Yate Release Notes

Version 6.0.2 (8990.8975)

      Last.fm

• You can now download Top, Artist, Release and Track tags from Last.fm.
• For now the support is only available through actions.
• A new action statement named Last.fm Tags can extract the site's top tags or tags associated with albums, tracks or artists.
• The web resources page has a download called Last.fm Suite which includes a variety of actions to access the functionally.
• The suite is capable of stripping out year, decade and artist related tags. Actions are provided to extract genres and moods. This is done by matching the downloaded tags to the Genres List and the Moods List.
• Last.fm tags entail far more than just genres and moods. A database is maintained which you implicitly mark tags as to be ignored; tags which are accepted (regardless of their presense in the Genre or Mood lists) and tags which are to be renamed.
• An action is provided which trains the database by allowing you to specify rules on all tags which can be downloaded. This includes ignoring, accepting, renaming, adding to the Genre List or adding to the Mood List.
• Given a set of downloaded tags named variables for Genres, Moods, Others, Years and Decades are available.

      Action Statement Changes

• You can now specify the transformation mode on a Case statement at runtime.
• The Compare Text statement has a new Is the Same Path As as test. A rigorous test is made to determine if two paths reference the same file.
• The File Path Manipulation statement has new Abbreviate path (make relative to the home folder if possible), Standardize Path (make relative paths absolute and remove unnecessary components) and Resolve Path (Standardize and resolve symbolic links) modes.
• New statement named Last.fm Tags.
• The List Manipulate and Issue Database Query statements have a new Regex Filter function. Validation, previews and interoperability with the Regular Expression Tester is available.
• Most List Manipulate statement functions now preserve the order of the first (leftmost) list. A new option for some functions named Do not compress is now available to indicate that you do not want list items to have leading and trailing spaces trimmed and that empty items should not be removed.
• The Prompt for File or Folder statement can now set the initial folder and filename displayed via the setting of new special named variables.
• The Prompt for Text statement can now specify the initial text in a named variable.

      Action Runtime Settings

• Referenced Runtime Sets are no longer exported unless they are named on an Include statement. This was always the intent.

      Action Manager

• There is a new context menu item named Resource Documentation. The item will be displayed if the selected action has been downloaded from the Resources Web page. Not all Resource Web Page actions have the required linkage. They will be updated over time.

      Resetting Preferences

• The Factory Reset menu item has been removed. From mow on, whenever the preferences are reset a factory reset is performed. Yate is closed after a reset and has to be reopened.

      Preferences - Export Sets

• OOB and Variable items can now use the qualifier field to specify a menu that is displayed when a cell in the column is double clicked. Menu item separators can be inserted and it is possible to mark such a column as having inline editing disabled.
• Variable columns can now be Yes/No columns

      Copying Metadata

• The Actions>Copy Metadata>Copy Selected Metadata... item has been renamed to Copy/Configure Selected Metadata... As the displayed metadata is used by the Copy One to Many function, the item is now always available. If the number of loaded or selected files is not appropriate for the chosen copy mode, the Copy button will display the reason.

      Bug Fixes

• A rare timing based crash in the MusicBrainz wizard when accessing Discogs data is enabled and multiple requests are successively made has been resolved.
• The Q button in the Preferences-Export panel was not inline editing the qualifier field. This was introduced when Yes/No column support was added.
• The database context menu item to view a note could be hidden.
• When a new row was added to a database file and the database was being filtered, the row would not be selected.
• The Action Manager's escape menu of runtime settings was not suppressing a leading # when it had been used to represent keep empty values.
• The status bar in the Beatport Importer was not resizing correctly. If the window was made too small it was possible that the Import button was effectively disabled.

Version 6.0.1.1 (8953.8946)

      Preventative Maintenance

• The Action Updater was not checking to see if an action update could be run by the installed version of Yate. While this issue could not yet be encountered, it could happen in the future. A check is now performed and the action is marked as requiring a Yate update.

