EOF 1.8RC13 - Now with Immerrock support

[siavash]

Some features I'd really like to see with the next hotfix:

- Automatic addition of "diff_keys_real = -1" to the song.ini file
- Ability to set the preview time within EOF (possibly with an event marker)
- Copy/pasting tempo maps from other charts (for the sake of solo compilations)

Thanks for the awesome program, raynebc!

[raynebc]

1. Since EOF doesn't support authoring that track, I'd rather not have it say the part does not exist (this should be what Phase Shift assumes already if the MIDI track is not there). If you add that as a manual INI entry (Song>INI Settings), it will be written to the INI file during save.
2. Is this just the preview_start_time = ### INI tag? Does this replace the use of preview.ogg in Phase Shift? If a chart has both preview mechanisms, which one does Phase Shift go with?
3. It may be best to just manually cut up each solo into its own MIDI and OGG pair, then combine those accordingly and then import that into EOF to finish polishing it up. This complexity is far beyond EOF's intended scope.

[siavash]

1. Without manually entering diff_keys_real = -1 into the ini file, the game won't display the "No Part" message (or something like that) and it will show the same difficulty rating as if the difficulty was 0. This is all with the RB3 theme, btw. It's just kinda jarring to have "No Part" on all the instruments except real keys.

2. Yes, it's the "preview_start_time" tag. I don't know if it overrides the preview.ogg file, since I don't have one handy right now, but it saves disk space and is so much simpler to edit.

3. Any ideas on how I'd go about cutting songs up and combining them in such a way?

[raynebc]

1. Is the theme maker willing to improve the behavior of the theme?
3. You could try using a MIDI editor to truncate the MIDI and Audacity to truncate the audio.

[raynebc]

A new hotfix is up, EOF now stores preview_start_time and preview_end_time INI settings into the project when defining the preview audio time range. EOF will also ask if you want to generate preview audio files instead of just generating them.

Some other changes also altered the clipboard formatting, so make sure to not paste from EOF's clipboard until you perform a copy operation first or the paste will malfunction.

[AlexTaylor]

I know I ask a lot of support related questions, lol.

Is there plans to support broken chords on keys?
For example, when you start a chord with green and blue, then the blue stops but green keeps going.

I know PS supports it, so I just figured I could ask if it'll eventually be added to EOF. :)

[raynebc]

Eventually, but not anytime immediately soon. Due to how EOF is designed, gems that begin at the exact same time cannot have different lengths. As a workaround, you can place two notes at least 1ms apart and then use the "crazy" status to allow note overlap.

[raynebc]

Hi, folks. After entirely too much time since the last release candidate, it's finally time for a new one. Changes since 1.8RC10:

