Midichlorians in the blood: October 2021

There is a new batch of releases: Drumstick Libraries, VMPK, and Drumstick Multiplatform MIDI File Player. Below is the change log for each one.

There is a common feature: USE_QT can be given in the cmake command to choose which Qt major version (5 or 6) to prefer. By default (if not set) it uses whatever is found. I've never needed something like that, because all my libraries are installed at $HOME/Qt/x.y.z which is the common practice when using the Qt online installer. In cmake you use CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to provide the list of non standard prefixes where you have dependencies, and this solution is both simple and comfortable. But some Linux distros decided that it is a good idea to install system wide Qt5 and Qt6 versions together. In this case, the build system needs some help to decide which one to prefer. The projects build and run using Qt6, but I've not tested it too much and produce many warnings at build. The binary packages are using Qt 5.15 for now.

Another common point is the fix a crash on Linux when using the connections dialog, but the system does not have any MIDI available port. This was reported by the same 'Arch' user who needed the USE_QT option. It was also quite difficult to reproduce, partly because poor stack trace information was provided, and mainly because by default ALSA sequencer installations have at least one MIDI port, as they load by default the kernel module 'snd_seq_dummy', which provides the 'Midi Through' ports. The only way to reproduce the crash is to remove/blacklist the module 'snd_seq_dummy' and disconnect whatever MIDI device attached to the system. I can imagine the users who blacklisted 'snd_seq_dummy' and forgot about it, one day will be searching Internet for a MIDI Thru utility. Good luck!

Changes in Drumstick Libraries v2.4.1

New build option: USE_QT to choose among Qt major versions (5 or 6). Fixes ticket #36.
Fixed ticket #35: build with Qt 5.11 is possible again.
Vpiano: fix for a similar bug to vmpk ticket #74: crash in Linux.
Widgets: using buffer time in FluidSynth configuration dialog.
Fixed wrong licenses in several files.
Fixed defaults and ranges for the FluidSynth RT backend parameters, using the same values as the upstream library.
Fixed validation of parameters in the FluidSynth configuration dialog.
Widgets: Swedish translation updated. Thanks to Magnus Johansson.
Widgets: Czech translation updated. Thanks to Pavel Fric.

Changes in Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard (VMPK) v0.8.5

New build option USE_QT with valid values 5 or 6, to choose which Qt major version to prefer. By default (if not set) it uses whatever is found.
Fixed ticket #74: crash under Linux using the MIDI Connections dialog if there are no suitable MIDI inputs/outputs available.
Fixed error checking of DwmGetWindowAttribute() call. This caused a problem in Windows 7 running the "Windows Classic" theme.
Swedish translation updated. Thanks to Magnus Johansson.
Czech translation updated. Thanks to Pavel Fric.

Changes in Drumstick Multiplatform MIDI File Player v1.5.2

New build option USE_QT to choose among Qt major versions (5 or 6). By default (if not set) it uses whatever is found.
Fix for crash in Linux when using the MIDI connections dialog, and there are not suitable MIDI ports available.
Czech translation updated. Thanks to Pavel Fric.