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# Important changes

This chapter describes important changes and news. Please have a look at the history of changes for a complete list.
Mp3tag is Freeware

In case you like using Mp3tag, please consider donating to support the development of Mp3tag.

# Mp3tag v2.78

## Support for AIF / AIFF audio format (*.aif, *.aifc, *.aiff)

The main feature of v2.78 is full support for the AIF / AIFF audio format. This includes support for ID3v2 tags (including user-defined fields and cover art) as dedicated RIFF chunks. The new version reads, writes and removes those tags and – as usual – also reports meaningful technical information about the file.

## Support for iTunes MP4 owner information

This version adds support for the ITUNESOWNER field, which shows the owner of an MP4 file which has been bought via the iTunes Store. Besides ITUNESACCOUNT, this enables you to make sure that all files are from your own music library. Please note that removing those fields doesn't remove the (hidden) buyer information from the file.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.76

## Support for WAV audio format (*.wav)

The main feature of v2.76 is full support for the WAV audio format. This includes support for RIFF INFO tags (which are surprisingly limited) and writing ID3v2 tags (including user-defined fields and cover art) as dedicated RIFF chunks. The new version reads, writes and removes those tags and – as usual – also reports meaningful technical information about the file.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.74

## Support for HTTPS in Web Sources Framework

Since more an more APIs are changing their access methods to require authentication or to be HTTPS-only, this version adds support for secure connections to web sources via HTTPS. This is a rather huge change since the complete HTTP connection part has been replaced in the course of this update.

## Discogs access via HTTPS

As a prominent example of the changes described above, Discogs announced to be available via HTTPS only starting from March 14. The official Discogs web source of Mp3tag has been updated to use HTTPS with this update. In the background, I've already changed the Mp3tag Discogs image cache that is used to provide Discogs images to Mp3tag users to use HTTPS as well.

## Support for Podcast Keywords

Mp3tag becomes more and more popular in the podcast community and already supports a variety of podcast-related tag fields (e.g., podcast category, podcast description, podcast ID and podcast URL). This version adds support for podcast keywords via the PODCASTKEYWORDS field for ID3v2 and MP4 tags.

## Compatibility Improvements for ID3v2 Comments

When it comes to ID3v2 comments, iTunes and Windows Media Player seem not to like each other very much. While iTunes requires the ID3v2 comment language to be set to 'eng' (English), Windows Media Player and Windows Explorer need the comment language set to the language of the Windows version that is running. Otherwise, the comments are simply not shown in these applications. In the past Mp3tag offered a quite tedious via editing the language file to circumvent these compatibility issue. With this version, the ID3v2 comment language can be set via a configuration dialog which is available via 'Options > Tags > Advanced' and will preserved also when installing new versions of Mp3tag. So no more fiddling in the language files for you.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.73

## Automatically Select Files

In the past, many users have wished for an option to automatically select files that have been added to Mp3tag's file list. With this version, I've added a new configuration option to 'Options > General' that allows for automatically selecting files. When this option is enabled, files that are loaded when Mp3tag started or are added via drag'n'drop or are added via the right-click option in Windows Explorer are selected automatically.

## Selecting All Files via Toolbar

Some users prefer working via keyboard shortcuts, others are effectively using the mouse. To select all files, the most efficient way was to use the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut. This might change now, especially for the mouse users amongst you, because the current version now features a new toolbar button for selecting all files in Mp3tag's file list.

## File Selection when Filtering Files

Till now, the file selection was not preserved when switching from a filter result to the complete file list via F3 or 'View > Filter...'. This had the significant drawback, that files which were identified using the filter and selected in the filtered file list, were not seen in context of the complete file list anymore once the filter has been reset. With this version, the file selection is preserved when disabling the filter.

## New Bit-Depth Information Field

Some audio formats offer encoding in different bit depths. This information is now available using the %_bitspersample% information field for audio formats that support different bit depths.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.72

## Support for Windows 10

Mp3tag now officially supports Windows 10. It worked quite smoothly already when Windows 10 was released, but I adjusted minor things here and there. If you find any quirk or think you've found a bug please let me know.

## Updated Code-Signing Certificate

To verify the integrity and the origin of the Mp3tag setup and Mp3tag program file, I've updated the code-signing certificate.

# Mp3tag v2.71

## Summer Maintenance

This version is a summer maintenance release and fixes issues which were reported during the past weeks.

Please see the history of changes for a complete list.

# Mp3tag v2.70

## DPI Awareness and High DPI Support

To be honest, when I first saw a screenshot of Mp3tag on a high-resolution 4K screen I had to laugh: the toolbar icons were ridiculously small and also other screen elements were drawn too small — while the app was still usable in itself. At that point I didn't knew yet, what it takes to make an app fully DPI aware.