RS exports:
===========
*Fixed bugs with RS1 and RS2 exports where identical chords that had different fingering wouldn't export correctly.
*Fixed a bug with RS2 export where a chord's template would be incorrectly written if any of its notes were string muted with no fret value defined and the arrangement defines the use of a capo.
*Improved RS2 export so that a chord with vibrato status will export with its authored sustain value.
*Fixed an issue with RS exports where if certain items like a phrase name were too long, EOF wouldn't truncate them correctly and the toolkit could crash when trying to compile the XML file.
*Fixed a bug with RS2 export where high density (repeat line) chords could incorrectly be written as low density (chord boxes).
*Fixed a bug where bend tech notes may not export correctly in some conditions.
*Improved RS2 export to only export unpitched slide status for notes that are defined as both a pitched and an unpitched slide.
*Changed RS export so that string muting isn't taken into account for chord comparison. This should make a series of repeated muted and non-muted instances of the same chord appear nicely as a set of repeat lines.
*Fixed a RS2 export bug where if a note had linknext status and a bend tech note, and that next note had a bend tech note at its start position, the latter tech note would be incorrectly exported with the prior note's bend points.
*Altered RS2 export to prevent duplicate single notes from exporting in the event of overlapping arpeggio phrases.
*Improved RS export's high density detection to look at the distance between the start of a repeated chord and the end of the previous chord, instead of using the start position of the previous chord.
*Added a "Chord density threshold" preference that defines the maximum distance a repeated chord can be from the previous chord and still be allowed to RS export with high density (repeat lines).
*Added an "Apply crazy to repeated chords separated by a rest" preference that does what it implies if the distance between the distance between the chord and the one that precedes it is greater than the minimum note length preference (or 2ms, whichever is larger) and that preceding note is not selected (ie. not still being edited). The purpose of this preference is to display repeated chords as boxes instead of repeat lines if there is explicitly space between it and the chord it follows.
*Changed RS2 export so that if a chord is fully string muted and has no fingering defined, it can export in the preceding chord's handshape tag as a chord repeat line. The string muted chord is not required to use the same strings in order to export as a repeat line this way.
*Fixed a bug with RS1 and RS2 exports where tone changes could be written out of chronological order.
*Added logic so that if Rocksmith export fails due to chord or handshape errors, EOF will seek to the offending track and position.
*Added logic if RS2 export is enabled so that arpeggio and handshape phrases will automatically add an additional ghost gem at their start position (to form a chord) if they don't contain gems on more than one string. This is required for RS2 export of such phrases to succeed.
*Fixed a bug with the sorting logic that would prevent temporary notes from being properly removed after Rocksmith 2 export.
*Added error checking to RS export's handling of pitched and unpitched slides.
*Fixed a bug with RS1 export where if a note had only one non-ghosted gem and at least one ghosted gem, it would incorrectly export with a handshape tag.
*Improved Rocksmith exports so that if two otherwise identical chords have different names, they will use different chord templates as appropriate so they show each up with the correct defined names in-game.
*Altered RS1 and RS2 exports to filter out non-ASCII and various punctuation characters from lyrics and phrase names that are suspected of causing the game to crash.
*Added a warning during save if any chords' names include any characters that are suspected to cause Rocksmith to crash. Such characters are now removed during RS exports.
*Changed RS2 export of bass tracks so that if all used strings have the same tuning offset (ie -1 half steps from standard), that tuning offset is written for unused strings instead of writing them as 0.
*Updated RS2 export to write a "TS:#/#" event for each beat that has a time signature defined. RS import will now import these time signature changes if they are present and the "Import/Export TS" preference is enabled.
*Improved RS2 export to be able to combine notes or chordnotes with linked single notes or chords to allow for cleaner display in-game. The combined notes must use the same fret number and techniques for this combination to occur.
*Improved Rocksmith exports to suppress certain warning messages if quick save is being performed.
*Updated RS exports so that string/palm muted notes are written without sustain unless they also include a technique requiring that sustain to be kept (bend, vibrato or slide) or have the sustain status.
*Added a warning during save (if RS1/2 export is enabled) if any arpeggio or handshape phrases cross a phrase change, which may not work correctly if the chart has or gains dynamic difficulty (ie. through DDC).
*Improved multiple Rocksmith checks performed during save to correctly observe both normal notes as well as tech notes.
*Improved RS exports to offer to highlight notes that go above the supported fret limit for either game.
*Improved RS exports to offer to highlight notes that slide to or above fret 22, since these aren't compatible with either game.

