Gleo 0.4.1 beta

Gleo 0.4.1 beta

A small update for bedtime listening and smoother scrolling, on Windows and Android.

New

• Custom sleep timer. Besides 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes, Custom… lets you pick any length from 1 minute to 4 hours. The slider moves in 5-minute steps, and − and + change it by one minute. It shows when the music will pause ("Pauses at 1:42 AM"), and Gleo remembers the length you picked last.
• The time left shows wherever the timer shows: "Pauses at 1:42 AM · 12 min left" in the player bar's menu, on the phone's Now Playing, and on the lock-screen view.
• Bedtime. One tap in the sleep timer menu starts a timer with your last custom length (45 minutes the first time). Over its last 5 minutes the volume fades down slowly, then the music pauses. While Bedtime is on, the moon has a small star.
• Start Bedtime automatically (Settings → Bedtime; off unless you turn it on). Pick a time, for example 11:00 PM. When music plays after that time, Bedtime starts by itself once a night and says "Bedtime on: pauses at … · Cancel". If you cancel it, it stays off until the next night. It waits with a single timer, so it costs no battery.

Faster

• Smoother scrolling. The album grids (Albums, an artist's albums, Browse, Playlists) used to redraw every card on every frame while you scrolled. Now they don't: on the Android 11 test phone the work per frame dropped by about 4 times, and on Windows by about 9 times.
• No more slowdown when you come back to Gleo. Gleo checks your folders each time you return to it. It used to reload the whole library even when nothing had changed; now it reloads only when songs or covers really changed.
• Lighter Now Playing. The spinning disc, the playing bars and the progress lines now redraw only themselves, not the whole screen, and the page under Now Playing is no longer drawn while it is covered.

Battery (Android)

• Fewer wake-ups while the screen is off. The audio engine used to tell the app the playing position about 20 times a second, even with the screen off. Now, when Gleo is out of sight, it checks the position twice a second instead, and not at all while paused. On the test phone (Android 11 emulator, screen off, a 24-bit FLAC playing), Gleo's main thread now wakes about 10 times a second instead of 24, and Gleo uses about 0.8 % of one processor core. When the music is paused, Gleo now uses almost nothing (0.02 % of a core).
• The lock-screen view no longer keeps the screen on. It used to stay lit while music played. Now the screen stays on for one minute after you wake the phone or touch the view, then turns off as usual while the music keeps playing.
• Checked, and fine: when music pauses (by you or by the sleep timer), Gleo lets go of its wake lock and its foreground service, so the phone can sleep. Nothing keeps running after the sleep timer pauses. Nothing draws while the screen is off.
• Good to know: the sleep timer stops the music once. If you press Play again later, the music plays on until you stop it. Bedtime's automatic start runs only once a night.

Gleo 0.4.0 beta

Gleo 0.4.0 beta

Lumen has a new name: Gleo (said "GLAY-oh", an old English word for music and joy). This beta is for Windows and Android, in plain words.

The new name, and what moves over

• Windows: Gleo installs beside Lumen. On its first start, Gleo copies your Lumen library, playlists, play counts, settings and cover picks to its own folder (%APPDATA%\Utkarsh Tripathi\Gleo). Lumen's folder is kept, so nothing is lost. Once Gleo looks right, uninstall Lumen yourself. The portable version keeps using its userdata folder.
• Android: Gleo is a new app with a new ID, so it can't update the Lumen test app. Uninstall Lumen first, then install Gleo. The Lumen test app had no backup, so Gleo on the phone starts fresh: it reads your Music folder again, and your playlists and play counts start over. From now on, Settings → Data and updates → Back up keeps them in one file.
• A new logo: a gold g on midnight, and a gold accent instead of coral. The dark theme now has a midnight tint with clearer layers.

