November 24, 2008
November 21, 2008
The new version of Ardour – the most advanced digital audio workstation for Linux – was announced today. The public release of Ardour 2.7 includes, for the first time, public versions for OS X (Intel and PPC).
The release is dominated by improvements in OS X GUI performance and startup time. However, it also contains a lot of significant bug fixes in Linux version. The whole list of improvements is available at the Ardour’s website.
Ardour also accumulated quite a lot of nice new features since 2.6.1. New action to rotate editor/mixer window stacking is present, new action to cycle through mouse modes was also implemented. Plugin windows can now have keyboard focus locked to them. New support for Wiimote control (experimental, disabled by default and not currently possible on OS X) is present.
The GUI was improved too. Selected tracks are always visible when scrolling through with select-next-track or select-previous-track, Loop/Range ruler is now visible by default, and busses are never auto-connected to physical inputs. Better stay-on-top behaviour for certain windows was applied.
A lot of bugs were fixed in the present version of the digital audio workstation. A crasher caused by changing gain with transport stopped & panner bypassed is now fixed. Momentary solo/mute now works. Ardour correctly initializes JACK timeout parameter when starting JACK. New regions created by AudioFilters (Reverse/TimeFX/Transpose) inherit all relevant settings of their ancestor. Some glitches with playhead motion when looping/reversing are corrected, and incorrect reading of fade out curve under a few circumstances is now fixed.
Ardour is a multitrack recording and editing system for high-quality digital audio. It runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Mac OS X. Ardour’s intention is to provide digital audio workstation software suitable for professional use.
(source: Ardour, screenshot: Wikipedia)
November 12, 2008
Kdenlive is a non-linear video editing suite for KDE. A new version 0.7, released today, is the first release for KDE 4.
Here is a quick list of improvements over the previous KDE 3 version:
- A huge speedup in all timeline operations, thanks to a rewrite of the communication with the MLT video framework
- Capture from different sources: DV, HDV, webcam and screen grab
- More effects and transitons
- Full undo support with history
- Better KDE integration
- Initial support for Jog Shuttle devices.
Currently, only source code of Kdenlive 0.7 is available on the download page. To compile Kdenlive, several libraries are required. QT and KDE development files, SDL, libsamplerate, Vorbis, libdv, Ladspa, JACK, SOX, libXML2, libmad, dvgrab and FFmpeg are needed.
Kdenlive allows to edit all formats supported by FFmpeg. This means: DV, HDV, mpeg, avi, mp4, mov, flv, ogg, wav, mp3 and vorbis. All image formats supported by Qt4, that means gif, png, jpeg, xcf, exr, tiff, svg, can also be loaded. Guides and Markers help you organize your timeline, you can search in your timeline, Kdenlive also offers copy & paste support for clips, effects and transitions. You can see your changes in real time (transitions & effects), full undo support is also available.
Firewire capture: DV and HDV, Video4Linux capture: support for webcams, and screen grab function are available. Kdenlive allows you to export to all formats supported by FFmpeg: mpeg, avi, dv, flash, mov, and others. You can also launch an export job and continue working on your project.
November 7, 2008
Open source office suite needs some decent open and royalty-free cliparts. This tutorial presents valuable clipart repositories and an extension which enables direct downloading of graphics into the OpenOffice.org documents.
Direct downloading of cliparts is possible thanks to Clker.com Openoffice.org addon. You will find it here. The Clker.com addon provides integration with clker.com online clipart to openoffice.org. The cliparts you choose and save to your clipart basket, will appear in the extension window inside Openoffice.org. Almost all cliparts are available in ODG format, SVG and PNG files.
Clker.com Openoffice.org addon is available to download here. It has to be installed via the Openoffice.org extension manager.
You may also visit the Clker.com website. It contains a massive collection of royalty-free cliparts, available to download as ODG (Openoffice.org Draw), SVG and PNG formats.
If you prefer browsing cliparts via the internet browser, downloading them to disk, and then loading graphics inside the Openoffice.org applications, then you definitely should visit homepages of these clipart collections:
Open Clip Art Library
www.openclipart.org
This project aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons.
The Open Clip Art Library contains vast collections of cliparts (7,000 images), divided into categories, and submitted / uploaded / remixed by users. You may download all cliparts packed in a single ZIP file or gzipped tarball.
WP Clipart
www.wpclipart.com
WPClipart is a collection of high-quality public domain images specifically tailored for use in word processors and optimized for printing on home/small office inkjet printers. There are thousands of color graphic clips as well as illustrations, photographs and black and white line art.
Nearly all graphics are in lossless, PNG format. Currently WP Clipart archive offers about 25,000 images.
OpenOffice.org User/Gallery and Clipart
documentation.openoffice.org/Samples_Templates/User/gallery/
Small but valuable clipart repository. Some files are available in ODG (Openoffice.org Draw) format, others as SVG and GIF files.
The gallery also contains various original artwork submitted to the OOo Competition. It includes 3d Chinese Tea Set, 3d Vase with Flowers, and others.
And, if you wish to find more royalty-free cliparts, visit Clip-Art.com. The site contains more links to clipart libraries.
