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frequently_asked_questions [2009/05/10 16:44]
michael |
frequently_asked_questions [2022/05/06 16:07] (current)
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| ======Frequently Asked Questions for Rosegarden 09 and Later====== | ======Frequently Asked Questions for Rosegarden 10.02 and Later====== |
| | |
| Rosegarden 09 **has not been released**. We expect to release in October of 2009. This code has replaced the old line as the new development trunk, and we are encouraging adventuresome early adopters to have a look at the pre-alpha code. I have decided to go ahead and replace the FAQ with this new one **against code that has not yet been released** rather than write the new FAQ somewhere else. This FAQ is under construction much as Rosegarden 09 itself is under construction. Thank you for your patience! | |
| | |
| For questions about Rosegarden 1.x, please see the [[dev:1.7.x_faq|Old FAQ]]. (**Note that development on 1.7.x has been suspended, and we are no longer accepting patches or translations updates against that line of code.**) | |
| |
| =====General questions===== | =====General questions===== |
| ====What about Windows, OS-X, BSD?==== | ====What about Windows, OS-X, BSD?==== |
| |
| Rosegarden is currently an application for **Linux** only. Now that we have ported to Qt4, and now that Qt is freely available for all platforms without a commercial license, there are fewer obstacles standing in the way of eventually becoming a cross-platform application. However, we are still very dependent on ALSA to provide MIDI infrastructure and JACK to provide an audio interface. | Rosegarden is currently an application for **Linux** only. Now that we have ported to Qt 4, and now that Qt is freely available for all platforms without a commercial license, there are fewer obstacles standing in the way of eventually becoming a cross-platform application. However, we are still very dependent on ALSA to provide MIDI infrastructure and JACK to provide an audio interface, and this will not be changing in the near future. |
| |
| It is possible to write alternative back ends for handling MIDI and audio using different libraries, but our core developers are Linux people, and some of them have been developing Rosegarden on Linux since 1995. None of us particularly object to the idea of Rosegarden running on Windows, OS-X or BSD, but we are not likely to make this happen ourselves, as we are comfortable on our home platform. | We would like to run on OS-X, BSD, and similar platforms one day, but a Windows port is unlikely to happen unless someone agrees to hire Michael and pay him a regular salary to develop and support Rosegarden on Windows. |
| |
| ====Do I have to be using a particular desktop environment (KDE or whatever)?==== | ====Do I have to be using a particular desktop environment (KDE or whatever)?==== |
| |
| No. Rosegarden uses the Qt4 libraries for various common controls, but you can run it under any window manager or graphical environment you like. The only marked change in functionality comes when printing or previewing with LilyPond. This feature requires an external backend to print or preview the resulting .PDF file. By default, Rosegarden is configured to use KPrinter for printing and Okular for previewing, which are both included with KDE. You can change this on **Settings => Configure Rosegarden => General => External Applications** to use either Gtk-LP, lpr, or lp for printing, and Evince or Acroread for previewing PDF files. One file printing program and one PDF viewing program from each list of supported backends must be available at runtime in order for these features to work. (LilyPond is also required!) Otherwise, we aim to be as desktop-neutral as we can be. We have removed all dependencies on KDE, though we still require JACK and ALSA, and are still tied to the Linux platform for now. | No. Rosegarden uses the Qt 4 libraries for various common controls, but you can run it under any window manager or graphical environment you like. The only marked change in functionality comes when printing or previewing with LilyPond. This feature requires an external backend to print or preview the resulting .PDF file. By default, Rosegarden is configured to use lpr for printing and Okular for previewing. You can change this on **Settings => Configure Rosegarden => General => External Applications** to use either Gtk-LP, lpr, or lp for printing, and Okular, Evince or Acroread for previewing PDF files. One file printing program and one PDF viewing program from each list of supported backends must be available at runtime in order for these features to work. (LilyPond is also required!) Otherwise, we aim to be as desktop-neutral as we can be. We have removed all dependencies on KDE, though we still require JACK and ALSA, and are still tied to the Linux platform for now. |
| |
| |
| ====Is it available in my language?==== | ====Is it available in my language?==== |
| |
