Parlour 0.7.5 (46)
The needle lands when you see it land.
- When you press play with the needle up, the arm now swings over and lowers onto the record before you hear the needle land.
- After a pause that lifted the needle, pressing play lowers the arm first, then the needle lands.
Parlour 0.7.4 (44)
Long names in full.
- Long song titles, artists and album names now show in full, instead of stopping at 60 characters.
- An album with a long name now stays one record from track to track.
- A video with a long title keeps its artwork on the label from track to track.
Parlour 0.7.3 (43)
Apple Music, from its own play button and after a move through the song; a word when the music is elsewhere; and downloads from GitHub.
- Pressing play in Apple Music with the needle up no longer repeats a fraction of a second after the needle lands.
- After moving through a song on Apple Music, the next cue lands exactly where the sound stopped.
- When Spotify or Apple Music is playing on another device, Parlour says so instead of playing the record alone.
- Downloads and updates now come from GitHub's servers.
- The Sparkle update framework's licence now ships inside the app.
Parlour 0.7.2 (42)
Apple Music, from its own play button and after a move through the song; and a word when the music is elsewhere.
- Pressing play in Apple Music with the needle up no longer repeats a fraction of a second after the needle lands.
- After moving through a song on Apple Music, the next cue lands exactly where the sound stopped.
- When Spotify or Apple Music is playing on another device, Parlour says so instead of playing the record alone.
Parlour 0.7.1 (37)
Apple Music, exactly where it stopped.
- Apple Music picks up exactly where the needle left the song after a cue, a scrub, or a pause from either side. A short skip present since 0.3.5 is gone. Pausing and playing inside Apple Music itself still skips a fraction of a second, as Music does on its own.
- Safari, after a jump. When a song starts over or you move through a video in Safari, the needle now meets the music closer to its first note.
Parlour 0.7.0 (33)
Browsers and other players on the record.
- Now Playing. A third source beside Spotify and Apple Music: whatever app your Mac shows in the menu bar's Now Playing. YouTube, YouTube Music, SoundCloud or Bandcamp in Chrome, Safari or Firefox, and players such as VLC, go on the record the same way: the needle drops when the music starts, lifts when you pause, and moves when the track changes. The source shows the app's name, and follows the app that plays next.
- Pauses that join up. When the needle goes back down after a pause, Chrome and Safari carry on from exactly where the music stopped, without skipping a moment of the song.
- Moving through a video. Moving through a video on YouTube moves the needle: drag along the bar and the arm lifts, swings to the new spot and lowers there, as your Scrub setting says.
- Starting with Spotify paused. Pick Now Playing and press Start even while a paused Spotify or Apple Music still shows in Now Playing: the window says "Waiting for a player", and the needle goes down on the first browser or player you start. Only a Spotify or Apple Music that is actually playing asks you to pick it as the source instead.
- Pausing a video is a pause. Pausing a video and playing it again lifts the needle and lowers it where the video stopped; only moving through the video swings the arm.
- The end of a song in VLC. VLC's own short stop and start at the end of each song is read as the next song, not as your pause.
- If the needle stays up. Some pages only tell your Mac they are playing once you press play in them: if the needle stays up while a video plays, press play in the page once.
- When a site keeps playing. If a site keeps playing through a pause (some ads do), the needle goes back down and follows it instead of waiting.
- Two players at once. If another app starts playing while Parlour follows one, the window says so (for example, "Chrome is also playing"). Only the app Parlour follows goes on the record. A browser's tabs share one sound, so pause any other tab that is playing.
- A better label for Apple Music. Albums that used to get a plain label now take their colours from the artwork the Music app shows.
- What it depends on. Now Playing relies on a part of macOS that Apple does not document. A future macOS update could switch it off; Parlour would then say so, and Spotify and Apple Music would still work.
- Updates. This version looks for its updates at parlourhifi.com, the new home of Parlour. Earlier versions keep updating as before.
Parlour 0.6.4 (23)
The small sounds of a needle, each measured against real records.
- The skate. Between the needle touching down and catching the groove, the stylus slides on the lead-in for a moment, and the surface noise swells in the mids. Every drop now has it (a play from the needle up, a cue, a skip and the side break), set for each condition, so a mint record and a worn one swish as much as each other over their own surface noise.
- The groove catches every time. Each drop ends with the stylus seating in the groove, usually a quarter of a second after it lands, now and then later.
- Thumps where a real deck puts them. The lift, the landing, the cue lever and the arm's rest are mostly up-and-down motion, which a stereo cartridge hears as opposite on its two channels, but never only that. On headphones they now sit outside the middle of your head, as on a real deck; on a single mono speaker they are quieter, not gone, each keeping a little of itself in both channels, a different amount each time, as real ones do.
- A truer lift. The thump as the needle leaves the record now has the shape of real lifts.
- Once a turn. On a played or worn record the hiss swells gently once per revolution of the platter.
- The side break has the cue lever's thump on about half the flips, as different decks do.
- A light scrub lands like a drop. With Scrub set to Light, moving through a song sets the needle down with the whole landing (the thump, the swish, the groove catching) over the music, which keeps playing.
- A cleaner skip. When the next track arrives early, its first note now comes at the moment it should, not a few hundredths of a second late.
Parlour 0.6.2 (21)
- Parlour in the menu bar. Start and stop, lift and drop the needle, and switch the source or the record's condition from the menu bar, without opening the player. The menu shows what is playing, with a swatch of the label's colours.
- Your choice of Dock, menu bar or both. Settings > Show Parlour in. With the Dock icon hidden, the player and Settings still open from the menu bar.
- Open at login, quietly in the menu bar, if you turn it on in Settings.
- A key for the cue lever. Pick a keyboard shortcut in Settings to lift and drop the needle from any app.
- Accessibility. VoiceOver reads every control by name and value; the whole deck works from the keyboard (Tab, Space, Return, the arrow keys, Escape) with focus rings that are easy to see; the player follows Reduce Motion, Increase Contrast and Differentiate Without Colour; all its text meets WCAG AA contrast.
- Player size. Standard, Large (150%) or Larger (200%), in Settings.
- Faster starts. Start no longer measures the record first, so the music comes through Parlour about half a second sooner, and a new album's record is ready the moment it plays.
- One needle drop. When you start a track in Spotify, the needle no longer drops, lifts and drops again.
- Send Feedback… in the About window, the app menu and the menu bar menu opens a mail to the developer with your version filled in.
Parlour 0.5.1 (18)
- Every album is its own record. Each album gets its own pressing: the same crackles and scratches in the same places whenever you come back to it, and a different record for a different album.
- Labels in the album's colours. The label in the middle of the record takes its colours from the album cover. Prefer the plain cream label? Choose Label: Plain in Settings.
- The side break (optional). After about twenty minutes of an album played in order, the arm lifts, the record is turned over and the needle drops on side two.
- Start by pressing play (optional). With Parlour open, it can start itself when your music app starts playing: Settings, Start automatically.
- Apple Music fixes. Music plays through Parlour again, and if Music's own player gets stuck Parlour says so and offers to reopen it.
- The first song after Start now plays on the album's own record, and pausing lifts the needle by default (Pause feel: Lift).