Synthesia 8.4

Archived development update discussion from past versions
Archived development updates.
Locked
Raymond
Posts: 528

Post by Raymond »

DC64 wrote:Could we (in some way) give suggestions for color layouts for Synthesia?
You'll be able to make them: :D
Nicholas wrote: I was going to solicit the community for color themes and include my favorite two or three in the official release.
It shouldn't be too hard to make, by the looks of the files he showed earlier. ;)
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Nicholas wrote:Actually, when the next dev preview goes out with all of this stuff in there, I was going to solicit the community for color themes and include my favorite two or three in the official release. "Classic Dark" is more just an example theme to show you guys how it works.

It's neat: there is just the one XML file and you can reload your changes without exiting Synthesia for faster iteration. Once I just finished theme support about an hour ago, I added and tweaked all the Classic Dark colors in about 15 minutes (which explains why it's still a little rough around the edges ;) ).
you must put a DArk and a bright theme in it because when synthesia is used in the day a bright theme is good and a dark one for the night session and peopple are often divised beetween dark and bright theme like star wars :)

By the way love the new gui but on the main page the top gradient is not necessary :p.

Can't wait for the release and my friend 'll buy it i think because he have an ipad .
DucAnh
Posts: 1

Post by DucAnh »

Hi! I've been using Synthesia many times and it was amazing. But just wondering, can you estimate an ETA about the upcoming iPad version? I'm very looking forward to it.

Thank you!
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I hate giving estimates. I'm always wrong. :lol:

Still, I am becoming more comfortable with the idea of "sometime during 2012". That seems safe enough. (Time will tell. ;) )

I can give a brief progress update at any rate. The first (and one of, if not the biggest) steps toward the iPad version is having Synthesia behave in a way that makes sense on a touch device with no keyboard. That includes redoing basically the entire interface using familiar touch paradigms, making controls large enough that they're comfortable to tap, removing some of the older crufty complexity, finding a better answer to anything that uses the right mouse button, preparing for retina graphics support, etc.

Once that's finished, things are in a much better place to actually start working on a port. Though redoing the entire interface is an absolute mountain of work. The great news is that I've been whittling away at it for months now and a huge portion of it is finished. I daresay we're approaching a development preview in the next few weeks.

During this process I've been very careful to make sure I'm not just shimmying things around and making them a little bigger. Wherever I could, I've added small improvements (e.g., shortcuts are no longer limited to only three bindings and input/output are getting a lot more flexibility). This is also the first time in the project's history (since the first release in 2006!) where all the screens are being updated at once. Things are going to feel more internally consistent now instead of each screen almost feeling like a different app. The technology updates required for the UI revamp are also really exciting: inadvertently and with almost no extra effort I've been able to include resizing support and the early stages of support for localization to other languages. I am guessing window resizing will be coming to 0.8.5 and multiple languages just after that.

Long story short: the first mountain of work is proceeding very smoothly, there are tons of side-benefits for the future, the new UI dev preview is coming up soon, and the iPad version should be ready at least by the holidays. (Ideally it will be months sooner... but I can't promise anything because I'm always wrong. :D )

There might also be at least one other surprise in there too, but I'm not 100% sure so I'm not going to announce it yet. ;)
User avatar
DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

Nicholas wrote: There might also be at least one other surprise in there too, but I'm not 100% sure so I'm not going to announce it yet. ;)
I like suprises, but I don't like extreme anticipation.

I'm still trying to figure out how would pricing work out on the ipad.
There are some extremely expensive apps out there like this.
I think because Synthesia would need the MIDI synth that comes with the ipad, it would cost a little bit more, but by how much?
Also when Synthesia comes out with its own MIDI soundfont then that could change it a little.
Comparing apps, Garageband cost $5, but with all 3 add-ons, that adds only $6. The cost is low, but it's made by Apple so nearly everybody buys it.
Genome (itunes) (site) a MIDI sequencer cost $13 and seems to do the same things as Synthesia.
Making Synthesia $40 on the ipad might be a bit hard to work out with Apple so that wold be intersting to see how this turns out.
"And now for something completely different."
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I'm guessing the Learning Pack on the iPad is going to be in the vicinity of $6. The initial app download will be free.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Here is a fun little thing I was able to sneak in now that most of the menus have quite a bit more room to breathe and adding new interface takes virtually zero effort.

