ORIGINAL: D.Triny

I would be very surprised and a little disappointed if they spent time sifting through the weeky....

this might be called listening to customers...and I'm pretty sure they do this. Not everyone at Cakewalk is a coder.

i never said everyone at cakewalk is a coder....someone has to cook the books & clean the toilets :) & i never implied that they dont listen to their customers...they do.

which is what this is for (provided by the coders) :

http://www.cakewalk.com/support/featurerequest.asp

if you want/need/desire a new feature i'd suggest posting it there instead of on this forum. You dont really know how much they read/pay attention to this forum.

like what ..

That's a good question, and I don't know enough about the various languages to make a suggestion. A GUI for CAL like the Expression Builder in Access would be a nice start.

They do embed it, and that's why they suffer from virii so much. Do we really need that though, is there any real requirement to ship macros around with a file? I don't think so.

I guess it all depends of how the routines work. If the scenario is the same as CAL, where you run the code and and check the results, then storing in the host is the best way. However, if VBCAL (or whatever they call it if they create it at all) can be used to execute things on the fly (and for the life of me, I can't think of an example of an occasion), then embedding in the file would have its advantages.

MfxScript has a « tools » menu that will run a script that should help writing the code, but for now I didn't have the time to create any. But if you need something specific (midi or macro) let me know, I don’t mind writing some useful stuff.

Marc--

Thanks for the offer. I'll give you a shout if necessary. <g>

Original:deltadreams

MightyLeeMoon:

same to you. why are you still stomping on other people's request for enhancements? if it wasn't for people like planist, software would hardly improve at the rate it should. secondly, it's people like you that hinder progress.

Hey pissant. I was mearly blown away by the countless things on the list and decided to try my hand at a simple bad joke. I am all for progress. Planist has done a pretty good job keeping up with all of the requests and trying to organize them. Hats off to him. I have added a few things to that list myself on a couple occasions. Point to one occasion that I have "Stomped" on other people's requests. You can't, because I haven't.

So, have a nice day and piss off.

The macro I'd like to see most and I'm sure many of you will agree is "when you press let's say F1 sonar collects the money owed by deadbeat clients".

A simple example of a macro that I would instantly write, would be to bounce a soft synth to audio, archive the midi, and disconnect the synth. All in 1 button push, and without Cakewalk having to add the feature.....
We could add the features ourselves !!
Plus, of course, we could share Macros amongst ourselves.

.. would be to bounce a soft synth to audio

ok

archive the midi

ok

disconnect the synth

you will have to do it yourself for now, mouse macros will come later

All in 1 button push

either the blue arrow or dblclick the preset

I kind of made that as a joke, but it works , may need some tweaking ..., and it's cool. A good enehancement would be to manually hide the synth we don't want to freeze and the audio, and the macro freezing the rest.

Drop the code in the MfxScript editor (click edit), save in a preset folder/sub folder, click preset, update, should be there.
Enjoy ...
oh, if your anti virus is freaking out, tell it to stay quiet, I still needed to call some sendkey, that's why, but when I'm formating your drive, it won't say a word ... , the code is a bit long, heavy checking ...

' Bounce synth to track and archive midi tracks
 ' 
 ' SONAR3 only (last mod. 2004/04/20)  vers. 1.0.4
 ' Click on the bar of a Dxi/Vsti Track
 ' Start the macro
 ' This macro will 'bounce to track' the selected dxi,
 '  and set ALL MIDI TRACKS THAT HAVE THAT SYNTH as 
 '  output to archive
 
 Option Explicit
 const KEYWAIT = 20
 dim ws, sWin, tInfo, sErr, sDone
 dim dxiTrack, dxiName
 Cls
 Set ws = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 If RunMacro() = False Then
   MsgBox sErr, vbCritical, "Bounce synth to track and archive midi tracks"
 Else
   MsgBox sDone & vbCrLf & "Do not forget to disconnect the Dxi/Vsti",,"Done"
 End If 
 PrintLN dxiTrack & " , " & dxiName
 
