set to 1, any use of Semplice's Main Menu Option 14 will now not only cause all music files in a folder to be scanned for a possible volume boost, but will also apply any volume boost determined to be applicable without further interaction. It's not a huge change, but it makes for slightly fewer message displays and key-presses to get a CD rip done effectively.
Release 1.01 - January 2023
- Enhancement: Embedded cuesheets can now be edited by taking the 'c' option from the main menu.
- Enhancement: Embedded album art can now be extracted & saved by taking the main menu's 'a' option
- Enhancement: Spectrum Analyser functionality now callable from main menu using 's' option.
- Bugfix: Cursor visibility issues when cleaning tags and/or merging files now fixed.
Most of the changes in Version 1.01 arise from adding new lettered menu options to the program's main menu: Options "c", "a" and "s" are new.
Embedded cuesheets are created when you use Semplice Option 11, to merge separate per-track FLACs into single per-composition ones. The cuesheet describes where each 'virtual track' within the composition begin and end. They also describe the composer, the performers and recording year. If you ever edit the metadata tags directly associated with the per-composition FLAC after you've created it, the embedded cuesheet will not agree with the information contained within the FLAC's metadata tags. You therefore will want to manually adjust the cuesheet to bring it back into line. Taking the 'c' option when an embedded cuesheet is present will open the cuesheet in editable format within a text editor. Edit the text, save as normal and Semplice will write your changes back to the cuesheet stored within the FLAC. Semplice will use your system's default editor to open and write the cuesheet: by default, that's whatever your EDITOR environment variable is set to. If EDITOR is not set for some reason, then the nano text editor will be used as the backstop default.
Album art which has been embedded within a FLAC (by taking Semplice Option 6) can now be re-extracted at any time by taking the new "a" option. The album art extracted will be that embedded in the first FLAC contained within the current working directory. It will be written to the current working directory as a file called albumart.jpg. Optionally: if you add DISPLAYONEXTRACT=1 to the end of your semplice.conf file, the album art will not only be written to a file but will also be displayed in the centre of your monitor. Set DISPLAYONEXTRACT to anything other than a value of 1 to suppress the automatic display of the extracted album art.
As I discussed in this blog piece, it can sometimes be useful to see a frequency analysis graph of the audio signal contained within a FLAC (to see if it's a genuine FLAC, or a hires one and so on). The new "s" options analyses the first FLAC in the current working folder and displays a spectrum analysis graph once it has completed its frequency analysis of it. The option makes no changes to the file at all, it simply assesses the audio signal contained within it.
Various minor bugfixes were also made in this version, chief amongst which was a bunch of visual glitches and clumsiness when cleaning tags or merging files into SuperFLACs: program display should now be tidier in consequence.