EOT events can't disable the instrument / track this happily, because

[ahxm.git] / TODO

Ann Hell Ex Machina TODO / Bug List
===================================

Release Critical Bugs
---------------------

 * 1128: The output driver should change the global variable ss_frequency
   if the underlying hardware doesn't support it. This can't be fixed just
   by changing it there, because ss_song_convert_events() already used the
   incorrect ss_frequency to calculate timings. Also, driver initialization
   can't be moved to run before ss_song_convert_events() because it needs
   ss_nchannels to be filled with a song-dependent default there.

Open Bugs
---------

 * 1045: Line numbers in compiler errors are incorrectly reported when
   inserting a block at the end of the line; when the block is inserted,
   the linefeed has already been read and yyline incremented. This probably
   occurs also with other directives.
 * 1046: When a compilation error occurs inside a named block, the reported
   line number is the one where the insertion occurs, not the one where the
   block is defined.
 * 1022: Add file name to compiler errors.
 * 1087: When skipping time, MIDI should still write program changes
   (and probably other messages) to the output device; that is, only
   notes and time sleeping should be skipped.
 * 1079: Move midiin.c functionality to main.c.
 * 1093: External wave file filters (mpg321, flac, etc.) should be
   configurable via the configuration file (needs #1074 closed).
 * 1098: Immediate volumes are not implemented.
 * 1097: Dotted notes are broken when more than one is used.
 * 1108: Sometimes wave paging hangs. It seems to be related to generators
   simultaneously using offsets far from each other, so the loaded page
   keeps bouncing. Setting the page size to a big number (like the actual
   default, 441000) seems to avoid it, as huge files are not usually used
   more than once. If you are bit by this bug, set the page size to -1 with
   the -b command line option.

Pending Enhancements
--------------------

 * 1003: There should exist 'some kind' of effect for note volumes
   to add a random variation, to add 'humanity'. This cannot
   be a standard digital effect as it should be different
   for each note.
 * 1005: Vibrato should be variable (from 'no-vibrato' to 'some-vibrato'
   in the same note).
 * 1010: Loop stretching ('stretch wave without pitch change to last
   exactly N time units').
 * 1042: Add multiple MIDI devices; a configuration file will match device
   numbers to real addresses in /dev. Then each track in the song file could
   have a command to set which MIDI device will the events be sent to.
 * 1043: The same as the multiple MIDI devices, there should exist multiple
   dsp devices. This way, a unique computer with more than one sound card
   can output multichannel songs at a time.
 * 1074: Add configuration file support.
 * 1056: Note printing in midiin.c should also print chords.
 * 1052: Add quantizations.
 * 1096: ss_outdev.c should be its own project to be used from other
   ones as QDGDF.
 * 1094: Add code to specify note lengths in minutes and seconds.
 * 1100: Add command-line options to mute a track.
 * 1111: Add some directive to set the block random seed.
 * 1112: Add some command line argument to set the block random seed.
 * 1113: Add a special, non-automatic mark (named START or so) to be set
   to the time offset where new tracks will start. This way, a song can be
   made to start at a given offset, easing the creation of 'compilation' or
   'full album' files. Of course, this mark should be redefinible.
 * 1115: Add a special, automatic mark (named END or so) that will be
   set on each track end if it's longer than the previous ones.
 * 1116: Add a command line option to start playing on a given mark.
 * 1117: The output driver initialization should return the number of
   channels currently usable. This way, the output engine can remap all
   channels to the existing ones.
 * 1121: Add all distortion waveshapers as commented in 'foldback'.
 * 1125: Now that notes can be altered, there must be a way to temporarily
   set a note to 'natural' (becuadro).
 * 1127: Rethink most of the softsynth engine to use pthreads. Each thread
   could manage one channel, or each one a track.
 * 1130: Add an end-of-track event, where effects can be reset (to stop
   consuming CPU) and instruments released (to free memory).