| Fully complete translations are usually provided for British English, Finnish, French, Japanese and Spanish with each public release. Translations for Czech, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and Russian are usually substantially complete. Translations for several other languages exist in various states of disrepair, with German tending to be toward the more complete end of the spectrum, and Welsh at rock bottom with no updates since before Rosegarden 1.0 was released. | Fully complete translations are usually provided for British English, Finnish, French, German, Japanese and Spanish with each public release. Translations for Czech, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and Russian are usually substantially complete. Translations for several other languages exist in various states of disrepair, with Welsh at rock bottom with no updates since before Rosegarden 1.0 was released. |
| |
| These translations are provided and maintained by volunteer contributors, and most contributors tend to come and go pretty randomly. We have had real trouble attracting and keeping translators, and the most complete translations are usually updated by Rosegarden developers who have to double as translators on top of their other responsibilities. | These translations are provided and maintained by volunteer contributors, and most contributors tend to come and go pretty randomly. We have had real trouble attracting and keeping translators, and the most complete translations are usually updated by Rosegarden developers who have to double as translators on top of their other responsibilities. |
| If you can help out with translating musical or technical documentation (no programming required, but it's quite hard work), please let us know! | If you can help out with translating musical or technical documentation (no programming required, but it's quite hard work), please let us know! |
| |
| <del>You may look at the wiki page dedicated to [[translator:Add or update translation|adding or updating translation]].</del> | Please take a look at the wiki page dedicated to [[translator:Add or update translation|adding or updating translation]] for complete details. That page tends to be more up to date than this section of the FAQ. |
| (Translation instructions HAVE CHANGED for 09, but the wiki instructions have not been updated yet. If you are eager to get started on a translation, get with michael.mcintyre@rosegardenmusic.com first. If you translate an old .po file from 1.7.x it is no longer possible to merge this, and your work will be have to be copied and pasted by hand into our new translation format. It is best to avoid the problem by doing all new work in our new translation format. Details to be announced as soon as possible.) | |
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| |
| ====Rosegarden is crashing at startup==== | ====Rosegarden is crashing at startup==== |
| |
| (The sequencer is no longer a separate process, so this old FAQ is obsolete. Watch this space for new FAQs related to this topic.) | We have been chasing a random divide by zero startup bug for some time, but have not been able to isolate and repair this problem. If Rosegarden crashes at startup, it is likely that you can get up and running simply by trying again. |
| | |
| | This problem is difficult to correct, because it happens so rarely, and it cannot be repeated reliably. We have no idea what the root cause is, but we hope to address this as one of the highest priorities in a future release. |
| |
| ====How to get a stack trace for a crash==== | ====How to get a stack trace for a crash==== |
| |
| (This needs some experimentation. I'm not sure if KDE's debug handler would come into play for a plain Qt app or not. I need to play with my environment and see what happens, but I suspect it's now just a question of enabling core dumps. The bright side is this is easy to test now, since it is simple to get Rosegarden 09 to crash.) | First, make sure you are running a version of rosegarden that was built with debugging turned on. |
| |
| <del>First export the environment variable KDE_DEBUG as follows (in bash): | |
| <code> | <code> |
| $ export KDE_DEBUG=1 | -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug |
| </code> | </code> |
| Start rosegarden from the command line, and reproduce the crash. You should now have a core file in your current directory. The core file is either named "core" or "core.<number>". Run gdb : | |
| | Without debugging, there will be no symbols in the binary, and the backtrace will be useless. You'll likely need to build rosegarden on your own to get a debug version. Instructions can be found here: [[dev:Building Rosegarden from Source]] |
| | |
| | Open a terminal window, and check to ensure that applications will be able to produce core dumps. The exact command and syntax may vary from shell to shell, but for bash it is ''ulimit -a'': |
| <code> | <code> |
| $ gdb rosegarden <core_file> | $ ulimit -a |
| | core file size (blocks, -c) 0 |
| | data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited |
| | scheduling priority (-e) 20 |
| | ... |
| </code> | </code> |
| Then once you get the gdb prompt, use the command 'where' to get the stack trace, and mail to the authors or to the Rosegarden development mailing list, or include in a bug report.</del> | |
| |
| | The above example is quite typical for an end-user desktop system. Having the "core file size" set to 0 prevents the creation of very large core dump files in unexpected places, and is generally a good thing. However, this also prevents you from generating a stack trace. You need to change the limit to something larger than 0, but many systems prevent you from setting this to ''unlimited'', so we suggest |
