Hey everybody, It's hard to believe that ten months have passed since I last posted the a pre-release build of the Dog. Nonetheless that should help to make tonight's all the more tasty. Simply run a "Check for Update..." in the Doggiebox application menu to grab it automatically, or download from <http://www.doggiebox.com/ development.php>. Improvements fall under these four main themes: - New floating palette with better transport controls - New recording mode for keyboard or MIDI drum input - Bug fixes, including the missing export progress indicator - Simplification of some prefs options and various cosmetic improvements Of important note is that, with this build and moving forward, Doggiebox will now require Mac OS X 10.5 or newer in order to take best advantage of facilities afforded by the latest OS. Furthermore, statistics gathered from 1G-series testers since last July indicate that not a single user with 10.4 has run any of these builds, so it appears a sound decision. Also, due to a minor change in how registration keys are saved, it's possible that Doggiebox will think it's no longer registered when you launch this build. If that happens, simply re-activate with your registration key. Following, now, is the verbose laundry list of changes and improvements in this build (also included as Release Notes with the download). New floating palette with transport and editing controls: - Play/stop button and loop toggle have been moved here, along with new buttons for start/end and forward/back jog, plus record enable. - Bar-editing controls (insert/remove beats, tempo and time signature adjustments, and zoom) have been moved here. - Current location of the insertion point/playhead is displayed, in bars and beats as well as minutes:seconds. - Looping and monophonic fold-down are now controlled globally and have corresponding commands in the Song menu. New recording mode: - When recording is enabled, drum kit shortcut keys (and incoming MIDI messages) will cause the corresponding drum to be inserted at the insertion point/playhead location. - To switch drum variants via the keyboard, you must now press the Option key along with the shortcut. Changes to several Preferences options: - Removed checkbox for toggling the playhead position indicator; it is now always shown (turning this off was an obscure choice of vestigial origin). - Removed checkbox for creating backward-compatible files; songs saved with this version will be compatible back to Doggiebox 1.3. - Removed checkbox for showing splash screen on launch; it is now only shown in trial mode. - Added new checkbox to toggle MIDI MMC/MTC output; previously this always occurred, but can now be turned off if unneeded. Bugs fixed in this build: - Missing progress indicator during audio file export (temporary regression in 1G08). - Long-standing potential crash when changing a bar's tempo during playback (thanks Charlie). - Bug which caused MIDI output to be very late or absent altogether (temporary regression since 1G04). - Issue which caused "HVURLHandlerErrorDomain error 1003" when displaying the Help Viewer on Snow Leopard. Miscellaneous changes: - Cosmetic and display improvements in the pattern editor. - The playhead now keeps moving even when the mouse button is down or a menu is being displayed. - Improved the reliability of detecting when a drum kit in use by an open song has been modified. - Key shortcut for "zoom in/out selection" changed from Cmd-Shift to Cmd- Option (and +/-). I would enjoy feedback, and particularly bug reports, relating to anything described above. As times goes by I feel loathe to refer to these builds as "beta", lest it confirm the old creature has come down with Google syndrome; alas, while an official public new release is still premature, it does approach. After updating, you may notice that the release version moniker has tentatively changed from "1.5" to "2.0". Owing to marketing and technological considerations, I've decided it probably time to up the number, and my plan is to target a full public release by the fall -- which will also be the first pay-for upgrade that Doggiebox has seen. More details will of course follow as the time comes. cheers yall, -ben -- Ben Kennedy (chief magician) zygoat creative technical services http://www.zygoat.ca