Nuvola 4.17 brings MusicBrainz scrobbling, Idagio, DI.FM, Primephonic, and more
Nuvola 4.17 was released. It brings MusicBrainz scrobbling, three new services: Idagio, DI.FM and Primephonic, any many bug fixes.
Most of the features and bug fixes have already been released to users of Nuvola flatpak builds for a long time as we always rebuild and publish Flatpak packages when we add a new feature or fix a bug. However, all the news hasn’t been officially announced until now.
To install Nuvola, follow installation instructions at the Nuvola Apps Repository. To update Nuvola, run flatpak update --system && flatpak update --user in terminal (as a regular user, not root/sudo), or use a package manager that supports Flatpak (e.g., a recent GNOME Software application with the Flatpak plugin. KDE Discover or elementaryOS AppCenter).
What’s New for Users
MusicBrainz Scrobbling
Scrobbling is submitting information about recently played tracks to a public server. It is typically used to share your music taste or to get recommendations to tracks you might like. The most popular scrobbling service is Last.fm, which is supported by Nuvola for a long time. There is also a free/open-source alternative Libre.fm, which was reintroduced in Nuvola 4.16. Nuvola 4.17 adds the third service — MusicBrainz [GitHub ticket].
New script: Idagio
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
IDAGIO is a paid streaming service specializing in classical music. The company is based in Berlin, Germany.
New script: DI.FM
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
DI.FM (also known as Digitally Imported) is an Internet radio broadcaster consisting of over 90 channels dedicated exclusively to electronic music, such as house, trance, techno, drum and bass, and dubstep. DI.FM broadcasts handpicked selections consisting of classic, new and up-and-coming hits, as well as weekly and monthly mixed shows from professional DJs. [Wikipedia]
New script: Primephonic
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
Primephonic is a Dutch-American start-up founded by a team of classical music lovers with the ambition to create a better future for classical music by finally developing a streaming service that gets classical right. [About Primephonic]
Amazon Cloud Player 5.10
Maintainer: Andrew Stubbs • Flatpak package • Source code
- Add Brazil support [GitHub issue]
- Add India [GitHub issue]
- Press PlayAll instead of Play after restart [GitHub issue]
Deezer script 3.3
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Fix wrong song data when Deezer is switched to Queue view [GitHub issue]
- Disable broken volume management.
- Fix the repeat button.
- Fix the love button in the queue view.
Google Play Music script 6.3
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Mask as Safari to work around Google sign-in issues. [GitHub issue]
Jupiter Broadcasting 1.5
Maintainer: Andrew Stubbs • Flatpak package • Source code
- Adjust to the Jupiter Broadcasting site redesign.
- Add the Friday Stream.
- Add Jupiter Extras.
- Add Linux Headlines.
Sirius XM script 1.6
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Add Canadian variant [GitHub issue].
- Adjust metadata parsing to recent Sirius XM changes.
Spotify script 3.2
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Update a web view screenshot.
- Fix playback actions [GitHub issue].
- Fix song title and artist retrieval [GitHub pull request].
- Fix album art retrieval.
- Fix volume management.
Tidal script 1.1
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Widevine support for Tidal [GitHub issue]
- Adjust metadata parsing to recent Tidal changes.
YouTube script 2.2
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Mask as Safari to work around Google sign-in issues. [GitHub issue]
- Fix parsing of track title and artist.
YouTube Music script 1.4
Maintainer: Jiří Janoušek • Flatpak package • Source code
- Mask as Safari to work around Google sign-in issues. [GitHub issue]
- Fix Logout action [GitHub issue].
- Fix play/pause buttons [GitHub issue].
- Remove broken code to skip ads. Purchasing YouTube Music Premium is a better option.
- Skip metadata parsing when an ad is playing.
Installation Instructions Updated
Added:
Improved:
- Debian and Fedora instructions were merged to a single page instead of one page per release.
