kguitar-announce Mailing List for KGuitar

Dear subscribers,

I'm pleased to announce KGuitar release 0.5.1 - a major bug-fix release. 
You're welcome to download it at:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5.1.tar.bz2?download 
<http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5.tar.bz2?download>

    * A mostly major bug-fix release since the last time.
    
    * Compatiblity fixes: added support for autoconf 2.61, automake
    1.10, gcc 4.2. Removed last bits of qt2->qt3 transition
    deprecations. Internal structures refactoring.

    * Added zoom level (Ctrl Minus, Ctrl Plus), introducing multiple
    bars per row, automatically tuning to available window width;

    * Finally introduced new exception-based framework for converters
    load/save. Makes converters much more bullet-proof and easier to
    write and debug.

    * Guitar Pro import undergone major rewrite. Now it properly loads
    all gp4 files I have. Guitar Pro v3 and v5 formats are coming
    next. Anyway, Guitar Pro loader is now much more helpful about
    what errors it gets and less crash-prone. It detects and helps
    debug problems it encounters.

    * Lots of displaying, mouse and keyboard control, printing fixes
    and prettifying. Track pane now has a header and it's synchronized
    with track list. Melody editor now has trapezoid and shark fin
    inlays.

    * New QMap-based API for song metainformation - stores not a fixed
    number of fields, but key=value pairs.

    * Misc things: project transitioned to Subversion.

Comments are welcome, as always. Don't forget to drop by our new page at 
Ohloh:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/8959

-- 
WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat

Greetings!

Due to popular demand, KGuitar 0.5 RPMs are released as well. They're
compiled in ALT Linux distribution and are generally available through
it's Sisyphus repository, but chances are they'll work fine on any
modern system.

The download links are:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5-alt1.src.rpm?download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5-alt1.i586.rpm?download

-- 
WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat
ALT Linux [http://www.altlinux.ru] [xmpp:gr...@al...]

Hello!

Well, after waiting for so long, I'm pleased to announce KGuitar release
0.5 at last. It's a fruit of long labours, and has some really
interesting potential. You're welcome to download it at:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5.tar.bz2?download

List of news is really long:

* Release 0.5

* Also a huge milestone release in a very long time. Lots of
internal refactoring, fixes after big changes in 0.4.9 and even
bigger changes by itself.

* Build system is refreshed (updated from current KDE SDK),
obsolete things removed, should compile smoothly on most
boxes. TeTeX support is not installed by default.

* Huge refactoring work inside KGuitar: greatly improved internal
architecture, modularized all import / export procedures, improved
options handling.

* More KDE3 standartization: better and cleaner shell / KPart
separation, standartized UI, actions, KDE-based dialogs with
standard features and cleaner API, better support for BiDi
interfaces, numerous layout fixes in lots of windows.

* Pretty full-featured Guitar Pro 4 import support. Imports
smoothly most of the files I've tested it on, had some known
problems with percussion tracks, but generally comprehends almost
all difficulties in GP4 files and gracefully ignores them. More
testing and patches are welcome!

* Improved song / track printing / display - now all tabulature /
notestaff rendering is maintained in single class and both
displaying and printing use the same codebase. It made possible
displaying note scores on screen while editing tabs - however, it
requires Feta fonts installed, as previously for printing. Check
out the documentation for instructions.

* Chord dialog - added chord finder: you can enter pure text name
of chord in top chord name string, push one button and you'll get
chord diagrams, fingerings and other info instantly. Chord finder
also supplies a "Quick insert by name" button that makes entering
something like "Am / C / F / E" chord rhythm a breeze.

* Melody editor - got lots of improvements: added scales & modes
showing on fretboard, added more inlay/graphics options, working
action / advance functions that act as stated in options page

* Song properties - added simple tempo support in song properties
dialog - that "initial tempo" was in file format for ages, but,
finally, it's user-editable.

* MIDI playback improvements - much better monitoring due to
absolute time values in MIDI events, fixed stuck notes after song
stop, lost patch/bank presets, etc. Added panic (shut down all
notes) after stop and tempo track support.

