Release notes

Helio features and updates

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. For more detailed info, please see the git log.

Version 3.14

The built-in SoundFont player now supports microtonal temperaments with no setup
The built-in SoundFont player supports SF3 format with OGG/FLAC sample compression
Fixed edge cases when converting between temperaments
Fixed MIDI export for offbeat tracks
Orchestra pit: the plugins list is now searchable, and table sorting is persistent
Mobile platforms: added scrollable scale editor for microtonal temperaments for phone screens, added sidebar buttons for tuning and transposing clips in the pattern roll, enabled background audio on iOS
Fixed misc annoyances: fixed crashes on pasting empty/invalid data, fixed undo issues after VCS checkouts, fixed edge cases when switching the editable scope

Version 3.13

Added initial support for parametric modifiers: arpeggiators and most of the refactoring options can now be applied in a non-destructive way
Reworked note naming to be more compatible with traditional notation language, at least for chromatic scales in 12-tone temperament
Fixed arpeggiators so that they finally work as intended
Fixed sending events to MIDI output, also the ‘MIDI output’ instrument is now created automatically
Implemented drawing freeform lasso with Control-dragging
Added new UI flags to toggle following playhead, and to lock current zoom level and prevent auto-zooming
Double-pressing Space/Enter or long-tapping the play button speeds up playback by 1.5x
MIDI import now groups the imported events into tracks by channels and controller numbers
More QoL fixes for mobile platforms, more SoundFont and LV2 bugs fixed, more UI tidying up

Version 3.12

This is mostly a mobile fixes release: reworked layouts for phone screens, fixed SoundFont player bugs, fixed import/export crashes, added adaptive and themed icons on Android, reworked multi-touch (better late than never)
Added automations editor panel supporting hand-drawing custom curves with the pen tool
Volume editor panel now also supports hand-drawing custom ramps and is more consistent with edit modes
Both the piano roll and the pattern roll can display the volume editor and the automations editor
Added support for MIDI channels (better late than never)
Piano roll: the lasso component cannot be zero-width or zero-height, dragged notes snap to the original note’s beat, the default note length and volume are persisted
Version control: switching to another version now works like a hard reset
Added commands to shift tempo tracks 1 BPM up/down (hotkeys Shift + and Shift -)
Fixed re-adjusting MIDI input from 12-tone keyboards for microtonality
The number of saved undo actions is now configurable
Minor feature cutting: removed the updates info control, the legacy undocumented scale preview panel and the alternative spectrogram view

Version 3.11

Added built-in SoundFont player instrument
Migrated to JUCE 7 and enabled experimental support for hosting LV2 plugins
Microtonality: added built-in 26-edo temperament, fixed Alt + Up/Down transposition hotkeys for microtonal layouts, fixed Pianoteq keyboard mapping presets to match A440 on default settings
Piano roll: added staccato and legato commands (Alt + S and Alt + L hotkeys), clicking a single note makes that note’s velocity and length the default, holding Alt disables snapping to barlines
Pattern roll: improved solo mode indication (implicitly muted tracks are dimmed)
Tempo dialog: adjusting the tempo with mouse wheel
Render dialog: preview the waveform while rendering
Fixed regressions in computing time codes and in the audio rendering code

Version 3.10

Added built-in metronome, toggled by Control + M hotkey, each time signature now has its own editable metronome scheme
Added an option to select the MIDI output device
Added an option to scale the UI x1.5 or x2
Made the update checks optional
Updated the app icon
Fixed renaming or recoloring multiple tracks in the pattern roll
Minor fixes: double click on a tempo track opens “set one tempo” dialog, fixed some grid arrangement glitches and inaccurate time signature alignment, fixed zooming out in large projects, fixed inactive notes blocking double-clicks on the roll

Version 3.9

Added per-track time signatures: hotkey Alt + F2 to add a time signature anchored to track’s position
Made retrograde hotkey work in the pattern roll, re-ordering all selected clips backwards for each row
Implemented auto-fitting the roll view range by zooming it out until it “clicks”
Added support for nonoctave tunings (only affect the built-in instrument at the moment)
Minor tweaks: more conventional right click menu behavior on multiple selection, improved aligning the dragged clips in the pattern roll, long-overdue UI fixes for smaller phone screens