Version 6.0.1 (8951.8946)

      Action Updates

• You can now check for updates for actions which you have downloaded from the resources web page. This is done via Yate>Check for Action Updates. You can configure this to be done automatically via the Automatically check for action updates setting in Preferences - General.
• When checking for action updates you can update all newer versions or only those you select. Note that updates are only displayed for actions which you have installed.
• When updating the actions via this method only actions are updated. Other Yate constructs are only written if they do not exist. This means that any customizations you have performed will not be lost.
• If you have modified an action and you give it a greater version number it will not be displayed as having an update.
• Except for the preceding condition, actions are considered updatable if an installed action has a lower version number then the version which is available online. Note that for downloads which contain multiple actions one differing version number is sufficient.
• Yate>Check for Updates has been renamed Yate>Check for Application Updates.

      Plist Contents

• When viewing the contents of a Yate plist file, action version numbers will be displayed.

      Import and Export of Settings

• You can now directly import from and export to a zip file. The export as zip option is available on all export panels. The option has been initially set to On.
• The new functionality means that downloaded content from the resources web page no longer has to be unzipped before being imported. The includes imports done by dragging to the main window and Yate>Import Preferences.
• The functionality is very strict when determining if the zip file contains what is expected.
• Single Custom Edit Panels (from the Templates section of the Resources web page) can also be imported zipped ... unless otherwise marked in the online documentation.

      Action Manager

• You can set the version number of one or more actions at the same time by selecting them and using the new Set Version context menu item.
• You can also select folders. When a folder is selected all actions in the folder will have their version modified. Note that this process is shallow not deep. ie. nested folder contents are not modified (unless they are also selected).
• A Version statement will automatically be created if one does not exist.

      Preferences

• The General panel has been divided into Basic and Advanced tabs.
• The General-Basic panel has a new setting: Automatically check for action updates.
• The General-Advanced panel has a new option to export preference backup files zipped. The export as zip option has been preset to On.
• The General-Advanced panel has a new option to export synch preference files zipped. The option is initially Off. If set to On it must be done on all Macs synching the preferences.
• There is a new m3u Files setting named Filename. When creating per folder m3u files you can provide a static name for the filename. If the field is empty the old behaviour is used ... if there is a consistent album field it will be used as the name otherwise Yate will be used.

      Cue Files

• If all selected files are in the same folder the file save panel will be positioned to that folder.
• The filename initially displayed in the save panel will be Cue Sheet as opposed to Untitled.

      Action Statement Changes

• The Finder Tags statement now accepts the default list delimiter when writing tags.
• New escape sequence (\?ft) to return a list of the Finder's basic colour tags.
• Statements in the File Availability category can now be executed in all execution modes. With the exception of the Active Files to List statement, the action test state is set to false if the statement is not appropriate due to one of the following reasons:
  • The action is executing Grouped.
  • A Load & Run statement is being executed.
  • A Run statement is being executed which sets the file availability by testing a track variable.
  • Execution of the statement would result in no files being active. It is invalid not to have at least one active file.
• The Prompt statement's Reset checkbox has been removed. The option is now on the Mode pulldown control.
• The Prompt statement has a new mode named DB Status which is used to place a message on an open database's status bar. See the online help for more information.
• The Debug statement now supports Snapshot and Per Track at the same time.
• The Debug statement is now smarter when displaying the per track variables. If they are the same for all files a snapshot will be displayed.

      Bug Fixes

• Fixed issues introduced in v6.0 when interacting with iTunes 10.7. Yes 10.7! The bug more than likely affects interaction with any version of iTunes less than 12.3.3. Not all functionality may be available with versions this old.
• The iTunes (not Music or TV) Media kind was imported as 'iTunes' as opposed to 'Music'.
• When multiple Compare statements were being ORed and Any was not specified and track variables were being set, the action test state could be incorrect.
• The Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz action statements would hang when run in immediate mode if they were previously used in an action run through the batch processor.

Version 6.0.0.2 (8910)

      Bug Fix

• Part 2 of the folder rename bug introduced in v6.0 and not completely fixed in v6.0.0.1. Argh!

Version 6.0.0.1 (8909)

      Bug Fix

• Fixed a case where 'File Moved' was displayed when renaming files. The files had been moved but the message was not relevant.

