subject: Ecasound 2.4.5 released
version: 20061217-4

1. Summary of changes
---------------------

Native support for FLAC files has been added using the sndfile library.
New debugging tools for ecasound scripting and ECI applicatin development 
have been added. Bugs related to ecasound process return values, memory
corruption in ECI apps, handling of 24/32bit big-endian audio files, 
robustness of mp3/ogg/flac/aac support, managing loop devices, parsing user 
input, and build errors on cygwin, have been fixed. A set of new 
processing ops for channel routing and mixing has been added.

2. What is Ecasound?
--------------------

Ecasound is a software package designed for multitrack audio
processing. It can be used for simple tasks like audio playback, 
recording and format conversions, as well as for multitrack effect 
processing, mixing, recording and signal recycling. Ecasound supports 
a wide range of audio inputs, outputs and effect algorithms. 
Effects and audio objects can be combined in various ways, and their
parameters can be controlled by operator objects like oscillators 
and MIDI-CCs. A versatile console mode user-interface is included 
in the package.

Primary platform for running Ecasound is GNU/Linux. Ecasound can 
also be run on many UNIX-derived systems such as FreeBSD, Mac OS X 
and Solaris. Limited support for Windows is available through 
Cygwin. Ecasound is licensed under the GPL. The Ecasound Control 
Interface (ECI) is licensed under the LGPL.

3. Changes since last release
-----------------------------

* Full read/write support for flac files with support for seeking.
  Requires libsndfile 1.0.12 or newer.

* Some bugs in setting the ecasound return value have been fixed.
  Ecasound now properly signals errors like insufficient write
  permissions, or running out of storage space during processing, 
  via non-zero return values. The possible return values are now 
  also documented in ecasound(1).

* A new debugging mechanism controlled by ECASOUND_LOGFILE and
  ECASOUND_LOGLEVEL environment variables. This is meant especially
  for debugging ECI applications, and scripted uses of ecasound.
  You can test this for instance by issuing:
  sh> ECASOUND_LOGLEVEL=ecalog.txt ecaplay *.wav 
  And look at 'ecalog.txt' afterwards. This mechanism for ECI 
  debugging really should have been there from the start. See 
  ecasound(1) for more details.

* A set of new audio operators have been added for channel
  routing/mixing: -chcopy (alias for -erc), -chmove, -chmute and
  -chmix (alias for -erm). See the full documentation in ecasound(1).

* The in-tree sources for readline-4.0 have been removed from
  the package. Originally, some time around 1999, readline was included 
  to the package due to numerous problems with Linux distros of the time 
  that came with old versions of readline. This however no longer is the case. 
  Nowadays, pretty much all non-ancient systems have at least readline-4.0,
  and most have already readline-5.0. Ancient machines are however still 
  supported. To this end, ecasound now provides an option to compile with
  readline disabled.

* Various bugfixes including: severe memory handling error in ECI C 
  implementation, bugs in processing 24/32bit big-endian audio files, 
  problems with interactive mode commands operating on controllers, handling 
  loop devices when saving chainsetup state, batch processing of setups with
  mp3/ogg/flac/aac outputs, build errors on cygwin, ...

* Sourceforge.net bug items affected: #1415814, #1531042, #1456510

Full list of changes is available at:
 - http://www.eca.cx/ecasound/history.php

4. Interface and configuration file changes
-------------------------------------------

None in this release.

5. Contributors to this release
-------------------------------

Patches - Accepted code, documentation and build system changes

  * Stuart Allie (2)
      Segfaults in processing 'ctrlp-*' commands. Problem in saving
      chainsetups with loop devices.
  * Pedro Antonio Fructuoso Merino (2)
      Patch to fix segfault when parsing escaped user input.
      Patch to fix audible glitches from loop devices when seeking.
  * Aaron Heller (1)
      Patch to fix bugs in big-endian support.
  * Chris Head (1)
      Patch to ecasignalview build errors on cygwin.

Bug Hunting - Reports that led to bugfixes (items closed)

  * Zrajm Akfohg (1)
      Bug in ecasound process return values.
  * Florian Ladstaedter (1)
      Invalid headers in created flac files.
  * Pedro Antonio Fructuoso Merino (1)
      Seg.fault when removing loop devices.
  * Koen (kbr at patat dot .org) (1)
      Segfault when parsing escaped user input.
  * Kurt Konolige (1)
      Bug with 'rw 0'.
  * Brad Bowman, Stuart Allie, Joel Roth (1)
      Severe memory handling bug in libecasoundc (ECI C API)

6. Links and files
------------------
   
Web site (and mirrors):
	http://eca.cx (fi)
	http://ecasound.seul.org (us)
	http://ecasound.sourceforge.net (us)

Source packages:
	http://ecasound.seul.org/download
	http://ecasound.seul.org/download/ecasound-2.4.5.tar.gz
	md5sum: b5a4f39245e505941f26c5c2c3b80e1c

List of distributions with maintained Ecasound support:
	See http://eca.cx/ecasound/download.php

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