8.4 Preview r2238 - Desktop RC1

Post by **Nicholas** » 12-06-12 6:01 am

PREVIEW r2238 - Release Candidate 1
Download from the pink box above.

Changes in r2238 since r2193:

Added zoom in/out buttons to smoothly scale the keyboard (in lieu of not being able to pinch).
Added a clear-loop button to the Loop Editing interface.
Off-screen note markers show for all notes in Watch-only, but only user notes otherwise.
Song library play/pause button should now always show the correct icon.
Song library will no longer auto-start previews just as you enter the screen.
The "Add More Songs" button in the song library now provides a helpful description.
Popup dialog windows should now stop any currently playing/sustained notes so they don't hang forever.
Reverted the swapped input/output Music Devices list change made in a previous dev preview.
Fixed a crash when using the --simple-track and --simple-mode command-line settings.

Here is a near-final version for you desktop users.

The iPad app should be getting reviewed in the next day or two. I hope to launch the desktop and iPad version of 8.4 simultaneously as soon as that happens. (If the app is rejected, that would add some time.)

In any event, let me know if you see anything in here that shouldn't go live. Thanks!

ajos · Post by **ajos** » 12-07-12 5:50 am

Hey Nicholas,

I would like to thank you for your amazing work, Synthesia really helped me in learning to play piano and is definitely worth every penny!

I noticed a small issue and i am not sure if it is just me or everyone else.
If i have the setting Gameplay.PinMenuDrawerOpen off and sheet music on, the sheet music border seems to be below where it should be by the thickness of the menu.
It would be really great if this could be fixed but its not a big deal. Thanks again!

Anthony

Post by **Nicholas** » 12-07-12 6:25 am

Thanks for that report Anthony. I pushed this release candidate out a little later than I wanted and then Synthesia for iPad was approved by Apple sooner than I expected. So at this point I'm already a few hours into my "build, package, and deploy an official release" checklist.

Having that bar glitch a little isn't great, but rather than go back and start over, I think I'll fix that in the first dev preview for Synthesia 9. I have a little bit of platform work I want to do for 9 and I have a tendency to do that sort of thing up-front, so the first preview should be really soon. Hopefully you won't have to live with that bug for too long.

Hopefully this first time around is the only one I'll have to try to synchronize things up this way. I also don't normally have calendar pressure which also made certain steps of this process shorter than they should have been. Ideally I'd like to have an RC sit around for a week or so before moving forward. Only having it here one day is kind of silly.

Still, thanks for the report! It'll be fixed in the next preview that goes out.

Dannc · Post by **Dannc** » 12-07-12 7:20 am

Hi Very nice job more i use it more i find it nice the only thing i need is to be able to reduce the size of the screen of synthesia this foction is a really need for me because i learn on video a the same time so i want to have the screnn of synthesia and the video close together. I hope this fonction will appear in the next version
Many thanks

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 7:38 am

It would be great if SynthesiaConfig.exe would also have
1. additional info on each parameter, so we know for what this parameter is good for
2. maybe an additional setting for timeline-height, at the top of the screen, I would decrease it probably to a smaller value, why wasting so much space for it, I know it can be useful for touch devices, but what if I do not use any touch device, do we have to be ruled by touch device requirements?

No, only by Nicholas decisions, which is so far great, usually, very often, but not always, as in this small example.

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 7:59 am

Now, even the loopMidi port does not work in loop mode, time to revert back to 1732 which is the only reliable working version here, with all midi ports, Midi-Yoke included, I wanted to switch over to loopMidi as this was at least working, now also loopMidi port does not work as input in melody practice mode, best I continue with 1732, and try a later version again.

revilo2 · Post by **revilo2** » 12-07-12 8:47 am

TonE, do you use loopmidi with pianoteq with mulab free ? (as as i do, see this post) :

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3946#p24854

I don't have exactly your problems but i have others in melody practise :

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5160

(I use 8.3 version)

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 9:03 am

revilo2 wrote:TonE, do you use loopmidi with pianoteq with mulab free ?

