# SoundPlay 4.5

Copyright 1996-2000 Marco Nelissen (marcone@xs4all.nl)

SoundPlay was originally meant to be a replacement for Be's PlaySound (the predecessor to MediaPlayer), hence the somewhat unoriginal name.

SoundPlay:

- can play many sound-formats: WAV, mp3, Vorbis, AIFF, MOD, IFF-8SVX, MSADPCM, MIDI, and more
- has full pitch control ranging from -400% to 400% speed. (yes, it plays backwards).
  SoundPlay was the first player on any platform to play mp3 backwards, and is still the only player on BeOS that can do this!
- can play and mix multiple files at once
- comes with filters and visualization plugins to enhance your listening experience
- can act as a streaming server, allowing you to share your music with others
  SoundPlay is the first native BeOS live content mp3 streamer!

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

SoundPlay cannot run if you do not have liblayout installed. Liblayout is an award-winning GUI layout library and is included in the archive. To use some of SoundPlay's features, you must copy liblayout to /boot/home/config/libs. The install-script will do this for you.

### SoundPlay 4.5

- Support for VST effect plugins. Many thanks to George-Edouard Berenger for writing this excellent plugin note
  See this page for a list of VST plugins that have been ported to BeOS.
- All new LiveEncoder should provide a much smoother streaming experience
- New totally customizable "Analog VU" plugin
- New equalizer plugin with three different equalizers (use alt-z to toggle if you don't want to go through the preferences window each time)
- New 'MIDI Renderer" plugin
- New 'noise' plugin to generate white noise
- New plugin development kit with new examples and new and easy C++ filter wrapper API note
- More memory efficient deskbar plugin
- Playlist editor window remembers position, and can be set to auto-open and/or close the main window
- Fixed crash in HTTP plugin when a stream or non-existant file was in the playlist
- Fixed MOD loader to actually work again
- HTTP redirects handled when streaming mp3
- Fixed mp3 decoder bug that could cause distortions
- Fix crash when mp3 decoder ran out of memory
- Total playing time updated properly in playlist editor when removing files with the 'remove' button
- Filepanel remembers position/directory
- Some fixes to URL input window
- Some fixes to window-snapping
- Fixed plugin-shortcut handling
- Fixed memory leak in Ogg Vorbis plugin
- Better handling of broken ID3 tags

### SoundPlay 4.3

- fixed color-handling in playlist editor
- fixed crash when shutting down HTTP plugin
- fixed memory leak in MOD plugin
- fixed memory leak in playlist
- fixed replicant-mode crash in playlist editor
- fixed bug in Ogg Vorbis plugin that would cause it to lock up at the end of the file
- fixed bug that could cause SoundPlay not to work with some streaming servers
- fixed bug in general purpose plugin listview
- various speedups for very large playlists
- added right-click popup to playlisteditor listview
- sort-by-name/sort-by-path buttons in playlist editor

### SoundPlay 4.2

- Fixed crash when clicking 'sort' in new playlist
- Live Encoder will use port you specify
- Added palette shifting and new waveform display to QING
- Included SimpleScope plugin that was missing previously
- Default decoder plugin can optionally skip unknown files instead of playing them as raw audio
- Added "info" scripting property
- Added FreeVerb filter plugin
- Added Ogg Vorbis decoder
- Better playlist file handling
- Various bugfixes in playlist editor
- Improved mp3 decoder
- Shortcuts can be assigned to plugins
- Added "info" scripting property

### SoundPlay 4.0.1

- Some fixes to plugin-listviews
- Some fixes for replicant mode
- Fixed lockups when playing network stream or audio-in backwards
- WinAmp-mode window remembers its position
- HTTP plugin should be friendlier to the various browsers out there

### SoundPlay 4.0

- More robust mp3 decoder that doesn't get confused by ID3 tags and broken VBR headers
- Support for mpeg 2.5 files
- Much better network streaming
- Audio-input plugin to mix live input with your music
- Live encoder plugin. Run your own "radio" station on the Internet!
- Live playlists and other playlist improvements
- URL history
- Keyboard shortcuts (z-m keys on a US keymap)
- Completely new "general purpose" plugin category, replacing the old "interface plugins". Even the playlist editor can now be a plugin!
- "next" and "previous" scripting properties
- New "media kit decoder" plugin
- New "MP3 cleaner" plugin
- Improvements to the QING and digital-VU plugins
- Improved preferences and plugin manager window
- Fixed memory leak and other bugs in IFF decoder
- Fixed memory corruption in network reader
- Fixed race condition in Decode-To-File
- Fixed decoder plugin configuration
- Support for .zip and .wsz skin-archives
- Smoother seeking in WinAmp mode
- Fixed lockups when seeking in file
- SoundPlay will survive a Media Server restart
- Entire playlist can be played backwards
- Skin-popupmenu properly sorted
- Removed "lockup detector", since it sometimes interfered with normal operation, and ctrl-alt-delete works better anyway

#### Previous version history

SoundPlay 3.6

- Fixed another crashing bug in the echo-plugin
- Fixed bug in "opened file replaces existing track" mode when no existing track was present
- Added analog VU meter visualization
- Fixed stop button (wouldn't work in some cases)
- Optionally restart filter and visualization plugins at startup