| |
| | <code> |
| | $ ulimit -c 1000000 |
| | </code> |
| | |
| | Now start a **debug version** of rosegarden from the command line, and reproduce the crash. You should now have a core file in your current directory. The core file is either named **core** or **core.<//number//>**. |
| | |
| | Run ''gdb'': |
| | <code> |
| | $ gdb rosegarden <core_file> |
| | </code> |
| | |
| | Then once you get the gdb prompt, use the command 'bt' to get the stack trace, and mail it to the authors or to the Rosegarden development mailing list, or include it in a bug report. |
| |
| ====What packages do I need to build this?==== | ====What packages do I need to build this?==== |
| ====Build requirements===== | ====Build requirements===== |
| |
| Rosegarden requires the following runtime libraries and SDKs to compile: | Please see the [[dev:Building Rosegarden from Source]] page for detailed dependency and build information. |
| | |
| * Qt 4.3 or later | |
| * ALSA 1.0 or later | |
| * libjack 0.77 or later | |
| * LADSPA 1.1 or later | |
| * DSSI 0.9 or later | |
| * Xft2 2.1 or later | |
| * liblo 0.23 or later (0.23 is newer than 0.7) | |
| * liblirc 0.8 or later | |
| * FFTW version 3 | |
| * autoconf | |
| * pkg-config | |
| |
| |
| |
| In order to be fully functional and provide the optimal user experience, | In order to be fully functional and provide the optimal user experience, |
| Rosegarden requires the following external applications. We suggest listing | Rosegarden requires the following external applications. |
| them as your distro's equivalent of "recommends" level dependencies. (Yes, this | |
| is a long list, and yes, we really do use all of these for something.) | |
| |
| * perl | |
| * bash | * bash |
| * qsynth AND fluid-soundfont-gm* OR timidity AND freepats* | * available, functioning ALSA General MIDI soft synth (QSynth, TiMidity++, etc.) with soundfont (Fluid-Soundfont, Freepats, etc.) |
| * lilypond | * lilypond |
| * ocular OR acroread OR kpdf OR evince | * ocular OR acroread OR evince |
| * kprinter OR gtklp OR lpr OR lp | * gtklp OR lpr OR lp |
| * jackd | * jackd |
| * sox | |
| * sndfile-resample | |
| * flac | * flac |
| * oggdec | * wavpack/wvunpack |
| * mpg321 | |
| * libxml-twig-perl | |
| * qjackctl | * qjackctl |
| * DSSI plugins (any your distro carries) | * DSSI plugins (any available) |
| * LADSPA plugins (any your distro carries) | * LADSPA plugins (any available) |
| | |
| [*] the key here being that either softsynth should come with an installed | |
| soundfont or patchset in order that it can play General MIDI as configured | |
| "out of the box" | |
| |
| =====Main Window and Segment Editing===== | =====Main Window and Segment Editing===== |
| ====Can I edit all the segments at once in the matrix editor?==== | ====Can I edit all the segments at once in the matrix editor?==== |
| |
| Yes! (Probably? This is likely to be working when we release.) | Yes! |
| |
| |
| ====I've followed all your instructions but I still don't hear any sound==== | ====I've followed all your instructions but I still don't hear any sound==== |
| |
| If you've done everything we've suggested above then you can check what devices the sequencer is seeing by running the Rosegarden sequencer up by itself. Try: | FIXME This section needs to be rewritten completely. |
| | |
| | =====Improving Performance===== |
| | |
| | ====I get drop outs or xruns with JACK. How do I improve performance?==== |
| | |
| | The short answer to this is with care and with some luck. There are various recipes for improving JACK performance. Some are more labour intensive than others. Ask on the rosegarden-user and rosegarden-devel lists for the latest advice and also keep an eye on jackit-devel for more JACK tips. |
| | |
| | |
| | to add somewhere appropriate: DSSI: no localhost |
| | |
| | =====Customizing Rosegarden===== |
| | |
| | ====How do I modify keyboard shortcuts?==== |
| | |
| | The is no simple method. The current work around requires some command line calls, a text editor and a bit of searching. Rosegarden shortcuts are defined in XML files with extensions .rc which are located in |
| <code> | <code> |
| $ rosegardensequencer | <build-tree-path>/data/rc/ |
| </code> | </code> |
| and examine the output of the screen. The output for JACK and ALSA for an SBLive! should look something like this: | |
| | where <build-tree-path> is the path to where Rosegarden is installed. |
| | |
| | The hardest part is deciding which .rc file contains the shortcuts that need modified. Look through the rc directory to find good candidates files. |
| | |
| | Here is a sample of the process needed to update the Transport play shortcuts to include the Space bar: |
| | |
| | * Type at the command line: |
| <code> | <code> |
| rosegardensequencer: created plugin manager | $ mkdir -p ~/.local/share/rosegarden/rc |
| MappedAudioPluginManager::discoverPlugins - discovering plugins | $ cp <build-tree-path>/data/rc/rosegardenmainwindow.rc ~/.local/share/rosegarden/rc/ |
| Rosegarden 4-0.9 - AlsaDriver - alsa-lib version 0.9.3 | </code> |