Version 3.8

Added in-scale transposition commands, hotkeys Alt + Up and Alt + Down
Implemented recording MIDI from a 12-tone keyboard in any temperament
Improved the pen tool: delete notes and clips with right mouse button
Improved the knife tool: merge two clips into one or join notes with right mouse button (long tap on mobile platforms)
Added “save preset” button in the key signature editor
Mini-map improvements: draw a zoom region with left mouse button and pan the stretched mini-map with right mouse button
Minor tweaks: allowed “natural” scrolling in the rolls on macOS, improved file choosers for mobile platforms, updated 19-edo settings, re-ordered the edit modes a bit

Version 3.7

Made the playback loop markers draggable
Added 19-edo to built-in temperaments
Added keyboard mapping presets menu (with some built-in multi-channel mappings for Pianoteq), allowing to save your own presets
Lasso improvements: added a cool selection range dashed indicator in the roll headers and fixed selection behavior when deselecting items with Alt
Mouse wheel control improvements: added support for mice with dual-axis wheels and added a separate “vertical zooming by default” UI option
Fixed missing note-offs when editing, which broke some VST3 plugins
Facelifted the default color schemes
Minor convenience tweaks: global zooming with Alt modifier key, toggling mini-map mode with a click at scroller’s free area, transposing by perfect fifth or equivalent with Control + Shift + Up/Down hotkeys

Version 3.6

Fixed VST3 plugins showing black screen and made minor improvements in instrument management
Fixed loading the invalid audio settings (which caused issues when using JACK)
Fixed the audio setting page not always updating correctly
Many minor UI tweaks: made “move notes” menus more convenient so that closer clips are shown first, fixed tooltips in the chord tool, fixed updating with the editable scope in velocity map, fixed the pen tool behavior on mobile platforms

Version 3.5

Disabled all network-related features on mobile platforms
Added two UI flags for better control over mouse wheel behavior, notably for using mouse wheel for panning instead of zooming by default
Added UI option to disable most of the editor animations
Added UI flag to change the bottom mini-map appearance (toggled by B hotkey)
Added tooltips to sidebar buttons
UI improvements: fixed the pattern roll not updating with time signature changes, prettied up the cut point marks for the knife tool and note resizers on mobile platforms
Implemented duplicating automation tracks in the pattern roll
Fixed the project length being calculated incorrectly for rendering
Fixed font scanning so the app shouldn’t freeze on the very first run

Version 3.4

Added horizontal scrolling using shift + mouse wheel
When exporting MIDI, the track segments are grouped in the same way as you see them grouped in the pattern roll
All instances of selected clips in the pattern roll are now highlighted with the dashed header
Added ‘+’ button on the tools sidebar, which shows the new track dialog, or the menu to choose the instrument first; using the quill tool on any empty row will invoke the same menu or dialog
Fixed minor UI glitches on MIDI import and checkout, fixed the track range indicator not always updated properly, tweaked hotkeys a bit
Added a menu to move selected notes to another track, also available in the command palette with ‘:’ shortcut
Better support for file choosers on mobile platforms to allow exporting MIDI file to a custom location, e.g. iCloud container

Version 3.3

Added initial support for custom temperaments, the default list includes 22-EDO and 31-EDO; added commands to switch temperament or convert a piece into any other temperament
Added keyboard mapping page for instruments, allowing to overcome the limits of MIDI 1.0 for microtonal music, or just to re-map any key for whatever purposes
Forgive me father, for I have synthed: removed the built-in piano samples to reduce binary size (my OCD appreciates this immensely), and added a simple sine-like synth which works in any n-tone equal temperament out of the box; it sucks, but hopefully it will be improved in future
Added a command to switch to the most visible track/clip in the viewport, hotkey F3
Fixed note previewing for some instruments: now it sends note-off events after a delay
Minor UI tweaks: made animations a bit shorter and sharper, fixed several focus issues when deleting tracks, the resizable edge in note components now depends on the note width

