Banshee 0.11.0 review

Banshee software provides a complete music management and playback on Gnome. With Ban

License: MIT/X Consortium License File size: 1631K Developer: Aaron Bockover

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Banshee software provides a complete music management and playback on Gnome.

With Banshee you can easily import, manage, and play selections from your music collection.

Banshee allows you to import CDs, sync your music collection to an iPod, play music directly from an iPod, create playlists with songs from your library, and create audio and MP3 CDs from subsets of your library.

Requirements:
Mono 1.1.9.2+
Gtk# 2.4
HAL 0.5.2+
MusicBrainz

What's New in This Release:
New Core Features

Improved importing, all tagging is now done through taglib-sharp; better support for ID3, AAC/MP4, and ASF/WMA reading; all formats now support writing
Import selections or all contents of a digital audio player (iPod) directly to the local music library
Redesigned track editor allows for the most efficient editing of albums: enter the album information once, and then set track titles simply by pressing 'Enter' in the title box. A rating entry was added as well, and if turned on in Banshee Preferences, changes can now be saved back to files
New CD burning interface - create mixed CDs as sources that allow burning songs from any number of sources: library, remote share, iPod; works with new GNOME 2.16 CD Burning API yet still compatible with GNOME 2.12
Smart playlists allow defining a playlist based on selection criteria that queries against and automatically reflects changes in your library. The easy to use editor makes defining new smart playlists a snap.
One-click track rating; just click the desired rating on the track row
Redesigned Preferences dialog - simple and follows GNOME HIG; allows for turning on 'Write metadata to files'
Notification bubbles on track change using libnotify

New Official Plugins Features

These features are found in the banshee-official-plugins module, not in Banshee core:

The new recommendations pane lets you browse similar artist recommendations found on last.fm (http://www.last.fm/group/banshee) as you listen; you can even re-discover related music already in your library that you may have been neglecting
The podcast source offers an easy to use interface for subscribing to, downloading, managing, and listening to your favorite shows.
Use the Mini Mode feature to condense the interface and gain valuable desktop space. Switch between your library, playlists, and devices within Mini Mode.