SMW Music Porter's Calculator (SMPC) v2.0

Submission Page

This project does not have a repo, so please use this thread to report any issues, provide suggestions for future versions, etc. I know it's not optimal, so apologies.

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Screenshot: Show/Hide

(Click the image to open an animated demonstration!)

What is SMPC?

Originally revealed at the 2022 Summer C3, SMPC is a collection of parameter converters to assist with music porting using AddmusicK, the current music compiler/inserter for Super Mario World for the SNES (at the time of this post).

SMPC was designed to replace an ordinary calculator program in most if not all functions related to music porting for said game/console, being the most useful when porting is being done using a more traditional method, such as converting or transcribing a MIDI.

To achieve its goal, SMPC features a multitude of converters that take inputs of parameters that one would normally find in their MIDI/DAW or in their porting activities and instantaneously convert them into various AddmusicK commands or parameters. The outputs are then displayed for the user to readily copy and paste into their TXT/MML, or similar purposes.

SMPC also strives to provide accurate conversions (disclaimer: perfect accuracy is NOT guaranteed for all of its converters, although efforts were made to make all of them as accurate as possible), in the hope of reducing the time spent in porting with trial and error.

Features

• Various converters: SMPC covers a variety of converters for different parameters, such as volume, panning, tempo, velocity, staccato, etc. A general Decimal <-> Hexadecimal converter and a basic Hexadecimal calculator are also provided.


• Instant conversion: the displayed output changes as soon as the input is altered by the user.


• Copy output buttons: copy the output in a single push of a button.


• Easy input adjustment: the user can type an input, adjust it with up and down arrow buttons, up and down or Page Up and Page Down keys on the keyboard, or by rolling the mouse wheel.


• "What's This?" Mode: quickly learn more about a field or a button within the application -- no need to open text or help files.


• A modern, customizable, dark-themed and minimalistic user interface.

System Requirements

• Supported operating systems: Windows 7 and onwards, 32 or 64 bits


• Minimum available storage space: ~45 MB (for both the .zip and its contents)

Alt. Downloads:
v2.0
v1.0.1
v1.0

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Again, feel free to report any issues or post suggestions for future versions!

Known Issues: Show/Hide

• #1: [Won't Fix] Undo/Redo history is lost or simply not registered if: the input is adjusted up or down; the input field loses focus when the input has been emptied or, for an input that allows decimals, left without all the digits or the decimal separator; or Enter is pressed.
  
  Author's comment: this seems to happen natively with Qt's undo/redo implementation when the widget in question is a spin box. From what I could gather online, Qt's spin boxes do not have their own undo buffer, they simply just use their inner line edit's buffer... which apparently is cleared whenever the spin box calls Qt's setText() function of its line edit. It seems this call is done to fix a value that was left in an intermediate input validation state, explaining the issue happening in those focus lost situations. I believe the call also happens when Enter is pressed or when the input is adjusted up or down. To fix this issue, it'd probably require implementing a separate undo buffer for spin boxes that also does not conflict with the inner line edit in any way. I have not found much information about this issue, let alone its fixing. A bug report related to this issue was filed all the way back in 2008 to the Qt Bug Tracker (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-2005), but the issue was closed and deemed "out of scope". Considering Qt's stance on the issue, the time and effort that would go on trying an undo buffer reimplementation, my novice programming skills, the simple, non-essential nature of this application and its small target audience, I very sincerely would not expect seeing this issue resolved.

Noted Ideas and Suggestions: Show/Hide

• Allow triplet notation using curly brackets - {} for the "Note Duration" converter's input field.


• Allow the "Volume" converter to take decibels (dB) as an option of input.


• Allow output values to be copied with a keyboard + mouse shortcut, such as Ctrl + Left Click.


• Mention in System Requirements the need to have Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable x86 installed.

Version 1.0.1 has just been released! Here's the changelog for it:

• Fixed an issue wherein the application's widgets would not scale properly with screen or window scaling, by enabling high DPI scaling support. Thank you to icrawfish for reporting the issue.


• Revised wording in "What's This?" message box text for the Panning Input, yXX Output and Extra Staccato Input fields.


• Added an observation in "What's This?" message box text for the Toggle Channel #0 button to mention that channel cannot have Pitch Modulation enabled.


• Revised commentary in the main source code.

Additionally, more ideas and suggestions were added to the first post, in the corresponding section.

EVEN BETTEER THEN ADDMUSICK

For the sake of clarification, SMPC is not a music inserter or compiler, therefore it's also not a replacement for AddmusicK.

Version 2.0 has been released! You can find out more in my Summer 2023 C3 thread!

Additionally, new ideas and suggestions were added to the first post, in the corresponding section. Previous ideas and suggestions that were approved and implemented have been removed from the list.