We've hit a bit of a stumbling block in developing Soundboard, and it will likely require some time for us to develop a solution. Several users reported there was a delay of about a half second between when an audio file was supposed to play, and when it actually played. This was less noticeable when playing a cue by hand, but was creating problems when audio files played as part of extended sequences. Unfortunately, the problem is part of Javazoom itself, our core audio system, and nothing we have been able to seems to be able to mitigate that. ... read more
In anticipation of a release sometime in the next month or so, we have feature-locked the 2.1.0 release to better focus on testing new features added, and develop appropriate documentation.
After 9.5 years of development, I am pleased to announce the first stable release of Soundboard is available now! Soundboard v2.0.9 is the first to drop the beta tag, and includes many bug fixes and stability enhancements from 2.0.8b. Some less stable features, like FLAC playback and pan control, have been removed from this version, and will be developed further into the new "unstable" branch of releases. Expect a release of 2.1.0 (unstable) to incorporate some of these features and the bug fixes of 2.0.9 sometime in Q1 2019. ... read more
Last July, a release candidate of the upcoming stable release of Soundboard was sent to a select few testers, and I am happy to report that, as of today, all reported bugs have been fixed. The latest release candidate, 2.0.9rc2, has been shared with testers, and the 2.1.x branch patched with those changes / bug fixes. We're still shooting for a 2018 release of the 2.0.9 version, but if anyone would like to test the release candidate in advance, please let me know, and I will provide you with a download link.
We have just completed the fork of Soundboard into two seperate branches. The 2.0.x branch, which is what we have been developing since 2009, is now the stable branch of development. This branch of the code will henceforth only receive new features after they have been tested in other branches, and their stability is proven. Bug fixes will continue in 2.0.x as they are discovered.
The 2.1.x branch will be where new features are developed and tested for future use. 2.1.x will be the more feature-rich branch, but it will also be more prone to defects. Don't say we didn't warn you. ... read more
For those of you not following along with the commit messages, we're changing the way we're handling volume levels in the next release of Soundboard, which means that the future releases will not be compatible with your settings from existing cue files. The files should open, and you will still be able to modify them, but your old sound levels will not behave as expected from your experience with earlier versions.... read more
It has been a long time coming, but a stable release of soundboard is finally in sight. The next release will be 2.1.0 (stable). Subsequent development will take place in the 2.2 branch. Repositories for these releases have been initialized, but will remain empty until we are ready to commit code to them.
For the moment, we have been working to remove some experimental or non-working features from the code base, as well as perform some miscellaneous code cleanup, to make sure the 2.1 release is, in fact, stable. Feature requests will be considered after 2.1.0 has been released, and some of 2.0.8's experimental functionality will likely be re-integrated into the 2.2 branch, but expect 2.1.0 (and future commits to the 2.0 branch) to pare back on some of the features of 2.0.8.
Oops, we made a mistake with our release of Soundboard 2.0.8b and forgot to include the src directory. Today's re-release of 2.0.8b corrects this mistake.
Hot on the heels of last month's release comes Soundboard 2.0.8b, which includes many key bug fixes. Soundboard will no longer hang on the pre-wait time for a stop cue, and the countdown status faders for cues in an auto-follow sequence (after the first) will play correctly.
We've also added some basic row re-ordering to the cue table, as well as getting our error message windows to a more sane size. While these features are not fully complete (they work, but with limitations), the severity of the bugs that we've corrected in this release has prompted us to publish 2.0.8b before those other features are working the way we intend. If you want to know more, please read the change log. ... read more
The latest release of Soundboard doesn't have any shinny new bells or whistles, but it does have a couple of important bug fixes. Firstly, Soundboard will no longer try saving strings as floats, and then writing those to your show files (because that's just a silly thing for it to do). Hopefully this will reduce the number of broken show files in the future.
Secondly, I have adjusted the GUI slightly so that the Soundboard window, including most significantly the cue table, is now scalable. Those of you working with larger screens than I am will be happy to know you can now take advantage of them. ... read more
I'm pleased to announce that I've set up Mercurial for version control. Unfortunately the svn repository changes have all been lost, but since most of that code has either been superseded by more recent versions or remained unchanged, it's not a significant loss. Not only will this provide a backup for the code, but it will also help make sure that those of you who want to build from source can get the most recent features sooner.
Dear Soundboard Users,
I am pleased to say that the latest release of Soundboard is now available, and this one is full of bug fixes. I've also included some highly experimental FLAC support in this release, but please use it with caution, as I have had sporadic success playing them, but as yet have not been able to determine a pattern of failure or a solution. Thank you all for continuing to use Soundboard, and for your continuing feedback. ... read more
Good news, Soundboard fans! Version 2.0.4b is now available for your downloading pleasure. It includes a brand new edit menu (cut, copy, paste functionality), updates to the manual, and a very minor bug fix.
Because I've had a couple requests come in for a more recent snapshot of the codebase lately, I have posted the latest in the files section. Soundboard v2.0.3b release c is now available, and contains many of the bug fixes and most of the new features that will be included in the v2.0.4b release, which should still be ready before the summer season begins.
