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-   -   MidiNotate Composer 20 beta release version 1912 (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=2216)

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-20-2006 11:06 PM

Composer beta release version
 
Composer beta release version 1.9.12 is now available at:
www.notation.com/MidiNotateBetaRelease.htm

If you are using any prior version of Composer, it will be necessary for you to download and install version 1.9.12. (No patches from previous beta versions are available.)

Composer beta release version 1.9.12 includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

30% upgrade discount invitation. This beta release invites anyone to send feedback and bug reports before November 21, 2006, to receive a 30% discount off the upgrade price from Musician 1.x or Composer 1.x to Composer 2.0. Click here for details.

Playlist. Fix bugs: Playlist sometimes incorrectly opens MIDI files multiple times. Playlist should not interrupt with asking the user whether he wants to do Split Hands for an imported keyboard track. The Playlist file dialog did not correctly list .not, .mid, or .kar files in certain circumstances.

Clipboard. Fix bug: The File / New From Clipboard command failed.

Transcription. Fix bug: The Swing Rhythm transcription option did not work (and has not been working since version 1.1.6).

Importing MIDI files. The new feature introduced in version 1.9.11 for analyzing imported keyboard tracks did not work correctly in some circumstances.

Cheers
-- Mark

M G Jacobs (mgj32) 10-21-2006 05:49 AM

Hi Mark, When I installed 1
 
Hi Mark,

When I installed 1912, I was presented with two options--I chose to unistall the previous version in order to keep Songs files. When I then installed the new beta, I did not get the restart now dialog (I did this anyhow). When I started the program I was told that the beta had expired.

I did a system restore to before uninstalling 1911, re-downloaded 1912, then chose to overwrite the previous version. The expiration notice re-appeared.

I presume I should do another system restore and continue to use 1911?

best,
mgj

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-21-2006 06:29 AM

Hello MG, Thanks for report
 
Hello MG,

Thanks for reporting that problem! I've now fixed it. Please download 1.9.12 again, making sure it replaces the previously downloaded copy.

Cheers
-- Mark

M G Jacobs (mgj32) 10-21-2006 07:03 AM

Hi Mark, Done. It worked.
 
Hi Mark,

Done. It worked.

best,
mgj

M G Jacobs (mgj32) 10-21-2006 08:03 AM

Hi Mark, Uh-oh, the feedbac
 
Hi Mark,

Uh-oh, the feedback form didn't take the screen shots I referred to. It may be an awkward way to do it, but I'll post them here.

http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/36062/29594.jpg
http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/36062/29595.jpg
http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/36062/29596.jpg
http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/36062/29597.jpg
http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/36062/29598.jpg

David Jacklin (dj) 10-21-2006 01:51 PM

Hi, Mark: When I "click
 
Hi, Mark:

When I "click here for details" on your original post above, the message that "Composer20beta.htm cannot be found" appears.

Does that count as a bug report? http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

David

Fred Winterling (harbor1) 10-22-2006 05:37 PM

Hi Mark, I posted this proble
 
Hi Mark,
I posted this problem in another area, but can't find it. I thought I'd better post it again in case it didn't post.
I am unable to "move' notes in 1.9.12 using shift+arrow.
Thanks,
Fred

Fred Winterling (harbor1) 10-23-2006 04:22 PM

Hi Mark, Today I am able to m
 
Hi Mark,
Today I am able to move notes using shift+arrow. Why? I dunno.
At first I could not move a note in any file. Finally, I tried again to move the note in the initial file I was working on. It still would not move. I was able to change the half note to a quarter note, but could not move it to take the place of the rest. When the note would not move, I closed the program and elected to save changes (that was the only change attempt). When I reopened the program, the quarter note mysteriously appeared in the space I had attempted to move it to. It has been working ever since. It appears the editing gods were just playing with my head! Thanks again!
Fred

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-23-2006 06:36 PM

Hello Fred, It's possib
 
Hello Fred,

It's possible that Composer is confused about whether the Ctrl key is down. I've observed this sometimes, but guessed that the problem was due to the unusual circumstances of my using Composer while it is under the control of a debugging tool, and/or that I use KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) switch box to share the same keyboard and mouse across multiple computers. If the Ctrl key gets stuck in Composer on a normal system like yours, then I'm more concerned that this is somehow a bug in Composer, although it might still be a bug outside of Composer's control, such as in the keyboard driver itself.

