KGuitar 0.5 review
DownloadKGuitar aims to develop a free, full-featured guitarist helper program, focusing on tabulature editing and MIDI synthesizers support.
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KGuitar aims to develop a free, full-featured guitarist helper program, focusing on tabulature editing and MIDI synthesizers support.
Requirements:
A POSIX-compliant system
Qt libraries v3.x
KDE libraries v3.x
TSE3 libraries v0.2.3 or higher recommended for MIDI support
C++ compiler like gcc (3.2.x recommended)
GNU make tools
autoconf 2.5.x/automake 1.7.x (required only to build module from CVS)
Corresponding libraries development packages or sources
What's New in This Release:
Also a huge milestone release in a very long time. Lots of internal refactoring, fixes after big changes in 0.4.9 and even bigger changes by itself.
Build system is refreshed (updated from current KDE SDK), obsolete things removed, should compile smoothly on most boxes. TeTeX support is not installed by default.
Huge refactoring work inside KGuitar: greatly improved internal architecture, modularized all import / export procedures, improved options handling.
More KDE3 standartization: better and cleaner shell / KPart separation, standartized UI, actions, KDE-based dialogs with standard features and cleaner API, better support for BiDi interfaces, numerous layout fixes in lots of windows.
Pretty full-featured Guitar Pro 4 import support. Imports smoothly most of the files I've tested it on, had some known problems with percussion tracks, but generally comprehends almost all difficulties in GP4 files and gracefully ignores them. More testing and patches are welcome!
Improved song / track printing / display - now all tabulature / notestaff rendering is maintained in single class and both displaying and printing use the same codebase. It made possible displaying note scores on screen while editing tabs - however, it requires Feta fonts installed, as previously for printing. Check out the documentation for instructions.
Chord dialog - added chord finder: you can enter pure text name of chord in top chord name string, push one button and you'll get chord diagrams, fingerings and other info instantly. Chord finder also supplies a "Quick insert by name" button that makes entering something like "Am / C / F / E" chord rhythm a breeze.
Melody editor - got lots of improvements: added scales & modes showing on fretboard, added more inlay/graphics options, working action / advance functions that act as stated in options page.
Song properties - added simple tempo support in song properties dialog - that "initial tempo" was in file format for ages, but, finally, it's user-editable.
MIDI playback improvements - much better monitoring due to absolute time values in MIDI events, fixed stuck notes after song stop, lost patch/bank presets, etc. Added panic (shut down all notes) after stop and tempo track support.
Multiple usability fixes: more column duration actions, keyboard combos to move cursor by 1 bar (currently bound to Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right), chord dialog - better tab ordering, default pushbutton, accelerators for non-default functions (Ctrl+Enter and Shift+Enter).
Lots of other fixes: gcc3.4 compatibility, MusicXML DTD 0.7a support, proper status bar handling, proper updates when pasting / select all / delete track, fixed compile errors without TSE3, selection of negative track bug, lots of display problems with TrackPrint usage, mouse select handling bug, multiple memory leaks and segfaults.
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