New features

• Crossfade (Sound → Playback; off by default). Songs blend by 1 to 12 seconds. Albums that play gaplessly are never crossfaded, and skipping a song cuts straight away.
• CUE sheets. One big file plus its .cue shows as separate songs. The badge says "· CUE". On Android 11 and newer, add the folder once with Settings → Library folders → Add folder (Android lets Gleo read .cue files only in a folder picked there).
• Trim silence at the start and end of songs (off by default; only gaps of over a second).
• Remember the position in long files (over 20 minutes), with "Resumed at … · Start over".
• Back up & restore in one file (.gleobackup): playlists, play counts, ratings, settings and cover picks. It works between Windows and Android: songs are matched by their path, or else by artist, title and length. A summary shows before anything is restored.
• Star ratings. Rate from the song menu (Rate ▸), in Now Playing, or in the Songs list (Windows). Smart playlists can use ratings.
• Duplicate finder (Browse → Duplicates). It only hides copies; it never deletes files.
• Download lyrics from LRCLIB (Settings → Online; off by default, no account).
• Windows: previous / play-pause / next buttons under the taskbar thumbnail.
• Android: a home-screen widget, and a lock-screen disc view (shown only if Gleo was in front when the phone locked; Settings → Lock screen turns it off).

Windows improvements

• The rail shows labels when the window is wide, and Sound and Settings stay reachable in a small window.
• One click on the play button plays a song; a filter on the Songs page (Ctrl+F).
• Shorter album and artist headers, so the first songs stay in view; rows stop at 1,200 px in a big window.
• Clear queue has Undo; the queue has a history and a menu.
• Clearer toasts and error messages, an Add to playlist dialog where you can type a new name, settings drawn as proper choices, a tidier About and Credits, and many smaller fixes from the 0.4 design review.

Phone improvements

• Five tabs: Home · Songs · Albums · Artists · Library (Library holds Playlists, Favourites, Folders and Browse). Settings is the gear at the top.
• Song rows show the artist and album; menus open as bottom sheets; buttons are finger-sized.
• Fast scrolling with the letter you are at, Shuffle on the Songs page, and a Sort chip.
• Now Playing is readable on bright covers, with lyrics, sleep and queue in thumb reach, and stars under the artist.
• Back works inside folders; search opens full screen; the system bars follow the light theme.
• Permissions recover after "Don't allow" (Gleo offers to open Settings), and the folder picker opens at Music.
• The screen stays on while Disc mode or the lock-screen view is open and music plays.

Fixes

• Android 8 to 12: the notification and lock screen show previous / pause / next again.
• Android 13 and newer: .lrc lyrics are read again (add the folder with Add folder in Settings).
• Android: if a headphone button started Gleo in the background, opening it no longer hangs on the start screen.
• Search no longer shows a grey screen on the phone.
• Scrolling over the equalizer on the phone no longer changes it.
• "Gleo's pick" in Change cover is the same as Reset to automatic.

Known limits

• Taskbar buttons were checked by test messages; please hover over Gleo in the taskbar to see them.
• CUE sheets embedded inside a FLAC file are not read yet; a separate .cue file is.
• A seek right after a song starts can be lost (an old bug).
• The Android app is signed with a temporary test key. When Gleo moves to its permanent key, you will uninstall once and reinstall (back up first).

Lumen 0.2.0 beta

Lumen 0.2.0 beta

Everything since 0.1.1, in plain words. Your library from 0.1.x upgrades by itself on the first start; your music files are only ever read.

New

Sound

A new Sound page (the sliders button in the rail, just above Settings).

• Signal path at the top shows what really happens to the music, step by step, for example FLAC 24/96 → EQ → Limiter → 48 kHz → Speakers. A Bit-perfect ✓ badge appears only when Lumen has checked that the device gets exactly the samples in the file. Otherwise it says plainly why not.
• Equalizer: a 10-band Graphic EQ, or an Advanced parametric EQ with up to 10 bands (peak, shelves, low-/high-pass, notch) that you can drag on the curve. Moving a slider changes the sound live, with no gap or click. 17 built-in presets (including Small speakers and Late night), plus your own: save, rename, delete, export and import.
• Headphone correction: paste or open an AutoEQ ParametricEQ.txt, an Equalizer APO file or a GraphicEQ.txt. Nothing is downloaded.
• EQ per output device: your headphones and your speakers each keep their own EQ.
• Crossfeed for headphones (Light / Medium / Strong), so music feels less "inside your head".
• Best quality on this device (on by default): when the device runs at another rate, Lumen converts with soxr at its best setting, works in 32-bit float, adds fine dither for whole-number devices, lowers the level by exactly the EQ's highest boost and keeps peaks under −0.3 dBFS. Cheap devices get clean sound with no crackle.
• Upsampling to 88.2/96, 176.4/192 kHz or the device maximum (in Exclusive mode).
• ReplayGain (Track / Album / Auto) with clipping prevention, and optional gentle levelling for files without ReplayGain tags.
• The output device and Exclusive mode moved here from Settings.

