Hi Mark,
thanks for the new version of the Midi Tools.
I hope to play with it today.
I was wondering if you do me a favour and add a long edit box next to the Record and Start Buttons and a send buttnon below the new edit box so I could type in a request sysex message and send it to the synth.
At the moment I am flipping back and forth between MidiTools and MidiOx as I probe the synth and it would be great to have it on one window.
Hope you are well.
Royce
Hi Royce,
Try this: [Obsolete link removed]:
You can type one or more SysEx messages (as "bare" hexadecimal bytes) in the new "Message(s)" editbox (whose width follows the window width).
Once the message(s) are legal (i.e. each message consists of F0 + zero or more MIDI data bytes + F7), the new Send button becomes enabled.
The editbox and the button aren't accessible (yet) via the window's menu, but Alt+G selects the editbox and Alt+N presses the button.
Note that you can even press the Send button when you're recording bytes via the Record button (which, as you've probably noticed, isn't the case for the Play button, to avoid interference problems).
I hope this does what you requested.
Mark.
Hi Mark,
thanks for the addition.
Works perfectly.
Have a little drink on me.
Thanks again
Royce
Hi Royce,
First of all: thanks very much for your donation!
I've made a new version, [Obsolete link removed], with a few improvements:
1. I've changed the editbox to a combobox:
Whenever you press the Send button, the current text in the combobox is added to its drop-down history list, unless the text is already there. (As you probably know, you can also open a combobox's drop-down list via Alt + Down-arrow.)
Currently, the text lines in the history list are not sanitized: spaces and lowercase are retained as typed; consequently e.g. "F0 F7" and "f0 f7" are seen as different. However, I'm not sure how convenient sanitization would be: e.g. a user might wish to retain multiple spaces between messages for clarity.
2. The combobox no longer uses the variable-pitch Tahoma font, but the fixed-pitch Fixedsys.
This is in line with the message grid and the SysEx dialog box.
A drawback is that Fixedsys is somewhat wider than Tahoma, but then again you can widen the combobox as much as you like, so I'm not quite sure which is best.
Let me know if you prefer Tahoma after all - I can change it back in the blink of an eye.
Mark.
Hi Mark,
I like the new font.
I also like that I can have more than one sysex message in a line.
Of course after making it a combobox that stores the line I now want a right click menu to save and load and delete a line, along with a way of inserting a comment; "//" perhaps
F0 7E 7F 06 01 F7 // Device inquiry
F0 18 0F 7F 55 61 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 F7 // Generic dump request
8)
Thanks again
Royce
Hi Royce,
Frankly I'm not a fan of popup menus, mainly because the existence of any popup menu in a program more or less forces the user to right-click on every screen element to see if a popup menu is associated with that element too. That's why abt. 15 years ago I abolished all my popup menus and swore never to implement one again; so far I've managed to keep my promise - but who knows...
I'm not sure how practical appending comments to lines will be, especially in the combobox (mind you, this is my first history list in a combobox ever...). My first thought is that a grid, with two columns (message(s) + comment), might be more appropriate (although a grid of course takes more space).
Add to that your suggestions about saving, loading and deleting, and I can see a fully-featured extra panel on the horizon. In fact, already after your original request for an editbox I considered adding a second panel, or even a second SysEx window, so I kind of knew that things could "get out of hand".
So I'll probably have to sleep on it for a week or so - stay tuned...
Mark.
Hi Mark,
I would prefer if you kept it simple. I have your program occupying the whole screen and like to see as much of the sysex data as I can which is why I suggested the edit box to sit to the right of the Stop button with the Send button just to the right of the Delay speed button.
As you are pulling the Sysex string in to do your checks, just add this at the start of your check function
if Pos('//',Edit.Text) = 0 then TestString := Edit.Text
else TestString := Copy(Edit.Text,1,Pos('//',Edit.Text) -1);
I would even drop your save to the ComboBox StringList routine and forget the popup menu. Just right click (perhaps linked to a menu option) OnMouseDown routine to load a text file to the Combo StringList. I'll use any old text editor to create and delete the lines I need. I wouldn't make it any more complicated than that.
Perhaps have place to keep the files for various synths like you have for your BCR manager.
Thanks for the help for this greedy, never satisfied consumer of other peoples' work. 8)
Royce
Hi Royce,
Try this: [Obsolete link removed].
New features:
Hopefully this addresses most of your requests and considerations.
Mark.
Thanks Mark, that is great. Saving me a lot of time.
I have a couple of files to start off the 'library'.
I'll email them to you.
I am using "//" instead of "/" because my text editor has a pascal syntax hi-lighter that makes it easier to read.
I find I am constantly changing bytes and I don't want to clutter up the list by adding the changed lines.
Any chance of a persistent on/off for line adding function?
All the best
Royce
Hi Royce,
New version: [Obsolete link removed]:
I'm still thinking about the easiest way to transfer the probe list messages to the grid and v.v. (I'm not sure to what extent you're interested in this, but I do think it should be possible.) There's the Windows clipboard (currently used by the probe lists), there's the special SysEx message clipboard (used by the grid and also by the MIDI input messages window), and then there are syx and txt files - so there are a lot of options.
Mark.
New version: [Obsolete link removed]:
New version: [Obsolete link removed]:
Changes to the SysEx window:
Quite a few changes to the main menu. For instance, the MIDI pull-down menu has been renamed to I/O and the Edit pull-down menu to Grid, and the order of the pull-down menus has been changed.
Changes related to the message grid:
The correction of checksum bytes is no longer indicated by a dialog box. Instead, the status bar displays "Roland checksum(s) corrected" for 1.5 seconds. Additionally, corrections to the Probe line turn its background aqua during this period.
New/changed shortcuts:
Input:
Ctrl+F9 or Alt+R = Record
Ctrl+F10 or Alt+S = Stop
Probe:
F4 = Correct Roland checksum(s)
F5 or Alt+E = Send
Grid:
F8 = Correct Roland checksum(s)
F9 or Alt+Y = Play
Enter = Edit byte(s)
Shift+Enter = Edit message(s)
Additionally, this version introduces a major new feature not specifically related to the SysEx window:
From the main window's View pull-down menu you can save and reload "desktops", i.e. the layouts of the program's windows (mostly their positions and sizes). (This feature will be the main novelty of the upcoming MIDI Tools version 2.0.0.)
New version: [Obsolete link removed]:
Only one change: the byte editing dialog box has been made smaller, so that it obscures less of the SysEx window.
Hi Mark.
Download link reports an error.
Royce
Hi Royce,
The link doesn't work because I removed the file at least a year ago: my "new" post offering the download was actually sent in 2015...
In recent days I've been setting up SSL (https) for my website.
Anyone not logged in can now use either http or https, but when someone tries to log in, the website automatically switches to https. (Actually this switch isn't active right now, but unless there are further snags I will activate it very soon.)
However, this setup has at least one drawback: when a user logged in via https clicks on an http link to another page at my website, it will appear as if (s)he has logged out.
To avoid this confusion, last night I've replaced all existing http links to mountainutilities.eu with variable links, which always use the protocol (http or https) that the user is currently using.
These replacements included a few dozen links in old posts of mine.
So that's why quite a few topics have moved to the top of the "most recent" forum lists. Unfortunately this is simply how my site's forum software works. (Curiously, the original post dates are still intact though, so this contradictory behavior by the forum software might be called a bug.)
Another issue:
After each edit of an old post I've tried to remember to uncheck the "Send subscriptions" checkbox (hidden in an inactive tab!). However, ultimately it was well past midnight, so apparently I forgot to do this in a few cases - my apologies to anyone re-receiving these old posts.
Mark