[LAA] QuteCsound 0.6.0 Released

[Andres Cabrera]

Hi all!

QuteCsound 0.6.0 is finally ready! QuteCsound has now come of age as it
recently celebrated two years since its first svn commit! This release
takes QuteCsound way beyond my original expectations thanks to the
encouragement, ideas and work from many users. This is another
milestone release, with the implementation of the new widget format,
which opens the door to new functionality and extensibility.

QuteCsound is a frontend for Csound featuring a highlighting
editor with autocomplete, interactive widgets and integrated help. It
can open files created in MacCsound, and aims to be a simple yet
powerful and complete development environment for Csound.

QuteCsound has been tested on Windows, OS X, Linux and Solaris,
and it is free software released under the LGPLv2 or at your option
GPLv3.

There are binary packages for Windows and OS X, and a source package
for other platforms.
You can get it here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/qutecsound/files/QuteCsound/0.6.0/

There's more information here (along with an overdue home page revamp):
http://qutecsound.sourceforge.net/
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There is also an experimental package for OS X (called "-full"), which
contains Csound inside, so you don't need a separate Csound installation,
(which means it will work immediately without installation - very handy if
you don't have the root password for a system).

Please try it and let us know any issues.

Questions, comments and suggestions for QuteCsound are very welcome
and can be posted to the main Csound mailing list, but better still,
join the QuteCsound users mailing list at:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/qutecsound-users

Thanks as usual to the testing team, who made sure regular users get a
smooth ride by taking a bumpy ride...
Thanks especially to Francois Pinot, Andy Fillebrown, Joachim Heintz
and Rene Djack, but also to the translators and the rest of the testers.

QuteCsound is now accepting donations. If you find QuteCsound useful
and have some money to spare, please consider donating to the project,
to support development:
http://sourceforge.net/project/project_donations.php?group_id=227265

New in version 0.6.0:
 * New XML Widget format for storing widgets. If file only contains the
 old widget format a backup file is saved just in case.
 * The new format allows many new funtionality like:
    - Font, Font size, Font Color and background in a larger number of
    widgets.
    - Rounded borders and border width in various widgets.
    - Font sizes are now approximate pixel values, which provides
    better cross-platform font cmpatibility and a broader selection of
    sizes
    - x and y zoom for scope and graph widget
    - If only old widget format is present in the file, a backup copy
    is saved with extension .old-format
    - Minimum and maximum values for spinbox, controller and scroll number
    - Adjustable ranges for controller widgets
 * Presets for Widgets are now available, and they will be stored as
 XML text in the csd file. They can be used from the right click menu
 in the widget panel. Reserved channels "_GetPresetName", "_GetPresetNumber",
 "_SetPreset" and "_SetPresetIndex", which allows control of presets from
 Csound or other widgets.
 * New reserved channel "_MBrowse" for buttons, which allows selection
 of multiple files, which are separated by the "," character.
 * Font scaling and Font Offset configuration option for control over
 global font rendering size.
 * Added bookmarks in inspector (any comment starting by ";;" in a csd
 file or "##" in python file is treated as a bookmark)
 * Added option to save using Windows or Unix Line Endings (only for
 saved files-text in editor still uses Unix line breaks...)
 * Added option for specifying python executable
 * New Live Event Controller, which simplifies usage of live event
 sheets.
 * Implemented looping and setting/saving loop points for live event sheets
 * Added "append rows" and "appends columns" for event sheets
 * Graph widget now sends values when an index is selected
 * Added second channel to Graph widget which sends/receives f-table
 number instead of index.
 * New Filter Lab, Mixdown_Player, SF_Splitter, SF_Merger, Jukebox,
 Spatialization examples
 * Auto indent when previous line is indented
 * Added option to have widgets open the properties dialog
 automatically when they are created (enabled by default)
 * Added center vertically and center horizontally widget layout options
 * Added menu option to display file information.
 * Added menu option to set full screen view.
 * Added option to hide toolbar
 * Added menu item for showing Opcode Quick Reference page from manual
 * Added option to change shortcut for Utilities Dialog
 * Default "New File" is now set in a text box in the config dialog,
 not a separate file.
 * Added filtering for some unnecessary console messages from Csound.
 * Added auto join option to minimize user interaction when opening
 orc/sco files.


Fixed in version 0.6.0:
 * Horrible memory leak from API graphs, QuteCsound consumed memory at
 a terrible pace.
 * -i flag is not added to options if it is empty. This is done to
 allow using only flags like: "-+rtaudio=alsa -odac" without forcing -i
 + Fixed beeping when key is pressed in widget layout (OS X)
 * About Dialog is now shorter for smaller screens.
 * Improved syntax popup menu (now distinguishes whether first word is
 a variable or an opcode to decide whether to pop up menu on next
 word). Don't show syntax completion if line previously has "opcode"
 or "instr" text.
 * If something has been typed, autocomplete does not add the output
 arguments, just the opcode name and input arguments.
 * Non csd files no longer parse the widget text, even if it is there.
 * Fixed addition of blank lines at end when saving
 * Record button unlatches on stop.
 * Fixed inspector update when switching tabs
 * Status bar syntax is now only shown for csd and orc files
 * Non python and non csd files are now not syntax highlighted
 * Fixed editor sluggishness by running the inspector update on a slow
 timer.
 * Added logic to avoid completion pop up menu if an opcode has
 already been used in the line or if there is a = operator in the line
 * Auto complete now adds the correct rate text (previously the same
 text was added, no matter what rate was chosen)
 * Widgets no longer disappear if dragged to be too small
 * Reorganized configuration dialog to make it fit in smaller screens
 * Inspector now maintains state (collapsed/expanded) of items
 * Fixed browse button for SSDIR
 * Removed option to remove scrollbars. They are always active
 now. This option was added when there was instability from scrollbars.
 * Tooltip showing channel name shows up in edit mode as well.
 * fixed bug in qutecsound::runUtility ("free" was being called on
 argv which is allocated on stack, not heap)
 * Truncate jack names if greater than 16 characters
 * Graph widgets now paint curves, even if they are created after Csound
 has started.
 * Event sheet actions now register as a single event for undo purposes.
 * Added kill Line and kill to End of Line actions.
 * Fixed pasting of rich text in editor (paste from open office calc was
resulting in extraneous text and formating).

Internal changes in 0.6.0:
 * New build system thanks to Andy Fillebrown, which keeps build
 products more organized and performs a "configure" style step in
 qmake which looks for the required dependencies
 * New concurrency model. invalue now changes the channels for all
 widgets synchronously. Might also have a positive effect on
 performance, as widgets are only updated through a timer which will
 usually run slower than k-rate. Threading model is now clearer, and
 should be now crash proof (hopefully).