General:
========
*Fixed a rare problem where attempting to shorten a note when grid snap is enabled could fail and leave it ending at a beat position.
*Fixed a bug where changing from one drum track to the other while the tracks' phrasing was shared could remove the phrasing from the former track.
*Restored the pre-r1282 detection for modifier keys, since a recent Windows 8.1 update seems to break the functionality of Allegro's key_shifts mechanism so the new logic wouldn't work. This broke detection of modifier keys only and required removing the offending Windows security update to fix.
*Fixed a bug with the seek to previous grid snap function where it could move the seek position to the start of the chart instead of the position of the first beat marker.
*Added a "Note>Move grid snap" menu with functions that move all selected notes one grid snap position forward or backward. The CTRL+[ and CTRL+] shortcuts have been assigned to these functions.
*Fixed some memory corruption bugs regarding the handling of Unicode project paths.
*Fixed a bug where using the CTRL+SHIFT+# keyboard shortcuts to change the active difficulty or the CTRL+SHIFT+Up/Down keyboard shortcuts to change the active track during playback would not update the sound cues to reflect the contents of the correct difficulty.
*Added "Beat>Double BPM" and "Beat>Halve BPM" menus so the user can specify whether to double or halve the tempo of just the selected beat, or to do so for all beats in the project.
*Improved logging and error handling in the preview audio creation function.
*Changed the input fields for some dialogs to not automatically take focus when the mouse moves over it, requiring a click. This behavior change can be removed by disabling the new "Click to change dialog focus" user preference.
*Improved the menu system so that the mouse doesn't automatically activate submenus unless it is moved (ie. making it easier to use the keyboard to navigate the menus).
*Added the SHIFT+W keyboard shortcut to Song>Catalog>Add.
*Fixed a bug with MIDI tone playback that may have prevented events from being sent to the correct channel.
*Added an "EOF leaving focus stops playback" user preference which can be disabled to allow the chart to remain playing even if you change from EOF to another program.
*Made the "CPU saver" idling feature (File>Settings) more effective. This setting controls how long EOF idles when the chart is not playing.
*Changed the handling of time signatures so that the denominator (beat unit) alters the length of a beat as it does in music theory. To prevent unwanted alteration for existing projects' beat timings, this is not enabled by default for existing projects, but can be enabled or disabled by going into Song>Properties and toggling the "Use accurate time signatures" option. When this option is changed, if the project uses any non #/4 time signatures, EOF will offer to alter tempos so that beat positions remain the same. Time signature changes that change the denominator are forced to be anchors, to prevent the ability to accidentally corrupt the tempo map. File imports have been updated to handle this setting being enabled for new projects, and GPA import will forcibly enable this option because the Go PlayAlong format writes its timings in a way where time signatures must be taken into account. Functions in the "Beat>Time signature" menu are now disabled as appropriate if the tempo map is locked, to ensure the beat positions remain unaltered.
*Changed the exit logic so that EOF offers to quick save (instead of normal save with all warnings/errors displayed) the project if it has unsaved changes.
*Improved the accuracy of the grid snap logic.
*Fixed the secondary piano roll logic so that when swapping piano rolls, EOF's title bar reflects the correct active difficulty.
*Corrected the Track>Rename function to begin with the input field empty if the track doesn't have a custom name already.
*Added the ability to specify cymbals or non cymbals in conditional deselect, which is only offered when a drum track is active. These new criteria are only checked for lanes 3, 4 and 5 as these are the only lanes that can be cymbals or toms.
*Added "Deselect toms" and "Deselect cymbals" functions to the Edit>Selection menu.
*Fixed a bug where the second to last beat in a chart would have incorrect grid snap positions calculated if it was a tempo change.
*Added a "Beat>Time signature>Convert" function (only accessible if the accurate TS chart option is enabled) that will allow you to define a time signature for the selected beat and have EOF calculate the appropriate tempos for affected beats to allow them to keep their existing positions. This will help authors to update existing charts that have wild tempo changes to use time signature changes instead.
*Made the "Display semitones as flat" song menu item a permanent setting (like a preference).
*Added new instrument numbers that can be configured in eof.cfg (while EOF is not running) for MIDI tone playback of palm muted guitar notes (eof_midi_synth_instrument_guitar_muted) and harmonic guitar notes (eof_midi_synth_instrument_guitar_harm).
*Fixed problems with the image sequence function where the colors were incorrect and the images didn't reflect the display options in use (ie. full screen 3D).
*Added a "File>Display>Benchmark image sequence" function that tests the render speed of EOF for the current project and display settings, allowing the user to easily check the effectiveness of different customizations or build options.
*Updated to Allegro 4.4.2. This version of Allegro reportedly fixes the annoying bug with the Tab key acting like it is held down when ALT+Tabbing EOF back into the foreground.
*Added functions to Note>Drum to mark yellow, blue or green cymbal notes as being both cymbals and toms simultaneously, for future use in Phase Shift. Such cymbal notes will render as having a black hole in the middle.
*Fixed a bug where if the "3D render bass drum in a lane" preference was enabled, cymbal notes would 3D render as normal drum notes instead of cymbals.
*Fixed a bug where using "Note>Drum>Mark as non cymbal" wouldn't mark the chart as altered and create an undo state.
*Fixed a bug where the resnap function would incorrectly warn that notes would be combined if they were too close to notes in other difficulties.
*Changed fixup logic to not automatically deselect the selected note.
*Fixed a bug where shortening a note could allow it to result in a negative length.
*Added the ability to author accent drum note status using the Note>Drum>Accent submenus, for use in Guitar Hero World Tour authoring.
*Fixed a bug where the note selection would change unexpectedly when performing tasks like changing the grid snap size or using undo/redo.
*Improved the note lengthen function so that if the change is blocked, due to the enforced minimum distance between notes that don't have crazy status, the chart isn't marked as modified.
*Changed the forced HO/PO functions to allow them to be used on open strum notes, for use with GHWT authoring. These statuses will NOT export to the FoF/Phase Shift related MIDI files because they do not support it.
*Added a check during save that will seek to and warn about incorrectly placed time signature changes that don't occur at the beginning of a measure. Such problems will cause some defective behavior in some rhythm games, such as causing incorrect star power durations.
*Improved the dialogs that restrict some characters so that the tab key can again be used to change fields.
*Added a SHIFT+I keyboard shortcut to access "Beat>Time signature>Custom".
*Fixed a bug where erasing the vocal track wouldn't remove the lyric preview and could cause a crash.
*Improved paste logic so that if the paste overlaps the end of the project and beats have to be added to perform the paste, the measure numbering is updated immediately.
*Fixed a bug where SHIFT+click couldn't select a range of notes if the previous note that was selected was at 0 seconds.
*Improved the usage of the time stretch option to be remembered.
*Changed project load to calculate the non floating point beat positions by rounding to the nearest millisecond when the project is storing string representations of beat timings. This might help to avoid rounding errors with beat positions.
*Improved 2D rendering so that notes inside slider phrases have an 'S' notation at the bottom of the piano roll, which will make them more recognizable in cases where the slider phrase is very short.
*Fixed a crash that would occur if selecting a note in one track, changing to a different track that is a pro guitar track and middle clicking on a note without manually selecting that note first. Similar crashes in very specific scenarios may also be resolved.
*Added a "Note>Lyrics>Remove pitch" function.
*Improved the behavior of the paste function in the vocal track so that the pasted lyrics begin at the seek position like they do with instrument tracks.
*Improved the highlighting feature so that toggleable highlighting options ("Highlight notes in arpeggios" and "Highlight non grid snapped notes") are individually removable and do not effect the highlighting applied by other operations.
*Improved the audio selection dialog in the new chart wizard (and Feedback import) to also allow WAV files to be selected.
*Improved editor logic so that middle clicking on a lyric selects the lyric and opens the "Edit lyric" dialog for it.
*Added the CTRL+W shortcut key to "Note>Star power>Mark".
*Replaced various uses of single precision floating point with double precision floating point, ie. copy/paste/auto-adjust.
*Improved "Track>Rename" so that it will disallow a track to be given a name that is already in use by another track.
*Added a "Delete w/ lower diffs" function that deletes the selected notes as well as those in lower difficulties that are at the same timestamps as any of the selected notes. This function has been assigned the CTRL+SHIFT+Del shortcut and both it and Note>Delete have been moved into a Note>Delete> submenu.
*Added a "Beat>Events>Place section" function, which has been assigned the SHIFT+E keyboard shortcut, to simplify adding/editing section markers for use in FoF and Phase Shift. This function automatically inserts the specified name into a "[section NAME]" formatted text event. A few event related functions in the Beat menu have been moved into the "Events" submenu.
*Added a "Beat>Copy events" function (which has been assigned the CTRL+SHIFT+C shortcut) that copies the selected beat's visible events (ie. those not assigned to a track other than the active track) to the event clipboard. The "Beat>Rocksmith>Paste phrase/section" function is now "Beat>Paste events" and can be used with both "Beat>Copy events" and "Beat>Rocksmith>Copy phrase/section".
*Fixed a bug where performing undo would delete auto-recovery information.
*Improved the organization of temporary files (undo/redo states, clipboard files, auto-recovery files, etc) to be in a "temp" subfolder of EOF's program folder.
*Updated EOF to launch the new chart wizard if a WAV file is passed as an argument over the command line.

