Subject: [linux-audio-dev] JAZZ bugs, wish list
From: Paul Winkler (slinkp23_AT_yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Apr 26 2000 - 01:57:09 EEST
Hi,
I've just started using Jazz 4.0 and overall it works pretty well
for me. I feel like it has a lot more potential than it's realized,
though. Below are some bugs I've noticed and features I think would
be generally useful to Jazz users (not just me).
If anyone here is involved in developing Jazz, could you please
comment on the following, and forward it to other relevant parties?
I'd work on it myself but my C knowledge is minimal, and I know
nothing at all of wxwindows.
------------------------------------------------
Bugs, Gripes, and Wish List for Jazz-4.0.0-1
(RPM install on a RedHat Linux 6.2 system, using OSS 3.9.1h driver)
Miscellaneous
---------------
* BUG: Any idea why this file plays at the wrong tempo?
http://www.ulster.net/~abigoo/jazz-groove-1.mid.gz
I created it in Jazz 4.0.0. The tempo should be 175. Jazz displays
the tempo as 175 but plays it at 120. (weird, it wasn't doing that
yesterday.) playmidi and timidity both play the same file at the
correct tempo. In fact it appears that Jazz is playing
*everything*
too slow today, including downloaded .mid files I've never had
trouble with
before!
* BUG: In the main window, clicking the zoom buttons changes the
selection. Selection should be independent of display... I can't
think of any possible reason to want it to do what it does,
therefore it's a bug and not merely a gripe.
* BUG (?): In the File -> Load dialog, the directory selection box
takes up
most of the window, and the file selection box only has room for
files with
about 15 characters or less. Since the entire path is given for
each
filename, nothing fits!
* GRIPE: (low priority but I'm sure it'll get me sooner or later)
Why is there a 500-bar limit per song? This should either be
unlimited, or at least a number so that high no-one will ever
notice
it. (It would be easier to set this parameter with an entry
widget,
not a slider!)
* GRIPE: Why only 12 steps of transpose? Frequently I transpose
things 3
octaves which means I have to transpose it 3 times.
* FEATURE REQUEST: In the main window, dragging selection off the
screen should cause scrolling. This is "normal" behavior for just
about any app that edits anything (text, soundfiles, graphics...)
It's useful and users expect it.
* FEATURE REQUEST: text search in event list!
* FEATURE REQUEST: (low priority) import / export event list as
ASCII
file
Keybindings
--------------------
* INTERFACE GRIPE: Why is "Undo" under Misc? It's under "Edit" in
just
about every application I've ever used on any platform (including
emacs)! Furthermore, "Undo" and "Redo" really should have quicker
keybindings. (Like Gimp: ctrl-Z and ctrl-R)
* BUG: keybindings don't all work. Some menus use capital and
lowercase letters, e.g. in "Edit", L is Length and l is Cleanup.
But
capital L is ignored; there's no way to select Length from the
keyboard except to scroll down with the arrow keys.
* FEATURE REQUEST: (a general solution to the previous two items)
Keybindings should be totally configurable from a config file.
For
that matter, menu layout should be, too! XML or something like a
window-manager config file would be nice. To provide a measure of
idiot-proofing, you should be warned at startup if you've wiped
out
an existing keybinding without providing a new one, or if you've
left some commands out of the menu layout. There should also be an
option to turn off customization via the Prefs menu, maybe with
options like "use default menus" and "use default keybindings".
That
way you could always get things working again if you accidentally
do
something real dumb with your config file.
Input / Output
-----------------
* FEATURE REQUEST: Option to output midi bytes to a named pipe or to
stdout. This would allow Jazz to be connected to any software
synthesizer that can read midi bytes on stdin. See below for list
of
known apps that work this way. This would require Jazz be able to
handle its own timing (at present I think it relies on
/dev/sequencer for timing?) ... maybe not trivial, but probably
not that hard either, and worth it, I think. For one thing, some
people have no external synthesizers and no onboard soundcard
synth;
software synths are their only recourse. For another thing,
software synths kick ass!
Soft synths that *definitely* can accept
midi input on stdin:
RTSynth http://www.vtourist.com/rtsynth/
csound (linux version)
http://AIMI.dist.unige.it/AIMICSOUND/AIMICSOUND_home-en.html
Soft synths that *should* but I haven't tried it yet:
Ultramaster Juno6 http://www.ultramaster.com/juno6/index.html
Quasimodo http://www.quasimodo.org
* FEATURE REQUEST: While we're at it, Jazz should be able to read
midi
bytes streaming in from stdin or a named pipe. This should be
easier
than writing to stdout because you don't have to do any scheduling
-
just note the time each byte arrives. This would allow you to
capture streams generated from any midi tool that can write to
stdout in realtime, for example SoftWerk:
http://www.op.net/~pbd/softwerk/softwerk.html
and possibly KeyKit (haven't tried it):
http://thompsonresidence.com/keykit/index.html
* FEATURE REQUEST: The above features would *really* shine if it
were
possible to select the output device or FIFO on a per-channel
basis
(or even per track!) That way you could send channel 1 to one
softsynth, channel 2 to a different one, channel 3 to a soundcard
wavetable synth, etc... (Of course running 2 softsynths at once
would require a way to mix their outputs so you can hear them, but
that's not Jazz's problem. Something like aRts sound server should
allow this.)
Miscellaneous
---------------
* BUG: Any idea why this file plays at the wrong tempo?
http://www.ulster.net/~abigoo/jazz-groove-1.mid.gz
I created it in Jazz 4.0.0. The tempo should be 175. Jazz displays
the tempo as 175 but plays it at 120. (weird, it wasn't doing that
yesterday.) playmidi and timidity both play the same file at the
correct tempo.
* BUG: In the main window, clicking the zoom buttons changes the
selection. Selection should be independent of display... I can't
think of any possible reason to want it to do what it does,
therefore it's a bug and not merely a gripe.
* GRIPE: (low priority but I'm sure it'll get me sooner or later)
Why is there a 500-bar limit per song? This should either be
unlimited, or at least a number so that high no-one will ever
notice
it. (It would be easier to set this parameter with an entry
widget,
not a slider!)
* GRIPE: Why only 12 steps of transpose? Frequently I transpose
things 3
octaves which means I have to transpose it 3 times.
* FEATURE REQUEST: In the main window, dragging selection off the
screen should cause scrolling. This is "normal" behavior for just
about any app that edits anything (text, soundfiles, graphics...)
It's useful and users expect it.
* FEATURE REQUEST: text search in event list!
* FEATURE REQUEST: (low priority) import / export event list as
ASCII
file
-- ................ paul winkler .................. slinkP arts: music, sound, illustration, design, etc. A member of ARMS -----> http://www.reacharms.com or http://www.mp3.com/arms or http://www.amp3.net/arms personal page ----> http://www.ulster.net/~abigoo
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