SoundPlay 2.7

SoundPlay is meant to be a replacement to Be's own PlaySound application, hence the somewhat unoriginal name.

SoundPlay:

• can play any format supported by the Media Kit, as well as IFF-8SVX, MSADPCM and mpeg layer 2 and 3 files.
• is the fastest mp3 player on BeOS
• has full pitch control ranging from -400% to 400% speed. (yes, it plays backwards).
  As far as I know, SoundPlay is the only mpeg-player in the world that can play mpeg backwards!
• can play and mix multiple files at once. Regardless of the sample-format, SoundPlay converts the data to 16 bit stereo on the fly, so it can mix with other sound sources.

SoundPlay is shareware. If you use it for more than 30 days, you must register it. Registration is possible through the Kagi registration service, and costs US$12.
SoundPlay may be freely distributed. CDROM-publishers are encouraged to include SoundPlay on their CDROMs.

SoundPlay cannot run if you do not have liblayout installed. Liblayout is an award-winning GUI layout library that can be downloaded free of charge. To make the SoundPlay preferences work, you also need to install PrefServer. PrefServer can be downloaded free of charge.

HISTORY

version 2.7

• Fixed redraw bug when scrolling horizontally in playlist.
• Fixed some bugs in the bubble-help
• No longer locks up the system when an entry_ref becomes invalid because of a bug in R3's ISO9660 filesystem.
• WinAmp mode improved:
  • Non-existent files in saved playlist won't cause SoundPlay to exit immediately when in WinAmp mode.
  • Skin-directory can be ordered hierarchically
  • Appending (shift-drop) a file to playlist will no longer reshuffle the files
  • Added 'shaded' mode
  • Added double, triple, quadruple (etc.) size mode (press alt-d)
  • Can now display remaining time
  • Can handle new-style skins (with nums_ex.bmp instead of numbers.bmp)
  • Titlebar indicates active/inactive state (for skins that support it)

version 2.6

• WinAMP skin support! Customize the way SoundPlay looks, by choosing from the thousands of WinAMP skins available on the Internet.
• Nameless bubblehelp-window no longer shows in Deskbar.
• Increased robustness. Corrupt mp3's should no longer crash SoundPlay
• Improved "snap to edges" behaviour
• Scripting support

version 2.5

• Fixed a couple of memory leaks
• Improved speed of playlist-editor
• Playlist-editor can now show length of files, total playing time, and total time of selected files.
• (Intel) Fixed text-color of playlist-editor
• (Intel) Worked around 'divide error' OS bug
• Bubblehelp won't extend off-screen anymore
• Fixed bug that caused gaps in the sound when playing 8 bit or mono files with a preload size of "small" or "normal"
• Can read Microsoft ADPCM files

• got off the "beta" train. This is version 2.4
• R3 only, PR2 is no longer supported.
• added "snap to edges" option
• selectable windowlook
• "-x" option now works for playlists and multiple files
• fixed reading of stereo iff files (broken for over a year, and nobody noticed...)
• smarter file-popup (scrolls to active file)
• Intel: fixed playing of big-endian files, iff files and mono mpeg files.
• Intel: now replicates correctly
• Intel: uses 30% less CPU!

• beta 7
  • added some sanity checks to the mp3-code, increasing robustness
  • more fixes for Intel version
  • no longer statically linked with liblayout.
    This means you must download liblayout separately!
  • fixed sound-breakup on slow machines (dual-66 BeBox)
• beta 6 (as shipped on the BeOS R3 for PowerPC CD)
  • fixes for Intel-version, no changes on PPC
• beta 5
  • quick fix for bubblehelp/R3 (still doesn't work right on Intel, don't know about PPC)
  • fixed some typos in the bubblehelp
  • fixed two more memory leaks
  • added "tip of the day" window
  • added simple crossfade. It's still a bit clumsy at the moment, and won't work when running as a replicant.
• beta 4
  • SoundPlay is now a replicant, although a replicant SoundPlay doesn't honor its preferences.
  • fixed two more memory leaks
  • reduced memory usage by over 500k per file
  • files specified on the command line are now played sequentially
  • optimized player. SoundPlay is now the fastest mpeg-player for BeOS!
  • fixed off-by-one resizing error
  • speed/time display now has correct color on 32-bit workspaces
  • time can be switched between elapsed and remaining time
  • bubble-help added
  • shift-drag&drop files to add them to playlist without immediately starting play
  • setting mimetypes works better now
• beta 3
  • fixed highlight bug when window partially obscured
  • fixed two memory leaks
  • fixed channel-swap when playing backwards
  • fixed bug that caused windowcolor to be bright red at times
• beta 2
  • added "remember playlist" preference
  • preferences-window will warn if PrefServer is not installed
  • enhanced About-box
• beta 1
  • added playlist editor
  • added "auto-random" preference
  • fixed some resizing-bugs

• now plays multiple mpegs simultaneously! (not something you want to try on a dual-66 BeBox...)
• plays WAV-encapsulated mpegs
• menu-shortcuts actually work now
• accepts color-drops from roColour, BeatWare Paint and Maarten Hekkelman's "pe".
• better font-sensitivity
• filename/fileinfo is shortened when too long
• clicking filename displays a list of all dropped files
• doubleclick (or singleclick with 2nd mousebutton) fastforward/rewind to skip to next/previous song (rewind and restart is now done by doubleclicking (or single- clicking with the 2nd mousebutton) the play-forward button).

• adapted to BeOS Preview Release
• increased resizing-speed (it also flickers more now, but that's app_server's fault)
• fixed iff-loader
• accepts drag-and-drop of directories

• adapted to Advanced Access Preview Release.
• uses PrefServer 0.1 or higher for saving preferences.
• added mpeg-capability (using the "amp" mpeg-player);

• added some stuff to the preferences-window
• progress-bar can now be dragged
• recompiled to use layoutlib.so

• volume control
• selectable preload-size
• plays (some) floating-point files
• plays IFF-8SVX files
• now also interpolates/filters for speeds <100%
• fixed bug in progress-bar rendering
• detects and restarts crashed audio-server
• commandline-switch "-x" will hide window

• Fixed bug that caused SoundPlay to not correctly play 8 bit stereo files.

• now also plays 8 bit samples and mono samples
• click on progress-bar to seek to any position in the file
• can play files sequentially or simultaneously
• can launch 'Base'
• preferences window
• doubleclick the "<<" button to restart from beginning
• better progress-bar and timer update
• some bugfixes and workarounds for Be-bugs

• first release.