- Arch Linux instructions were fixed not to contain unsafe
pacmaninvocation [GitHub issue].
Removed:
- elementaryOS 0.4 Loki and 5 Juno.
- Debian 8 Jessie.
- 19.04 Disco Dingo, 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish, 17.10 Artful Aardvark, 17.04 Zesty Zapus, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus.
- Fedora 27.
- Google Calendar is no longer shown in the list of Nuvola apps [GitHub issue]. It is deprecated as the Nuvola project now focuses on streaming web apps only (see below) [GitHub issue].
Non-media-streaming apps are deprecated
Non-streaming web apps are deprecated and won’t be available in the upcoming Nuvola 5. However, I expect Nuvola 4.x to be supported 5 months after the release of Nuvola 5 and flatpaks of Nuvola 4.x will remain available for 12 months.
In order to push the Nuvola project further, it is necessary to simplify the architecture (a single-window mode instead of multiple web apps running in parallel and connected by the Nuvola service process), make installation and discovery easier (targeting Flathub with a single flatpak package Nuvola Player instead of one package per each streaming service) and focus on media streaming apps only (instead of creating a generic web app runtime). Those are the goals for the fifth generation of Nuvola.
I have much less time to spend on Nuvola than I used to have when I worked part-time. Since I don’t have enough time to pursue the goal to make Nuvola Apps a generic web app runtime with tight desktop integration, I need to refocus on the core business — music streaming web apps — and make project maintenance less demanding.
Qobuz service needs a new maintainer
The original maintainer lost interest in Qobuz. We are looking for a maintainer residing in the countries where Qobuz is available because we couldn’t overcome very strict geographic checks [GitHub issue]:
- Geographical blocking according to IP address.
- A ZIP code matching the IP address.
- A payment card issued in the country matching the IP address.
Other changes
- Added another allowed URL for Facebook login.
- Added instructions on how to use host Nvidia drivers [GitHub issue].
- Added workarounds to address Google sign-in issues [GitHub issue].
- A bug that prevented the selection of the Adwaita theme was fixed [GitHub issue].
- An issue with multimedia keys in KDE was resolved [GitHub issue].
- Nuvola now handles network issues better [GitHub issue].
- The lyrics’ sidebar is automatically opened when enabled [GitHub issue].
- Fixed a crash in preferences dialog during a license key check [GitHub issue].
What’s New for Script Maintainers
- We now accept media streaming apps only. Other apps (e.g. Google Calendar and Google Keep) are deprecated [GitHub issue].
- Circle CI jobs are robust against network failure [GitHub issue].
- Nuvola flatpaks were upgraded to GNOME SDK 3.32 [GitHub issue], 3.34 [GitHub issue], and finally 3.36 [GitHub issue] since the release of Nuvola 4.16.
- Nuvola flatpaks were upgraded to use Vala 0.48 [GitHub issue].
Nuvola Contributes to Good Angel Foundation
Jiri Janousek, the core developer of the Nuvola Apps project, is glad to contribute a part of the project’s revenue to the Good Angel foundation. This way, he can regularly help families with children, which face financial distress as a result of severe illness. Even small monetary donations can help these families overcome a tough period.
Thank You for Your Support
At the time of writing, the awesome people listed below and a few others are Nuvola Patrons, who support the development of Nuvola Apps Runtime. Thank you all!
Christian Dannie Storgaard, José Antonio Rey, Ryan Wagner, Simon Law, Bart Libert, Chris Beeley, Andrew Azores, Bryan Wyatt, Balázs, Denton Davenport, Ben MacLeod, Duco van Amstel, David Wiczer, Andrew Allen, Nathan Warkentin, Chuck Talk.
If you are a Nuvola Patron but your name is not listed, you have to enable the “Show my name and a link to my external profile page in a list of Patrons.” option in your profile settings. Obviously, it is not enabled by default to protect the privacy of our patrons.