No, I am not using pianoteq, also I am using loopmidi as input, not as output. My problem above is regarding midi input. Those notes are somehow totally ignored. There seems to be some kind of bug.

revilo2 · Post by **revilo2** » 12-07-12 9:21 am

OK, thanks. (maybe you should use your keyboard as a direct input

)

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 9:26 am

No, every midi input port should work, theoretically.

Post by **Nicholas** » 12-07-12 9:44 am

Dannc wrote:the only thing i need is to be able to reduce the size of the screen of synthesia ... I hope this fonction will appear in the next version

You can have it right now!

Open the "Synthesia Configuration" utility and adjust the video settings there.

As for real-time window resizing, 8.4 brought us 90% of the way there and I'm hoping Synthesia 9 will finish that task.

TonE wrote:maybe an additional setting for timeline-height...

It is pretty egregious on the desktop now, huh? I'll see what I can do.

TonE wrote:Now, even the loopMidi port does not work in loop mode...

I still haven't been able to replicate this. Have you tried any of this with no command line options at all? I still want to blame it on a bug/misunderstanding there more than on MIDI input.

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 9:53 am

Yes, even without command line starting midi input port loopmidi does not work in melody practice.

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 10:42 am

Only if I activate a second midi input port/device, in my example Synthesia Software Keyboard, melody practice works normally, meaning it waits for note input. It also recognizes incoming notes from loopmidi port, however limited to the note range of "Synthesia Software Keyboard", so loopmidi input port range settings are not used at all. Maybe it is just some kind of "note range bug"?

If I try then loop mode I get strange timing values as below:

: synthesia-midi-input-loopmidi-melody-practice-does-not-work.jpg (98.14 KiB) Viewed 21567 times

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-07-12 10:52 am

Does Synthesia Software Keyboard Input allow reassignment of keys? I would like to exchange y <--> z, as I am using here a German layout.

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » 12-07-12 6:40 pm

the new build doesn't laucnch it's in the task manager then it shutdown i have tried windows mode too.
I have modded previous build but this one works perfectly any ideas?

Typhlosion · Post by **Typhlosion** » 12-08-12 9:59 am

TonE wrote:Does Synthesia Software Keyboard Input allow reassignment of keys? I would like to exchange y <--> z, as I am using here a German layout.

If I remember correctly, there is a setting for that in the configuration tool.
System.SoftwareKeyboardMapping

TonE · Post by **TonE** » 12-08-12 10:22 am

Hey, thanks, I changed it to: awsedftgzhujkolpöä
Also set: shortcuts.shift input octave down = y

Korados · Post by **Korados** » 12-11-12 9:01 am

Hello Nicholas,

I just experienced another problem: I have my MIDI files in one folder with many sub-folders for each composer.
In the Song selection screen you could click on the path to this folder and see all sub-folders and the MIDIs in them
so you don't see all MIDIs but only these in the specific folder.
Now it doesn't show up and my MIDIs are all listed at once alphabetically and I can't sort them like I want to.

Thank you for your help!

Regards, Marc

Post by **Nicholas** » 12-12-12 5:28 pm

TonE wrote:If I try then loop mode I get strange timing values...

How bizarre. That is only when you have both devices active? Only with command-line loops? All the time? I just tried and couldn't reproduce that either.

kiwi wrote:the new build doesn't laucnch it's in the task manager then it shutdown i have tried windows mode too.

If you move your ui.xml and/or colors.xml out of the data directory, does it start then?

Korados wrote:Now it doesn't show up and my MIDIs are all listed at once alphabetically and I can't sort them like I want to.

The "All Songs (grouped by folder)" option isn't showing up for you at the top level of the song library? (That option doesn't appear in the iPad version, but it should definitely be there on the desktop.)

pianokeyz · Post by **pianokeyz** » 12-13-12 12:44 am

Im not sure, if theres another way to select this, but with the Zoom feature I notice a selection for 18 Keys, 25 Keys, All 88 Keys, My Notes, and Song Only.....Aside from the (+) and (-) to zoom in & out...It would be great if there was choice for 61 Keys & 76 keys to visually represent the keyboard - since 61 & 76 keys are pretty common....its helpful to have an exact visual footprint of the actual size of the board being used.

Hope my suggestion is appreciated. Thanks for all your hardwork!