[LAD] Release: New Session Manager Version 1.4.0

[software at linuxaudio.org]

Linuxaudio.org presents: New Session Manager Version 1.4.0

## Summary

The theme for this release is to fix known bugs and issues with both the 
original Non-Session-Manager ("nsmd") server as well as its GUI (our 
"nsm-legacy-gui"). Problems and inconsistencies that have piled up for 
years were finally cleaned up (full changelog below).

Users do not need to take any action (besides updating), the session 
save-format remains unchanged. Client programs, or rather their 
developers, do not need to change or adjust anything; all changes are 
"under the hood".

We have no self-hosted website yet, but plan to establish one in the 
future. Until then the project can be found on Github:

https://github.com/linuxaudio/new-session-manager/
https://github.com/linuxaudio/new-session-manager/releases/tag/v1.4.0

## Full Release Announcement:

New Session Manager (NSM) is a tool to assist music production by 
grouping standalone programs into sessions. Your workflow becomes easy 
to manage, robust and fast by leveraging the full potential of 
cooperative applications.

It is a community version of the "NON Session Manager" and free in every 
sense of the word: free of cost, free to share and use, free of spyware 
or ads, free-and-open-source.

You can create a session, or project, add programs to it and then use 
commands to save, start/stop, hide/show all programs at once, or 
individually. At a later date you can then re-open the session and 
continue where you left off.

All files belonging to the session will be saved in the same directory.

Check your distributions in a few days for New-Session-Manager 1.4.0

You can find the source release on Github:

https://github.com/linuxaudio/new-session-manager/releases/tag/v1.4.0


Bullet Points
* Drop-In replacement for the non-session-manager daemon nsmd and tools 
(e.g. jackpatch)
* Simple and hassle-free build system to make packaging easy
* Possibility to react to sensible bug fixes that would not have been 
integrated into original nsmd
* Stay upwards and downwards compatible with original nsmd
* Conservative and hesitant in regards to new features and 
behaviour-changes, but possible in principle
* Keep the session-manager separate from the other NON* tools Mixer, 
Sequencer and Timeline.
* Protect nsmd from vanishing from the internet one day.
* The goal is to become the de-facto standard music session manager for 
Linux distributions

Changes since new-session-manager v1.3.2 (2020-06-20)

Add documentation and manpages.
Highlight: Provide updated API-Document (core documentation) on
https://linuxaudio.github.io/new-session-manager/api/index.html

Legacy-GUI:
  Overhaul look and feel.
  Rewrite labels and buttons with unambiguous descriptions.
  Protect text-input dialog windows from empty strings, like "Add New 
Client" or "New Session"
  Scale icons, support more icon formats.
  Show all icons and buttons when attaching to a running nsmd session
  Various small fixes.
  Always show correct session name, no matter how the session was loaded 
or how the GUI was started

nsmd:
  NSM_API_VERSION_MINOR from 0 to 1 (1.0 -> 1.1)
  Repair nsmd to correctly send client data when running headless and a 
GUI announces later.
  ClientId generation now prevent collision with existing IDs.
  nsmd command line option --load-session to directly load one 
(Berkelder, Rik)
  Better detection of clients that failed to launch leads to faster 
session startup (by 5 seconds)
  Users get informed by client-label if an executable is not present on 
the system or permission denied
  Fixed reply for listing sessions from a plain "Done." to proper reply 
path with empty string as terminal symbol  "/reply", "/nsm/server/list", 
""
  Fix operation reply to last treated client instead to reply to sender 
(Picot, Mathieu  / houston)
  /nsm/gui/session/name send consistent session name/relative-path pair 
to the annouced GUI, no matter how the session was loaded.

nsm.h
  :optional-gui: support to nsm.h, for other applications to include and 
use. (Meyer, Hermann / brummer )



This is a joint release from multiple people under the linuxaudio.org 
"brand".

https://github.com/linuxaudio/new-session-manager


Greetings,

dvzrv, falktx and nils