[KG-announce]KGuitar 0.5 released

[Mikhail Y. <gr...@al...>]

Hello!

Well, after waiting for so long, I'm pleased to announce KGuitar release
0.5 at last. It's a fruit of long labours, and has some really
interesting potential. You're welcome to download it at:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/kguitar/kguitar-0.5.tar.bz2?download

List of news is really long:

* Release 0.5

* 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.

-- 
WBR, Mikhail Yakshin AKA GreyCat
[xmpp:gr...@al...]