If you see have this problem again, that Ctrl+Right/LeftArrow doesn't change the duration of the note, then try this: Type Ctrl+O to see if the File Open dialog box comes up. If it doesn't, then we've pinned down the problem to the Ctrl key. At that point, go to another Windows program and try Ctrl+O there for the File Open command in that program. If Ctrl+O doesn't work there either, then the blame is probably on your keyboard driver or some Windows system-wide problem. On the other hand, if Ctrl+O works in another program, but not in Composer, then the problem is in Composer, that it somehow isn't interpreting the Ctrl key. If this problem with Ctrl+Right/Left comes up again, and if you get this far in the investigation, please let me know what you find.

Cheers
-- Mark

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-23-2006 06:37 PM

Hello MG, Thanks for attach
 
Hello MG,

Thanks for attaching your screen shots above. I'll match them up with your helpdesk support request, and get back to you.

Cheers
-- Mark

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-23-2006 06:38 PM

Hello David,

 
Hello David,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

When I "click here for details" on your original post above, the message that "Composer20beta.htm cannot be found" appears. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I saw your report a couple of days ago and fix the problem and replied in the forum, but I don't see my reply above. Thanks for your report.

Cheers
-- Mark

Reg Burgess (regb) 10-25-2006 05:41 PM

Hi Mark, I know this might be
 
Hi Mark,
I know this might be sensitive, but is there a way for us to know which bugs are fixed in which beta versions ?
By "sensitive" I mean that I understand you might not want the world to know how many bugs there are or what they are.

tnx,

Reg

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-25-2006 06:12 PM

Hello Reg, We're not ba
 
Hello Reg,

We're not bashful about talking about bugs. See the bottom of http://www.notation.com/MidiNotateBetaRelease.htm for a list of bugs that have been fixed in recent beta releases.

Cheers
-- Mark

Reg Burgess (regb) 10-26-2006 03:02 AM

Sorry, I asked the wrong quest
 
Sorry, I asked the wrong question.
I'm actually more interested in which bugs are NOT fixed.
This would help me (&amp; others) to understand what are known bugs that I (&amp; others) don't have to write to you about.

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-26-2006 03:57 AM

Hello Reg, No, there is no
 
Hello Reg,

No, there is no public list of outstanding bugs to be fixed. I do have an in-house database of prioritized "tasks", which include pending bug fixes as well as new features and feature enhancements.

There might be some advantages to making the list of bugs and planned new features and enhancements public, except perhaps for the most competitively sensitive new features that are planned. However, I'm not sure that it really takes the user any less time to research whether the bug is already known than it does for the user to describe the bug.

Yes, sometimes it takes the user more than a short amount of time to write up a bug report, particularly if the user takes the effort (much appreciated by the developer) to reduce the bug to the simplest reproducable conditions. But usually, the user spends that effort only after he's given me an initial short bug report and I ask for more information.

Is there a particular software product you use, that publishes its bugs, which you have found particularly useful?

There are only a couple of software products that I have used over the years that have done a sufficiently good job at publishing known bugs that I found it useful to refer to their list. Perhaps Notation products could be one of such rarities, I suppose. It wouldn't be much more work for me to maintain my task list in a publicly viewable database. ... Well, I guess I would have to spend a lot more effort writing up the tasks so that someone besides Sherry and I could understand what I'm talking about.

Cheers
-- Mark

Reg Burgess (regb) 10-26-2006 03:42 PM

Thanks for the extensive reply
 
Thanks for the extensive reply.

Having spent time as a support engineer I've been used to some level of privileged access to knowledge about bugs. The model that I favor has two tiers, internal and external, with rules about what goes on the external list. "Sanitize bugs" was a part of my job, i.e. re-word the bug report to make it clear, concise, unambiguous - and include the simplest reproducible test case.
Search results were filtered according to who the enquiry was run by, employees getting more detail than customers.

This is probably impractical for a small team - nice to have, but with limited resources the development and fixing take priority over the bug documentation and tracking.
Hmmmm, well,,,, bug tracking is rarely set up for efficiency, since we don't want to believe that there will be more bugs than we can count without taking our socks off (-: If the number and complexity remains low its containable.

Thanks again.

Reg

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-26-2006 04:19 PM

Hello Reg, I value your per
 
Hello Reg,

I value your perspective about this, particularly given that you have been a support engineer. This is definitely something that I will consider, to make the bug list public, as well as feature requests and pending features. This forum has been quite open about both: bug reports and pending features. The forum is where customers "vote" for features. It might be a good idea to formalize this in a public database that customers can blog (add comments) to add their votes for new features, and lobby to increase the priority of particular bug fixes.