Save/Export:
============
*Improved the lyric export to be able to save lyrics into project folders whose paths contain special characters.
*Added a warning during save if any lyrics have extended ASCII or Unicode characters, as these aren't compatible with various rhythm games.
*Removed the prompt asking the offset to be reset to zero during save, as it was determined to be unnecessary.
*Added save logic to avoid a scenario where EOF cannot detect the presence of the project folder, which generally results from unknown causes external to the editor.
*Added a "Save FoF/Phase Shift files" user preference to specify whether Frets on Fire, FoFiX or Phase Shift related files (notes.mid, song.ini and script.txt) are created during save.
*Improved musical MIDI export to create an additional MIDI formatted to work in the Fretlight M-Player program.
*Changed backup logic so that backup copies of the active project use file names ending in .bak.
*Improved "Save as" function to not warn about overwriting an existing project file if the destination file name is unique.
*Added logic so that a ghwt.array.txt file is written during project save if FoF/Phase Shift export is enabled. This file contains times and codes used to try to create drum animations for Guitar Hero World Tour charts.
*Added a new GHWT related MIDI file that is created during save that can be converted to .chart format by importing into Feedback and then loaded with Buldy's GHWT Custom Songs Import Tool (http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=110650) to create customs with GHWT features such as forced HOPO notes, open bass notes, lane 5 toms and accent drum notes.
*Added a "RBN export slider as HOPO" preference that will export notes in slider phrases as forced HOPO notes when writing the RBN and C3 MIDI files.
*Updated the save function to write a simplified lyrics file (lyrics.txt) if the Lyrics option in Song>Properties is checked.
*Improved lyric export to add handling for there being an empty lyric line (depending on the lyric format being exported) as the last line of lyrics in a project.

