[haiku-development] System Soundfont
- From: Pete Goodeve <pete.goodeve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Haiku Development <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 22:38:14 -0700
Hi,
It seems to me that one thing that wasn't quite thought through
for PM is the system soundfont (for the MidiPlayer and things).
For a start, I find that the TimGM soundfont in the hpkg is still
the broken one! Three years ago I found four unlistenable instruments
and fixed them in the soundfont. I got the revised archive up on
Haikuports, but unfortunately [I guess!] I rearranged the hierarchy
to exist in common... (:-/) I suppose that's why it was ignored for
the hpkg.
However, the advent of PM makes the current arrangement highly
limited. The soundfont gets installed in /boot/system/data/synth,
and is linked to by 'big_synth.sy' in the same folder. Also in the
folder is a text that says:
" You can replace the default General Midi sound font with a better
version by linking "big_synth.sy" to your alternative sound font"
But of course you can't! The folder is read-only!
It'd be a shame to lose the ability to switch soundfonts, so I suggest
something like the following:
The package can put the default font where it is now, but big_synth.sy
should link to, say, /boot/system/settings/synth/system.sf2, which in
turn by default links back to the font in /boot/system/data/synth.
That way, the user can change the link in settings if they wish, but
current apps, like MidiPlayer, will still find the desired one.
In fact "big_synth.sy" should be obsoleted. It means nothing to
anyone who doesn't remember Beatnik/Headspace, and goes against
the standard ".sf2" extension for soundfonts. (In BeOS, of course, it
wasn't a soundfont anyway.)
I also patched the synth code back when, to use "system.sf2", but
again i focussed on common. Also folks didn't like me combining
two fairly unrelated patches in one! So again that's sitting there
uncommited. I'll try to get back to it to revise it to match the
current state.
I can build a corrected soundfont hpkg [I think!], but currently I have
no idea how to get it into the repository.
-- Pete --
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