Closed
------

 * 1000: Convert current event queue to two event queues. The first
   stage queue should store notes and the second note on / note off
   events (Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:00:00 +0200).
 * 1004: Vibrato for generators (Fri, 13 Aug 2004 11:05:00 +0200).
 * 1009: Set tempo from a sample loop ('set tempo so that this wave
   will match exactly one/N measures') (Fri, 16 Aug 2004 18:08:00 +0200).
 * 1013: Volume should be a command ('v', for example) and not be
   inherited from previous notes. There should also be settable as
   relative inc/decrements (as octaves) (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:37:59 +0200).
 * 1014: doc/language.txt is severely outdated
   (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:13:00 +0200)
 * 1015: Upgrade build system (new config.sh, makefile.in, etc.).
   (Thu, 09 Sep 2004 18:56:29 +0200).
 * 1016: Integrate the new compiler (Sun, 12 Sep 2004 16:13:11 +0200).
 * 1001: Generator should use queues of active / free generators.
   (Sun, 17 Oct 2004 12:50:10 +0200).
 * 1012: Portamento should not have a 'time', only a frequency
   inc/decrement per time unit (Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:18:04 +0200).
 * 1018: The 'default' driver should not be bound to the first usable
   one, but be a sequential try of all available drivers
   (Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:18:12 +0100).
 * 1019: Add libartsc support (Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:30:02 +0100).
 * 1023: The SS_FRAMES lex/yacc token should be SS_MSECS, that is,
   the compiler should not use frames but milliseconds
   (Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:05:46 +0200).
 * 1024: The 'event1' and 'event2' stuff is ugly. It should be called,
   respectively, 'note stream' (as it's, more or less, device independent)
   and 'ss stream', which depends of softsynth, frames and such. In the
   future, there could exist a 'midi stream' if MIDI output is supported
   (Closed by #1025; Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:30:31 +0200).
 * 1033: SONG_EV_SS_NOTE won't work, because freq can't be calculated
   on compilation time; instead, it should be a generic message
   (Sat, 23 Apr 2005 10:52:35 +0200).
 * 1026: Get rid of event.c and event.h (Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:28:47 +0200).
 * 1027: Get rid of effect.c and effect.h (Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:28:51 +0200).
 * 1031: Add lex/yacc code for processing absolute notes (A1, C#4, F&3)
   (Sat, 23 Apr 2005 16:14:21 +0200).
 * 1036: Unify song event types; ss_song should use the same event types
   (Sun, 24 Apr 2005 10:29:22 +0200).
 * 1035: The number of compiled tracks should be available somewhere
   (Sun, 24 Apr 2005 10:35:19 +0200).
 * 1037: ss_ins_frame() is flawed; as it directly mixes into frame[],
   each intrument's ss effects affect the previous ones
   (Mon, 25 Apr 2005 16:42:28 +0200).
 * 1025: 'event1' has been moved to song.c (generic song event stream)
   and 'event2' has been moved to ss_song.c (softsynth song event stream),
   but due to almost all of ss_song.c being private, there is no way to
   order the instruments and the effects to do anything until a way of
   storing them is decided. So, project state is really critical now as
   nothing works (last working version was 'cvs update -D 20050419').
   (Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:16:48 +0200).
 * 1039: Volumes can't be set as integer numbers (0 and 1 should be valid)
   (Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:26:06 +0200).
 * 1038: Comments can't be written inside extended commands
   (Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:31:55 +0200).
 * 1021: Add line number to compiler errors (Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:11:01 +0200).
 * 1028: input.c should be ss_input.c (Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:08:49 +0200).
 * 1029: output.c should be ss_output.c (Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:59:34 +0200).
 * 1044: Line numbers in compiler errors don't work if the error is inside
   a block or after inserting one
   (Closed by #1045; Sun, 08 May 2005 10:22:43 +0200).
 * 1047: Change generators to use just one volume and not a channel map
   (Mon, 09 May 2005 16:24:13 +0200).
 * 1049: Since the closing of #1047, the channel map in ss_ins is
   completely broken (Tue, 10 May 2005 18:27:28 +0200).
 * 1050: New ss_ins is flawed; volumes are never used
   (Tue, 10 May 2005 18:41:30 +0200).
 * 1041: Get rid of CHANNELS and always use dynamic structures or buffers
   (Tue, 10 May 2005 19:40:52 +0200).
 * 1048: ss_wave must be dynamic (Thu, 12 May 2005 19:23:13 +0200).
 * 1032: Refactorize input, ss_gen and ss_ins to always use pointers to
   struct ss_wave instead of copies of them (Thu, 12 May 2005 19:31:44 +0200).
 * 1053: Create a tool that will read from a MIDI keyboard and print
   the played keys on stdout (Closed by #1054;
   Mon, 23 May 2005 17:04:54 +0200).
 * 1054: Modify midiin.c to print currently played notes to stdout
   (Mon, 23 May 2005 19:10:45 +0200).
 * 1057: The Arts driver hangs forever (Sat, 28 May 2005 13:42:36 +0200).
 * 1058: The new ss_outdev model seem to have problems with pipe buffer
   sizes, at least with the OSS driver. Regardless of the number of bytes,
   data is only read in 256 byte chunks (Sun, 29 May 2005 10:35:27 +0200).