Imports:
========
*Added the ability to import a Rocksmith XML file, Guitar Pro file or Go PlayAlong file via the command line or when no project is already open. EOF will prompt which pro guitar/bass track to import the content to.
*Fixed memory leaks in Rocksmith import and musical MIDI export.
*Corrected memory and resource leaks that could occur during a failed Feedback, Guitar Pro, Rocksmith or lyric import.
*Fixed memory leaks that would occur if a file failed to be opened over the command line.
---------
FEEDBACK:
---------
*Changed Feedback import so that notes closer than 11/128 measure are given forced HOPO notation. If the unofficial "N 5 #" notation is applied to a note, that note's forced HOPO notation is inverted. Notes that aren't forced to be HOPOs are forced to be strummed, resulting in a more accurate chart.
*Fixed a rounding error in Feedback import that could cause note positions to round down instead of up to the nearest millisecond where appropriate.
*Changed Feedback import so that if a star power phrase ends on a beat marker, it is shortened by 2 chart ticks under the likely assumption that the chart was misauthored and intended to not mark a note at the beginning of that beat.
*Improved Feedback import to recognize the unofficial "N 6 #" tapping notation and to create slider phrases to define such notes.
*Fixed a bug where the target song folder for the new project created during Feedback import might not be correctly set to reflect the imported file's location.
*Added a "dB import drops mid beat tempos" preference that removes beats that were added to compensate for mid-beat tempo changes during Feedback import.
*Improved Feedback import to support the unofficial "E *" toggle HOPO notation.
*Improved Feedback import to convert 5 lane chords to open strum notes.
---
GP:
---
*Improved GP import's handling of slide direction detection. GP3 files' slide notation will no longer cause the following note to be removed, since GP3's format defines slides in a more ambiguous way than GP5.
*Fixed a GP import bug where if a repeated set of measures had one alternate ending defined for one repeat but not the others, too many measures would be skipped looking for the next effective alternate ending.
*Fixed a GP import bug where chords that use a hammer on or pull off technique into the following note could place the technique on the wrong note.
*Improved GP import so that if a tie note uses techniques other than that of the note it's attached to, such as with delayed slides, it will import as a separate note (so that the note and its tie note each retain their techniques) that is linked to the previous note. Strum direction will not be taken into account for this purpose.
*Fixed a bug where the wrong tuning would be imported for a GP file using 7 strings and the thinnest string is dropped from the import.
*Added logic to GP import to correct note duration errors, as Guitar Pro can incorrectly write empty measures as an empty whole rest, even when the time signature isn't 4/4.
*Fixed a bug where the "GP import nat. harmonics only" preference did not work correctly.
*Updated GP import so that artificial and tapped harmonic notes import as pinch harmonic notes, which is more accurate than having them import as natural harmonic notes.
*Improved Guitar Pro import so that bend points are correctly interpreted on a per-string basis as they are defined in Guitar Pro.
*Fixed a rounding error of bend points during GP import, instances of which would only manifest itself depending on the beat map.
*Fixed a GP import bug that could cause pull offs to be interpreted as hammer ons.
*Improved GP import to not apply bend status to entire chords when only some of the chord's strings are bent.
*Improved GP import so that notes that are palm muted or fully string muted lose their sustain.
*Improved GP import to summarize a bend note's height from its first bent point if the summarized height itself is not defined.
*Fixed a GP import bug that caused a note that starts at the time a trill or tremolo note ends to incorrectly be included in the tremolo phrase.
*Fixed a GP import bug that could cause tremolo status to not import correctly when importing a GP track into the active track difficulty and another difficulty has any trill/tremolo phrases overlapping those in the imported GP track.
*Potentially fixed a GP import issue where math rounding errors may cause the "GP import truncates short notes" preference to incorrectly truncate quarter notes in the right conditions.
*Improved Guitar Pro import to offer to change the active track's arrangement type from bass to non-bass or vice-versa if that would be appropriate for the GP track being imported.
*Improved GP import to drop bend points from the end of a bend if they are the same height as the last bend height change in the note, since such bend points just add clutter and too many close bend points can cause Rocksmith to crash.
*Improved GP import dialog to automatically close after a track is imported.
*Improved GP import to handle grace notes.
*Improved GP import to drop the sustain for staccato notes if the "GP import truncates short notes" preference is enabled and the notes in question don't have any techniques that would require the sustain to be kept.
*Improved GP import to drop string muted notes that are combined with non string muted notes, since Rocksmith's detection of muted notes in chords is poor and Rock Band 3 won't display mixed muting chords correctly.
*Fixed a GP import bug where tie notes that begin at different positions and overlap each other can end up using incorrect fret values.
*Improved GP import to keep the notes that follow a legato slide and link it to sliding note, to more accurately display how to play it in Rocksmith.
*Corrected GP import logic for slides in GP4 and older formats.
*Improved GP import to support triplet feel notation.
*Fixed crashes that could occur during GP import.
*Fixed a GP import bug where slide notation may not be imported in some circumstances.
*Added a "GP import truncates short chords" preference that works the same as "GP import truncates short notes", except that the latter now only applies to single notes.
*Improved the handling of alternate endings during the import of Guitar Pro 4 files.
*Fixed the handling of tie notes that overlap normal notes in GP import.
*Added handling to GP import so that EOF wouldn't crash when parsing on-beat grace notes that are attached to invalid tie notes (ie. those that don't come after any other notes on the string).
*Fixed a bug with GP import where the beat timings weren't adjusted to reflect imported time signature changes before the note timings were calculated.
*Adds special triplet feel handling to GP import to account for dotted notes that combine with the next note to create triplet feel timing.
*Improved the logic that marks notes with crazy status after MIDI and GP imports to avoid applying the status to notes that don't overlap others by at least two milliseconds.
*Improved GP import so that if any difficulty-specific tremolo phrases are imported (occurs when the "GP import replaces active track" preference is disabled), EOF offers to remove the difficulty limit to reveal these phrases.
*Fixed a GP import bug where tie notes in 7 string guitar tracks might not be imported correctly.
*Improved GP import to properly handle "on the beat" grace notes and to honor the "GP import truncates short notes" preference for the sustain for imported grace notes.
----
GPA:
----
*Added handling to GPA import so that sync points that are out of chronological are ignored and the import is allowed to continue.
*Improved GPA import to support fractional numbers that are defined with as many as 40 characters.
-----
MIDI:
-----
*Fixed a MIDI import bug where beat lengths were calculated incorrectly in non #/4 time meter, leading to errors in the beat map.
*Improved MIDI import to recognize drum animations in Guitar Hero 1 and 2 MIDIs and convert them to drum notes where applicable. Guitar Hero drum animations weren't authored as accurately as actual drum charts, but they are a good starting point.
---
RS:
---
*Improved RS import to load capo placement, tone changes and bend tech notes.
*Improved RS import to load linknext, accent, mute, pinchharmonic, slideunpitchto, tap and vibrato single note techniques.
*Improved RS import to recognize string mute and palm mute chord technique.
*Improved RS import to take the capo into account when processing anchors.
*Improved RS import to support creating arpeggio and handshape phrases.
*Improved RS import to support creating handshape phrases for handshape tags that include any single notes.
------
LYRIC:
------
*Improved UltraStar import to skip the Byte Order Mark (BOM, a Unicode encoding mechanism) if one is present at the beginning of the imported file. Previously the presence of the BOM would cause the import to fail.
*Improved LRC/ELRC lyric import (FoFLC) to allow the hundredths timing field to contain a third digit, in which case it will be interpreted as defining the field in milliseconds.

