Imploded Software

Helium is highly configurable, and you can easily access the most commonly used settings via Tools > Options.

Note: This page has been revised for Helium 17.3.

Select a specific options page from the list on the left. You can search for terms, such as "theme" using the search bar at the top. When you search for a term, pages that do not match will be hidden.

General

General tab
Language 

• Language allows you to change language in Helium

General

• Use global hotkeys will enable media keys for playback
• Enable automatic update checks will perform an update check upon each startup, if selected
  
• Auto-size columns will auto-resize columns in track lists when contents are read

• Use sort order will use the sort order fields for all sort operations if enabled. Applies to albums, artists, titles and albumartists
• Show sort order values is only available if Use sort order is selected. If selected, Helium will display the sort order fields, otherwise it will display the non-sort fields. For example, if Show sort order fields is NOT selected, 'The Beatles' will now display as 'The Beatles' but sort under the letter 'B' as oppose to being displayed as 'Beatles, The' if selected.
• Words used for auto sort order defines a list of words that are used when automatically setting sort order using the tag editors. For example if "the" is included in this list and an artist starts with the, Helium will automatically set the sort order to "Artistname, the" if auto-set sort order is enabled in the Tag editor.

• Party mode will toggle if party mode is active or not. If active, a password set in the field below, will need to be entered to allow invocation of tools and access to the differnt views and the Play queue.
  
  

Advanced tab

Volume gain

• Custom gain application will allow you to select a specific application for calculating volume gain. Control the input parameters using the track and album parameters fields.

• Default script will allow you to define which script that should be executed when the Execute default script hotkey is invoked

• Export playlists with relative paths will export playlists with realtive paths (M3U, M3U8 and PLS). If not selected absolute paths will be used.
• Include extended information when exporting playlists will add tag-meta data in exported playlists, if check marked.   
• Render artist and album detail page statistics (can make rendering slower) will render extra information for these page types when selected. Please note that this might have a performance impact, especially with Sql Compact databases.
• Calculate User Columns will recalculate the user-defined columns during each refresh. This may negatively impact performance when updating track lists, so it is recommended to disable this option if you do not need it.
• Calculate in playlists will recalculate the in playlist column during each refresh. This may negatively impact performance when updating track lists but it is required to get the column populated properly.
• Auto-split multiple album artists on add/update operations will automatically extract multiple album artists when adding/updating tracks if enabled.
• Always open album folder when changing pictures will use the albums folder as the inital path when changing album picture instead of the current pictures path.
• Disable anonymous telemetry will disable sending of anonymous crash logs  if a crash occurs.
• Use old download tool will use the old plug-in based download tool in the CD ripper and the Tag editor if selected.
  Note: This feature will become obsolete in Helium 17.4.

Extended logging 

• Use extended logging enables the logging of additional data when activated. It is recommended to use this option only when working on a support issue. You can control the level of detail for extended logging using the checkboxes below.

BPM range

• BPM Range This setting will control the default range to be used when calculating BPM with Helium.

Shortcuts

Toolbar

You can define the actions for the toolbar commands Run Default Action 1–3 below the list of selected commands, as well as specify the default script to execute.

Capitalizer

• None: "this is a text"
• Sentence: "This is a test"
• Word: "This Is A Test"
• Uppercase: "THIS IS A TEST"
• Lowercase "this is a test"
• User defined: The character following by the specified user characters will be converted to uppercase

Custom capitalization

Enter words in this list that should always maintain specific capitalization, regardless of the rules set for a field.

Word replacement

Multiple artists

Commands tab

Exclusions tab

Custom fields, columns & release types

Custom fields tab

Custom Fields allow you to control how custom fields on tags are read and mapped to a specific field.

Change the display name to specify how the name of a custom field should appear in Helium's tools and views.

You can map a custom field to a specific tag field/frame by entering the name of the field in the Map-to-frame text box.

When a field is mapped, the contents from that field will be mapped to the custom field when reading tags.
This can be useful to enhance compatibility with tag fields not natively supported by Helium.