* Multiple usability fixes: more column duration actions, keyboard
combos to move cursor by 1 bar (currently bound to Ctrl+Left /
Ctrl+Right), chord dialog - better tab ordering, default
pushbutton, accelerators for non-default functions (Ctrl+Enter and
Shift+Enter).

* Lots of other fixes: gcc3.4 compatibility, MusicXML DTD 0.7a
support, proper status bar handling, proper updates when pasting /
select all / delete track, fixed compile errors without TSE3,
selection of negative track bug, lots of display problems with
TrackPrint usage, mouse select handling bug, multiple memory leaks
and segfaults.

-- 
WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat
[xmpp:gr...@al...]

Hello!

After a long more-than-a-year wait, at last next KGuitar is released!
You're welcome to download at:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.4.9.tar.bz2?download

ChangeLog:

2003-08-27 Mikhail Yakshin <gr...@us...>

    * Release 0.4.9

    * First release in a very long time. Lots of work-in-progress
    features, could be buggy somewhere, could lacks obvious features,
    etc, etc. However, it's a major step to 0.5 since year-ago
    0.4.1. Lots of new and unique great features.

    * Official port to KDE3. Now KGuitar requires KDE 3.x and Qt 3.x
    to build and run. Also we've transitioned to newer build tools -
    automake 1.7, autoconf 2.5, gcc 3.2.

    * Introduced basic KDE help center documentation. Needs much more
    work, any volunteers are certainly welcome. However, current
    documentation covers as much as possible from old simple README
    file.

    * More usability features. Now, KGuitar has Ctrl-Minus and
    Ctrl-Plus shortcuts to zoom in and zoom out horizontal scale of
    tabulatures. More generic navigation keys working: Home and End go
    to the start and the end of current bar respectively, Ctrl-Home
    and Ctrl-End go to the start & end of current track.

    * Melody editor - a brand new tool to help entering tabulature
    with mouse. Somewhat loosely resembles Cakewalk's tab staff
    fretboard, but much more useful & flexible. Editor looks like
    fretboard where you can set fingers with mouse, add power chords
    or enter solos really fast by just clicking necessary block
    patterns on the fret in order. Fully customizable, now supports
    several inlay types. Work in progress, so more to come.

    * Rhythm constructor - it's a tool that helps you find and
    understand the given rhythm. You just tap the necessary rhythmic
    pattern using your mouse or keyboard button, wizard records all
    delays between taps in real time and then uses sophisticated
    algorithm to help you determine that's the right tempo to that
    beat and what note durations should you use. If you want, you can
    apply resulting beats to your tabulature columns - a great way to
    add rhythmic information to ASCII tabs without such info!
    
    * Support for native Qt tabulature printing - pretty complete,
    with effects and, what's more important, with additional fonts it
    can output standard notescore notation from tabulatures. Support
    for key signatures is a bit simplified, work-in-progress.

    * More complete MIDI playback feature - now with monitoring of
    what's played, however, slightly buggy. For best results, try
    playing from the very beginning of the song.
    
    * More complete MusicXML support.

    * Guitar Pro 3 import support from Sylvian & Thiery
    Vignaud(s). Doesn't work it all cases, but can handle relatively
    simple gp3 files well.
    
    * Lots of refactoring in internal APIs, classes, etc, including
    more versatile options interface.

    * Numerous fixes for screen glitches, anti-aliasing, chord
    constructor, track pane almost completely rewritten to be more
    robust, etc.

WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat

Hello, everyone!

KGuitar 0.4.1 is released. The list of changes is following:

* Fixed lots of TSE3 issues. Now KGuitar requires TSE3 0.2.x
(0.2.3 or later recommended) to work and its MIDI capabilties are
solely based on TSE3. All the stuff that works with MIDI (MIDI
export, MIDI song playback, chord player, etc) were unified under
the control of single TSE3 library and nothing else. Should work
with most if not all available Unix MIDI interfaces: both older
and newer ALSA, OSS, aRts, etc.

* Added configuration options for TSE3 playing and exporting of
TSE3MDL file format. MIDI export is rewritten using TSE3
functions - now it should be more flexible.

* Basic MusicXML support. MusicXML is leading interchange format
for exchanging musical data between various applications. For more
info, see www.recordare.com.

* Native tabulature printing with Qt/KDE interfaces with effect
support, multi-track & multi-page printing.

