Synfire 2 .0 Pre-Release Bug Reports

Is your Windows 10 up to date?

My god the amount of bugs, which adds to the V1 ones...

Now that you've released the first version of this goddamn factory thing, which I admit is very cool stuff and "it completes" the program, I hope you'll take a step back and dedicate some time to fixing the GUI and the usability issues of this software.

I have success to get my Modx as Global Rack but I don’t have any success to hear the sound when I play the keyboard only when Synfire play! Version 2 build #49.

In the Palette (left menu) this behaviour is still present and, certainly, annoying as scriabiner posted.

Which keyboard do you mean? On screen or external MIDI input? If it's the latter, check if input is enabled for the MIDI port. Also select the instrument/channel on the right sidebar to switch MIDI through to that channel.

Yeah, some popup menus behave different (need to hold down mouse button), which is an inconsistency. This and many other issues are fixed already for the next update.

I mean Modex keyboard, the input is check and I think I have select the instrument/channel and midi through is check.

Ok, so you have a master keyboard connected that also is supposed to provide the sounds for the global rack?

This makes it tricky to separate input from output. You may need to set LOCAL OFF with your hardware or something (don't remember exactly). Synfire might also believe you have wired an infinite loopback, or there actually is one (when notes coming in are immediately sent back to the keyboard, bouncing back in again, etc).

Yes I have master keyboard, and the local off is set on Modx and  the looback is not checked on Audio/midi setup /inputs.

I could solve this problem by double clicking every font in the fonts folder and pressing "Install".  After that everything looked great :-)

Tool Tips: I like the new tool tips.  They often give exactly the information I want.  Some of them even seem to have links like "Find workflow tips on drawing phrases here" but as soon as you move the mouse pointer towards the link, the tool tip disappears, so you can never actually access the link.  It's only a minor point but might be worth fixing eventually?

(Using: Windows 11 Pro.)

Re: Fonts -- It should not be necessary to install the fonts globally (as you did). They are private fonts that get registered for Synfire.exe when it starts. I have no idea why it does not work on your computer (nobody else reported this issue yet). Maybe Windows 10 is not up to date or some anti-virus utility blocks the fonts from loading.

Re: Tooltips -- The small popup windows are read-only "preview" of sections of the manual. The full text shows up in the help browser, where it is fully interactive.

Re: Master keyboard -- I will double-check for remaining issues with MIDI Through, although my master keyboard is a LMK4 with no sounds.

A new version 1.0.3 with Audio Engine 4.1.0 is in the making today.

Re: Tooltips -- The small popup windows are read-only "preview" of sections of the manual. The full text shows up in the help browser, where it is fully interactive.

Yes we understand that, but the correct behavior would be to simply not show those sentences that links to something and to not highlight links in the tooltips, or some other tricks, because when there is a link the user by instinct wants to move the mouse in order to click. A very minor annoyance compared to the other bugs, but it's still bad GUI design.

The question is whether that level of perfection, which even a behemoth like Microsoft can't meet, is worth another week of coding, making the DITA renderer medium-specific so it can hide certain XML tags from the user depending on where the output is rendered. Some seemingly tiny things require huge effort to do right.

Don't get me wrong. It's great to get feedback so we can learn where confusion arises or where mistakes have been made. Many things can even be fixed in a minute. It would be more productive however, if the feedback was a little more level-headed and less judgmental. Increasing the pressure only makes me throw the computer out the window and that isn't to anyone's benefit ;-) I hope everyone gets the irony.

Hi Andre,

Focus more on the positive comments. You've done a great job here. And absolutely need to take a break, and prioritise the most important fixes and feature tweaks. Let these be ready when they're ready. In the meantime, let's get that Synfire 2 webinar up and running!

I don't consider bug reports and critical feedback negative at all. It's much appreciated and necessary! But some tranquility is currently needed to stay focussed and get things done.

I had read your answer as a justification for the tooltip behavior (by mistake), so I just reiterated my reasoning. Now that you brought up an actual justification (i.e. it's a minor thing but a pain to fix) I understand. I don't even care about that issue at all, we were just in the mood of reporting stuff, while you're in whichever mood someone having to manage a pre-release is. I'll avoid being fussy about minor issues, no problem.

I've got exactly the same (font?) issue as discosleepy i.e. the Synfire application window looks like his synfire_with_ghost_buttons_0.jpg
Windows should be up to date (Windows 10, Version 21H2, Build 19044.1645).

Regarding the missing fonts, we might have a fix. When you install the next update (expected this evening or early tomorrow), please remove the fonts you installed manually to see if it works. I can't reproduce it on any machines here, so this will be the only way to confirm the fix. Thank you.

Unfortunately the lastest version (2.0.2 b#7) did not solve the font issue.
I even uninstalled and manually removed all Synfire folders to get to a sort of "virgin" state.
That did not help either.
Should I try the trick of discosleepy to manually/globally install all fonts?
I'm a little worried that any future update will require me manual checking the fonts for changes etc.

This is strange though, I'm also using Windows 10 and I don't have this problem.

I do however get this in text edit controls:

(https://users.cognitone.com/files/forum/3689/gui.png)

which may be related.

Synfire 2.0.2 build 7

1. File->New->Palette

2. View->Notepad

3. Drag any chord to the notepad

4. Select chord from notepad and drag it to the main window's arrangement's progression

5. Crash city

This only happens if the progression for the container was empty (all the chords are greyed out). I also submitted this in a crash report. Enjoy!

Should I try the trick of discosleepy to manually/globally install all fonts?

No all fonts. Only those that installed with Synfire.

I do however get this in text edit controls

This cursor misalignment is an oddity with the Smalltalk virtual machine in HiDPI mode. We are at the whims of the VM team, so can do no more than wait. 

In the meanwhile you can also start Synfire in scaled graphics mode. A bit blurred but usable.

Add -H to the command line of the shortcut that starts Synfire.

Nope, "-H" just seems to override Windows' DPI setting (meaning I see Synfire small, DPI 100%), so you lose the whole point of using a custom DPI.
 

Have checked my Windows Registry.
Interestingly most of the "Roboto-..."-Fonts already had an entry there, but without path and they were not in C:\Windows\Fonts.
So I took the liberty to register all those Synfire Fonts with the appending reg file.
After that everything looks fine now.

Further: a emerging installation error on my household Windows computer : The installation of the package failed, Create ,pathSystem> fonts.Roboto-Medium .tff
The items  so far will be removed again 

Has something to do with fonts? 

On my Windos music computer , intstallation without problems

note: The installation I do with administration rights.
I had to install synfire for a second time and maybe revo uninstaller took away too much from the first installation ?

Interestingly most of the "Roboto-..."-Fonts already had an entry there

Its a very popular Google font. Your registry entries seemed to be stale. I'd just remove them. Synfire uses its own copies of these fonts w/o using the registry.

Has something to do with fonts? 

If it stops at writing the font files, it has likely to do with file permissions. The folder these files are written to is not a Windows system folder. If it can't write there, a parent folder is locked or something.