Cheers
-- Mark

Herbert WENDE (herbert) 10-29-2006 08:31 AM

Hi Reg I have send previous
 
Hi Reg

I have send previous bug reports using the word “Bug”. I now use the word “Problem”. To the user a problem is a problem, but not always a bug to the software developer.

If you read my earlier posting dated September 13, 2006, you will find a practical suggestion for bug identification. Although the suggestion requires additional programming

In my experience, Mark has never been sensitive about reports on problems, bugs or suggestions for improvements. He clearly appreciates the goodwill shown by users in spending in some cases some considerable time in order to be helpful.

In the meantime I repeat here for your benefit a problem report, I have just posted elsewhere on this forum.


The earlier posting:

Here are some problems I have encountered while using Composer 1.9.12. Some of the problems were already problems with earlier versions of Composer. Some problems do not show up all the time. Some problems are only cosmetic:

1. At times, after opening a file, the beats per minute percentage indicates 10%%, not 100% as expected. The up/down arrows are incomplete. After using the up down arrows, all is ok.

2. The slider of the page selection control blinks after using the page selection control (perhaps, to indicate that is has received the focus). After clicking elsewhere in the window (changing focus), the blinking stops.

3. The sharp/flat etc symbols are a great addition to the note palette. Here is the problem: I have transposed the instrument key of a staff down by one octave. Adding a sharp symbol from the note palette to a note on that staff, will move the note up from its position on the staff by one octave.

4. Two notes next to each other in adjacent measures are connected by a tie. I try to select another note without a tie in the second of the two measures, by clicking it. The note is not selected, but the tie is selected. I have to remove the tie that crosses the barline between the two measures, to be able to select the note.

5. Selecting a note in one voice of a staff with a rest in the other voice, changes the note palette to the rest palette and the rest of the other voice is selected.

6. Frequent, unwanted automatic change of palettes and the cursor types is a serious problem.

7. Margins are lost in page view.

8. Unwanted meter symbols pop up.

9. Piano roll and graph functions are very user unfriendly in its present form, to the point of seriously interfering with productivity.

Improvements would be:

1. Time display to be on at all times, indicating elapsed time from the beginning of the score to the position of the cursor.

2. H+V scroll bars in window view and the ability to center the point of focus on any part of the score, to conveniently display a desired part of the score and around the point of focus. The point of focus should not change its position in the window, except as set by the user.

3. Continuous choice of magnification.

4. A simple way of joining files directly, without copy and paste.

5. Addition of a save and a save as button

6. Addition of a undo and redo button Redo can not be done out of sequence in the edit menu.

7. The graph system is very good in many ways. What it lacks is the ability to permit precision editing. Perhaps an extra window, that could pop up if desired, displaying a small section of the score, much enlarged, with a precise grid and a set of precision graphic tools available, would improve the situation.


Best wishes

Herbert

Reg Burgess (regb) 10-29-2006 04:57 PM

Thanks Herbert, I appreciate
 
Thanks Herbert,
I appreciate and respect your point of view and opinion on this.
I agree, Mark is very responsive - surprisingly so as developers go (-:

Your list is interesting and will probably save me some time if/when I stumble across similar symptoms. This brings me back to the essence of my suggestion/request. Your list, my list, the lists of others, etc., can probably all be found SOMEWHERE on the forum. The FINDING of them is what I am suggesting could be made faster/easier. The knowledge of bugs(problems) certainly isn't hidden, anyone with malicious intent can already find them, count them and put de_flame_atory (sp ?) comments on bulletin boards elsewhere. Mark's openness on this may already pre-empt such action.

I expect they are combined in a database, with redundancies removed, perhaps with cross references, probably with planned resolution and a few other attributes.
It might just be a simple spreadsheet. Making SOME of the columns available to the general public, a few more to beta testers, and still more to those who sign a non-disclosure agreement, would make what we are trying to do a bit easier. It might not be a huge task, without knowing what Mark already has I'm in no position to "size" it as a project.