Version 3.2

Added tempo dialog with “tap tempo” control, invoked either by clicking at tempo track nodes, or by hitting “Set one tempo” menu item in project->refactor menu or tempo track context menu
Fixed the old and super annoying rows tiling bug in OpenGL mode
Context menus in the sequencer are now only available via long right-click: instant rclick menu often gets in the way when misclicking / trying to switch to another track
Playback: will compute states of all present CC automations at the playhead position and apply them when playback starts, which helps a lot if you use pedal tracks or similar automations
Orchestra pit: if some instrument hasn’t loaded properly (e.g. plugin file missing), then the last valid instrument settings will be preserved in hope that it can be loaded correctly in the next launches; invalid instruments are shown as greyed out in the orchestra pit page, they also can be deleted, or made valid by adding a plugin node
Key signature dialog: right-click on any key will play the key
Lots of UI updates: tidied up the project info page and the dashboard, updated the colours list and the breadcrumbs control

Version 3.1

Added right-click context menus in the sequencer, version control and orchestra pit pages: the menu content is always the same as in the breadcrumbs control tail menu
Added a command to bring up the current instrument’s window, hotkey F4
Fixed some more UI glitches - most notably, focusing the piano roll scope on a track
Minor bugfixes in MIDI recording

Version 3.0

Added initial support for MIDI recording, hotkey F12
Added initial support for looping the playback over the selected scope, hotkey F11
Added quantization commands
Made annotations lengths adjustable
Added timeout for scanning fonts on the first run to avoid the app hanging on some systems
Minor UI updates for a prettier look and less glitching; added the command palette button in the headline and the timeline repeat sign
More tech debt has been paid down, this part of the update will hopefully be invisible
Added some documentation

Version 2.5

This is mostly a bugfix release: addressed some UX inconveniences and fixed a stupid crash
Added hotkeys for tweaking lengths of selected notes; also adding a note with a modifier key inserts a new note in a dragging mode
Made all hotkey-based beat/length-shift actions depend on the current zoom level
Implemented duplicating tracks in an interactive manner
Made all dialogs draggable
Enabled hardened runtime for macOS builds

Version 2.4

Added the command palette aka goto anything, toggled by ~ hotkey: the default mode is used for quick access to commands for the current context, the ‘/’ mode is used for quick access to projects list, ‘@’ mode to go to any timeline event or focus on any clip, and ‘!’ mode to construct chords from the text description (still experimental)
Added an option to display note names for a visual cue, toggled by the default hotkey ‘g’ (for ‘guides’)
Added an option to disable scales highlighting, toggled by the default hotkey ‘h’ (for ‘highlighting’)
Removed some shame from my heart by refactoring ugly bits of serialization code, also removed the legacy serializer which definitely did not spark joy, thus dropped support for v1 file format
Made it possible to control volume ramping amount with mouse wheel in the velocity map
Fixed some issues with switching between system/custom title bar
Fine-tuned the performance and piano roll behaviour
Added notarization for macOS builds

Version 2.3

Added support for aug/dim chords descriptions
Allow switching between custom and native title bar on Windows and Linux
Also display breadcrumbs in the title bar if possible to save some screen space
Added retrograde and melodic inversion to selection refactoring menu
Added shift-drag-to-copy for all timeline events
Go to next/previous anchor now jumps over clips in pattern mode
Reworked midi import, should fix importing controller tracks, key/time signatures and track names
Made plugins search less likely to stuck and cancellable with a click or escape keypress

Version 2.2

Long-overdue implementation of inline velocity map/editor (toggled by V button)
Arpeggiators can use advanced options, like length multiplier, inversion, randomness level (shift/ctrl/atl + arp button)
Refactored instruments managements to fix rare crashes on the orchestra pit page
Fixed shift-drag-to-copy for notes, which was broken even before v2 release
Fixed automation curves interpolation
Some refactorings for lesser memory usage

Version 2.1

Clips now can be muted/soloed
Patterns can be grouped by name/colour/instrument
Notes can be split into triplets/quadruplets/quintuplets/etc
Binary size is much smaller and more optimized overall, due to unity build

Version 2.0

Spent entire 2018 paying off the tech debt of version 1 (or tech mortgage, if you will), which was pretty much of a POC
Changed bundle ids to more consistent ones
Rewritten the backend side API’s from scratch
LOTS of refactorings, performance/stability fixes, etc - hopefully all future updates will be just incremental improvements

Helio 101