Ardour 2.7.1 released

Its been a busy two weeks since 2.7 was released. Not only has there finally been a working new release of JACK, but Ardour has also seen several major bug fixes, a useful collection of new features, and many smaller fixes that correct annoying behaviour. As a result, Ardour 2.7.1 has been released. OS X Intel users will find an Intel build and we'll have a PPC one ready as soon as possible. If you tried Ardour 2.7 on OS X and it would not start up for you, please give 2.7.1 a test.

NEW FEATURES & CHANGES

• option to preserve formants when stretching/shifting
• new option to control whether newly added plugins are active or not, enabled by default
• copy sends as well as plugins when doing copy/paste operations in the mixer strip
• copy send I/O configurations when copying sends
• remove height buttons from automation tracks
• new option to do cubase-style solo-overrides mute (off by default)
• ardour-build plugin GUIs are now "taller" rather than "wider"
• insert-time operation can now move markers too
• double-click on plugin/send/insert boxes now brings up plugin manager
• handle an instant.xml file (GUI state) that has been modified by ardour 3.0 (without crashing)
• shorten coreaudio's format text strings
• creating ranges from region selections now offers two different options: create 1 range spanning all selected regions, or create 1 range per selected region.

FIXES

• fix OS X display of startup message about missing JACK
• actually delete commands from undo history when limiting depth of the history list. this fixes a massive memory leak in ardour when working with lots of regions and/or lots of edits.
• MAJOR fix for any situation where an audio track is playing more channels than it has output ports. triggered by a report about playing an 8-chn AIFF file via the auditioner
• set up folder/directory name correctly for range export
• drastically improve handling of Drag-n-Drop internally, avoiding memory leaks and potential memory corruption
• when using a top menubar (as on OS X), don't quit when the editor window is closed.
• prevent lockup/hangs when caused by editing a track name and then resizing so that the track name entry field is hidden
• select objects when clicking on them in region gain mouse mode, so that subsequent operations do not operate on unexpected objects.
• don't duplicate LADSPA plugins in plugin manager list
• items in region context menus that need a position (e.g. split) are desensitized if the edit point is "mouse", to avoid odd behaviour.
• fix a bug that made certain prompt windows potentially able to cause crashes
• make panner changes propagate into the panner GUIs even when the number of streams being handled is reduced
• do not crash in an xrun handler when there is no session
• lots of Session members now initialized in constructor, rather than being left to chance
• correct control surface track indexing (fixes a crash when using Tranzport and others to go to "next" or "prev" track)
• MTC message delivered internally when handling an MMC locate now contains correct FPS value, avoiding stupid error message from showing up.
• compile correctly even with NLS=0
• track names are now visible even with the "light" theme

CONTRIBUTORS

Colin Fletcher, Carl Hetherington (welcome back!), Lincoln Spiteri, Paul Davis

Thomas Vecchione provided valuable bug tracker review, forwarding on many patches from Colin & Carl to me to look at and get committed.

Bent Bisballe Nyeng did some really fantastic work debugging the undo list memory leak bug, allowing me to fix it relatively quickly.