BANDFUSE:
=========
*Added the ability to import Bandfuse chart files via the "File>Bandfuse Import" function or over the command line.
*Added initial Bandfuse XML export logic, which is enabled with the "Save separate Bandfuse files" option in File>Preferences.

Audio:
======
*Added another OGG encoding quality option when converting an MP3 to an OGG file in EOF. 320kbps is just an estimate however, as this setting is given to the command line OGG encoder as the highest available quality, and the resulting OGG file can end up using a data rate higher than 320kbps.
*Fixed a bug where when an MP3 is converted to OGG format in the new chart wizard, the "original.mp3" copy of the source file is not correctly placed in the project folder.
*Added additional error handling and logging when adding leading silence to a project whose chart audio was created from an MP3 file and it is still present in the project folder (as original.mp3).
*Added a check to the leading silence function so that if the resulting audio is found to be shorter than it was before (the stream or re-encode failed), EOF will offer to undo the operation.
*Improved the new chart wizard so that if an OGG file is selected as the chart audio, it will read the year if it is stored in the "DATE" vorbis comment (some audio editors like Audacity store the year information this way).
*Improved "Song>Create preview audio" to store the start and end times of the preview as INI tags (preview_start_time and preview_end_time) in the project. Phase Shift currently supports using that start tag. If chart audio is loaded, EOF will offer to create preview audio files using the given time range of the audio. Subsequent calls to this function will read existing start and time stamps from the INI settings and use them to fill out the input fields.

