Hello, everyone!
This weekly report marks the end of the month, which was dedicated to bring Sound Support into Synfig. Let’s see what we’ve got.
== Sound Layer ==
In my last report the availability of Sound Layer was announced and now I am happy to present the video demonstration of this feature:
This time I have a good news for our Windows users - we are publishing a special testing installation package with Sound Layer is available. Check it out - sourceforge.net/projects/synfig/ … e/download
Unfortunately, there are lot of issues remains - for example, the delay doesn’t worked correctly for me in Windows build and the playback of WAV file is not synced well. But I’ve got a good results with MP3 files. 
We hope to deliver the testing packages for other platforms very soon (in fact, this is my personal responsibility).
Until then, the code is available for compilation here - github.com/morevnaproject/synfig/commits/mlt
As of current moment the Sound Layer have a very basic functionality, but it’s a good start and it’s already possible to work with. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the Sound Layer functionality is implemented through adopting MLT Framework. And this open a great possibilities for further development. For example, the MLT Framework can generate the sound (and images!) itself, without any external files. Second - it provides a great features for export into various format. My favorite MLT-based application is Kdenlive and below you can see a screenshot of its interface for video export. And it works very well!
(Sorry for posting non-Synfig screenshots, I’m just trying to plant irresistible ideas into the minds of other developers here. ^__^)
So, the MLT Framework promises a really nice perspectives. I just hope that we won’t hit crossplatform related problems (we still have to test how it works on OSX and Win64 builds also not ready yet).
== JACK integration ==
Last week the following improvements were made for JACK integration:
- Now it is possible to set the delay for jack transport. That makes Synfig playback to start later (or earlier), relatively to global transport time. Very useful if you want to synchronize with a big project in Blender or Ardour. Just set the delay to the time when your scene should start and you’re done!
- The JACK synchronization now also available for Preview Window - you can enable it using the special button. The bad thing is that it makes playback of preview window linked with playback of canvas, which leads to performance problems. In the future that should be re-worked - when playback takes place in Preview Window, the playback in the canvas should be disabled. We have postponed this for now.
== Fundraising campaign ==
Great news here - our campaign have successfully reached its initial goal and this is enough to continue the full-time development of Synfig in June!
Thanks to everyone who didn’t hesitated to spread a word about our campaign and of course to everyone who made a contribution! Special thanks to Gerald Young who made a final donation, pushing the campaign beyond of $1000 goal.
The “Choose Priority” reward was claimed by Rob Lefrandt and his choice is… Better UI!
So, today Ivan starts to follow our outline for UI improvement. And meanwhile I will be finishing with resolving the crossplatform issues of sound-related features.
With this campaign the collected amount is a little more than one-month funding, so the reasonable question is how do we deal with it.
Here goes an important announcement - we are going to skip the fundraising for next month and try to fulfill the remaining amount from the money collected through other sources - subscriptions (at the moment we have 4 subscribers with total amount of $25 per month), training package sales and my personal funds.
Most probably this won’t be enough to cover a whole month of development, so for remaining days of July (if we will be unable to cover the whole month) I am going to send Ivan for vacation. After all those months he deserves a little break.
In any case, the donations are still appreciated.
That’s all news for today. Stay tuned till the next report!