Columns tab

Custom Columns allow you to create up to five columns with fully dynamic content. The templates used for these fields will apply the rules from Tag to Filename to render the content.

Release types tab

Release types allows you to configure the names of the five custom release types.

Release type tag-frame mappings tab

Release Type Tag-Frame Mappings allow you to control whether and how the value of a specific tag frame should be converted to a release type during reading.

Example:

A file contains a TXXX tag-frame named "releasetype" (key) with the content "Maxi / Single."

To remap all TXXX frames matching the key and value "Maxi / Single" to Helium's release type "Maxi," enter "Maxi / Single" (without the quotes) in the Value field for the "Maxi" release type.

Releases ordering

This page allows you to control the order in which releases will appear under artist and label details.

Contents

Allows editing of content stored and used in drop-down controls in tag editors and other tools.

Select the specific content type to edit from the drop-down control at the top.

Variables

Variables allow you to define custom variables that can be used within tagging and renaming operations. For example, if you create a variable named %hello% with the value "hello world" and write it in the subtitle field in the Tag Editor, the variable will be replaced with the value "hello world."

Variables can also be used in download scripts, commonly for setting up API keys and tokens, but not limited to that.

Visual

General tab

Theme 

• Theme allows you to switch between a dark and a light theme.

Font-size

• Font-size allows you to scale up/down the default font-size in Helium

Desktop alerts

• Desktop alerts configures the handling of desktop alerts

General

• Show advanced filters will show the advanced filters for views that supports them. it is possible to toggle this setting on/off from the Views menu.
• Disable window overlay will disable the dimming overlay for the main window when another window is opened if selected.
• Hide tooltips will disable tooltips for controls if selected.
• Auto-hide graphic position bar will hide the graphic position bar if a track is not playing
• Scroll window title will scroll the played tracks title in the window title if selected and the title is too long to be displayed
• Dock now playing tabs in Play queue will dock the Play queue in the Right sidebar when active
• Expand all albums in album details mode will expand (show all tracks) for all albums when working in album details mode.
• When enabled, Use Colored Icons replaces some of the current theme's icons with a set of colored icons in the Music Explorer and other views.

Thumbnails

• When Do Not Crop and Scale Thumbnails is selected, album, artist, and label thumbnails will always be rendered using their original aspect ratio.
• Hide overlay control on thumbnails will hide the overlay control on thumbnails if selected.
• Hide overlay on thumbnails will hide the overlay on card view thumbnails if selected.

Player tab

Player information

• Player information allows the user to control which information the bottom player will shown. The format is using the Tag to filename engine.
• Show drop playlist will show the drop-zone in the player where you can drag and drop tracks to for quickly adding them to the selected playlist
• Show quick moods will show the mood select button which allows you to quickly change mood for the played song.

User Interface tab

Player

• Hide smart play will hide the smartplay button in the player if selected.
  
• Hide visualizations will hide the visualizations button if selected.
• Hide Auto-enqueue will hide the auto-enqueue button if selected.
• Hide crossfade will hide the crossfade button if selected.
• Hide repeat Play queue will hide the repeat play queue button if selected.
• Hide shuffle will hide the shuffle button if selected.
• Hide Play queue will hide the Play queue button if selected.
• Show pitch in player will show the pitch control in the player if selected.

Navigation buttons

• Navigation buttons controls which buttons that are shown on the left navigation bar. It's also possible to select if it should use large or small icons.

General

• Hide suggested tracks from Now Playing will hide suggested tracks on the Now Playing page if selected.
• Hide albums in Now Playing will hide albums from the Now Playing page is selected.
• Show letter navigation bar will show the letter bar for views supporting it which allws the user to quickly jump to the first occurance of an items starting letter
• Show top image on detail pages will create a dimmed and blurred section of the artist/album picture to use in the summary header

Advanced tab

Thumbnails

• Thumbnail size allows you to control the thumbnail size for all thumbnail driven views in Helium
• Thumbnail aspect ratio allow per-view configuration of thumbnail aspect ratios

Album & artist background

• Album background allows you to control the default settings for the album details pages
• Artist background allows you to control the default settings for the artist detail pages

Spectrogram quality

• Spectrogram quality allows you to control the render precision of the Spectrogram
• Hide time markers in waveform/spectrogram will hide the time indicators in the waveform/spectrogram if selected.