Version 6.0 (8908)

      The Action Manager

• Many actions are written which do not require selected audio files. These include actions which dynamically load files, those that manipulate databases, etc. The issue is that actions cannot run without at least one selected file.
• There is a new column in the Action Manager named Always. When the column is enabled, it is treated as a hint to the action runner. The hint is used as follows:
  • if files are loaded and at least one is selected, there is no behaviour change.
  • if files are loaded and none are selected, one file will automatically be selected. The named variable File Auto Selected will be set to 1.
  • if no files are loaded, a temporary file will be supplied and selected. The named variable Temporary File Supplied will be set to 1.When the action terminates, the file is removed. Note that if the file is renamed or moved it will not automatically be removed.
• Note that the All Files column settings are applied before the Always interpretation.
• It is still your responsibility to ensure that selected files are not modified, if that is your intent.
• Actions with the Always setting will be enabled in menus, main window toolbar icons and edit panel action buttons when there are no files selected.
• Two new action statement categories were added: Import/Export and Preferences.

      Filters

• The main window filter panel and the database viewer window filter panels have been completely redesigned.
• To the best of our ability, your existing filters will be converted automatically.
• The new filters are no longer serialized binary data making them much easier to open, save and export.
• The new filter system is extensible on operators and escape sequence processing.
• The new filter system has a number of new features including:
  • The main window filters field menu can be collapsed into categories. There were a lot of filter types and there are now more.
  • Every field can compare using text, integer, decimal and boolean operators.
  • You can now use regular expressions as a text compare operator.
  • Text operators support case and diacritic insensitivity options as well as a match words option.
  • The main window has the following new filter items:
    • Artwork Size - bytes
    • Is Linked with Differences
    • Named Comment
    • Named User Defined Text Info
    • Named User Defined URL
  • The compare against field can contain escape sequences. In the main window this includes all action statement escape sequences. This allows you to compare one field to another or compare a current value to an initial value, etc. In the database filter this includes column name inclusion which allows you to compare one column to another.
  • The database relative date escape sequences (slightly modified in format) are now also available in the main window filter editor and action statements.
• All filter panels can be opened by an Edit>Find menu sequence (⌘F).
• Filters can be saved by a File>Save menu sequence (⌘S).

      Renaming Files

• Rename Template Changes
  • There is a new Track token named Track Symbolic. The token loads the track position metadata whether it is stored in a UDTI or a named variable.
  • There is a new Property token named Sample Rate.
  • The token menu's Custom submenu has been renamed Custom Fields.
  • The Open Filename token has been renamed Initial Filename.
  • The Open Folder token has been renamed Initial Folder.
  • The Start Filename token has been renamed Current Filename.
  • The Start Folder token has been renamed Current Folder.
• Renaming Folders
  • Previous versions of Yate only supported the renaming of the folder containing a track.
  • Successive Folder Start tokens can now be used to rename any path component. The tokens are applied right to left. ie. the first Folder Start token modifies the name of the folder containing the tracks. A second Folder Start token modifies the folder containing the folder which contains the tracks, etc.
  • The Current Folder and Initial Folder tokens are context sensitive. If there is no Folder Start token active, they are based on the folder containing the tracks. If there is a Folder Start token active, they are based on the path component being renamed.

      Apple App Playlist Naming

• Playlists in iTunes, Music and TV use names which are case sensitive and unfortunately can be duplicated. Playlists can be stored in playlist folders which can be nested.
• Previously Yate only supported access to playlists in a flat mode where folders were ignored. This mode is still supported.
• You can now access playlists with the enclosing folder structure. All functionality which supports playlists supports the new and old naming methodologies.
• The help for all functionality which can specify a playlist name has links to an Apple App Playlist Naming Conventions topic.
• When the new naming conventions are used, you can create, delete, add to, etc. playlists within folders.

      Apple App Support

• The maximum of 500 tracks previously set on the Open Items Playing In functionality has been eliminated. Be reasonable!
• If Preferences - Apple Apps - Auto Import - Media Kind is enabled, Media Kind will be imported when tracks are added to the relevant Apple App.