Pro guitar:
===========
*Fixed a bug where the option to ignore the tuning/capo setting couldn't be disabled.
*Improved the set tuning dialog so that if a drop tuning is specified, EOF offers to turn off the option to ignore the tuning so that chord name lookups will be correct. EOF will automatically disable that option when importing a track from a Guitar Pro file that is in a drop tuning.
*Increased the fret limit on automated and manually placed fret hand positions. If Rocksmith 2 export is enabled, and neither Rock Band or Rocksmith 1 export are, EOF will allow a fret hand position of 21, which is the highest position supported in Rocksmith 2.
*Improved the tab notation to display the bend symbol in parentheses if any bend tech notes are applied to the note.
*Improved the "Tone change>Add" function to edit the existing tone change instead of creating an overlapping one, if a tone change already exists at the current seek position.
*Fixed a bug where the "Set bend strength" input field wasn't properly cleared when the function is used in tech view.
*Added functions to a Note>Rocksmith>Handshape menu to mark a "handshape" phrase, which will export to RS2 XML similarly to arpeggios, but without the "-arp" on the chord name, so it can be made to look like a highlighted chord section with no chord name. Unlike arpeggio phrases, chords inside of handshape phrases are not split up into single notes, although they will be if marked with "split" status. The first chord in a handshape is explicitly exported as low density (chord box) unless marked with the new "hi dens" status. Other chords in the handshape export as high density as normal unless there's a chord change or the chord is marked with crazy status. The keyboard shortcut assigned to mark/unmark this phrase type is CTRL+SHIFT+H, and toggle pinch harmonic's shortcut has been changed to SHIFT+H.
*Added functions to the Note>Rocksmith menu to remove or toggle linknext status. The toggle function can be invoked with the SHIFT+N keyboard shortcut.
*Improved fixup logic so that when two sliding pro guitar notes merge into a chord, the pitched/unpitched slide end position of the one using the lowest string is kept and the fingering of each note is correctly kept.
*Added a check during save that warns if any notes bend more than 3 half steps, since Rocksmith doesn't support this.
*Improved fret hand position generation to place FHP changes at the end of note slides if applicable.
*Added logic to remove the possibility of overlapping arpeggio phrases.
*Fixed a bug where EOF could remove too many beats from the project when performing certain operations in tech view, such as paste.
*Fixed a bug where arpeggio phrases that were in different difficulties of the same track at overlapping times would be combined.
*Fixed a bug where the base chord for an arpeggio might not be created in certain conditions.
*Added a function to remove crazy status from selected notes and moved it and the toggle crazy function into a "Note>Crazy" submenu.
*Improved the toggle crazy function to cancel (not cause the chart to be marked as modified) if no selected notes actually had crazy status removed (ie. they are all forced to retain that status, such as if they are all inside an arpeggio phrase).
*Fixed a bug where ghost and hammer on pro guitar statuses weren't allowed to be used on a note simultaneously.
*Added a check to the "edit pro guitar note" and "edit frets/fingering" dialogs so that if a fret value provided exceeds the track's fret limit, EOF offers to increase the limit.
*Added a Bandfuse color set, which uses color to indicate the fingering (open string = purple, index = green, middle = red, ring = yellow, pinky = blue, thumb = orange). If a note's fingering isn't defined, EOF will guess based on any fret hand position in effect, otherwise if no suitable fingering is determined, the note is drawn in white. If the note uses tap technique, it is drawn in black.
*Added a "Ghost notes trigger clap" option to "Song>Audio cues". Ghost notes will no longer trigger the MIDI tones sound cue or export to musical MIDI files.
*Changed fret hand position generation logic so that a position is generated for the note at the beginning of each arpeggio/handshape phrase, but not for the other notes within those phrases.
*Fixed a bug with "Flatten this difficulty" where the project would not be marked as modified if no notes were changed, but if other items such as fret hand positions were.
*Improved error handling of fret hand position generation.
*Fixed a bug where downward pitched/unpitched slides could have the wrong end of slide position set if the lowest used string had a higher fret value than other strings.
*Fixed bugs where "erase track" and "erase track difficulty" would not work if tech notes were present but no normal notes were, and tech view wasn't in effect.
*Fixed a bug with the "Edit frets/fingering" dialog where setting a string to be muted would cause EOF to incorrectly ask to set a high fret limit for the track.
*Added a warning during save if any errors with a slide's end fret number are found.
*Added a "Note>Rocksmith>Remove FHPs" function that deletes all fret hand positions between the positions of the first and last selected notes in the active track.
*Added a new "Ghost handshape" mechanism accessible in the "Edit pro guitar note" dialog that causes a chord with ghosted and non-ghosted gems to export to RS2 XML so that its handshape tag reflects all its gems including ghost ones while the chord tag only reflects non-ghosted gems.
*Changed chord name lookup logic to examine defined fret values for string muted gems in chords, to avoid problems where names for otherwise matching chords could be made blank in Rocksmith.
*Improved paste logic so that arpeggio and handshape phrases are created as appropriate if the copied notes still have those phrases authored during paste.
*Added an "Offer to auto complete fingering" preference allowing this feature to be disabled.
*Improved "Precise select like" to also compare notes' ghost gems.
*Added a new "Hi Dens" pro guitar note status that causes RS2 export to treat chords with this status so that they export as high density chords (repeat lines), pending this new capability from the Rocksmith Toolkit.
*Changed FHP generation so that the effective FHP is placed at the beginning of a new phrase instead of at that phrase's first note. This should avoid strange anchor behavior in songs with dynamic difficulty.
*Added a new "Split" pro guitar status that causes the note to RS2 export as single notes instead of as a chord.
*Improved FHP generation to prevent a fret hand position change being placed at a repeated note/chord.
*Improved FHP generation to prevent adding redundant changes setting the position already in effect. The effective position is still placed again at the beginning of each RS phrase as intended.
*Fixed a bug where allowing EOF to transpose the guitar notes affected by a tuning change when tech view was in effect would cause tech notes to be altered instead of the normal notes.
*Improved the tuning change transpose logic to offer to update pitched and unpitched slide ending positions.
*Moved the "Highlight notes in arpeggios" function to "Song>Pro Guitar" and added it as an option that is stored into the project during save.
*Changed the behavior of the logic that reads the pro guitar/bass tunings from song.ini. These values will not override those in the project when a project is loaded, as Rocksmith supports 4 or 6 string counts to be authored in either track type.
*Improved the auto-adjust feature by forcing all grid snapped tech notes to resnap to their correct position after notes are adjusted.
*Fixed a crash that could occur when deleting tech notes.
*Improved technique phrase (ie. handshape, tremolo, arpeggio) marking so that even if a note has linknext status, both it and the note it links to can be put into separate phrases.