 * 1030: Refactorize the output system to always use a forked process
   (Closed by #1062; Sun, 29 May 2005 10:44:39 +0200).
 * 1061: Process the SONG_EV_SS_NOTE_ON_BY_TIME message, probably by
   unifying it with the SONG_EV_NOTE_ON (Mon, 30 May 2005 17:22:21 +0200).
 * 1011: Loop matching ('change wave pitch to last exactly N time units')
   (Renamed as 'pitch_stretch'; Mon, 30 May 2005 17:23:17 +0200).
 * 1062: The forked process for sound writing works, but it has proven
   worse in slow systems. A redesign must be done to also allow direct
   writing to ports (Closed by #1063; Mon, 30 May 2005 18:14:44 +0200).
 * 1059: Add channel maps to language (Mon, 30 May 2005 18:50:38 +0200).
 * 1040: Get rid of all _ prefixed symbols (Mon, 30 May 2005 19:12:19 +0200).
 * 1064: Document or fix the 'feature' of pitch_stretch that, if the chosen
   wave can't handle the final frequency (due to min/max boundaries), it can
   end up not sounding at all (Tue, 31 May 2005 07:41:50 +0200).
 * 1063: Now that I've tested it with good hardware, the new ss_outdev
   driver is useless as is due to horrible latency. So, it must be rewritten
   to do direct writing to devices (Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:20:01 +0200).
 * 1051: Unify all header files into annhell.h
   (Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:32:31 +0200).
 * 1065: Create a document about the extended commands
   (Closed by #1067; Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:34:28 +0200).
 * 1008: Support for 'keyboard splits': ranges of notes that a track will
   ignore. This should allow to have multiple tracks playing the same
   notes but with different channel maps and, for example, having a
   guitar glissando pan from left to right
   (No longer needed, a pan glissando can be done by using plain channel
   volumes, as they are now immediately applied;
   Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:44:45 +0200).
 * 1068: Add vibrato to ss instruments (Thu, 02 Jun 2005 13:28:39 +0200).
 * 1069: Add vibrato to language (Thu, 02 Jun 2005 17:28:41 +0200).
 * 1072: The instrument in midiin should also be an AHXM script
   (Fri, 03 Jun 2005 19:08:15 +0200).
 * 1073: The measure boundary checks should include line numbers
   (Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:29:28 +0200).
 * 1066: All code that open files should use a special version of fopen()
   that searches in a path of directories (Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:52:44 +0200).
 * 1017: mp_doccer documentation is severely outdated
   (Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:46:36 +0200).
 * 1077: Delete all stdout crap (Sat, 11 Jun 2005 20:27:43 +0200).
 * 1078: After a measure change, all measure bar checks break
   (Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:03:24 +0200).
 * 1075: Unify everything inside the same executable (closed by #1079;
   Sun, 12 Jun 2005 18:34:35 +0200).
 * 1076: Make the unified executable to accept all options as command
   line arguments (Sun, 12 Jun 2005 18:34:40 +0200).
 * 1080: Take last group part into account when calculating its length
   (Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:31:30 +0200).
 * 1081: The end of song is incorrectly detected. It can be reproduced by
   having a very long note that ends longer after the last inserted event
   (Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:42:10 +0200).
 * 1082: Wave loading should be cached, to optimize the loading of the
   same sound from different tracks (Closed by #1084;
   Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:04:06 +0200).
 * 1083: When a named block is referenced at the end of a line inside
   another block, a syntax error is generated (Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:32:54 +0200).
 * 1071: Add the posibility to start a song from a given measure or time
   (Sun, 19 Jun 2005 10:56:11 +0200).
 * 1085: Add skip_secs capability to MIDI output
   (Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:48:51 +0200).
 * 1002: Build an audio filtering tool to test effects
   (Discarded; Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:12:42 +0200).
 * 1034: tempo_from_wave() will never work; when the wave is loaded, it's
   too late for the tempo to be set, as the ss_song stream has no tempo
   information. The only solution is to just print the optimal tempo, for
   the ahxm programmer to change it manually (Closed by 1060;
   Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:13:09 +0200).
 * 1067: Fill the extended commands document (Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:19:28 +0200).
 * 1060: Add print_wave_tempo to language (Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:22:06 +0200).
 * 1055: Add signal control to cleanly close the devices
   (Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:33:31 +0200).
 * 1088: The 'wav' command doesn't bang when a sound can't be loaded
   (Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:32:49 +0200).
 * 1090: Add a new sound generator, called 'stream' or something like that,
   to simply stream a wave file into the current process, meant to avoid
   loading very large files into memory and to help in using Ann Hell Ex Machina
   as a remixing tool. These files will probably be limited to using the same
   sampling rate as ahxm to avoid expensive conversions (Closed by #1091;