      Album Artwork in Music/TV

• We've come up with a somewhat more aesthetic workaround for the Catalina Music/TV issue of not updating album artwork when tracks are saved.
• There is a new Artwork menu item named Patch Artwork in Apple App and a same named action statement. There are also variants which support the patching only if the default artwork item has been modified.
• This is a far less invasive workaround than the Extreme Update set of actions as the tracks are not removed from Music/TV.
• Unfortunately there is another bug in Music/TV which has a side effect. After running the new functionality the application's libraries will contain zero or one artwork item for each processed track. The number of items in the files and displayed by Yate does not change. As most people keep only one artwork item in a file it is thought that this limitation is not too oppressive.
• While not necessary, the functionality operates on iTunes as well. When run against iTunes the above mentioned side effect does not occur.

      Application

• There is a Warn Before Quitting (⌘Q) item on the Yate menu. the warning is only issued for the ⌘Q keyboard sequence.
• The Quit Yate menu item can no longer be assigned a keyboard shortcut. ie. it is always bound to the system default of ⌘Q.
• The File menu has a new submenu named Open With. Applications can be placed on the menu. The menu can be use to open loaded audio files in various other applications. Selecting an application on the menu will attempt to do the following:

  If the main window is active

  all selected files will be opened in the chosen application
  
  

  If a Track database is active

  the files associated with all selected rows will be opened in the chosen application.
  
  

  if an Album database is active

  the folders associated with all selected rows will be opened in the chosen application.

      Main Window

• The Description field is now available as a column.

      Navigation

• The Navigate menu has a new Focus on File Browser menu item.

      Low Level Audio File Changes

• MPEG-4 files are now more lenient in accepting atoms which are missing required data. In the past these items were dumped into unhandled.
• MPEG-4 files purchased from the Apple store tend to contain various non standard metadata items. Most of these items are placed onto the Unhandled editing panel. Seven items which were previously unhandled are now stored as UDTIs. These items will appear as:

  Apple Store Account Type

  a numeric value. This can be iTunes or supposedly AOL ... which we've never seen.

  Apple Store Artist ID

  a numeric value. Some others refer to this as the Album-Title ID, however as the same values are often returned for this item and the composer ID, we believe that it represents an artist.

  Apple Store Catalog ID

  a numeric value

  Apple Store Composer ID

  a numeric value

  Apple Store Genre ID

  displayed as: # (symbolic genre if available)

  Apple Store Flavour

  a text string displaying information about an item's encoding or representation

  Apple Store Playlist ID

  a numeric value. This more than likely represents the album.

• MPEG-4 files can now be configured to map the Initial Key field to initialkey as opposed to KEY. This is done in Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4.
• All audio formats now remove empty UDTIs. In the past this was done for some formats but not all.

      Video Settings

• You can now override the audio free space settings and supply alternate values to be used by files containing video.
• Video files can be quite large and depending on the location of the metadata in a file it might be required to rewrite the entire file when changes are applied. This can be a lengthy process. There is a new setting named Fast rewrites which enables the functionality to speed up the process the first time a rewrite is necessary. It also removes the need to do subsequent full rewrites. There are ramifications to the approach. The online help has additional information.
• When free space is removed in MPEG-4 files, typically only free space somewhat adjacent to the tag area is released. In order to enable the removal of free space introduced by the Fast rewrites setting, there is a new option named Aggressively remove free space. This can be a length process but typically would only be so once.

      Batch Processing

• The batch processor log file is now written in a semi-persistent manner. This results in a smaller memory footprint.

      The Discogs Wizard

• The Master ID is now saved with the leading 'm' used to differentiate masters from releases. This changes nothing other than it is now easier to copy a master value and paste it into the wizard's search panel's ID field.
• The main window Discogs Wizard context menu item is now always enabled. Previously it was disabled if the wizard was already running. The new approach makes it easy to display the wizard's window if it is hidden.
• A new action statement was added: Search Discogs.
• A new action statement named Map Metadata to Files can map files as in the Discogs wizard from metadata downloaded by the Discogs Metadata for Release statement.

