As some of you might have noticed, the desktop app has not been working for the last few months because of changes to the Smule website. In addition, the source code for the desktop app was a few years old and needed some major improvements. That’s why it took us so long to update Sownloader to version 9. Only the update search and the automatic update have to be migrated to version 9 so that we can finally release the long-awaited update.
Before we ship this release we want to invite you to test our latest beta build which can be downloaded here: https://sownloader.com/Sownloader9-BETA.zip
Please create an issue on GitHub when you are experiencing any issues with this beta release.
Sownloader 9 has some major improvements! First of: We’ve got rid of the .NET Framework. The app is now a native .NET 6 app. This results in much faster performance, less memory usage and many new possibilities. Due to these major changes, we are discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista immediately. If you want to check if your PC can run .NET 6, please checkout this official post from Microsoft.
Another major change is the removal of the GeckoFX webbrowser. Instead we are now using the Microsoft WebView2 based on Chromium.
There are also other quality of life improvements. For example, Sownloader now automatically sends a request to the server for rendering when the software detects that the performance has not yet been rendered. Moreover, videos do not need to be converted to m4a files anymore. Sownloader will now download the audio instead.
The form to insert meta tags has been removed as well. Sownloader can now fill in this information completely automatically based on the performance itself.
Sownloader is now on GitHub
Our desktop version of Sownloader is now available on GitHub. We did this to maintain this project more easily and to get your requests and issues in one place. Feel free to contribute to the repository.
Roadmap for the desktop app
Once version 9 has been released we will start working on new features for the desktop app. Right now we have 3 features in mind. Please let us know which of these features is most important for you.
- Add an option to generate filenames based on values from the performance (e.g. {artist}_{titlte}.m4a)
- Add the profile downloader from Sownloader Web to download your entire profile at once
- Add Sownloader Undelete. This tool can download some recently removed/deleted public songs from your profile before they will be deleted completely from the Smule servers.
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