Synthesia 10
Archived development updates.
I have been heads-down working on the track splitting preview, so it's been quiet here for a few months.
The good news (for everyone): the hard work is done. Even though things won't look too different, virtually everything has changed under the hood. A tremendous number of assumptions had to be changed to allow assigning hands on a per-note basis. Seriously, it's hard to overstate how much code has changed. This is on par with the Synthesia 8.4 release that revamped the whole UI. There is still a bit of engine cleanup to be done, and then I just have to throw together the actual splitting UI real fast.
The bad news (for TonE): there were a few more command-line casualties. Get ready to lose the following: play-mode, channel-mode!!!, user-part, simple-mode, and simple-sheet. That is to say, using "--on-start Play" always means "Watch and Listen Only" and it will always use whichever settings you used previously (or the default if you've never played that song) for your tracks/channels.
This change also impacts the Song Link Generator: only the "viewer mode" option under "2. Options" will have any effect. I'll be updating that page shortly to reflect the upcoming changes. (EDIT: Updated!)
(The right-click "Play in Synthesia" / "View in Synthesia" shortcuts came out of this nearly unscathed. The "View in Synthesia" shortcut will behave a tiny bit differently, but in most cases it will be an improvement: it will use the current track/channel settings instead of wiping and defaulting them.)
It is conceivable that with much more effort (now and maintaining it in the future) those options could be migrated to the new stuff. "Ch1=PlayedByMe" would become something like "Ch1=Left", with another option to say which hand you wanted to play. But at some point this release has to go out the door. I had to make the tough decision to cut them altogether instead of delay things even longer. I hate removing features or losing feature parity during big infrastructural changes like this. I always try to think very carefully about how big a negative impact it will make. Hopefully this won't be too severe.
The consolation prize here is that you'll have MUCH finer-grained control over tracks/channels using the new Parts metadata field. That was made to feel very much like the finger hints markup and can be generated by tools super easily. Anything you could do with --channel-mode, you can do more expressively with HandParts. Without worrying about any wacky ConfigHashes or anything like that, anymore.
The good news (for everyone): the hard work is done. Even though things won't look too different, virtually everything has changed under the hood. A tremendous number of assumptions had to be changed to allow assigning hands on a per-note basis. Seriously, it's hard to overstate how much code has changed. This is on par with the Synthesia 8.4 release that revamped the whole UI. There is still a bit of engine cleanup to be done, and then I just have to throw together the actual splitting UI real fast.
The bad news (for TonE): there were a few more command-line casualties. Get ready to lose the following: play-mode, channel-mode!!!, user-part, simple-mode, and simple-sheet. That is to say, using "--on-start Play" always means "Watch and Listen Only" and it will always use whichever settings you used previously (or the default if you've never played that song) for your tracks/channels.
This change also impacts the Song Link Generator: only the "viewer mode" option under "2. Options" will have any effect. I'll be updating that page shortly to reflect the upcoming changes. (EDIT: Updated!)
(The right-click "Play in Synthesia" / "View in Synthesia" shortcuts came out of this nearly unscathed. The "View in Synthesia" shortcut will behave a tiny bit differently, but in most cases it will be an improvement: it will use the current track/channel settings instead of wiping and defaulting them.)
It is conceivable that with much more effort (now and maintaining it in the future) those options could be migrated to the new stuff. "Ch1=PlayedByMe" would become something like "Ch1=Left", with another option to say which hand you wanted to play. But at some point this release has to go out the door. I had to make the tough decision to cut them altogether instead of delay things even longer. I hate removing features or losing feature parity during big infrastructural changes like this. I always try to think very carefully about how big a negative impact it will make. Hopefully this won't be too severe.
The consolation prize here is that you'll have MUCH finer-grained control over tracks/channels using the new Parts metadata field. That was made to feel very much like the finger hints markup and can be generated by tools super easily. Anything you could do with --channel-mode, you can do more expressively with HandParts. Without worrying about any wacky ConfigHashes or anything like that, anymore.
You're not missing anything, I didn't announce any dates. (I learned my lesson a year ago when I said Synthesia 10 would be out before the end of 2013.) I just wanted to drop the bad news a little early so people would have a chance digest it before the next preview.
That said, we are quickly approaching the next (and last!) big development preview. There will probably be a couple tiny bug-fix builds after that, but it's more or less Synthesia 10 release time at that point.
That said, we are quickly approaching the next (and last!) big development preview. There will probably be a couple tiny bug-fix builds after that, but it's more or less Synthesia 10 release time at that point.
I have some plans to improve that during the inevitable 10.1 bug-fix release (referring specifically to this post). I still feel like it's passable right now, but I want to change "passable" to "beautiful" in the window of time where everyone is getting their hands on 10 and finding all the bugs we missed.
That's on the short list of like 3 or 4 small details that still need a little more time, but aren't so critical that I should delay 10's release any longer.
That's on the short list of like 3 or 4 small details that still need a little more time, but aren't so critical that I should delay 10's release any longer.
It has been a (very) long road, but I just changed which hand an individual note belonged to, using controls in the Synthesia interface. The infrastructure to split hands up has been working under the hood for a while now, but this was the first time it could be done in the UI.
There are still a few satellite tools to build (split point, line-drawing, etc.) but I daresay the next -- and final! -- feature preview shouldn't be too much longer, now.
There are still a few satellite tools to build (split point, line-drawing, etc.) but I daresay the next -- and final! -- feature preview shouldn't be too much longer, now.
No problem Nicholas, you can remove any features you want, I will stick to those older available versions, which I consider complete already. The solution is using always preprocessing of midi files, e.g. for adding per measure bookmarks, as jumping via bookmarks is possible. Same is true for adding some form of midi content per measure, using that signal for turning pdf pages in SumatraPdf.
Today i just download this newer synthesia 10 and get problem again...
Spoiler:
That's the third time you've reported the same crash!
There still hasn't been a development preview newer than r2840, but there will be soon.
There still hasn't been a development preview newer than r2840, but there will be soon.