      The MusicBrainz Wizard

• The wizard has a new metadata item: Discogs Master ID.
• The Discogs Wizard can be launched with the Discogs Master ID item from the context menu or by double clicking on it. (Same as Discogs Release ID).
• The main window MusicBrainz Wizard context menu item is now always enabled. Previously it was disabled if the wizard was already running. The new approach makes it easy to display the wizard's window if it is hidden.
• Additional relationship URLs are now imported.
• A new action statement was added: Search MusicBrainz.
• A new action statement named Map Metadata to Files can map files as in the MusicBrainz wizard from metadata downloaded by the MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement.

      Discogs & MusicBrainz Import Sets

• Previously you could only manage import sets from with the wizards or the Access Discogs or Access MusicBrainz action statements.
• You can now manage the import sets from the Actions menu.

      Databases

• Databases can now be opened, closed and saved while batch processing.
• An open database is only accessible while batch processing when an Action Pending window is displayed. ie. when the user is being prompted for information.
• An open database has limited functionality while batch processing. They are intended to be used as an interface mechanism.
• The context menu has a new Deselect All item.

      File to Tag Templates

• The token menu's Custom submenu has been renamed Custom Fields.

      Action Pending Window

• You can now specify that you want the Action Pending window to use a monospace font. This is done in Preferences-Actions.
• Note that you can override this setting at runtime using the Preferences statement.

      Action Runtime Settings

• Previously Action Runtime Settings were maintained in a single container. This was problematic as they could not be exported with individual actions and the list of settings could be quite long and confusing unless settings were assigned an identifying prefix.
• Action Runtime Settings are now maintained in Runtime Settings sets. These sets can be viewed in a new preference section called Runtime settings. Your previous settings will have been migrated to an Action Runtime Settings set.
• All access to runtime settings is associated with the mapped runtime settings set (initially Action Runtime Setting). You can change the mapping via the Map Action Runtime Settings statement. Setting the mapping to empty, is equivalent to setting it to Action Runtime Settings.
• Runtime sets are automatically created when settings are saved. Further, they are removed when all settings are removed.
• You no longer view the settings in Preferences-Actions. You can view them in Preferences-Runtime Settings.
• The \?rs escape sequence inserts the name of the currently mapped replacement set.
• When you update to this release the Runtime Settings item in Preferences will appear at the end of the list. You can always sort the list or drag and drop the preference setions to whatever order you prefer.

      Actions and the Status Bar

• The Prompt statement has a mode which allows you to place a message on the main window status bar. Previously when running in immediate mode there was a good chance that some other function would overwrite the message.
• This has been changed so that the messages you set are preserved. If a function displays status, the Prompt written message will be appended so that it is visible. When the status bar is reset by a function, the Prompt written message will again be displayed.
• You should use the Prompt statement to clear the status bar when the message you are displaying no longer makes sense.