 Function RunMacro()
   sErr = "Unable to deselect"
   If Not Tools.IsHostMenuEnabled ("Edit\Select\None") Then Exit Function
   Tools.CallHostMenu "Edit\Select\None", True
   sErr = "Make sure to click on a dxi/vsti track first"
   If IsMidiTrack() Then Exit Function
   sErr = "GetTrackInfo failed" & vbCrLf & " or the track input is set to 'None'"
   If Not GetTrackInfo() Or tInfo(1) = "None" Then Exit Function
   sErr = "Failed to bounce to track"
   If Not BounceToTrack Then Exit Function
   dxiTrack = tInfo(0) : dxiName = tInfo(1)
   sErr = "Failed to archive the midi tracks"
   If Not ArchiveMidiTracks() Then Exit Function
   Tools.CallHostMenu "View\Synth Rack", False
   RunMacro = True
 End Function
 
 Function ArchiveMidiTracks()
   dim tracks, n
   tracks = 0
   For n = 0 To 10
     If GetTrackInfo() Then Exit For
     Sleep 500
   Next
   Do While True
     ws.SendKeys "{UP}" : Sleep 200
     If IsMidiTrack() Then
       If Not Tools.IsHostMenuChecked("Track\Archive") Then
         If Not GetTrackInfo() Then Exit Function
         If Left(dxiName, len(tInfo(2))) = tInfo(2) Then 
           Tools.CallHostMenu "Track\Archive", False
           tracks = tracks + 1
         End If
       End If
     Else
       If Not GetTrackInfo() Then Exit Function
       If tInfo(1) = dxiName Then Exit Do
     End If
   Loop
   sDone = "Archived " & tracks & " Tracks"
   PrintLN sDone
   ArchiveMidiTracks = True
 End Function
 
 Function BounceToTrack()
   If Not Tools.IsHostMenu("Edit\Bounce to Track(s)") Then Exit Function
   If Not Tools.IsHostMenuEnabled("Edit\Bounce to Track(s)") Then Exit Function
   sWin = Tools.GetForegroundWindowName()
   Tools.CallHostMenu "Edit\Bounce to Track(s)", False
   If Not Tools.WaitForegroundWindowChanged(sWin, 500)Then Exit Function
   If Tools.WaitForegroundWindow(GetHostName, 200) Then Exit Function
   Tools.ClickButton "OK"
   If Tools.WaitForegroundWindow(GetHostName, 1000) Then Exit Function
   Sleep 2000
   sWin = Tools.GetHostWindowText
   Tools.SetHostToForeground 
   If Not Tools.WaitForegroundWindow(sWin, 1000) Then Exit Function
   BounceToTrack = True
 End Function
   
 Function IsMidiTrack()
   If Not Tools.IsHostMenu("Track\Property\Channel") Then Exit Function
   If Not Tools.IsHostMenuEnabled("Track\Property\Channel") Then Exit Function
   IsMidiTrack = True
 End Function
 
 Function GetTrackInfo()
   sWin = Tools.GetHostWindowText
   Tools.SetHostToForeground 
   If Not Tools.WaitForegroundWindow(sWin, 500) Then Exit Function
   ws.SendKeys "+{F10}" : Sleep KEYWAIT
   ws.SendKeys "T" : Sleep KEYWAIT
   If Not Tools.WaitForegroundWindow("Track Properties", 500) Then Exit Function
   tInfo = Array(Tools.GetControlText(1), Tools.GetControlText(3), Tools.GetControlText(5))
   If Not Tools.ClickButton("Cancel") Then Exit Function
   If Not Tools.WaitForegroundWindowChanged("Track Properties", 500) Then Exit Function 
   GetTrackInfo = TRUE
 End Function
 
 Function GetHostName
   Dim sH
   sH = Tools.GetHostWindowText()
   sH = Split(sh, "-")
   GetHostName = Trim(sh(1))
 End Function
 

ORIGINAL: ghijkmnop

They do embed it, and that's why they suffer from virii so much. Do we really need that though, is there any real requirement to ship macros around with a file? I don't think so.

I guess it all depends of how the routines work. If the scenario is the same as CAL, where you run the code and and check the results, then storing in the host is the best way. However, if VBCAL (or whatever they call it if they create it at all) can be used to execute things on the fly (and for the life of me, I can't think of an example of an occasion), then embedding in the file would have its advantages.

I also can't offhand think of a use for embedding a self-executing macro in a .cwp. What I'd be extremely happy with (in fact, just the thought gets me giddy!) is a Sonar VBA that worked essentially as it does in Word where, (unless otherwise specified) macros are stored in the default template as what amounts to an easily readable and editable "macro document' and are available to any open Word document. (Excel works similarly, as doe Access to a lesser extent.) Most people I know, including writers and long time Word users, have almost no idea this functionality is available to them -- so of course it never gets in their way, which is as it should be.