SoundPlay 3.5.1

- Removed some debug output that was accidentally left in 3.5

SoundPlay 3.5

- Fixed file-buffering. If you had problems with skipping audio from "slow" filesystems such as FAT partitions and network-shares, this version should fix it.
- Fixed mp3 seek bug
- Fixed crashing bug in Echo-plugin
- Fixed visualization bug causing unnecessary slowdowns when running multiple visualization plugins at the same time on multi-CPU machines
- New "Scope" plugin with various waveform and spectrum analyzers
- Improved HTTP plugin with optional "play", "download" and "stream" links
  (streaming from SoundPlay to the same instance of SoundPlay currently doesn't work)
- Improved mixer plugin (crossfade slider changed, accepts file drag&drop)
- Can play multiple MODs at the same time
- Some changes in the plugin architecture
- New option to let newly opened files replace the existing ones, instead of opening a new player

SoundPlay 3.4

- Fixed background color of Deskbar replicant
- Deskbar replicant accepts drag&drop of files
- Some fixes in WinAmp skin handling
- Support for "mpegurl" files (as used by mp3.com)
- "Accept first click" and "Outline resize" prefs work again
- Changed preferences window and added several new options:
  - Selectable previous/next and rewind/fastforward buttons
  - Re-shuffle on playlist repeat
  - Don't crossfade a single file with itself
  - More options for setting the filetype of played files
- Fixed http-streaming for servers that require additional headers to be sent (Audio Buzz for example)
- Added some new stuff to the QING visual plugin
- Fixed plugin-loading for replicants
- Fixed crash that occured when starting SoundPlay as replicant twice

SoundPlay 3.3

- Echo plugin remembers mode now
- Interface plugin architecture
- Fixed directory-drag&drop in crossfade settings window
- "Open file" menu item (and button in WinAmp mode)

SoundPlay 3.2

- Added visualization plugins

SoundPlay 3.1

- Various optimizations making SoundPlay the fastest mp3 player on BeOS again!
- Fixed repeat+crossfade bug where volume would be zero after last file
- First file in a list won't be skipped anymore in replicant mode
- Fixed crashing bug when using ShoutCast in replicant mode
- Fixed layout-bug in enlarged WinAmp modes.
- Adapts to dark background colors

SoundPlay 3.0

- All new plugin architecture with decoder and effect plugins
  - Added MIDI and MOD decoders
  - Added reverb, voice removal, pitch change, loudness and echo effects
- Drag and Drop links from NetPositive
- Fixed detection of non-ISO "mpeg 2.5" streams.
  If you encounter any streams that played with SoundPlay 2.9, but now don't play anymore, please let me know.
- Lots and lots of bugfixes. Too many to mention here.
- Proper VBR-mp3 support
- Can remember prefs without PrefServer
- Uses new media kit.
- numerous user interface enhancements

SoundPlay 2.9

- Added ShoutCast/IceCast support.
- Increased speed on x86 processors. SoundPlay 2.9 is about 20% faster than SoundPlay 2.8, and more than 30% faster than CL-Amp (note: since then, CL-Amp has switched to another decoder and is now ever so slightly faster than SoundPlay).
- Lockup detection. If you accidentally drop more mp3's on SoundPlay for simultaneous play than it can handle, it will automatically detect this and stop playing after a few seconds. Note that after SoundPlay has stopped playing, it may take some additional time before you regain control of your system.
- Fixed playlist time-display
- Soundplay adds playing time and bitrate attributes to played files. You can view these by enabling them from the Tracker's Attributes menu, after going into SoundPlay's preferences and clicking "register mime types now".
- Configurable crossfade-settings added.
- Decode to WAV or raw file
- Prefs now also saved when quit via Deskbar
- Skin-path pref also saved when "save prefs now" button clicked
- Simple built-in skin
- Adjusted preload sizes for better system responsiveness
- Checkbox doesn't lock window anymore
- Dropping directories and saved playlists are now handled properly in "play simultanous" mode
- Symbolic links are handled properly
- Removed "output rate" selector.

SoundPlay 2.8d

- Workaround for broken BSoundFile in R4 golden master

SoundPlay 2.8c

- Borderless window is now really borderless
- Fixed WinAmp mode (crashed on 2.8)
- WinAmp window is now completely borderless
- WinAmp window can be hidden
- Resize speed of WinAmp window improved
- WinAmp window correctly remembers its position
- Scripting mechanism now sends correct replies
- Remembers "smooth pitch changes" setting

SoundPlay 2.8

- Various fixes/workarounds/adaptations for BeOS R4:
  - fixed highlighting
  - fixed bubblehelp
  - fixed snap-to-edges with respect to Deskbar
  - fixed scrolling in playlist
  - fixed desktop-replicant mode
- translucent dragging in playlist
- translucent replicant dragging
- fixed mime types. You can call the mime-police now. I'm clean.

SoundPlay 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)

SoundPlay 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

SoundPlay 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

SoundPlay 2.4

- 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!

SoundPlay 2.3

- 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

SoundPlay 2.2

- 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).

SoundPlay 2.1

- 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

SoundPlay 2.0

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

SoundPlay 1.3

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

SoundPlay 1.2

- 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

SoundPlay 1.1

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

SoundPlay 1.0

- 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

SoundPlay 0.99

- first release.

PowerPC note:

VST support and C++ plugin API are not available on PowerPC