      Action Statement Changes

• All statements which use a list of fields now support delimiters of commas, newline characters (\n) and the default list delimiter (\~) in the list.
• Any action statement which removed control characters now also removes invalid Unicode characters.
• The Access Discogs action statement now supports Loose Matching in immediate mode.
• The Access MusicBrainz action statement now supports Loose Matching in immediate mode.
• There is a new file availability statement named Active Files to List. The statement saves a list representing the current set of active files. This can be used as a restore point when used with another new action statement named List to Active Files.
• The Artwork Information statement has a new per file option which can be use to override the default stepwise mode of operation.
• The Artwork Information statement has new functions to return values relating to an artwork item's size in bytes.
• The Bracket statement now has a diacritic insensitive option.
• The Compare Date Test statement has been renamed Compare Dates
• The Compare Numeric Test statement has been renamed Compare Numeric
• The Compare Text Test statement has been renamed Compare Text
• The Close Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
• The Close/Save Query Database statement now has additional functionality when closing a grabbed database. This includes removing an active filter and sorting. Further when closing a grabbed database with the 'stay open' open, the grabbed database will refresh its display.
• The Compare Text Test statement now has a regular expression operator.
• The Copy statement can now process named variables as the source and destination of a copy ... and more. The Copy Field to Named Variable statement no longer exists. All instances have been converted to be a Copy statement.
• The Copy Files statement, when it references a rename template, will take advantage of the enhanced preference rename template's Folder Start capabilities. This means the rename template can append any number of additional path components.
• The Count Items statement can now optionally set the action test state based on the number of items being zero.
• The Delete Apple App Playlist statement can now specify that the immediately containing or all containing empty playlist folders should be deleted.
• The Discogs Metadata for Release statement used to return error information as a key in the returned data. This was found to be too problematic due to multiple network accesses. Error information is now returned in a Data Source Access Error named variable.
• The Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields statement has been renamed Enumerate Fields and Extensions. The creation of a list of tag sets and the fields in a named tag set functions have been moved to the Extract Preference Set statement for consistency reasons. The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement now only enumerates fully static information. This includes various classes of fields and lists of filename extensions appropriate for media, database, playlist and image files.
• The Expand Execution to Unselected Files statement is now available when batch processing. When batch processing it is identical to executing Restore Initial Set of Files.
• The Extract Preference Set statement, when returning the contents of a named item, can now optionally set the action test state as opposed to stopping the action if the named item does not exist.
• The Extract Preference Set statement can now return a list of Discogs and Musicbrainz import sets.
• The Extract Preference Set statement can now extract information from named Runtime Sets.
• The Extract Preference Set statement can now return a list of Runtime Sets sets.
• The Field List Enumerator statement has been renamed Multi Item Field List Enumerator.
• The File Path Manipulation statement can now test if a path references a database file.
• The Get Containing Playlists from Apple App statement can now specify that fully qualified playlist names should be returned.
• The Import Base Settings from Apple App statement has been renamed to Import Fields from Apple App.
• The Is Database Open statement is now available when batch processing.
• The Link to Apple App Test statement has ben deprecated.
• The List Manipulate statement's Filter mode now supports filtering on a list item being an audio or image file path component.
• The List of Apple App Playlists statement can now specify that fully qualified playlist names should be returned.
• The Lock/Unlock Database statement is now available when batch processing.
• The Modified Test statement has ben deprecated.
• The Manipulate Artwork statement now has the ability to compress artwork items if they are greater than a specific size. There are special considerations for FLAC files.
• New Action statement named Map Action Runtime Settings. The statement maps a specific runtime settings set to be used by action runtime setting assignments and loads.
• New Action statement named Map Metadata to Files. Designed to be used with the Discogs Metadata for Release and MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statements, this statement can perform a file mapping equivalent to that performed in the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards.
• The Move statement, when it references a rename template, will take advantage of the enhanced preference rename template's Folder Start capabilities. This means the rename template can append any number of additional path components.
• The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement returns the Discogs Master ID.
• The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement used to return error information as a key in the returned data. This was found to be too problematic due to multiple network accesses. Error information is now returned in a Data Source Access Error named variable.
• The Open Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
• The Open Database Information statement is now available when batch processing.
• The Open Query Database statement now supports diacritic insensitive keys.
• The Open Query Database statement now supports opening the database in the UI before a grab attempt is made.
• New action statement named Patch Artwork in Apple App used to force update artwork primarily in Music/TV.
• The Preferences statement has additional single setting overrides.
• The Prompt statement now has the ability to reset the various Prompt configuration named variables.
• The Prompt for Fields statement now supports a Prompt for Fields Constraints named variable. The only constraint currently supported is that the user must select at least one field.
• The Prompt for File or Folder statement now accepts the default list delimiter (\~) as a separator for file types.
• The Prompt for File or Folder statement has a new Set state option to enable the catching of a user selecting Cancel.
• The Remove Item from Query Database statement can now delete a range of rows.
• The Remove Items from Database statement is now available when batch processing.
• The Save Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
• The Set Action Runtime Setting statement now has an override to allow the saving of empty settings.
• New action statement named Search Discogs which can search Discogs for an album/artist combination and save the results.
• New action statement named Search MusicBrainz which can search MusicBrainz for an album/artist combination and save the results.
• The Set Action Test State from File Type statement has been renamed to Test File Type.
• The Show in Log Viewer statement will close the viewer if the supplied content is empty.
• The Test Property statement has been deprecated. The Compare Numeric Test and Compare Text Test statements can do everything done by Test Property and far more.
• The Update Database statement is now available when batch processing.
• You can specify text to be appended to a status bar prompt issued by the following Statements: Discogs Metadata for Release, MusicBrainz Metadata for Release, Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz. The text is specified in a Status Bar Message Suffix named variable.
• In order to provide runtime access to statements that specify fields to be processed in a table, standardization has occurred so that the fields can be supplied in a named variable which is processed at runtime. The following statements can now process fields specified in a table, a named variable or fields in a named variable:
  