* New tabulature effects and features: slide, triplets, let ring.

* Added basic and pretty faulty, but somewhat working for simple
files Guitar Pro 2 import support. Any assistance with hacking on
more features of this format is welcome.

* Slight sorting of chords in chord constructor: better chords are
on top.
	
* Lots of bug fixes, more ideological tweaking.

We'd like to hear your comments about new version. You may send them to 
me (gr...@us...) or express in mailing lists or forums.

WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat.

Hello, all!

Thanks to Maksim Nikulin, we've got RPMs for KGuitar release 0.4. If you had 
problems compiling 0.4 from sources, you should definitely try these ones. 
RPMs are originally for RedHat 7.1, but I guess they should go well into most 
compatible Linux distributions.

RPMs available at:

http://kguitar.sourceforge.net/module.php

With best regards, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat.

Hello, all!

We've released KGuitar v0.4 with lots of new features, bug-fixes and 
optimizations. Feel free to download it at:

http://download.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.4.tar.gz

ChangeLog follows:

2001-12-10 Mikhail Yakshin <gr...@us...>

	* Release 0.4

	* Major change in whole application song handling ideology, now
	it's much straighter. MIDI output reworked to follow new model.

	* Implemented multitracking support -- with all the necessary
	things list separate track listing panel, inserting/removing
	unlimited amount of tracks, separate track navigation panel, etc,
	etc.

	* Implemented basically functional drum track mode.

	* Added special feature for automatic bass line generation from
	rhythm track.
	
	* Added editing options: cut, copy & paste, undo/redo. Selections
	are possible with Shift + arrow keys.

	* New strumming pattern rule --- much more flexible now, allowing
	chords or parts of chords rhythms.
	
	* Much more accurate and less flicker-prone tabulature redrawing
	code --- now repaints only things that are needed to be
	repainted. Many more convenience options, like fast navigation via
	track navigation panel and ensuring that cursor is always visible.

	* Lots of various bugfixes, especially with chord constructor and
	track integrity.

WBR, GreyCat.

Hello, everyone!

The KGuitar 0.2.9 for KDE2 was released.2000-11-28  Mikhail Yakshin  
<ya...@on...>

	* The main feature of this version is that it's based on KDE2 and
	thus requires kdelibs2 and Qt2.2. In fact, the version number
	reflects such a big step :-)

	* KGuitar itself is now a more real KDE-style application than it
	was. As KDE2 introduced firm and sane GUI standards, we've
	implemented most of them. KGuitar now has all required program and
	document icons, mime-type for .kg tabulatures.

	* Almost all aspects of user interface (menus, toolbars, keyboard
	bindings) are now stored in XML file and are fully
	configurable. Menu had changed a big deal since last release and
	now it's much better.

	* KGuitar takes full advantage of renewed KDE dialogs & features,
	such as file dialogs (no more import/export dialogs, just choose a
	type of file in open/save dialog), fancy icon-supplied configure
	dialog & about dialogs, lots of command-line options.

	* Experimental file browser to help maintaining lots of kg files
	around, quickly selecting one by a properties inside it.

	* Strumming dialog enhanched with new patterns and text comments
	to every pattern (comments include recomendations on where to use
	such a pattern and what song it was used originally in).

	* Due to Unicode nature of new Qt2, a new version of KG files
	format is in use now. Older KG files are readable with KGuitar
	0.2.9 (at hopefully, later versions), but newer files won't be
	readable by earlier versions. Sorry for any possible
	inconvenience.

	* The usual stuff - several new tunings, lots of bugfixes, most
	notable - it's now possible to reference both sharps and flats in
	all note spinboxes (in the track properties dialog), palm muting
	in MIDI, etc.

Be sure to download the new version at
http://kguitar.sourceforge.net/module.php

WBR, GreyCat.

Hello, everybody!

It's the announce of the new version of KGuitar, release 0.2.

What's new in this release
==========================

	* Second big milestone release. Lots of changes, a month of work.

	* Total rewrite of internal track structures to use dynamic arrays
	(QArrays) instead of lists. List stuff was really ugly and hard to
	use (tabs really require direct access due to its nature). These
	changes touched almost every piece of code, including saving /
	loading schemes, tab displaying and more.
	
