[LAA] ANNOUNCE: Rosegarden 1.7.0 released

ROSEGARDEN 1.7.0 RELEASED The Rosegarden team are proud to announce the release of version 1.7.0 of Rosegarden, an audio and MIDI sequencer and musical notation editor for Linux. http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ This release focuses mostly on notation enhancements, although there are also substantial bug fixes in other areas. The world of sequencer software for Linux is becoming increasingly well populated with projects designed for different types of user -- with the appearance of QTractor, a MusE stable release expected soon, Ardour 3 in the pipeline for studio users, as well as commercial software such as Renoise, and old favourites like seq24. This is great for Rosegarden, as it means we no longer feel we have to please everyone: we are able to concentrate on the area that we find most interesting for Rosegarden, namely as a sequencer for people who also like to work in notation. Of course, all of the other existing features will continue to be supported and to evolve, but we have a clearer focus for the future than we have had. The 1.7.0 release includes new contributions from established project members Heikki Junes, Arnout Engelen, and Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas. Translator Yves Guillemot has come over to the development side as well. New members Philippe Macaire and Jaakko H. Kyro have joined the development team, while Gunhild Andersen has joined us as a documentation writer. We have also had code contributions from Colin Fletcher, Alessandro Preziosi, Stefan Asserhall, "Flameeyes" Pettenò, and Anders Dahnielson, and a segment parameter presets database update from Magnus Johansson -- and many new device library contributions. Progress during this release cycle has been slow but steady, with relatively little developer time available from the core team, but for this release -- coordinated by D. Michael McIntyre -- we have managed to bring together more contributions from more people than in any previous release of Rosegarden. New Features in 1.7.0 * Track headers in Notation view (Yves, since rev 8355) * Test to see if a newer version is available, to help users stay up to date when distros sometimes carry quite old versions (Chris, since rev 8374) * New Welcome dialog that attempts to help you tweak your setup for best results (Chris, since rev 8374) * Notation: The preferred stem direction in a chord around the middle line is down, which better meshes with LilyPond (Heikki, since rev 8381) * Notation: The preferred beam position in a beamed group around the middle is below (Heikki, since rev 8383) * Add icons for Add tempo and Add time signature in NotationView -> Composition menu (Heikki, since rev 8415) * Move to Staff Above or Staff Below to make sorting out overlapping voice parts considerably easier (Chris, since rev 8545) * Radically reformed grace notes now work correctly for the first time in Rosegarden's history, and are now easy to use (Chris, since rev 8557) * Sync segments to track parameters (correct clef, transpose notation, alter key signatures, highest/lowest playable notes) available as option when using the load preset button in the Track Parameters Box, which greatly simplifies the process of converting a standard MIDI file into notation suitable for real musicians who play transposing instruments (Arnout, since rev 8583) * "Convert notation for..." function added to notation editor to provide another mechanism for using the sync segments functionality (Arnout, since rev 8593) * Expanded/corrected instrument presets database (Magnus Johannson, since rev 8597) * Export markers to LilyPond (Jaakko H. Kyro, since rev 8618) * Alternative shortcut for Play/Stop in laptop use: Ctrl+Return (Heikki, since rev 8626) * New track parameters for exporting square, curly, and nested brackets to LilyPond, making it possible to produce true piano notation and complex orchestral scores properly for the first time, without hand editing of the .ly code. (Replaces the now deprecated "Export staff group bracket" option with this new and much more flexible scheme.) (Michael, since rev 8637) * The transport mode setting is now stored with and restored from individual compositions (Philippe, since rev 8646) * Export the new radically reformed grace notes into LilyPond syntax (Heikki, since rev 8648) * Now ties can finally be flipped (Chris, since rev 8653) and the flipped ties exported to LilyPond (Michael, since rev 8655) * Arbitrary dynamics exported to LilyPond as markups if they are not on LilyPond's list of supported dynamic types (Michael, since rev 8687) * Manually repositioned rests (as when rearranging badly rendered overlapping voices) are now exported to LilyPond (Michael, since rev 8694) * Set a quick playback position marker in the main window with Ctrl+1 and recall it with 1 (Philippe, since rev 8705) (Sets working visual marker in rev 8803) * New variable height tracks finally make working with overlapping segments (eg. to contain concurrent voices for notation purposes) an easy and reasonable process, instead of the nightmare it has been for years (Chris, since rev 8740) * Smarter selections in matrix and notation views now allow you to remove individual, previously-selected events without beginning the entire selection process from scratch (Michael, since rev 8744 (matrix) and 8748 (notation)) New Documentation * Five new informal supplemental tutorials by D. Michael McIntyre: http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/ * Users Helping Users: http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/wiki/users_helping_users * Wiki moves from SourceForge to our own site: http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/wiki/ Significant bug fixes since 1.6.0 * Serious overhaul of MIDI import to avoid scrambling karaoke and similar files into complete chaos (Chris, since rev 8515) * Fix text codec dialog that appears when importing MIDI files with lyrics (Chris, since rev 8536) * Splitting the segment now really splits the segment (Chris, since rev 8538) * Track Parameters now displays the correct track (Chris, since rev 8539) * No more mysterious zero-length segments on import (Chris, since rev 8540) * Align lyrics with rests so they appear at the correct time, if only lyrics and rests in a segment (Chris, since rev 8541) * Fix inability to build without JACK (Flameeyes' Pettenò, since rev 8546) * Fix broken pitch chooser dialog to correct accidental display and draggability (Arnout and Michael, various revisions since 8555) * Replace perpetually broken grace note functionality (Chris, since rev 8557) * Fix crash when deleting a device that was in use (Chris, since rev 8558) * First note after 8va or 15ma section no longer at wrong octave (Chris, since rev 8559) * Correct display of flipped stems in certain situations (Chris, rev 8560) * Repair very tricky ruler bug that prevented the composition from being able to start anywhere other than bar 1 (Michael, since rev 8573) * Take track transpose into account when recording, move notation by the opposite amount, so the end result sounds correctly when played back (Michael, since rev 8576) * It is now possible to tie notes that have shorter performance durations than their display durations (Chris, since rev 8595) * Renamed spurious Halve/Double Speed functions to Double/Halve Durations and assigned new keybindings (Heikki, since rev 8615) * Headers for the files in the Rosegarden library rewritten so that all of them show up in everyone's file dialogs (Anders Dahnielson and Michael, since rev 8666) * The notation view no longer assumes it is always necessary to display a time signature, which eliminates a lot of extra time signatures that used to have to be hidden by hand (Chris, since rev 8679) * Above/below directions of phrasing slurs now exported to LilyPond correctly (Michael, since rev 8680) * Hidden key signatures ignored during LilyPond export (Michael, since rev 8693) * Corrected a problem whereby you could edit the second of two markers at the same time position, and have the changes apply to the first one at that position (Philippe, since rev 8706) * Build system tweaks and a fix for building with librdf in an unusual location (Pedro, since rev 8829) Thanks to * Damien Goutte-Gattat * Oliver Večernik * Tony Amort * Steffen Klein * Haig Dedeyan * Luis Filipe Lobo * Marko Mueller * Emanuel Rumpf * JP Morris * "Piglet" * "b.ohnsorg" Chris