| AlsaDriver::jackSampleRate - sample rate changed to 44100 | Replace <build-tree-path> with the path to the installation directory. |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - adding input port 1 | |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - adding input port 2 | |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - getting ports | |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - found 2 JACK physical inputs | |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - connecting from "alsa_pcm:capture_1" to "rosegarden:in_1" | |
| AlsaDriver::createJackInputPorts - connecting from "alsa_pcm:capture_2" to "rosegarden:in_2" | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - JACK sample rate = 44100Hz | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - added output port 1 (left) | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - added output port 2 (right) | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - found 2 JACK physical outputs | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - connecting from "rosegarden:out_1" to "alsa_pcm:playback_1" | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - connecting from "rosegarden:out_1" to "alsa_pcm:playback_2" | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - JACK playback latency 0.092879R | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - JACK record latency 0.046439R | |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseAudio - initialised JACK audio subsystem | |
| |
| ALSA Client information: | * Open ~/.local/share/rosegarden/rc/rosegardenmainwindow.rc in a text editor. |
| | * Change the line: |
| | <code> |
| | <Action name="play" text="&Play" icon="transport-play" shortcut="Enter, Media Play, Ctrl+Return" shortcut-context="application" /> |
| | </code> |
| |
| 64,0 - (Rawmidi 0 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART), EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART)) (DUPLEX) [ctype 2, ptype 2, cap 127] | to |
| 65,0 - (Emu10k1 WaveTable, Emu10k1 Port 0) (WRITE ONLY) [ctype 2, ptype 2078, cap 66] | |
| 65,1 - (Emu10k1 WaveTable, Emu10k1 Port 1) (WRITE ONLY) [ctype 2, ptype 2078, cap 66] | |
| 65,2 - (Emu10k1 WaveTable, Emu10k1 Port 2) (WRITE ONLY) [ctype 2, ptype 2078, cap 66] | |
| 65,3 - (Emu10k1 WaveTable, Emu10k1 Port 3) (WRITE ONLY) [ctype 2, ptype 2078, cap 66] | |
| |
| Creating device 0 in Play mode for connection 65:0 Emu10k1 Port 0 (write) | <code> |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI soundcard synth | <Action name="play" text="&Play" icon="transport-play" shortcut="Enter, Media Play, Ctrl+Return, Space" shortcut-context="application" /> |
| Creating device 1 in Play mode for connection 65:1 Emu10k1 Port 1 (write) | </code> |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI soundcard synth 2 | |
| Creating device 2 in Play mode for connection 65:2 Emu10k1 Port 2 (write) | |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI soundcard synth 3 | |
| Creating device 3 in Play mode for connection 65:3 Emu10k1 Port 3 (write) | |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI soundcard synth 4 | |
| Creating device 4 in Play mode for connection 64:0 Rawmidi 0 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART) (duplex) | |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI external device | |
| Creating device 5 in Record mode for connection 64:0 Rawmidi 0 - EMU10K1 MPU-401 (UART) (duplex) | |
| Default device name for this device is MIDI hardware input device | |
| Record client set to (64, 0) | |
| |
| AlsaDriver::initialiseMidi - initialised MIDI subsystem | and the line |
| |
| rosegardensequencer: RosegardenSequencer - started OK | <code> |
| | <Action name="recordtoggle" text="P&unch in Record" icon="transport-record" shortcut="Space" shortcut-context="application" /> |
| </code> | </code> |
| Note the ALSA device list shows the external MIDI port and the wavetable on-board synth devices. If you're using a soft synth, you should see it here too. All of these will be available in the drop-down Instrument list inside Rosegarden. | |
| |
| You can also reach this sequencer status information by using the application itself. Go to: Settings -> Configure Rosegarden -> Sequencer status -> Details.... | to |
| |
| | <code> |
| | <Action name="recordtoggle" text="P&unch in Record" icon="transport-record" shortcut="" shortcut-context="application" /> |
| | </code> |
| |
| | Note: Both need changed, otherwise the second one overrides the first. |
| |
| =====Improving Performance===== | * Save the file. |
| | * Run Rosegarden at try to shortcut. |
| |
| ====I get drop outs or xruns with JACK. How do I improve performance?==== | This is a complicated example, but many more are much less complicated. For a list of shortcut key names see: [[http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/qkeysequence.html]] |
| | |
| | ====How do I prevent Rosegarden splitting long notes when recording?==== |
| | |
| | There is a setting for that: |
| | |
| | Edit -> Preferences -> Notation -> [ ] When ... split-and-tie long ... |
| |
| The short answer to this is with care and with some luck. There are various recipes for improving JACK performance. Some are more labour intensive than others. Ask on the rosegarden-user and rosegarden-devel lists for the latest advice and also keep an eye on jackit-devel for more JACK tips. | |
