Ardour 2.7 released

After a frenetic month getting things ready for the SAE version of Ardour, I am happy to announce the public release of Ardour 2.7. For the first time, this includes public versions for OS X (Intel and (PPC) as well as our usual (source tarball. (Note: new or old users of Ardour or JACK on OS X should read this information before attempting to run Ardour.) This release is dominated by dramatic improvements in OS X GUI performance and startup time, but it also contains a lot of significant bug fixes. However, somewhat to my surprise, Ardour also accumulated quite a lot of nice new features since 2.6.1.

Features

• Overall dramatic improvements in OS X GUI performance
• New action to rotate editor/mixer window stacking
• New action to cycle through mouse modes
• Plugin windows can now have keyboard focus locked to them
• Add missing extensions to exported files based on selected file type
• Loop/Range ruler now visible by default
• Default crossfade is now -3dB cut
• Crossfade presets changed to include -6dB cut and two S-curves (icons sadly not changed yet)
• New support for Wiimote control (experimental, disabled by default and not currently possible on OS X)
• Selected tracks are always visible when scrolling through with select-next-track or select-previous-track
• Skip non-active and hidden tracks with select-previous-track and select-next-track
• Several new tooltips all over the place and better tooltip colors
• On OS X, Button2 can be emulated with Ctrl-Option-Button1
• Busses are never auto-connected to physical inputs
• Unmodified clicking in canvas rulers now sets playhead position, similar to existing behaviour in the "real" rulers. Use Ctrl- (Linux) or Command (OS X)-click/drag for new markers/ranges.
• Crossfade-editor specific keybindings: space => play xfade, left-arrow => play fade out, ctrl-left-arrow => dry fade out, right-arrow => play fade in, ctrl-right-arrow => dry fade in
• Drag-n-Drop from OS X Finder now more reliable but no longer supports MP3 or AAC (will be reverted in the future)
• Start position and Sync position clocks added popup region editor
• Better stay-on-top behaviour for certain windows
• LV2 port notification fix for GUI updating
• New German translation
• New post-export nag screen
• Per-track OSC control of solo/mute/rec-enable and gain

Fixes

• Removed suggestion that users can save while disconnected from JACK
• Corrected reversed handling of "show-editor-mixer" state on startup
• Fixed crasher caused by changing gain with transport stopped & panner bypassed
• Correct reverse logic for making h/w monitoring available given h/w capabilities
• Fix confusing relabelling of plugin bypass button
• Prevent double registration of ALSA sequencer ports
• Correctly initialize JACK timeout parameter when starting JACK
• Ignore triple-clicks on mute/solo/rec-enable button
• Momentary solo/mute now works
• Fix serious error when calculating interpolated Curve values (will cause tiny, almost certainly undetectable changes in automation and fade curves, but may also remove clicks)
• Fix quoting in TOC files wrap PBD::Thread... signals in a mutex to avoid crashing during startup as multiple threads "emit" the signal
• Make comboboxes a little bigger on X11
• B|B|T clocks measuring duration now use zero-based values
• New regions created by AudioFilters (Reverse/TimeFX/Transpose) inherit all relevant settings of their ancestor
• Fix for incorrect reading of fade out curve under a few circumstances
• Catch exceptions while loading AudioUnits
• Correct some glitches with playhead motion when looping/reversing
• Fix failure when opening a session by double-clicking the session file icon (OS X)
• Fix loss of "current dialog" tracking when exiting a dialog via a button (could cause crash on next Ctrl-w)
• Detect no-installed-JACK on OS X to avoid silent crashes for new users

Development

• GTK/OSX patch now in SVN
• Check build host for broken mutex-based glib atomic ops
• Two versions of clearlooks now in SVN - older, for X11 (crisp!), and newer for OS X (faster!)

Contributors

Massive thanks to Nick Mainsbridge who, with the financial support of SAE and his own dedication to the cause, pulled off a minor miracle with OS X GUI performance, as well as many SAE-specific fixes and improvements.

Other work and fixes: Sampo Savolainen, Don Fredricks, Krzysztof Foltman, Dave Robillard, and the plumber himself, Paul Davis