Profile Statistics
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Re on the Profile Statistics; I'm sorry to mention but why actually capitalise every first letter of every word? I know "First Song" stands short for "Indication of the first song played on the account active at the fine moment" but even though why capitalise, it makes it even gramatically worse. Sorry if this like being super precisian but for me it is considered like you have to emphasize every word doing so, still better than all-capsing the words considering markup&design and such. :geek:
User avatar
swalker133
Posts: 246

Post by swalker133 »

cool!
Learning, creating, recording, and performing music on the iPhone and iPad...
http://www.iosmusician.com/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

aria1121 wrote:I'm sorry to mention but why actually capitalise every first letter of every word?
I'm just following Apple's lead. ;)

They apparently consider the things in those types of boxes on the iPad to follow the rules of capitalization you use with titles.
User avatar
swalker133
Posts: 246

Post by swalker133 »

hey nick will there be a show/hide the menu on the iPad version? if there is, how will it be done? will there be a button or will there be a 'Notification Center' like show/hide menu?
Learning, creating, recording, and performing music on the iPhone and iPad...
http://www.iosmusician.com/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

You mean the top menu that is tucked away during play? I've actually spent a lot of time wondering what might be the best solution there. A few ideas:
  • It remains tucked away until there is a single tap someplace on the screen (not on the keyboard). That tap both pauses the song and fully slides out the top menu. A second tap in the note area would resume things and hide the menu again.
  • I try my best to cut down the size of the menu even more somehow and make it always visible again, at least on the iPad version. Then you can just tap on the pause button itself (which is going to get a lot more iTunes'y looking and centered in the menu bar).
User avatar
swalker133
Posts: 246

Post by swalker133 »

maybe a double tap anywhere on the screen? a single tap might cause too much accidental opening, like if someone was touching the screen to show someone what the names of the notes are or something like that... but that's just my opinion!
Learning, creating, recording, and performing music on the iPhone and iPad...
http://www.iosmusician.com/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

A double-tap is trickier for discoverability though. It only takes a couple accidental song-pauses before you're a little more careful about it. But how many first-time users would be completely confounded about how to control the app (that menu bar holds the keys to pretty much everything) before they just quit and never came back (because they didn't think to try a double-tap)?

That reason alone is enough to make me want to keep the top menu shown at all times. Kind of gets rid of the problem altogether.
User avatar
swalker133
Posts: 246

Post by swalker133 »

very true...
Learning, creating, recording, and performing music on the iPhone and iPad...
http://www.iosmusician.com/
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nicholas wrote:[...] That reason alone is enough to make me want to keep the top menu shown at all times. Kind of gets rid of the problem altogether.
Spoken about the menu, does this version have the "sliding" menu-to-menu feature?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Do you mean the effect shown in this video? Yes. The screens now transition where it makes sense. (There is a second type of transition where a little dialog window will slide in from the top while the background smoothly dims, too.)
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nicholas wrote:Do you mean the effect shown in this video? Yes. The screens now transition where it makes sense. (There is a second type of transition where a little dialog window will slide in from the top while the background smoothly dims, too.)
I think I PM'd you a little while ago about like sliding from mainscreen to Track Selections screen - that stuff.
mrthief
Posts: 21

Post by mrthief »

When do you think the next dev version will be out? (wanna use it) :lol:
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I'm hoping it will be inside the next three weeks. Though that estimate is still shooting from the hip a little bit. At any rate, picking a deadline will be good now that I'm in the final stretch because it gives me something to push extra hard for. I can't believe how long this has taken... though, I suppose looking at all the changes, it suddenly makes sense. :lol:
Locked