Over the last month I worked on making Mp3tag more DPI aware and touched all the different code parts of drawing and moving user-interface elements. It was quite a ride and it took me to places in Mp3tag's code base which I hadn't visited for a long time.

Furthermore, I've redrawn the toolbar icons in 32x32 and 24x24 sizes. I'm not an icon designer so it took me some time to get it done. I did a lot of experiments (even with flat black and white icons) but ended up with a set which sticks very much to the original icons which you (— and I) are already familiar with. But some icons changed their face or got a new finishing and I hope you like it.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.68

## Discogs Image Caching — Reloaded

Discogs made a breaking API change on 2015-02-20 so that we had to update our Discogs image caching server and the way Mp3tag signs the image requests.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.66

## Winter Maintenance

This version is mainly a maintenance release which comes with many improvements and fixes various issues that have been reported over the last couple of weeks.
Please see the history of changes for a complete list.

# Mp3tag v2.65

## Discogs Image Caching

Since Discogs implemented rate-limiting on images requests through their API, users of the Discogs Web Source experienced quite often, that no images were provided by the web source—1000 request per day for all users of Mp3tag is simply not enough.

Over the last weeks, we've implemented a Discogs image cache on the Mp3tag servers which is now asked for images before the actual Discogs servers. This first reduces load on the Discogs servers, but also increases the chance that more and more images are served to you.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.64

## Discogs API changed to JSON

Yet another Discogs-related change, you might be thinking—at least we did, when we read the corresponding announcement on their API development forums :-) This change removed the XML format from the API and changed the API format to JSON, which resulted in the official Discogs Tag Source not working anymore for you.

With this release, we have developed a new official Discogs Tag Source based on the new JSON format. This new format also is more robust w.r.t. changes in the API. If you notice any quirks, releases that cannot be tagged or other things, please let us know.

## JSON-related functions for Web Sources Framework

We've extended the Web Sources Framework by JSON-related functions that enable the development of faster, more reliable, and easier to maintain Tag Sources. We're looking forward to any community-based development in this area!

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.62

## Discogs API access changed to OAuth

Starting at August 15, 2014 Discogs restricts access to their API to authentication using OAuth. As a user of the Discogs Tag Source you need to have an account on the Discogs web site. If you don't have a user account yet, you can create a free account on the discogs web site via

https://www.discogs.com/users/create

When you use any of the Discogs Tag Sources from Mp3tag, Mp3tag will ask you to authorize access to your Discogs profile. You'll then have to authorize the Mp3tag application on your Discogs profile and enter the authorization code when Mp3tag is asking you to do so.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.61

## Summer Maintenance

With this version we're doing some summer maintenance and fix issues which were reported during the past weeks.
Please see the history of changes for a complete list.

# Mp3tag v2.60

## Update of Discogs Tag Source

Discogs updated their API which resulted in release information not being retrieved while using the discogs tag source. The access to the Discogs API has been fixed with this release.

## Internal Restructuring

While this is not a feature that is visible to the user, it's worth mentioning that over the last weeks we did some major refactoring of Mp3tag's code base by changing to use standard container libraries and algorithms.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months as denoted in the history of changes.

# Mp3tag v2.59

## Support for Direct Stream Digital (DSF)

With this version Mp3tag supports Direct Stream Digital (DSF) files with ID3v2 tags.

## Further changes

Furthermore, this version fixes some issues which were reported during the last months, improves some internal parts and makes use of the taskbar progress feature which was introduced with Windows 7.

# Mp3tag v2.58

## Improved performance when reading MP4 files

Mp3tag now reads MP4 files faster than before which should be significant on large collections (many files) or collections including MP4 video (large files).

## Improved compatibility of YEAR in ID3v2.3

With Mp3tag v2.53 released almost one year ago we decided to combine the release year (ID3v2.3 frame TYER, displayed as YEAR) and release date (ID3v2.3 frame TDAT, displayed as DATE) in YEAR and display it as YYYY-MM-DD. The intention was to improve compatibility with other applications and the ID3v2 standard.
Since then we've received numerous support requests both on the Mp3tag Forums and via email from users who are unsatisfied with that change. Either because they use a different formatting of date values, use some value denoting a specific time frame (e.g., the 80s) or simply wanted to preserve values that were not fitting in the new date formatting scheme.
With Mp3tag v2.58 we revert this change to the previous behavior.

# Mp3tag v2.55

## Support for IETF Opus

Mp3tag now supports the IETF Opus codec. More information can be found on the official website and on Wikipedia.

# Mp3tag v2.54

## Support for Windows 8

Mp3tag now officially supports Windows 8 operating system. If you find any quirk or think you've found a bug please let us know at support@mp3tag.de.