   Mon, 12 Sep 2005 06:26:02 +0200).
 * 1089: Add support for loading .mp3 files by using a cache (probably
   in ~/.annhellcache) and external tools as mpg321
   (Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:45:29 +0200).
 * 1086: MIDI output is still done to stdout (file descriptor 2)
   (Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:22:07 +0200).
 * 1095: Clearly document the still unsupported things (for example,
   double dots in lengths, immediate volumes) (Closed by #1097,
   #1098; Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:36:56 +0200).
 * 1099: Add command-line options to mute and/or solo tracks
   (closed by #1100 and #1101; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:27:15 +0100).
 * 1101: Add command-line options to 'solo' a track
   (Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:54:28 +0100).
 * 1102: Add a new command to move the current note cursor backwards
   using note length notation (Tue, 06 Dec 2005 09:15:38 +0100).
 * 1092: Release 1.0.0 right now and make it a stable CVS branch
   (Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:33:58 +0100).
 * 1104: Tempo changes are very broken (try examples/tempo_change.ahs)
   (Sat, 07 Jan 2006 17:11:04 +0100).
 * 1106: Implement func_fader() by using the cursor instead of the
   size, and deactivating itself by setting e->func to NULL
   (Closed by #1107; Tue, 17 Jan 2006 08:55:37 +0100).
 * 1107: Implement func_fader() by not changing the size
   (Tue, 17 Jan 2006 09:08:39 +0100).
 * 1105: Modify effects to use struct ss_wave instead of a plain wave
   (Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:47:27 +0100).
 * 1020: When a source file includes multiple songs, there should exist a
   way to mark song / track changes. This should be used to include text
   messages as ID3 tags or even to generate .cue / .toc files
   (Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:28:33 +0100).
 * 1109: Wave page loading crashes when trying to load a non-cached wave
   file (Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:55:58 +0100).
 * 1103: Add a command line switch to skip music in the 'hard' way,
   that is, just skipping the events (Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:50:29 +0100).
 * 1091: All 'plain' wave files (i.e., all except .pat files) should be
   paged instead of read directly in memory (Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:50:29 +0100).
 * 1110: Add some way to map mono wave files to certain channels. It can be
   done by adding two new variables to struct ss_wave: a 'first channel', to
   hold the first channel that will contain the generated samples (default 0,
   start from the first channel) and 'skip channels', the number of channels
   to jump over (default 0, don't skip any sample)
   (Sat, 04 Feb 2006 08:37:01 +0100).
 * 1006: A 'choose' option, to take randomly one block or another
   (blocks seem appropriate, but further study is necessary). A random
   seed script command is also necessary (Tue, 07 Feb 2006 08:41:35 +0100).
 * 1084: Add a 'copy' directive that uses ss_ins_copy_layers() to copy
   the loaded instruments from one track into another
   (Layer copying no longer supported since using paged waves;
   Tue, 07 Feb 2006 08:43:59 +0100).
 * 1114: Add a way to specify, or calculate automatically, the number of
   channels a softsynth song uses. As of now, the default 2 channel output
   makes necessary to change it from the command line (as the current
   behaviour is to simply drop channels bigger than n_channels). Another
   solution should be to add a directive to 'remap' out-of-bound channels
   to existing ones (Sat, 19 Aug 2006 19:49:39 +0200).
 * 1118: If no volume is set in a song, no channel is generated
   (Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:30:32 +0200).
 * 1119: Change the track subcommand in the arpeggiator to be a track
   offset instead of being an absolute one (Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:14:03 +0200).
 * 1070: Portamento support is still uncertain
   (Sat, 09 Sep 2006 18:29:55 +0200).
 * 1120: Change the portamento command to be specified in some unit not
   depending on current sampling rate (Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:45:06 +0200).
 * 1007: Support for 'tonalities'; fixed transpositions for each note of
   the octave so that, for example, a 'f' is always a 'f#' (Closed
   by #1122; Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:48:34 +0200).
 * 1122: Add tonalities as a string of 12 note alterations. Proper
   tonalities will be predefined as named blocks (like, say, $C_MAJOR)
   (Closed by #1122; Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:21:18 +0200).
 * 1123: Add alterations as a string of 7 note alterations
   (Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:21:39 +0200).
 * 1124: Document alterations (Wed, 20 Sep 2006 06:16:17 +0200).
 * 1126: Create, as named blocks, presets for standard tonalities
   (Sun, 24 Sep 2006 11:44:51 +0200).
 * 1129: Wobble effects should have a 'gain' parameter to set the rate of
   affected / original signal (with a default to 1, all affected /
   no original) (Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:00:57 +0200).
 * 1131: Alterations seem to fail when a note has , or ' on it
   (Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:31:51 +0100).

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