[Ardour-Dev] Ardour 2.7 released (now with public native OS X versions)

[Paul Davis]

After a frenetic month getting things ready for the SAE version of
Ardour, I am happy to announce the public release of Ardour 2.7. For
the first time this includes public versions for OS X

    Intel: http://releases.ardour.org/Ardour2-Intel-4225.zip
    PPC: http://releases.ardour.org/Ardour2-PPC-4225.zip

as well as our usual source tarball:

   http://releases.ardour.org/ardour-2.7-4225.tar.bz2

This release is dominated by dramatic improvements in OS
X GUI performance and startup time, but it also contains a lot of
significant bug fixes. However, somewhat to my surprise, Ardour also
accumulated quite a lot of nice new features since 2.6.1 as you
can see below.

FEATURES

    Overall dramatic improvements in OS X GUI performance	
    New action to rotate editor/mixer window stacking
    New action to cycle through mouse modes
    Plugin windows can now have keyboard focus locked to them
    Add missing extensions to exported files based on selected file type
    Loop/Range ruler now visible by default
    Default crossfade is now -3dB cut
    Crossfade presets changed to include -6dB cut and two S-curves
         (icons sadly not changed yet)
    New support for Wiimote control (experimental, disabled by
          default, and not possible on OS X)
    Selected tracks are always visible when scrolling through with
         select-next-track or select-previous-track
    Skip non-active and hidden tracks with select-previous-track and
              select-next-track
    Several new tooltips all over the place and better tooltip colors
    On OS X, Button2 can be emulated with Ctrl-Option-Button1
    Busses are never auto-connected to physical inputs
    Unmodified clicking in canvas rulers now sets playhead position,
        similar to existing behaviour in the "real" rulers. Use Ctrl-
        (Linux) or Command (OS X)-click/drag for new markers/ranges.
    Crossfade-editor specific keybindings: space => play xfade,
             left-arrow => play fade out, 
             ctrl-left-arrow => dry fade out,
             right-arrow => play fade in, 
             ctrl-right-arrow => dry fade in
    Drag-n-Drop from OS X Finder now more reliable but no longer
        supports MP3 or AAC (will be reverted in the future)
    Start position and Sync position clocks added popup region editor   
    Better stay-on-top behaviour for certain windows
    LV2 port notification fix for GUI updating
    New German translation
    New post-export nag screen
    Per-track OSC control of solo/mute/rec-enable and gain
 
FIXES

    Removed suggestion that users can save while disconnected from JACK
    Corrected reversed handling of "show-editor-mixer" state on startup
    Fixed crasher caused by changing gain with transport stopped &
       panner bypassed
    Correct reverse logic for making h/w monitoring available given
       h/w capabilities 
    Fix confusing relabelling of plugin bypass button
    Prevent double registration of ALSA sequencer ports
    Correctly initialize JACK timeout parameter when starting JACK
    Ignore triple-clicks on mute/solo/rec-enable button
    Momentary solo/mute now works
    Fix serious error when calculating interpolated Curve values
       (will cause tiny, almost certainly undetectable changes in
        automation and fade curves, but may also remove clicks)
    Fix quoting in TOC files
    wrap PBD::Thread... signals in a mutex to avoid crashing during
        startup as multiple threads "emit" the signal
    Make comboboxes a little bigger on X11
    B|B|T clocks measuring duration now use zero-based values
    New regions created by AudioFilters (Reverse/TimeFX/Transpose)
          inherit all relevant settings of their ancestor
    Fix for incorrect reading of fade out curve under a few
          circumstances
    Catch exceptions while loading AudioUnits
    Correct some glitches with playhead motion when looping/reversing
    Fix failure when opening a session by double-clicking the session
          file icon (OS X)
    Fix loss of "current dialog" tracking when exiting a dialog via a
        button (could cause crash on next Ctrl-w)
    Detect no-installed-JACK on OS X to avoid silent crashes for 
       new users
    
DEVELOPMENT

   GTK/OSX patch now in SVN
   Check build host for broken mutex-based glib atomic ops
   Two versions of clearlooks now in SVN - older, for X11 (crisp!),
       and newer for OS X (faster!)

CONTRIBUTORS

MASSIVE thanks to Nick Mainsbridge who, with the financial support of
SAE and his own dedication to the cause, pulled off a minor miracle
with OS X GUI performance, as well as many SAE-specific fixes and
improvements. 

Other work and fixes: Sampo Savolainen, Don Fredricks, Krzysztof
Foltman, Dave Robillard, and the plumber himself, Paul Davis