[niels567]

Does EOF autamatically turns all notes into slider notes if the first note is a slide? Because mine does, and I need it either disabled if it's a feature, or a fix if it's a bug. Help please?
Edit: Seems it happens if the very first possible note is a slider. Which is still annoying, but can be worked around.

[raynebc]

EOF isn't designed to do such a thing. I'd need more information before anything can be done. Are you importing a chart, or creating a chart from scratch? Can you provide any sample files (or at least a screen capture) demonstrating the problem?

[AlexTaylor]

I don't know if this is the same problem, but something similar happened to me once before.

In a chart (from scratch), I made the first few notes as sliders (lasting a total of about 10-15 secs), and it made all notes up to about 1:30 or so into sliders.
In EOF, it showed as normal as I charted it, and the problem only occurred in PS, so it seems to be a bug with PS rather than EOF.

@niels567, if this is the same problem you are having, then it's most likely not a problem with EOF, but rather a problem with Phase Shift.

[raynebc]

If you import the MIDI back into EOF and it looks the way you expected, but Phase Shift still shows more slider notes than are expected, that would indeed be a bug with that game. Also make sure you're not using the notes_ghwt MIDI for Phase Shift, as that file has some special rules suited to porting the chart to Guitar Hero.

[raynebc]

New hotfix is up. Non pro guitar related changes are as follows:

*Improved MIDI import to recognize the "T1 GEMS" track as the guitar track in Guitar Hero 1 MIDIs.
*Improved the handling of the temp folder so that when EOF runs in a non-Windows environment, the folder is created at /tmp/eof.
*Corrected the MIDI export, lyric import and project save functions to use the temp folder for their temporary files.
*Improved the highlighting feature so that if anything in one of the active track's difficulties is highlighted, the difficulty name or number in the difficulty tab is highlighted in yellow. The tech notes indicator (*) will be individually highlighted where appropriate.
*Improved dynamic highlighting functions to process both normal and tech notes instead of just whichever note set is currently active.
*Added functions in Song>Seek to move to the position (if any) of the next or previous highlighted note in the active track difficulty, and have assigned the SHIFT+Y and CTRL+SHIFT+Y shortcuts to them, respectively.
*Fixed a bug where the Info panel wouldn't correctly indicate when no time signature was in effect.
*Fixed a bug where the seek selection (Feedback input mode) wasn't displayed in the Info panel if the vocal track was active.
*Added "Set start point" and "Set end point" functions to the edit menu that allows a portion of the chart to be defined for functions such as "Create preview audio" and "Export time range". If Feedback input mode is in use and a seek selection is set, that selection will take precedence if start and end points are also defined. To clear either the start or end point, set it again at the position it is already set to.
*Improved menu handling so that if Escape is used to close a function's dialog, it will more reliably close the menu system instead of dropping keyboard input until Escape is pressed again or the mouse is used.
*Moved the import functions into a File>Import menu to reduce the clutter in that menu.
*Added a "File>Export time range" feature that allows a user-defined portion of the active project to be saved as a new project file, with corresponding audio. For best results, use the "Set start point" and "Set end point" functions to mark the part of the project you want to export.

[furiouss]

hey raynebc the progress youve made on eof has been excellent however.....

im having a serious issue with it tho. some of my songs require some pretty drastic bpm changes
and whenever i import my chart into eof its changing my bpm's regardless of what settings i use. maybe you can help shed some light on this
it becomes a big problem when it increases my bpm's to over 300 then magma fails.

heres pics of what im talking about

what it looks ike in feedback:


and what eof does to it....


thanks for your time

edit: so i went in and removed the 300 bpm changes it made and it seems like it remedied the problem. i hope

[raynebc]

Placing mid-beat tempo changes in Feedback is what causes this. Regardless of whether or not it's a common practice for GH customs, it's not a recommended practice for any rhythm game in general. EOF has no way to store a tempo change except on a beat marker, so by default it will place a beat marker to accommodate the change if necessary. You can manually remove the extra beats as you mentioned, but I'd added a "dB import drops mid beat tempos" option in File>Preferences that will automatically do this as part of the import.