	* Tabulature editor: improved greatly.

	* It understands now various time signatures and separation of
	whole music piece in measures. Columns can have various durations,
	including dotted durations (1.5x the duration, as in classic
	notescores) and linked durations (to make possible weird durations
	such as 5/16 or something like that).

	* Automatical bar arranger that understands splitting notes of bar
	margins (with linking) and simplifying the tab by joining similiar
	columns into one. Note duration bars are linked in classic notes
	manner.
	
	* Basic mouse navigation to those who find keyboard navigation
	hard to use.

	* Basic effect support, just to demonstrate the technology.
	Current effects include natural and artificial harmonics and
	legato. More effects should be added soon.

	* Toolbar and statusbar made more functional. Statusbar now shows
	the current bar number and toolbar pretends to have useful
	buttons.

	* Various note naming, american (CDEFGAB), european (CDEFGAH) and
	jazz schemes (CDEFGABH), with various flats & sharps.

	* I18n suport. This release has ru and fr program message i18n
	files (po-files).

	* Chord construction is improved too: chord list comes sorted now
	(from the simpliest name to the most sophisticated), selecting a
	chord name there makes all necessary selections, reduced
	flickering. Many programming optimizations and clarifications
	mostly invisible to the user.

	* Tunings: added new tunings, fixed string thickness scale to be
	more informative.

	* Lots of bug fixes.

Where to download
=================

SourceForge site:
http://download.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.2.tar.bz2

Hello, everyone!

We've released KGuitar version 0.2.1. We've been leading a major development
in MIDI playback branch (for 0.3 release), so the development here isn't as
hot as there, but anyway... Major changes are:

* Renewed chord dialog with strumming support - so you can easily insert an
arpegiated or alternating bass picked chord in your tabulature instead of
just a strummed chord.

* Printing via MusiXTeX typesetting system. It's not very straightforward
for now, so be sure to read the instructions in README file.

* MIDI file export - at last can listen to your tabulatures playing, show
them to your friends (as MIDI files that could be easily played on almost
any computer), etc, etc.

Download it at http://kguitar.sourceforge.net/module.php

And be sure to install ALSA (http://www.alsa-project.org/) to check out the
0.3 (I guess, there would be a pre-release) soon.

Bye!

Hello, everybody!

It's the announce of the new version of KGuitar, release 0.2.

What's new in this release
==========================

 * Second big milestone release. Lots of changes, a month of work.

 * Total rewrite of internal track structures to use dynamic arrays
 (QArrays) instead of lists. List stuff was really ugly and hard to
 use (tabs really require direct access due to its nature). These
 changes touched almost every piece of code, including saving /
 loading schemes, tab displaying and more.
 
 * Tabulature editor: improved greatly.

 * It understands now various time signatures and separation of
 whole music piece in measures. Columns can have various durations,
 including dotted durations (1.5x the duration, as in classic
 notescores) and linked durations (to make possible weird durations
 such as 5/16 or something like that).

 * Automatical bar arranger that understands splitting notes of bar
 margins (with linking) and simplifying the tab by joining similiar
 columns into one. Note duration bars are linked in classic notes
 manner.
 
 * Basic mouse navigation to those who find keyboard navigation
 hard to use.

 * Basic effect support, just to demonstrate the technology.
 Current effects include natural and artificial harmonics and
 legato. More effects should be added soon.

 * Toolbar and statusbar made more functional. Statusbar now shows
 the current bar number and toolbar pretends to have useful
 buttons.

 * Various note naming, american (CDEFGAB), european (CDEFGAH) and
 jazz schemes (CDEFGABH), with various flats & sharps.

 * I18n suport. This release has ru and fr program message i18n
 files (po-files).

 * Chord construction is improved too: chord list comes sorted now
 (from the simpliest name to the most sophisticated), selecting a
 chord name there makes all necessary selections, reduced
 flickering. Many programming optimizations and clarifications
 mostly invisible to the user.

 * Tunings: added new tunings, fixed string thickness scale to be
 more informative.

 * Lots of bug fixes.

Where to download
=================

SourceForge site:
http://download.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.2.tar.bz2