Feature Request

Hi all,

i guess you have a great deal to do with bome box, but it would be nice if you could spend some time improving Translator.
There are few things i found while using your app that would be very usefull:
Task bar icon and 'start minimized in tray'
Filter for log messages from/to desired port
Ability to create and call functions (from any translator)
Support for any kind of loops (do, while, for)
Define custom names for variables
If statement with support for 'and/or' word, and 'else' condition
Switch/case statement
Construct and send to output 'string' variable (for eg. s$= 'F0' & ga & gb & gc & gd & '7F')
Add support for ethernet port


I guess these requests would require significant amount of time, but any of theese would be of great help

Greets
d

Hi Denoiser,
yes, we're busy with the BomeBox, but hey -- we are multitasking

denoiser wrote: Task bar icon and 'start minimized in tray'
Filter for log messages from/to desired port
Ability to create and call functions (from any translator)
Support for any kind of loops (do, while, for)
Define custom names for variables
If statement with support for 'and/or' word, and 'else' condition
Switch/case statement
Construct and send to output 'string' variable (for eg. s$= 'F0' & ga & gb & gc & gd & '7F')
Add support for ethernet port

wow, that's a great list. Most of the proposals are already on our internal feature list, I'll +1 them to prioritize them higher.

The next version 1.8.1 is pretty much done and will be released, if nothing comes up in the last minute, next week. From your list, it features a task bar icon and start minimized (to tray).

Ethernet support directly in MT Pro is planned, but might come first in form of a separate application ("Bome Network"), which also serves as a BomeBox connector app.

Thanks,
Florian

Just FYI, v1.8.1 is now available:

• MIDI Translator Pro Trial Version Download
• Log into your account to download MIDI Translator Pro full version

Enjoy!
Florian

Thanks for info. I installed it.

Great to have tray icon, and to start minimized.
Although, if midi input doesn't exist (controller is off when windows are started), mt pro will throw error,
which brings mt pro window up - this cannot be silenced.

Had problems removing some old aliases.
If you delete alias which is not hooked anymore to any port, and save project, quit and than again load project, the alias would resurrect. IT doesn't help removing aliases from setup window too, hence mp pro first quits project (with bad aliases saved), and than removes aliases. Of course, upon next run, bad aliases are there again.

Do you know how daws have folder tracks for grouping tracks,
for eg. you can group all drum tracks in one folder track, to save display space, to color code different parts of mix etc.
So here is an idea: folder for translators with similar actions.
For eg. translators which handle display messages from daw could be stored in a folder called 'Display' or 'led'...
In this way, if one has more than 100 translators, it should be fairly easy to navigate trough project.

Once again, please include string and custom named vars which could also act as output message. This should greatly minimize number of translators.

Greets
d

Hi Denoiser,
thanks for the feedback. I cannot reproduce the problem with MT throwing an error. Is the the Error Window? Then you can just close it so that it's embedded in MT's main window.

Regarding removing Aliases, the behavior you describe is "by design". Any aliases stored in a project file will be recreated when the project is loaded.

Regarding "folders", MT Pro allows organizing your translators in different presets, which should pretty much do what you want, right?

Thanks,
Florian

Hi,

i' wasn't clear about 'error' problem in MT.
It's not MT malfunction error,
but it's message that MT displays when controller that MT is connecting to is not present (Error window).
When this happens, it brings MT window up from tray, which defeats 'start/stay minimized in tray' purpose - there is no option to choose what happens when error window has something to say (to stay down, notify me, or bring app window up).

Regarding aliases: so you have created aliases some time ago, and now you don't use them any more (don't have that port names anymore). So if i delete them from project, and then save, they are still remembered next time when i run that project; what's the point of this?
This is a problem, hence every time when i run that project, MT pro pops up asking me where are ports for these aliases (which i don't need anymore).

Folders; it seems that i didn't think about presets in a way that they can represent a folder. My workflow mistake.
For my workflow, fisrt preset is 'controller->daw' and second is 'daw->controller', so in that manner i had an idea about translator folders.

Greets
d

Hi,
thanks for the explanation. I could not reproduce the problem with the error window. If there are such errors on start-up, they only appear at start-up if the error window is a separate window. Closing the error window will embed it into MT's main window. and it will not be shown when I start MT Pro the next time.

Regarding stale MIDI aliases, they will only be recreated if they are referenced in the project file. I swear
References appear in project ports, default preset ports, and individual port settings in a translator entry, and in the MIDI Router. To directly find the location of such an alias in the project file, and if you're adventurous, you can open the .bmtp file in a text editor and search for the name of the stale MIDI aliases.

You can also assign such an unused alias to "none - don't ask again" so that at least it won't trigger the "Select MIDI Devices" dialog.

Regards,
Florian

if you still get the error window when the MIDI devices aren't plugged in, could you please post a screenshot? That would be great help for us tracking the problem down.
Thanks,
Florian

I have another feature request while we are at it:

Some sort of visual filter (color highlight would be fine) to show all the translators that use a specific global variable, MIDI port, incoming message etc.

In big projects this would be of tremendous help with troubleshooting.
The coolest way to do this would be if I could just select the desired string in the log output and then all other instances of that string light up in the log and the presets and translators that contain it also light up.



Another thing I would welcome is if we could save/load presets too not just projects. This would make reusing work from one project in another so much easier.

thanks for the feature requests. We're indeed planning some kind of search function. Loading/saving presets is a good idea, I've added it to our feature request list.
BEst,
Florian