As you may or may not know, SourceForge recently upgraded their system, and switching over the svn repository has resulted in what one of my favorite bosses always used to refer to as "another seamless IT transition." i.e. it doesn't work right. I'm trying to figure out what's going on and how to resolve the svn issues with SF.net support, but the 2.0.4 release of Soundboard will, regrettably, be delayed as a result. Sorry. ... read more
I'm pleased to report that the next version of Soundboard will integrate some features there have been long outstanding requests for; including displaying the name of a media file as the target to a sound cue, and stereo pan control. However, this means that the new version of Soundboard will be incompatible with earlier versions. For those of you building from source, those changes are live as of the current svn snapshot (107). ... read more
The latest snapshot (98) no longer relies on the JMF for playback. We're now using jLayer instead for all systems. Based on the error messages I was receiving about getting Soundboard to work on some Ubuntu systems, this should resolve most issues getting Soundboard to start. Since it's been so long since the last release, I'm going to prepare another one as soon as I've had a chance to test it a little bit more and revise some of the documentation, which has not kept pace with code updates. Stay tuned.
I have been aware of certain difficulties getting the JMF installed on Linux systems for some time, and while the reasons behind that continue to be a mystery, it looks like migrating away from the JMF is going to be the best way to go; as Oracle appears to have abandoned development of that in favor of JavaFX.
In the mean time, if you absolutely must run Soundboard on Linux, there is a work around: if you are running NetBeans, and compile from source and run *within* NetBeans, Soundboard will run normally. Of course, you'll have to be running a system that is capable of handling both, and you'll need t know a little bit about setting up a development environment, but unless Oracle decides to fix whatever is broken with the JMF in Linux, it's the best I can suggest until I've updated to better (working technology). ... read more
Hi everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to thank those of you who have continued to use soundboard through the beta, and who continue to offer your feedback and support on this program. I wanted to assure you that I haven't forgotten about it. When I posted my last news update, I had hoped to have cue timers, along with some other bug fixes, completed sometime by early January of 2011. Unfortunately, mere days after posting that news item, my father was killed in a car crash, and I was unable to devote time to this project. ... read more
Hi everyone!
In the interest of transparency, I wanted to let you all know that countdown timers and in-line status messages that I've heard so many requests for are currently in development. My schedule isn't allowing as much time for me to work on these as I would like, but with a little bit of luck I'll have a new release integrating this functionality available in early 2011. If you can't wait that long, you can continue to check out the latest SVN snapshots as I work on building this into the program.... read more
In case you missed it, Lee Schlesinger recently wrote a bit about Soundboard at the Sourceforge Blog. You can check his post out here: https://sourceforge.net/blog/soundboard-is-a-sound-option-for-stage-performances/
Since then, a number of people have written in with offers to help the project, and advice for how I can fix some outstanding issue, and I wanted to thank everyone who's contacted me for helping to bring Soundboard closer to completion.
For those of you who only monitor the news feed, we've released the third beta of Soundboard a few hours ago. This release incorporates the following changes:
* Corrected bug that was preventing duration of mp3 sound cues from
displaying properly on non-Windows systems.
* Corrected bug that prevented addition of new cues to the table after
the last cue had been deleted.
* Corrected bug that caused the auto-selection of the wrong cue
after a new cue is added to the table.
* Corrected bug that prevented the auto-selection of the cue
immediately preceding the cue being deleted.
* Enabled selection of midi files for playback (presently they are
supported by the JMF).
* Corrected bugs that allowed playback controllers to propogate errors
to the interpreter when used without data being written to the table.
* Added cue numbers to error dialogues that referenced specific cues.
* Added error dialogues to catch fades that did not have a cue number
associated with them, rather than letting a NullPointerException be
passed to the interpreter.
* Added ability to package sound files and (updated) sound cue
sheet into a directory for easy export.
* Added check to make sure that cue files get saved with the .xml
extension, and to add the extension if the user did not supply it.
* Tweaked open function so that it will only clear the cue table if you
actually choose a cue file to open.
* Added support for ogg-vorbis playback via JLayer.
* Corrected bug that was causing cues to be sorted in ASCII, rather
than numeric order, and thus causing cue sheet files to load
improperly.
* Added some improved error reporting to help troubleshoot reported,
but as yet not-reproduced by the author, problem of Soundboard
silently failing to save changes to a currently opened file.
* Added more improved error reporting to help troubleshoot reported
problem of Soundboard potentially corrupting media files.
* Corrected bug that would over-write media files with cue-sheet XML
data. This also corrects a reported problem with cue-sheet files
saving properly.
* Added ability to export cue sheet as an excel spreadsheet.
* Added functionality to keep track of the media file directory, and to
preserve this information in the cue sheet file.
* Added ability to clear status messages with a right-click (ctrl-click
on Mac).
Soundboard is getting an extensive beta test (using the latest builds) at the Weathervane Playhouse right now. Their current production of Alice in Wonderland has a rich and extensive sound scape, and they're using Soundboard to run the show. We've turned up quite a few bugs as a result of this test (to my knowledge, Soundboard has never been tested on a show this big before), and I'm working on correcting these now in anticipation of the next beta release. ... read more
The latest SVN snapshot now provides for playback support for Ogg Vorbis files; that's the good news, which means we're a little bit closer to the next release.
Since my latest news update, I was alerted to a pretty major bug that I'm working to resolve: wherein a volume-fader thread locks the GUI and prevents the user from executing other cues of any sort, or even pushing the all important "stop" button. Clearly that's something we want to fix before the next release.
In anticipation of the third beta release of Soundboard, I've started adding some new features. It is now possible to package all of the sound files you've added to your cue sheet into a single directory for convenient editing, archival, and export. Also I've changed the Save As function so that it will append the ".xml" extension if you forget. You can check out the latest SVN snapshot to get access to those features and the bug fixes. ... read more