We are pleased to announce the release of the newest version of SonicMood, 4.9.9.2! We’ve changed its appearance a bit, added a couple of features, and fixed the usual assortment of odd bugs (ugh!).
You can find a list of the major changes on our web site at:
http://sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm
Thanks for your interest!
John
After many months of struggle, we’re pleased to announce that v4.9.9 of SonicMood is out and available on our web site (www.sonicmood.com).
There have been some changes to SonicMood’s look and the usual bug fixes, but the big new thing is that SonicMood now has the ability to put your computer to sleep and wake it up when SonicMood goes to sleep/wakes up! So you can take your MacBook with you when you travel and use SonicMood as your alarm clock…
You can find a list of the major changes on our web site at:
http://sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm
Thanks for your patience!
John
It’s been some months since we’ve released an update to SonicMood, so I thought I’d better let you know what’s been happening.
I started working on the next version of SonicMood right after v4.9.8.4 was released, around November of last year. At first I concentrated on bug fixes and a few small new features. But then I had the idea to allow SonicMood to sleep and wake the computer when it went to sleep, etc. Sort of a “SonicMood Alarm Clock.” Well, the sleep computer part was easy, but setting the computer to wake up at a certain time wasn’t.
Waking the computer is part of “power management” and requires an admin name and password to gain authorization to make changes to anything in that area. It was a steep learning curve for me and involved several possible approaches that had various advantages and disadvantages (and bugs… 
In the process, I also made a number of other improvements and bug fixes to the sleep/wake mechanism in general, as well as improvements in other areas of SonicMood.
So it took a lot longer than I thought it would…
With all the improvements, and the introduction of what I consider a significant new feature, I’ve decided to call this version v4.9.9. It’s just about ready to start beta testing (I’m at alpha 11 and am testing literally night and day on 7 different “test” computers). So, given past experience with beta tests, I’d estimate SonicMood v4.9.9 will be out by early March.
Sorry it’s taken so long, but it should be worth it to anyone who would like to fall asleep and wake up to SonicMood without keeping their computers running all night!
Of course v4.9.9 will be a free update to all registered users, too. 
John
We just finished and posted an update to SonicMood, v4.9.8.4!
In addition to the new Mood, “High Plains Asia,” we’ve changed the way several of the optional instrumental effects are varied and the behavior of the SonicMood window when its dock icon is clicked.
And lots more bugs got fixed, too!
Enjoy!
John
SonicMood v4.9.8.1 was just released. We made some improvements to the layout of the Edit window and combined the undo stacks for the Edit, Mixer, and main windows. And we added two new Moods, “Windy Day,” and “Climbing Mount Fuji.” We hope you like them!
Also (of course), there were some bug fixes.
Download them here and let us know what you think.
John
For the past month or so I have been reading Aaron Hillegass’ book “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” with an aim to rewriting SonicMood using Xcode and Objective-C.
My plan is to release SonicMood v5.0 as a rewrite in Cocoa. It will (I hope) contain substantially the same functionality as the current v4.9.8. Some parts of the interface may very well be improvements over the current one. And there may be a few bits of functionality missing in my first attempt at conversion.
I can’t ignore the fact that the future is with the Cocoa frameworks. And if SonicMood is to ever appear on the iPad, etc., it must be by using Apple’s tools - which they kindly provide free of charge anyway!
Of course, anyone buying SonicMood v4.9.8 will get free updates until v7 is released, so they will get all of version 5.x and version 6.x. Not to worry, in other words.
Anyway, that is my plan for SonicMood’s future. And moving to Cocoa/Xcode/Objective-C will allow for some nice future enhancements, too!
Cheers,
John
I’m putting the finishing touches on this latest version of SonicMood. Unless some new bug shows up, I will probably post the update by early next week.
Here’s a short list of improvements and bug fixes:
Each instrument can use its own note pattern.
Added a new Mood, called “Bells Knells.”
Improved the way pictures are added to the picture window.
Improved the “crash reporter” to make it easier to report bugs.
Improved some of the cosmetics.
Fixed some bugs related to deleting and undo.
Fixed some registration issues.
There are many more fixes and improvements, too numerous to list here. You’ll be able to “read all about it” on the history page of our web site once the new version is posted.
Cheers,
John
Finally! We managed to decide we’re done and finish the beta testing… <grin>
So v4.9.6 is posted on our web site now. Get it here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodDownloads.htm
If you want to know what’s changed, just look here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm
If you’re interested in additional Moods and seeing what others have done, check this page out:
http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htm
If you’d like some beautiful scenery to add to SonicMood’s “Picture Window,” this is the place:
http://www.sonicmood.com/Scenes.htm
Read what others have said about SonicMood here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodReviews.htm
and enjoy!
John
Well, we’ve been hard at work readying the next version of SonicMood, and it’s nearly done! Beta testing is at the point where only small bugs are surfacing, and I feel like the “last bug” <grin> has been squished!
So with any luck we’ll be going live in the next day or two. As usual this has taken much longer than anticipated, but I believe the improvements and new features will be worth it! Here’s a few of the new/changed items:
Added three new Moods (”Rainy Day,” “Aurora,” “Inside”), and added a “Check for New Moods” Mood menu item. The new Moods should be added automatically so the check is there “just in case.”
Updated and changed the Help system to use a browser to display the Help files, instead of using the Apple Help system.
If the “Green + zooms SonicMood full-screen” is checked in Preferences, then clicking the green “+” causes the SonicMood window to zoom to full-screen while “Option clicking” causes the window to shrink to its small size.
Added a “drop picture folder” capability to the “Picture Window” (formerly the “Scene Window”). The new capability allows for nested folders so you can drop a folder containing picture files and folders containing more picture files. Picture files/folders/images can be dropped anywhere on the window. Added this “drop picture folder” ability to the list window, too. Generally cleaned up the code to make it more efficient and improve error trapping.
Fixed some bugs on the “Individual Note Properties” page of the Edit window:
Fixed a bug that caused the BPM/seconds conversions to be inaccurate.
Fixed a bug that caused the note time multiplier to be wrong and to display the wrong values next to the selection buttons.
Fixed a bug that caused some sliders to indicate zero instead of the correct settings.
And this is a very short list compared to the full list of changes!
Should be soon…
I’ve been working hard on the next SonicMood update. I have the undo/redo working and also “digital recording” is coming along well. With this version you should be able to record both the instrumental sounds and the nature sounds to an audio file that you can move to iTunes and then upload to an iPod, etc.
There’s still more work to be done as I’m not yet happy with everything on the recording side.
I’m shooting for an early June release, but that could change depending on how long testing takes (and how many bugs show up…)
Cheers,
John