# Mp3tag v2.53

## Improved support for Drag & Drop of cover art

Mp3tag now uses a different method for drag & drop of cover art which does not require re-encoding the cover image again but instead uses the original image whenever possible. In addition, support for drag & drop of cover art from Google Chrome has been added.

## Improved compatibility of YEAR in ID3v2.3

The release year (ID3v2.3 frame TYER, displayed as YEAR) and release date (ID3v2.3 frame TDAT, displayed as DATE) are now combined in YEAR and displayed as YYYY-MM-DD. This improves compatibility with other applications (e.g., foobar2000) and provides a consistent view with all revisions of the ID3v2 specification.

# Mp3tag v2.52

## Option to specify cover art directory

With this option located at 'Options > Directories' you can specify a default directory that is displayed when adding cover art. Besides fully-qualified path names, you can provide relative path names and use placeholders. If no default directory is specified or the directory cannot be opened, Mp3tag opens the directory of the first selected file iff it contains cover art or the current working directory in all other cases.

# Mp3tag v2.50

## Converter Tag — Tag

This converter formats tag fields by other fields content, which means that you can use it to copy tags from one field to another or to combine contents of multiple different tag fields in one tag field. As already known from the other converters, you can use placeholders for any tag field and scripting functions within the format string to format the content of the specified tag field.
Furthermore, the format string is evaluated while typing and you can verify the results using the built-in preview.

## Unicode Playlists in UTF-8 format

You can now save playlists in Unicode format encoded as UTF-8 if you use *.m3u8 as file extension. This can be useful if file names contain special characters. Applications which support UTF-8 encoded playlists are, e.g., Apple iTunes and foobar2000.

## Discogs API 2.0

Discogs.com released a completely redesigned API for accessing data from their website based on the popular JSON format. Mp3tag's web source framework and the corresponding discogs web source have been updated to this new format.

# Mp3tag v2.49

## Support for unknown MP4 tags

Previous to this version, MP4 tags that were unknown to Mp3tag were deleted from the files, which was an issue for some users. With this version, Mp3tag keeps those unknown MP4 tags (also called atoms).

## Support for wildcards at cover import from file

The actions Import cover from file and Import text file now support wildcards * (matches zero to many characters) and ? (matches exactly one character). This should ease cover import from randomly named files significantly.

## Updated Web Sources

The MusicBrainz and discogs Web Sources are now both based on the corresponding web service API which makes them more robust to changes on the respective web sites.

# Mp3tag v2.48

This version is mainly a maintenance release which updates the Amazon Web Sources and improves Amazon query handling to decrease the amount of needed requests per query. As soon as enough users updated to this new release, the request limit enforced by Amazon should not be an issue anymore.

# Mp3tag v2.47

## Tag fields renamed

With this release some of the tag fields that are used for format strings, actions, columns, exports, and filters are renamed to have more accessible and intuitive names. This also means that all parts of Mp3tag where you have used the old names have to be updated. We know that this is an invasive change but think that it was a step necessary to keep it everything maintainable and understandable for new users of the program.
Please see the list below for details on the renamed tag fields:

- BAND to ALBUMARTIST
- ALBUMSORTORDER to ALBUMSORT
- ARTISTSORTORDER to ARTISTSORT
- BANDSORTORDER to ALBUMARTISTSORT
- COMPOSERSORTORDER to COMPOSERSORT
- TITLESORTORDER to TITLESORT
- TVSHOWSORTORDER to TVSHOWSORT
- ITUNESCOMPILATION to COMPILATION
- ITUNESPODCAST to PODCAST
- ITUNESPODCASTCATEGORY to PODCASTCATEGORY
- ITUNESPODCASTDESC to PODCASTDESC
- ITUNESPODCASTID to PODCASTID
- ITUNESPODCASTURL to PODCASTURL

Some of them might be familiar to you, others might be new. If you are wondering which other fields are available, please see Names of tag fields for a complete list.

## Actions menu

The actions feature which was well hidden under the converter menu now has a dedicated top-level menu where all action groups are accessible via menu items. If you are not familiar with the actions in Mp3tag please have a look at the Actions help page. It is a powerful feature and worth looking at.

## Amazon

Amazon has limited access to their web service to 2000 requests per hour. That means that you might get an occassional error 503 when using the Amazon tag source. However, the limit is reset each hour so you can try again later if it is not working for you.

# Mp3tag v2.46

## Explorer Shell Extension

The right-click menu extension is now realized by a dedicated Shell extension which improves opening files and directories via the context menu also for large amounts of files.

## Improved user-defined field mappings

The user-defined mappings for field names introduced in Mp3tag v2.45 now have an own help page and were further improved with regard to mapping multiple field names to one user-defined field name.

