CREATE A NEW MENU FOR CUEING UP OLD PROJECTS: a task request for the open source project The Amanuensis: Automated Songwriting and Recording

to-the-sun (64)in #utopian-io • 6 years ago

Repository

https://github.com/to-the-sun/amanuensis

Details

This task request is to create a new pop-up window on the main UI, similar to the "settings" menu that already exists, but filled with options for loading old projects. It would take the place of the "cue up a random project" button, which would then appear in that window.

The Amanuensis is designed to make the songwriting process move as quickly as possible. However, if you don't finish a song all in one sitting, the ability to load it up another day and pick up where you left off is desirable. This is the purpose of the "cue up a random project" button. This task request would largely be to implement an option to cue up a specific project, instead just a random one. I figure a menu could be populated based on entries in coll catalog.txt (the same place the random projects are chosen from) and selections could simply follow the same code, minus the randomly chosen part of course.

Along with cueing random projects and specific ones, there is already a function to load a backing track, which allows you to cue up any audio file and begin playing in the background. This option should already be functional and would just need to be added to the new UI. It makes sense with these other options in that it too can be used to start up an old project, the portion already recorded in the backing track would just be set in stone, as is not the case when loading up the actual project files, but sometimes this is desirable.

Components

you can see the old button for a "backing track" on the presentation view of machine.maxpat

Simply hook that up to the new window on the new UI. When a song name is deliberately chosen from the menu populated by catalog.txt, it can be fed directly into the marked point in this screenshot (in [p chooseSong] of machine.maxpat)