My Word template has about 350 macros in it, maybe a third of which I should clean out. I access most of the rest as menu commands (on a single customized toolbar) or as bind-ed key combinations. The rest are run directly through the standard Macro command (though access to that's also been customized.) Except for those, I never experience these *as* macros but as built-in Word commands -- but then I have literally built them into my Word environment. They're part of my everyday feature set and it totally rocks. And that's the point: I'm not hoping that maybe, someday, Microsoft will add these features because I've added them myself.

As for viruses, I've been using VBA for years, and have not once gotten a virus as a result. Maybe I've just jinxed myself, but I think such concern is overblown if minimal caution and common sense are in place.

Sonar VBA would be freighteningly cool!

CJ

Very impressive!

It's a little fussy about exactly what is or is not selected. I was once able to get it to bounce just a selected section of the tracks (e.g., measures 3 and 4 out of 8) but couldn't do it again. In that case (and possibly some others) it will create a bounced clip of the proper length, but without any actual audio, and not archive the MIDI tracks.

But as a quickie... I mean... as a demonstration of what's possible... very nice.

(I know, at this point this should probably be in the MFX and/or CAL forums.)

CJ

ORIGINAL: Dickie

Visual basic pro is $1,079 {Ms pages}
Sonar 3 producer is 719.00 {Cakewalk}

This would make the cost of Sonar 4 something like 1,798.oo ...plus whatever additional they add to the base price.

VBA is different from VB (as in the Visual Studio programming language), Microsoft Word and Excel come with VBA support built in, as do many other programs, AFAIK it is free to implement, all you have to do is make sure that your application (in this case Sonar) has it's API exposed... and then link in the VBA support.

I'm familiar... it's a pretty pleasant language. He did say full VB support.

I'd prefer something that already has a zillion and one {specific} audio extensions... Csound, maybe, for those folk that don't care for cm.

{Tho', if I'd been paying attention to csound I would have known that this whole thing's already been taken care of.

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=193976 }

ORIGINAL: CrayonJones

ORIGINAL: Loki

Bounce to track normally needs you to select both the midi and audio tracks. It would not let me do this. The midi track did not archive when it had finished buncing.

Right. That stumped me at first too. What you have to do is NOT select the MIDI. Seems that accessing these functions through the MFX lets the MIDI tracks to be referenced more directly, without selecting them. Interesting. (I just tried to bounce to track without the MFX, and by selecting only the DXi (i.e., not the MIDI too) and the bounced clip had no audio.)

Well, it's the first time I was using 'bounce to track' with Sonar, and I'm still a bit confused about the way it works. (the macro has been updated to handle ‘bounce to..’ errors)

But if you click on only the DXi (not even "selecting" it in the usual highlighting way), then the script bounces and archives -- as advertised!

Yes, this is the way I wrote the macro, bounce the dxi and archive all midi tracks that use this dxi as output (freeze the synth).
Anyway, if s3 was exposing it's function, the macro would be much much easier to write.

f you want/need/desire a new feature i'd suggest posting it there instead of on this forum.

false dichotomy....one can post there -AND- on the forum. cut the censorship.

just let people post man. I think it's pretty clear what I'm talking about

It is, but I'm not censoring anyone (or attempting to, for that matter)-- just reminding to post to the FR site and giving my opinion (of which I am entitled). This discussion is a good one, provided everyone knows where things ultimately need to go-- otherwise it's just mental masturbation.

my post regarding "censorship" was to "HammerHead" are you Hammerhead? If so, then comprendo...if not then no comprendo.

ORIGINAL: D.Triny

It is, but I'm not censoring anyone (or attempting to, for that matter)-- just reminding to post to the FR site and giving my opinion (of which I am entitled). This discussion is a good one, provided everyone knows where things ultimately need to go-- otherwise it's just mental masturbation.

my post regarding "censorship" was to "HammerHead" are you Hammerhead? If so, then comprendo...if not then no comprendo.

what censorship ?

i simply (in summary) :

1. posted a link to the new features request.
2. suggested you post your requests there.
3. suggested that CW was probably 95+% done coding SV4.
4. suggested that perhaps they dont pay as much attention to this forum as some posters think they do.

you can certainly post here too (or any other thread you desire). imo, you are wasting your time but more power to you.

post away man.

if you inferred anything else from my previous posts perhaps your reading comprehension comes into question.