Covers and the spinning disc

• Cover art for albums without a good cover. When an album has no cover, or a small or blurry one, Lumen shows art instead. It comes from three collections, all on by default:
  • Masterpieces: 100 public-domain paintings (van Gogh, Hokusai, Klimt, Turner and more), credited in the picker.
  • Illustrated: 100 storybook illustrations made for Lumen.
  • Painted: three styles that Lumen paints itself (starry night, storybook and garden), so the variety never runs out.
  • Abstract: Lumen's 11 code-drawn styles, off by default, can be turned on in Settings → Disc & covers.
• Change cover: right-click an album (or the big cover in Now Playing) to pick any artwork, or keep the original. Your pick is saved for that album and survives moving your music folder. Music files are never written.
• Each collection is used about equally often, and the drawn art is cached on disk (up to about 300 MB, the least recently used goes first).
• The spinning disc: in Now Playing, a disc slides out from behind the cover, printed with the album art, and turns while music plays. It slows to a stop on pause. CD (default) or vinyl, or off, in Settings.
• Disc mode (press D): only the cover and the spinning disc, for a second screen. F11 fills the screen; Esc leaves.
• Mini player: a small always-on-top window with the cover, the disc and the controls. Open it from ••• in the player bar or from the tray.

Browse, playlists and statistics

• Browse (the compass in the rail): Genres, Years (by decade), Composers (each work with its movements in order; Play work plays them all), Duplicates (copies side by side, with their format; Hide from library hides one without touching the file) and Statistics.
• Statistics: listening time per day, week or month, and your top songs, albums and artists for 7 days, 30 days, 12 months or all time, plus the size of your library.
• Smart playlists that update themselves: rules for genre, year, recently added, play count, never played, favourites, format, sample rate, bit depth and artist. Four are ready-made: Recently added, Most played, Never played and Hi-Res.

Look and feel

• Light theme: Settings → Theme → Dark / Light / Follow Windows. Every text colour passes the AA contrast rule in both.
• Accent from the album art: Now Playing's glow and the active seek bar take a colour from the playing song's cover.
• Tray icon: play/pause, next, previous, the mini player and quit. Close to tray (off by default) keeps the music playing when you close the window.
• Sleep timer (the moon button): 15–60 minutes, end of song or end of queue, with a 10-second fade.
• Queue: Clear, Save as playlist, Undo after a remove, and Stop after this song.
• Multi-select everywhere (click, Ctrl+click, Shift+click, Ctrl+A), right-click menus on every card and row, and Play / Shuffle / Play next / Add to queue on every album, artist, folder and playlist.

Lumen's own audio engine

Lumen now plays through its own build of mpv 0.41 and FFmpeg 8.1, made in public at github.com/capsuleutkarsh-design/lumen-audio-engine. It can only open local files (no network at all), it is smaller than before, and it has every filter the Sound page needs.

Fixed

• Playback: gapless hand-overs never play a different song from the one the queue shows, even when you edit the queue at the last moment; Next pressed during a hand-over moves exactly one song; songs that can't be played are skipped with a message instead of hanging; an unplugged output device falls back to the system default; the format badge shows what the device really gets; media keys Play and Pause do exactly that; skips and plays are counted correctly across restarts.
• Library: a damaged library file is set aside and Lumen starts fresh instead of failing; renamed or moved music keeps its plays, favourites and playlist places; folders that can't be read no longer remove their songs; better tag reading (DSD, APE, odd MP3/AAC/M4A files, Windows-1252 WAV tags); folder art added later is picked up; album artists and multi-disc albums are grouped better; scanning never blocks the app.
• Window and start-up: the window never opens off-screen; if Lumen can't start it says why and offers Start fresh (nothing is deleted); only one Lumen runs at a time; a log file (lumen.log) for bug reports; Snap Layouts on the maximise button.
• Layout: the player bar, album headers and song lists fit small windows and large text; keyboard use (Space, Enter, Tab, arrows) works as expected; scroll position and sort order are remembered.
• Installer: the version comes from one place; uninstall asks before deleting your data (No is the default); the portable zip works everywhere; the VC++ runtime is included, so Lumen starts on a fresh Windows.

Good to know

• Monet's paintings will join the Masterpieces collection in January 2027, when they become public domain.
• The installer is larger (about 40 MB) because the two cover collections are bundled. Nothing is downloaded at any time.