System

• Use mono-space fonts for template controls will force a mono-spaced font to be used in template based controls for better readability.
• If Deferred Scrolling in Album View is enabled, the page will only render once the scrolling is complete. This can improve performance during updates.
• If Disable rounded image corners is selected, thumbnails will be rendered without rounded corners.

Views

Releases tab

Sorting

• Sorting controls how releases are sorted in the releases view.

General

• Show tracklist in thumbnails/card mode will display a tracklist below the releases view which will be updated with the tracks from selected release, if the setting is active.
• Show track list in split mode will show a track list showing the tracks for the selected album instead of displaying the full album details. This applies to split mode only.
• Do not group multi-cd albums will avoid to use grouping on CD for albums with more than one CD.

Tracklists under Release view

• Tracklists under Release View allow you to control the sorting of tracklists when they are displayed within the releases view, such as in split mode.

Artists tab

Sorting

• Sorting controls how artists are sorted in the artist view.

General

• Show track list will display a tracklist below the artist view which will be updated with the tracks from selected artist, if the setting is active.
• Show track list in split mode will show a track list showing the tracks for the selected artist  instead of displaying the full artist details. This applies to split mode only.

Releases within Artist Details

• Releases within Artist Details allow you to control how releases are sorted when the artist details view is active.

Tracks tab

Sorting

• Sorting controls how tracks are sorted in the tracks views.

General

• Hide texts for columns with icons will hide the descriptive text for columns that display an icon such as file type, quality and more.
• Show column filters will present an advanced filter editor for the columns is selected.
• Limit genre to single line will present genre as a single line only (visually) if selected. If unselected genres will wrap if needed.
• Disable hyperlinks will disable hyperlinks in the track list if selected.

Labels tab

Sorting

• Sorting controls how labels are sorted in the labels views.

General

• Show track list will display a tracklist below the labels view which will be updated with the tracks from selected label, if the setting is active.

Other tab

My Computer

• Scan subfolders will scan folders recursively if selected. If not selected only files from the selected folder will be read, not from its child folders.
• Save changes automatically will save changes made with the Quick editor directly when the selected file changes if this setting is active. If not, you will have to click the Apply button to save changes.

Genres

• Hide styles will hide the genre styles grouping if selected.
• Collapse styles will collapse all genre styles by default if selected.

Playlists

• Manually save playlists will not save changes made to a playlist automatically if selected. Instead the user needs to save the changes manually

Play Queue

• Center the active track in the Play queue will keep the active track in the Play queue in the middle, if selected (usable for long Play queues)
• Clear Play Queue when playing items will automatically clear the Play Queue when a track is played if selected.
• When Clear Play queue on double-click track is selected, the Play queue will be cleared when you double-click a track before new entries are added.
• Add all tracks on double-click will add all tracks from the current view when double clicking a track if selected.

Advanced tab

Releases and Artist Tooltip Format allow you to control which content is presented in tooltips.

The tooltips are rendered using the Tag to Filename format. Some special fields are available for these views:

• {{country}} - the country the artist/group is from
• {{borned}} - the borned name of the artist
• {{formed}} - the date the group/artist was formed
• {{disbanded}} - the date the groupe/artist was disbanded
• {{artisturl}} - the Url to the artist/group webpage
• {{albumcollections}} - the album collections the specific album is contained in

• Show Parent Track for Subtracks will display the parent track for a subtrack when selected.
• Calculate Extra Data in Tooltips will calculate additional data for the tooltip, such as BPS, bitrate, and sample rate, during runtime. Please note that this may impact performance.
• Include artists without album artists set in artist details will include artists wuch as similar artists with no assigned tracks in artist details. Please note that this may impact performance.

