New Protracker - your input is welcome

[ruben]

Hi!

I'd like to let you know that I'm currently working on Protracker 5.0, which will be the next chapter in the Amiga tracker series that we all know. I already got the 'ok' from Thomas Beyer, author of Protracker 3.x/4.0.

I started this project because I have a strong emotional link to this (I composed a lot of tunes in the Noise/Pro trackers back in the 'good old days' (tm) ) and I simply can not let this program die.
Also I'm not completely happy with current tracker programs now available, even on Windows.

The program is beeing written from scratch, in C++, which means new ideas can be implemented and expanded easily.

So I was wondering if anyone has some ideas of what you'd like to see in a tracker and what should the new Protracker feature.
All ideas/suggestions are welcome (even the wild ones  ;-) )

[ruben]

Thanks Tickly

Some of your ideas go right into what I had in mind as well.

A native OS4 version should indeed be just a recompile, unfortunately I can't afford an A1 myself, but I'm sure I'll find someone to do it, so it won't be a problem.

btw, the new gui is written in SDL and the loader/player engine is based on a modified MikMod library (that will be released under LGPL of course), so no new formats.

[ruben]

@Rudei

has to be able to play sample lengths longer than 5 seconds

Well that's for sure!
You can expect it to be able to cope with 16bit stereo samples with no restrictions.


@Orgin

I plan to keep the original look and feel, the gui can run full screen with it's very own sub-windows and gagdets like it always was, but now skinnable.

[ruben]

>Great that someone wants to develop Protracker, >but getting all those
>new features will be a hard job. Are you developing > alone ?

ATM yes, but I'm not coding an entire tracker from scratch (that would be a daunting task). The new version will use a (possibly modified) port of the MikMod library, which already does the loading/playing bits which is the most complicated part when putting together a tracker.
It will eventually support plug-ins so more people can help by developing that.


I'd like to thank you all for your feedback! I hope to have a webpage for the project with more info and screenshots!

Cheers,
Ruben

[ruben]

@Simoami

Glad you droped in, I'd eventually get in touch with you to create the default skin for PT5, since I really love your GUI design stuff. I hope you'd be interested :-)

As for your suggestion, I have to say I don't agree with such a radical change in the concept. PT5 is a tracker and should remain faithfull to the concept of it's predecessors. Specifically, it's way of pattern editing is crucial. That really is what defines the "tracker" class. Changing that will lead to something else, which for sure has it's followers as well, but it wouldn't be a tracker.

However, I agree that the user shouldn't be forced to know all those hex commands by heart. So, a good idea maybe would be to have this implemented by allowing the user to press the RMB over the command slot, a menu pops up  where the command is selected and then a small window pops up for parameter changing via some button/meter.

[ruben]

@ buzz

I'd like to have a webpage setup before I start spreading the news.

Still, feedback from you guys here has been great and I'll try to implement as much as possible. I plan to "release soon and often", so that you can see the progress.

[ruben]

Anyway, as you've pointed out, we're off-topic. Sorry Ruben!

No problem  :-) I find it very interesting as well.
In fact, while we're at it, I have a couple of reasons to believe AmigaOS has more chances of succeeding than MorphOS:

1. Name recognition: 10 years ago the Amiga was ruling computerland as the ultimate dream machine.  And while 10 yrs may seem a lot in computing, it's not that much in people's minds, and the name is still well remembered. Just mention "Amiga" outside our circle and you'll see people babbling about Sensible Soccer or how cool it was to make fun of PC users with our kick-ass platform!  :-D
It's a significant head-start for Amiga

2. DE and the hardware agnostic plan: If this is well done, it can bring a huge market opportunity for Amiga, because we're not only talking about the desktop anymore, but targeting a variety of devices that collectively make a vast market. This has the potential to attract lots of fresh users/developers into the community.

Wether you like or not, the next Amiga is what it's owners decide it will be, because they're the only ones in the world who have the legal right to do it.
MorphOS and AROS are, like Windows or Linux, other operating systems. The fact they feel like AmigaOS makes them more interesting to me than other OS's out there, but that's all there is to it.