## Improved Tag Sources dialog

The Tag Sources dialog now also supports reordering of files via drag and drop allowing to quickly rearrange files according to the titles. Yes, we made it work with multiple files too :-) The sorting and selection state of the Tag Sources search results are now also remembered if you decide to go back and pick another result.

## Portable settings

Previous versions of Mp3tag stored toolbar and panel positions in the Windows Registry. This changed with this release so that Mp3tag now stores all configuration data in its own configuration files.

# Mp3tag v2.45

## Improved Filter

The filter now supports filter expressions where it is now possible to combine filter criteria and use format strings for filtering. The filter now also comes with a history, providing easy access to your often-used filter expressions.

## User-defined field mappings

Mp3tag now supports user-defined mappings for field names. This is particularly useful in case you need to make field names consistent across different types of tags. The feature is available via 'Options > Tags > Mapping' where you can create mappings for a specific tag type (APEv2, ID3v2, MP4, VorbisComment or WMA), provide a Source name (Mp3tag's internal name) and a target name (your preferred field name).

## Multiline fields for Tag Panel

Are you adding lyrics, artist biographies or other text-intensive information to your songs? If so, you can now add multiline custom fields to the Tag Panel via Options > Tag Panel.

# Mp3tag v2.43

## Automatic Updates

This version comes with support for automatic checking for updates on program startup. You can decide whether you want to get notified on stable final releases only, or whether you want the freshest stuff from our compilers (Beta versions). If you don't want Mp3tag to check for updates you can disable it completely at 'Options > Updates'.

## Horizontal Tag Panel

While it was always possible to drag the Tag Panel and dock it above or below Mp3tag's file list, the input fields are now arranged more effectively. It's also possible to disable the directory switcher from the Tag Panel.

## New Translations

Mp3tag is now also translated to Danish, Hebrew, Vietnamese, and Ukranian language.

# Mp3tag v2.34 - Support for cover art / Import from Amazon.com

## Support for cover art

With the new release Mp3tag supports embedded cover art for files with ID3v2 tags, TTA- and WMA files. You can add cover art via the extended tag dialog at View > Extended Tags... or Alt + T.

## Import from Amazon.com

Besides the freedb support, Mp3tag now has the ability to get album information from Amazon.com. Just choose the small arrow from the right of the Icon and select Amazon.com. You'll get a list of matching items and can choose the album to import the tags (and cover art).
The Amazon.com import uses Mp3tag's incredible web source framework. There are even more web sources available at the Web Source Archive on the Mp3tag forums.

Please visit the Mp3tag forums if you have other questions regarding the new release.

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# Mp3tag v2.33 - Support for Unicode

Probably the most import change and new feature in this version is the support for Unicode through the whole program. Mp3tag writes ID3v2 tags in Unicode format (UTF-16) by default now, but there are still some programs, portables or car radios which have problems with ID3v2 tags stored in Unicode format (though this is specified within the ID3v2 standard). To use Mp3tag with this programs or devices, simply enable the option Always write ISO-8859-1 tags instead of UTF-16 at Options > Tags > Mpeg. After that, just save the tags again by clicking or by using the Ctrl + S hotkey.
If you have problems displaying tags with characters from other charsets (like Cyrillic) in Mp3tag, the tags are probably stored in a system codepage instead of Unicode or ISO-8859-1. To convert these tags from a specific codepage to Unicode, simply create a new action Convert codepage, select the appropriate tag field(s) and choose the codepage from the drop-down list.

Please visit the Mp3tag forums if you have other questions regarding the new release.

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# Mp3tag v2.27 - New syntax for scripting functions

The last versions had major problems with the backslash and the double quotes characters within scripting functions so we had to reimplement the part which is responsible for evaluating the built in functions.
The names of the functions did not change - you don't have to learn new function names or placeholder names.

## What has changed?

- There is no need to put parameters of function in double quotes anymore.
- There is no need to leave the $ character from nested function calls.
- There are (hopefully) no problems with backslashes and double quotes anymore.
- The scripting functions $meta and $join are obsolete now.

## Are there any special characters with specific functionality/limitations?

- `[ ... ]` Displays contents of brackets only if at least one of fields referenced inside has been found.
- `'` Outputs raw text without parsing. This will output the contained string and ignore all reserved characters (%,$,[,]) in it.
- `$%[]`You have to put the single quote around these reserved characters if you want to use them unparsed.
- `'`You have to put the single quote before this reserved character if you want to output a singe quote.

## Examples for conversion

- `$num("%track%", 2)` is now
  `$num(%track%,2)`
- `file://$replace("%_folderpath%","\","/")` is now
  `file://$replace(%_folderpath%,\,/)`
- `%_tag_read% [%_tag%]` is now
  `%_tag_read% '['%_tag%']'`

Please visit the Mp3tag forums if you have other questions regarding the new release.

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