  
  • Clear
  • Copy
  • Exists
  • Get First Line
  • Re-encode
  • Remove Invalid Characters
  
  Further, many table statements can also treat each effective field or named variable as a list. The following statements can now process fields specified in a table, a named variable, fields in a named variable and support list processing:
  
  
  • Append
  • Bracket
  • Case
  • Find and Remove
  • Prepend
  • Replace
  • Sort Form
  • Trim

      Escape Sequences

• There is a new escape sequence (\?om) which returns an encoded description of the current Open Mode. More information is provided on the Escape Sequence help page.
• The date offset escape sequences previously only available in database filters are now generally available. The sequences now start with \%
• There is a new escape sequence (\Z) which inserts a time stamp: yyyy:mm:ddThh:mm:ss.###
• There is a new escape sequence (\?rs) which inserts the name of the currently mapped replacement set.

      File Properties

• There are seven new file properties:
  • Has Chapters
  • Has Modified Chapters
  • Has Progressive Artwork
  • Has Progressive Default Artwork
  • Is Artwork Modified
  • Is Default Artwork Modified
  • Is Linked With Differences

      The Crop/Scale/Square Artwork Panel

• The ability to compress images has been added. This is only available when the panel is invoked in the main window. ie. not when invoked in the Artwork Viewer.

      FLAC Files and Artwork

• FLAC files cannot store an artwork item which is larger than ~16mb. In the past if this situation was encountered the artwork item was silently tossed. While we considered the situation extremely unlikely we've now seen one case. An error message is now issued.
• The Artwork Manipulate action statement now has the ability to compress images. You can enter the required size value as FLAC to ensure the correct limit for FLAC encoding is used.
• The Crop/Scale/Square Artwork panel, when opened from the main window, has the same compress functionality.

      Web Resources

• There is a new version of the Repair Files from Audio Health Check Log action. This version runs in immediate mode, does not require any loaded files and can automatically determine the location of the AFHC log file. You have additional control over the content of the produced log file. The action can easily be run from the Actions menu.
• There are new actions to interactively search Discogs or MusicBrainz in immediate mode or via the Batch Processor. The actions use the new ability to communicate with the user via a database viewer.
• Many other actions were updated.

      Big Sur

• For those of you having a look at Big Sur, we've made changes in this release which allows the application to run ... if we say so ourselves ... well. Issues will crop up in subsequent betas and we'll issue patches accordingly.

      Bug Fixes

• If the Title Case preferences had - added as a start character but not an end character, a crash could result.
• The Find and Remove statement was incorrectly displaying that the Trim setting was enabled.
• The Music and TV applications have a bug where the list of available playlists cannot be immediately enumerated when they are launched by a programmatic access. In order to get around the issue the Get Apple App Playlists statement forces the application to activate if it is not running. This causes the application to be displayed. The application is then forced to be minimized but there will be a flash on the display.
• The Close/Save Query Database statement's Filter on grabbed close setting was not ignored when running through the Batch Processor.
• When a database was open and an action was being executed and the Action Pending Window was displayed, the database Open menu item was not disabled. This meant that the current open set of files could be changed.
• The Is Query Database Open statement was not valid when batch processing.
• The Access Discogs statement was incorrectly enabled in immediate mode for modes where it should have been disabled.
• The Read Text File statement's single line display was referring to a 'prefix' which was bogus.
• The Prompt for Text statement's optional R/O status was removed after choosing a value from a picker menu.
• The Count Items statement was not flagging an empty destination named variable field.
• A few controls in the CCE window were more than a little too dim in dark mode.