Narwhal, the first release candidate of the upcoming Amarok 2.0, was announced last evening by the Amarok team, who's trying very hard to eliminate all the remaining bugs until the launch of the final version of Amarok 2.0.

The last development version (Amarok 2.0 Beta 3) was released 21 days ago, on November 4th, and it brought some new useful functions, like that Amarok 1.4 database importer for an easy migration to Amarok 2.

Without further introduction, here are the most important changes since the third beta:

· You can now delete or rename playlist browser items, by using your keyboard;
· The Last.fm service now shows the Users' Recommended radio;
· Last used page will be always remembered by the settings dialog;
· The latest improvements in the iTunes Importer allow you to import your iTunes statistics;
· When editing a filename scheme, the Basic and Advanced view are now synchronised;
· You can now edit the Track Information directly from the file browser;
· In order to define a filename scheme, a delete button was added to the Advanced view;
· The "Show active track" option has been moved to the playlist toolbar. It was previously shown in the playlist context menu;
· The Organize Collection dialog has been redesigned;
· The Last.fm scrobbling function will be enabled by default when you login to Last.fm;
· The Last.fm and video applets have been removed and they will be re-added in later releases of Amarok 2;
· The playlists added manually by the user will be updated on every collection (re)scan.

It appears that more and more users are asking for the features they miss most in Amarok 2.0. Answering to questions like "Is there a list of 1.4 features that are still missing in Amarok 2?", Mark Kretschmann, one of Amarok's developers, posted on his blog a list with the features that will be part of the final release:

· Visualizations
· Equalizer
· USB mass storage devices support
· Crossfading
· Stop after this track
· Queue feature
· Dynamic Collection
· Cue file support
· Collection statistics
· Playlist sorting
· Showing new tracks in collection
· Labels
· ReplayGain

Moreover, here's a list with the features that will not be part of Amarok 2.0:

· Old style playlist, "Excel Look"
· Support for Amarok 1.x scripts
· Multiple databases (PostGreSQL and SQLite)
· Player Window (it may be implemented as a Plasmoid)
· MusicBrainz (it will be replaced with something better)

"Has your favourite Amarok 1.4 feature not been added to 2.0 yet, or perhaps something you read about on someone's blog has not yet shown up? Not to worry - we've got a large number of things on our plate waiting to go once 2.0 is out the door. So expect to see lots of new, great things being added in short order, plus the return of some old favourites." - said the Amarok team in the press release.

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