Finally out the door: Dharma Beta1
Today we announce the first beta in what we hope is a very short pre-release cycle. Dharma has been in development for over 9 months now, and we’re quite happy with the result.
The improvements are too many to name, but head over to the milestone page to get an idea. By far the biggest new feature is the Add-ons system. Our community is full of talented script-writers, skinners, and designers; we wanted XBMC to display their full potential. The result is a powerful and flexible system that allows for complete customization of the XBMC experience. Gone are the days of digging for the latest version of buggy plugins, or incomplete skins in our forums. Most of our users probably never even made it that far.
Currently available video sources.
We have refactored everything that doesn’t belong inside the core of XBMC to be an addon. So in the future, your scrapers, visualizations, skins, etc. will update automatically (unless disabled). Since opening the xbmc.org repository a few weeks ago, submissions have been pouring in. We expect to have a very nice collection by the time we reach our final release.
But don’t let the add-ons take away from the loads of other features (hardware acceleration, anyone?) that have gone into XBMC in the last 9 months. We’ll be sure to hi-lite some of the other big features in the coming days/weeks.
Install new skins from inside of XBMC
For those brave users, please give beta1 a shot. Builds are ready for all OSs, visit the download page to grab them. If you stumble upon any nasty bugs, be sure to send us a QUALITY bug report. Beware of (at minimum) the following:
- As always, treat this as beta-quality software. Be sure to back up your profile in case you decide to roll back.
- The clunky old web interface has been removed. We’re working hard to have a new one ready for final release.
- svn-ppa users may have to remove old xbmc packages before installing Dharma.
- You may have to reset your screensaver and visualization settings after upgrade. These are now addons.
- Pre-Dharma scripts/plugins/skins will NOT work with Dharma, but most have been updated accordingly.
Enjoy. And to the add-on creators: keep the submissions coming!
I swear I spend more time playing with all the features of XBMC, configuring it, reading forums on more things I can do with it, and making it look pretty than I do actually using/watching the content I put in it!!!!!
I love this program so much – you guys have done an amazing job.
Dharma is working out great for me so far – not one issue yet.
Thanks for all your hard work.
I forgot to mention that I only started using XBMC two weeks ago. So this has been the highlight of my evening when I get home from work. :)
@MrIcka
When in the video library back all the way up to the root node. You’ll see ‘Movies’, ‘TV’, etc. At the bottom is Playlists. Click on that node and you will be able to create a new smart playlist or bring up the context menu to edit an existing one. This will show the Smart Playlist Editor you’ll need to make the playlist.
Thank you soooooooo much for the analog audio mixing (CPCMRemap I assume). Now I can fully use my analog USB audio 6-ch sound card! I finally dont have to use VLC for that (Mac OS X platform), instead I can do everything in-house of XBMC now. Once again great job, I have been patiently waiting for this. Thx.
@Laura LOL YES! This is exactly my situation.
Thanks!
Can i use xbmc scrapers with xbmc dharma?
“Builds are ready for all OSs, visit the download page to grab them”
I guess you don’t consider Linux so important anymore that there is non Beta version available for it!
What’s happening guys?
@Alain-Olivier
Sorry for not making it more clear in the post. Linux pre-release builds are available in the SVN PPA: https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc-svn/+archive/ppa
And btw, most devs develop in Linux. So it is certainly important to us.
Perfect program. i feel fault only of two things: one search bar for music and the possiblity of jump film by one timeline…or don’t have or i don’t see –’
sorry by my english –’…i’m brazilian =D…hugs
Thank you XBMC developers for all that you do in making XBMC THE most amazing multimedia program EVER!!! As has already been said by others, I too spend as much or more time simply playing with and configuring it as I do watching the content it so wonderfully showcases.
When I first built my HTPC around the XP Media Center Edition OS I thought I had something “going on”, but when a google search turned up XBMC as a FREE (still shocked that it is for all that it does!) alternative, well…bye Media Center! It simply doesn’t hold a candle to XBMC, in functionality or especially aesthetics.
I’m currently using – and loving – the Dharma Beta release while I wait it for it to become final. Keep up the excellent work! Love the new ‘night’ skin as well!
Any ETA on an official release? I want to start using XBMC as a front-end to my unraid server but don’t want to mess around with the beta.