The semantics aren't important - to ME.
I have spent far too many hours debating the proper use of words such as Problem, Bug, Issue, Complaint, Incident, Fault, Error, Failure, etc - all in order to not offend customers, OEMs, suppliers, service/support folk, developers... Mark seems to accept "Bug", "Possible Bug", "Potential Bug" - from ME anyway (-:

Well, I guess I'm rambling.
I'm willing to devote some time and effort to this and I would certainly sign a NDA

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-29-2006 05:24 PM

Hi Reg,


 
Hi Reg,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

I have spent far too many hours debating the proper use of words such as Problem, Bug, Issue, Complaint, Incident, Fault, Error, Failure, etc - all in order to not offend customers, OEMs, suppliers, service/support folk, developers... Mark seems to accept "Bug", "Possible Bug", "Potential Bug" - from ME anyway (-: <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>A rose by any other name smells as sweet. A bug by any other name smells as bad.

I'll seriously considering migrating my in-house bug and task database to one that is publicly accessible, except for a few competitively sensitive future planned features. There are several bug tracking tools out there, one of which would probably do the job just fine for us.

However, for now, I'm in crunch mode to get the long overdue 2.0 released!

Cheers
-- Mark

Clyde (clyde) 10-31-2006 10:45 AM

Hi Mark, I noticed the foru
 
Hi Mark,
I noticed the forum comments about the 'bug' list and your possible intention to move your 'in-house bug and database' to one that is publically accessible.

I feel that because you now have a released version of Composer that bug fixing in new 'beta' versions needs to be handled differently.

I really feel embarrassed about reporting bugs. I don't know if its my programmer background, but I find it disturbing that you want us to report every bug in such a public way. While it shows your amazing ability to handle these negative comments about your 'baby', I find it difficult to say the things I would like to say in the forum.

What I would prefer is:

(a) Yes have a public forum where people can report their problem and bugs. Yes make that public to some extent if you want.

(b) In the process of fixing bugs there needs to be, in my view, a team of people willing to help that will throughly test the enhancements and fixes. (like what happened prior to the relase of version 1).

(c) A separate forum for the 'testers' and this forum is not public, but just to those who are serious about testing pre-releases. We found that with the intial testing prior to version 1 that the small testing community understood each other and bounced ideas of each other, and also complemented each other in the testing. I feel that is missing, and unfortunately, as much as it hurts me to say it, I think product is suffering because of this lack.

I know in the past you have rejected my suggestion on this, and that is your call, but really, I feel much more can be accomplished with a handful of serious testers who use their own forum to fankly talk about the issues without the eyes of the public seeing everything that is done and said.

I would be happy to be part of such a team, as I have in the past. But I'm far from happy about about doing this in a public forum, and indeed I have reported very few issues of late, not because there are not issues, but I don't like to do it through this public forum.

cheers Clyde

Mark Walsen (markwa) 10-31-2006 09:33 PM

Hello Clyde, I do think the
 
Hello Clyde,

I do think there are advantages that you have described for having a private forum for early beta testing of the next version of Composer, which will be version 2.1. I intend to set up an early private beta testers forum section for 2.1, just as was done for not only 1.0 but also 2.0.

At some point in the product development cycle, product needs to be opened for wider beta testing by the public. For 2.0, I did this by simply opening the private 2.0 beta testing section of the forum for public access. It was quite a while ago when the 2.0 beta testing section of the forum was opened to the wide public-- sometime last spring if I remember correctly. Perhaps you forgot that the 2.0 section of the forum was private for a while last spring; or perhaps you weren't aware of the early 2.0 beta section of the forum because you were busy with other things then.

Would you be concerned that your comments in the private forum will eventually become public?

Cheers
-- Mark

Clyde (clyde) 10-31-2006 11:51 PM

Hi Mark, My lack of enthusi
 
Hi Mark,
My lack of enthusiasm for making the discussions public has nothing to do with any abuse, rudeness etc in the discussions, (which does not happen, I must say) but rather:

(a) Most of it is irrelevant to the public, and
(b) As a result of the discussions, opinions change, or people point out a flaw in some suggested solution. This type of thing does not need to be done publically, where people can 'lose face'

Perhaps a better way to understand this is by considering the following scenario. We have all been to conferences, and maybe during one of the sessions on a hot topic there is sometimes someone in the audience during question time who asks an interesting question, but the discussion goes on &amp; on until everyone is bored with the topic. A good seminar leader will suggest that further discussion be taken 'off-line'.

And so with serious testing. Take for example the problem I reported about slowness which you indicated are 'These are pretty serious problems you are reporting'.

The general public are interested at the level of ' there is a problem with slowness when changing instruments and when using a software midi interface' (or something like that).