Pictures

• Album picture path will allow you to specify a path to where album pictures should be copied to
• Copy album pictures to the above folder will if selected always copy album pictures to the above folder when modified.
• Copy album picture to album folder will copy an album picture when modified to the specific albums path
• If Overwrite existing pictures is checked, Helium will overwrite existing pictures without asking.
• If Force copy pictures to the specified folder during add is selected, pictures found during add will be copied to the folder defined above using the naming convention defined below during adding.
• Album picture name format defines the filename format pictures that you download or add manually. You can use codes to use data from the actual album (album name and albumartist). If you for example always prefer your album pictures to be named then simply enter folder as a format. The format is using the Tag to filename engine.

• Artist picture path will allow you to specify a path to where artist pictures should be copied to
• If Overwrite existing pictures is checked, Helium will overwrite existing pictures without asking.

• Label picture path will allow you to specify a path to where label pictures should be copied to
• If Overwrite existing pictures is checked, Helium will overwrite existing pictures without asking.

Music Explorer

Items tab

• This page allows you to control the visibility and order of the nodes in the Music Explorer view.

  Most nodes can be customized to select the fields you want them to include. Click the Customize... button to modify the selected node.
  
  

User defined tab

• This page allows you to rename the User defined nodes in the Music Explorer view.

Tools (general)

Active tag editor

• Active tag editor allows you to select the default tag editor which should be started when the edit tags command is executed via hotkeys or from context-menus

Edit multiple artists

This controls how downloaded information in the Edit multiple artists tool should behave:

• Overwrite pictures - When set, downloaded pictures will always overwrite any existing pictures.
• Skip matches that requires visual selection - When set, the tool will skip downloaded results with more than one matches that requires manual selection.
• Take first match by name - If set, and the downloaded result contains one exact match by name, Helium will auto select this match.

Cd-ripper

• Always invoke custom download window in CD-Ripper will show the custom download window in the CD-Ripper instead of trying to auto download data. This can be useful if you have a barcorde or catalog number for the CD that's being ripped to always force an exact result using the Discogs plug-in.

• Save album artist with full external compatibility will force album artist to be saved in the TPE2 tag frame (Band/Orchestra) instead of TXXX tag frames. This is because other applications like MP3Tag and iTunes for example only accepts reading of album artist from the TPE2 tag frame, thus Band/Orchestra will be disabled in Tag editors and the values entered in Album artist will be saved to this tag frame.
• Save ID3 v2.x tags as version 2.3, if check marked, ID3v2 tags will be saved as version 2.3 ,otherwise 2.4 will be used. When active, certain tag frames such as release year and recording year will not be available. We do not recommend that this setting is active unless you have an external dependency which requires strict v2.3 tags.
• Save ID3v2 contents in UTF8 will save the ID3v2 tag contents in UTF8. If not selected Unicode will be used.
• Save play counter to tags (MP3 files only) will save the play counter when updated during playback to tags if selected. This applies to MP3 files only.
• Save recording year in legacy mode will save year as TYER instead of TDRC.
• Save ID3v1.x tags will automatically generate an ID3v1 tag when tags are saved.
• Pad Track and Disc with leading zero will add a leading 0 to Track and Disc tags if the value is less than 10.
• Read album artist from TPE2 (MP3Tag support) will read album artist from the TPE2 tag instead of TXXX which is the standard field. MP3Tag does not follow the ID3 standard and saves album artist to TPE2.

General

• Use paranthesis for multiple artists will display multiple artists within a parenthesis block if enabled. Please note that this also affects tagging.
• Use year compatibility fallbacks will fallback to release year if release year fields are not read. This setting can be set if year is not read properly from your files (e.g. tagged using older tagging formats)
• Save BPM without decimals for compatibility will only save whole numbers to the BPM fields when enabled
• Disable rich-text formatting in lyrics and biography editors will disallow rich-text formatting for lyrics and biography editors when enabled.

Vorbis tags

• Vorbis tags will allow you to control which tag name that's mapped to a certain field for vorbis tags.

Database

External applications

Plugins and downloading