Audex Trace 1.5

Audex Trace 1.5

This update makes Playing Next part of Trace Pro. Free users keep the player, menu bar panel, notch, and Playback Verification. It also lets Auto Sample Rate Match leave chosen output devices unchanged and switch sooner after going back to the previous track, shows playback quality in the menu bar, and adds layout previews, a menu on the menu bar panel, a Toggle Menu Bar Panel shortcut, and a What's New window.

Improvements:

• Playing Next is now part of Trace Pro. Free users keep the player window, menu bar panel, notch, and Playback Verification. The Playing Next button stays in the player window and the menu bar panel; for free users it opens an explanation of Playing Next and how to verify playback or get Pro, instead of the queue.
• For Trace Pro, Playing Next in the player window and the menu bar panel now lists the whole upcoming queue that Music reports (up to 99 tracks) and scrolls within the same panel height. Artwork and quality estimates are prepared for the first three tracks, then for later tracks in queue order in the background, one at a time, with cached results reused. The remaining count in the header now shows how many tracks are below the visible list.
• For Trace Pro, scrolling the Playing Next list is smoother, and the player window and menu bar panel no longer hang while the list moves.
• For Trace Pro, Playing Next supports direct editing in the player window and menu bar panel: double-click a track to play it, drag it to a new position while keeping it grabbed anywhere inside the window, with automatic scrolling near and beyond the list's top and bottom edges, or swipe right on the trackpad to remove it with an animation. Drag targets stay stable while rows animate; leaving the window cancels the move. A short swipe returns the row to its place, and trackpad haptics mark the boundary between returning and removing it. The … menu and right-clicking a row work in the player window and menu bar panel. Dragged and removed rows retain their temporary placement until Music reports a fresh queue or the refresh wait ends; failed commands restore the reported queue. Changes are sent to Music's own player even when another app is the Now Playing app, and they are not sent when Music is not running.
• For Trace Pro, every Playing Next row now shows its … button, and the row under the pointer is highlighted, in the player window and the menu bar panel. In the menu bar panel, rows below the first now respond to the pointer as well; before, only the header and the first row did.
• For Trace Pro, downloaded tracks in Playing Next that previously showed only ALAC, with no bit depth or sample rate, now show bit depth and sample rate.
• Auto Sample Rate Match can leave chosen output devices unchanged. Preferences > Playback > Auto Sample Rate Match lists each output device with a toggle. A device that is off is never switched automatically, and it stays in the list while disconnected until it is turned back on. Every device stays on until it is turned off, so existing setups keep matching. This is a Pro feature.
• Auto Sample Rate Match can now switch sooner after going back to the previous track.
• A new Show playback quality in the menu bar setting in Preferences > Menu Bar (off by default) replaces the menu bar's waveform icon with the current playback quality as text, the same text as the quality line in the menu bar panel. It requires the Pro audio quality display, and the waveform icon returns while no playback quality is available. The setting can be changed only while Show menu bar icon is on.
• Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts can now bind Toggle Menu Bar Panel (unbound by default). The shortcut opens the menu bar panel when it is closed and closes it when it is open, the same way a click on the menu bar icon does, including from another app when Also work in other apps is on. It does nothing while Show menu bar icon is off.
• Clicking the menu bar icon or pressing the Toggle Menu Bar Panel shortcut while the menu bar panel is closing now opens it again. Before, the click or shortcut was ignored until the panel had closed.
• Right-clicking the menu bar panel now opens a menu with Preferences, Verify Playback, Check for Updates, and Quit, the same actions as the player window's right-click menu, so they can be reached while the player window is hidden. As in the player window's menu, Check for Updates is listed only when the app can check for updates. While the player window is not visible, the menu also lists Show Player Window: it turns on Show player window in Preferences if it is off, and otherwise brings back the hidden or minimized window.
• When Show player window and Show menu bar icon are both off, opening Audex Trace again opens Preferences, so there is always a way back to the app's settings; the notch overlay does not offer one. Launching Audex Trace with both off also opens Preferences, unless this Mac shows the notch overlay. Preferences are not changed automatically.
• Rapid Playing Next open and close no longer shifts the menu bar panel or the compact player window, and the menu bar panel keeps its rounded corners while that panel resizes.
• The Layout picker in Preferences > Player Window > Appearance now shows one tile per layout, each with a drawn preview of the window and the layout name, instead of a segmented control. While the layout choice is available, the caption below the picker describes the selected layout, and VoiceOver reads each layout's description as the tile's hint. The Quality Only preview includes the output status line when Show output status is on. Quality Only still requires the Pro audio quality display.
• After Audex Trace is updated, a What's New window shows the highlights of each version since the one you last used, with a Release Notes link to the full release notes on trace.audex.dev. It appears once, without taking focus from the app you are using. Updating to this version from an earlier version shows this version's highlights. It does not appear after a new installation. You can open it at any time from Preferences > Support > What's New….

Download AudexTrace-1.5.zip, unzip it, and move Audex Trace.app to /Applications.

Compatibility notes:

• Requires macOS 15 or later.
• With Song Transitions, AutoMix, or Crossfade enabled in Music, Auto Sample Rate Match still waits while Music hands over the previous track. Going back to the previous track can switch sooner. The switch can still land up to about 20 seconds after the track change.