[ardour-dev] Ardour 0.9beta20 released

[Paul Davis]

This is intended to be the last beta release before Ardour 0.9 is
released. No new features will be added before we release 0.9.

FYI, 0.9 is intended to differ from 1.0 only with respect to bug
fixes, install and first-time user experience. We do still have a few
significant crashing and other major bug fixes to be resolved before
0.9 can be released, but optimism is in the air.

NEW FEATURES
-------------

   * Added support for midi parameter feedback.  When enabled,
     controls that are bound to incoming midi events will send out
     that event when modified.  This lets you control generic midi
     control surface with motor faders and/or led encoders (like the
     incredibly affordable Behringer BCF2000, which was used for
     testing), to match the internal state.  Note the extra/changed
     options in the option editor's midi tab. 
  
     Reminder: to bind a fader or bar-control to midi, do a
     Control-Middle-Click on it, then send some midi control.
  
   * automation playback will send MIDI parameter feedback, thus
     making external motorized faders etc. move with automation.

     Note: this feature will probably be reimplemented in the 
     future because of interlocking problems with the realtime
     audio thread.

   * Added generic midi bindability for mute, solo, and rec-enable
     controls.  to do it, you can do Control-RIGHT-click on the mute
     and solo buttons (the normal binding click is taken on these
     buttons for other functions).  For the Record-enable button, it
     is the normal ctrl-middle-click.  You can also pick it from the
     context menu of the mute button.  A menu will be added to other
     buttons later.

   * add -V/--novst flag to avoid using VST even if it 
       was compiled in

   * multiple selected regions can be dragged across tracks (nick mainsbridge)

   * normalization can be undone (patch from jkyro)

   * export dialog redesigned
        - master outs appear in their own selector, preselected
	- button to control visibility of specific other tracks

   * new playlist selector (uses a tree structure in a scrolled
           window, instead of menus)

   * add "nudge by capture offset" operation for regions

   * remove zoom changes from the undo/redo history

   * sessions still load when audio files are missing or corrupt

   * Ardour is believed to build on OS X (CVS and/or this release)

FIXES
-----

   * templates now get installed/uninstalled/rolled-into-tarball/etc.  Let me
     know if some corner of "make" doesn't work with the templates.
   * Removed libglib dependency from libardour.  Instead of guint32, we use 
     stdint.h's uint32_t, etc.
   * fixed some midi prompter dialog issues
   * fixed some midi binding state saving issues
   * change entire buffer management scheme to be (more) RT-safe
   * a major CVS commit that includes the first pass of changes to fix
     some serious errors in the way ardour handles threads when
     exiting. it also includes a significant fix to make export work
     when sync'ed with JACK
   * new functions to do "internal seeks" within the existing playback
          buffer of a DiskStream, avoiding a new disk read for
	  small adjustments of playhead position
   * lots of work on MTC slaving
   * changed prototype of pthread_exit_pbd()
   * don't send a message via error/info/warning/fatal if thread
          is not registered with GUI
   * remove "eox" signal from MIDI parser
   * cleanup a few details of MIDI parsing
          - importantly, all sysex messages get eox on the end
	     when passed to specific functions
   * add "timecode-source-is-synced" option to ardour.rc(.in)
   * remove Session::request_roll()
   * fix bug with MMC rec-enable handling (only odd-numbered tracks
        could be enabled)
   * make region export progress bar move in the right direction
   * more MTC slaving fixes and improvements (not done yet)
   * remove wrong-thread-calling of Session::clear_event_type(),
        which should help a number of loop-related crashes
   * remove erroneous use of "abort" in function call
   * Automake-1.7 or higher is required for libmidi++ now
   * add "nudge by capture offset" operation for regions
   * enlarge playhead/edit cursor arrows a bit
   * avoid duplicate keyboard target registration
   * pay attention to "virtual" window enter/leave events,
        but continue to ignore "inferior" ones (may help
	with keyboard focus issues)
   * cancelling tempo/meter create dialog doesn't insert
        a default tempo/meter marker
   * tempo/meter create dialogs have minimal WM decor, and
        use standard ArdourDialog API
   * 2d panner fixed in many ways (still not to my taste and
        not really correct)
   * context-click on 2d panner shows context menu (Bypass is the only
        entry so far) 
   * bypass added to stereo panner context menu	
   * general panner state load/restore fixes
   * master outs added to connections menu
   * added optimizations for peak metering (use of fabsf, flag
        constants as floats, avoid implicit double/float casting)
   * Updated the Italian and Brazilian translations.
   * handle disk over- and under-run errors in the GUI, and be more
      comprehensible to regular users.
   * fix panning bypass for 2d panner
   * fix stereo panner "mute" menu item so that it doesn't
        toggle panner mute state every time it pops up
   * fix more subtle elements of panner state restoration
   * remove window crossing debug messages
   * add "OK" button and remove window decoration from "can't
      connect to JACK" dialog