However the public are not interested in how we solve the problem, and all the technical discussion and detailed testing that will go on to resolve the issue. There could be a rapid interchange of e-mails (as there was on previous occasions) about the problem which will bore most people. It is this resolution process stuff that I don't like being public because:
(a) It is of little interest to the public, and
(b) Its a discovery phase, and during that phase people need the freedom to make mistakes, change their minds, go out on a limb, be a bit radical etc - and I don't think that needs to be public.

I hope you can understand my desire to be part of Composer's development, but also my reluctance and concerns in this area.

Cheers ... Clyde

Herbert WENDE (herbert) 11-05-2006 01:47 AM

Hi Reg Talking about proble
 
Hi Reg

Talking about problems rather than bugs is a practical matter for me, not based on an attempt to be polite. Problems include bugs. To call a problem a bug requires the user to know what was in the mind of the developer when creating the software. This is not always obvious.

Although Composer users with a background in software development might be interested to have some insight into the project development and programming of Composer, I do not think that it is a good idea to publish a database of bug reports with redundancies removed or any such list, beyond what is already available from reading postings on the forum.

It is important that a user reports his or her experience, not influenced by an official list. The frequency of reports on a particular problem is an important guide for setting priorities.

Clyde makes some good additional points.


Best wishes,

Herbert

Mark Walsen (markwa) 11-06-2006 03:57 PM

Hello Reg, Herbert, and Clyde,
 
Hello Reg, Herbert, and Clyde,

For future major versions of Notation product, I'll probably continue the same practice of having a private forum for the early states of beta testing. This was done for 1.0 and 2.0, and I'm planning on doing this for 2.1.

I'm not sure whether the private early beta testing forum should be made public at some point in the product development cycle. I did this for 2.0 to smooth the transition from private-only beta feedback to public feedback. At the time I felt it would have been awkward to continue beta feedback discussions in both the private and public forum. And I still believe that this would be an awkward problem.

For 2.1, I'll decide up front whether the early private 2.1 beta forum will eventually be made public. If I decide to do it that way, I'll inform the early beta testers about this, so that they'll know that their comments will eventually become public.

Whether there should also be a public bug list is a somewhat independent decision. I believe the main purposes of it would be:
  • To clearly state known bugs so that, a user might same himself the trouble of reporting the bug.
  • To state the priority of the bug fix and predict when the bug fix will be available.
  • To inform when a bug has been fixed, so that the user would know whether it is worth the trouble to update to a newer, free maintenance release version of the product.

Thanks for your ideas about this. As you can tell from the above, I have not made decisions on some of this. However, I do intend to have an early private beta testing forum for 2.1 and other major releases, such as 3.0. I will invite participants to the private beta testing forum, based on the main purpose of the private beta testing, which is to improve the functionality and usability of the product based on the beta testers' real experience using early versions of the product.

Cheers
-- Mark

Clyde (clyde) 11-07-2006 12:04 AM

Hi Mark, I agree with your
 
Hi Mark,
I agree with your 3 point definition of the aims of the Public forum.

I'm pleased that you will continue and use more of the private forum for major releases - I think that is essential.

However, I still feel there needs to be provision for a more private discussion about the testing. Take for example our current discussion about 'corruption of piano roll rectangles' - most of that is irrelevant to you users as it is really between me and you trying to determine the nature problem.

Maybe all that is required on the public forum is an additional Options box on the forum entry (there are already 2) to stop the e-mails going to everyone when there is this type of discussion. Still leave the record on the forum but have some mechanism for avoiding the unwanted detailed discssion emails from flying needlessly around the world.

Cheers ... Clyde

Mark Walsen (markwa) 11-07-2006 06:18 PM

Hello Clyde, If a forum dis
 
Hello Clyde,

If a forum discussion needs to go offline for any reason, then we can simply continue it at Notation's helpdesk. When you reply to a forum post, just change the reply-to from forum@notation.com to support@notation.com. That will turn the discussion into a private one. Also, the continued discussion will be tracked well by the helpdesk, which works a lot like the forum, in that it maintains threads of back-and-forth conversation.

Helpdesk conversations at support@notation.com are still visible by all Notation Software staff. If you want to keep the conversation private also from other Notation Software staff members, then just continue the conversation at my private email address. [Warning to others reading this: My private email address has very stringent anti-spam filters; so warn me at support@notation.com before you send me private email, so I can put you on my private email's white list.]

Cheers
-- Mark


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