A new update to the meta-streaming desktop music player Tomahawk has washed ashore, with a bunch of bug fixes firmly in tow.
News of the update, the fourth since the first 0.8.x series release last year, also reveals that a new plugin is in the works for musician-owned streaming service TIDAL.
Not that anyone already ponying up the $19.99 subscription fee will be awash in hi-def audio just yet. Tomahawk devs say the TIDAL plugin is not yet ready for prime-time use, and is not included in the compiled builds of the player for desktop users.
It is being made available to those compiling the music player from source, though. Let us know how well it works if you’re a Tidal subscriber and a source assembling ninja.
Bug Fixes in Tomahawk 0.8.4
The bulk of Tomahawk 0.8.4 is made up of bug fixes. Always welcome, these help give a boost to performance, improve memory usage and speed up the browsing of collections.
“Mostly it fixes some annoying bugs and continues to improve performance,” project developer ‘mueslix‘ notes.
A crash in the network code has been fixed, as have inconsistencies with the repeat one/all icons.
Drag and drop of files in the sidebar now works as you might expect, and alternative content sources continue to be sought when a perfect match for the track you want isn’t found.
Among the ‘hawk’s minor feature tweaks is a reordering of cloud collections in the sidebar and what is described as ‘more lenient’ handling of JSPF and M3U playlists.
Windows and OS X specific fixes also feature. For users of the latter this will be the final release to be based on Qt4.
So what’s on the road-map for Tomahawk’s next major release? Compilation support and collection management will see some major improvements. You will finally be able to pick which release or version of an album you want to browse and play.
Tomahawk 0.9 Will Switch to libVLC
Tomahawk developers hope these fixes will tide fans over until the next major release, version 0.9, tentatively set for release next month.
And it should be an update worth singing about.
Tomahawk 0.9 will feature a change to it audio-engine department. The app, like a lot of Qt-based players, currently relies on Phonon. Its next release will switch to libvlc. In doing so the app will offer better handling of content across multiple platforms and support even more audio and stream formats.
Download / Install Tomahawk 0.8.4
Tomahawk 0.8.4 is available to install in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and up using the official Tomahawk PPA — great news for a lazy dude like me.
Add the PPA to your Software Sources, update and then install the release from the Ubuntu Software Center.
Or, for the really easy way, open a new Terminal window and punch the following letters on your keyboard in sequence (pulling any broken keys out of your fingers with pliers if needed):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tomahawk/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install tomahawk
Arch Linux users can install version 0.8.3 from the AUR.
Standalone installers for other platforms, source downloads and — shock — more information can be had at the official project website, which we’ve linked to below.