Releases: YuriSizov/boscaceoil-blue
Bosca Ceoil Blue - 3.1-stable
A box full of improvements — Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.1!
It's said that the .0 version of any software is always a bit rough, but .1 is the one that you should definitely use. Well, Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album version 3.1 is certainly not going against that expectation!
This release seeks to address a large number of bugs and make your music-making experience even more pleasant. It also puts Bosca Ceoil on more devices, making it more accessible than ever! If you have been cautiously waiting to give our little sequencer a try, now is the time.
Highlights
This is a small but packed release, and the best version of Bosca Ceoil Blue that is out there. Here are the key changes and improvements:
- Bosca Ceoil Blue is now available in your browser!
- Major improvement to GUI scaling of the app
- Reworked controls and many new shortcuts
- New editing tools and less restrictions for composing
- Reworked and improved export/import workflow
- Comprehensive online documentation
- An assortment of bugfixes and tweaks
Jump straight to the download, or continue reading to learn more!
Downloads
- Download for Linux (x86_64)
- Download for macOS (Universal)
- Download for Windows (x86_64)
- Download for Windows (x86_32)
- Download for web (self-hosting)
What's new
Bosca for Web
Yes, we are officially back! Classic Bosca Ceoil has been available in the browser thanks to its Flash roots, and because of these same roots this version is no longer accessible. Release 3.1 is the perfect time to rectify this historic mistake. Please say hello to Bosca for Web, which is now available alongside all of the desktop releases:
All you need is a compatible browser (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc. will do), and internet access. No installation and no compromise on the features! Unfortunately, Safari is not supported due to restrictions enforced by Apple.
Better GUI scaling
Continuing with the theme of platform support, the way the app is scaled across all desktop platforms have been improved. It should no longer appear too large, struggling to fit a 1080p screen. If you have a standard DPI screen, you can keep the GUI scale at 100% in the application settings, and everything will remain crisp and well-fit. If you use a hiDPI screen and use system scaling, you might want to play around with that setting a bit, increasing as needed.
Note that if you've used Bosca Ceoil Blue before, your existing settings will be applied as is. So if you used 75% GUI scale before to fit Bosca to your 1080p screen, make sure to change that value to 100% after opening version 3.1!
New control scheme
Version 3.1 makes more GUI elements scrollable. For instance, you can now use your mouse wheel to scroll the pattern and instrument lists. (#30 by @genderfreak). The mouse wheel is a natural candidate for scrolling, as it's used for this purpose in the majority of applications. However, previous versions of Bosca Ceoil used it for different purposes. In the pattern editor the mouse wheel could be used to change the size of the note cursor, and in the arrangement editor it would change the zoom/scale of the timeline grid.
To keep things intuitive, this had to be changed, which deviates from the control scheme present in previous versions of Bosca. Now, wherever you want to scroll, the mouse wheel — without any modifier keys — can be used. To change the note cursor size, you must hold Ctrl alongside scrolling the mouse wheel. To change the arrangement timeline scale, you must similarly hold Shift.
Just so easy mistakes can be avoided, you can no longer remove notes with Ctrl + Left Click. Use the right mouse button instead (which was always a thing). And you can still use keyboard for the aforementioned actions. There are actually quite a few new shortcuts available in this version, and a few new tricks to help you work on your music more proficiently.
Check out the shortcut list in the help menu for an exhaustive list of shortcuts and input options!
Less restrictions for composing
A couple of limitations have been lifted in 3.1:
- BPM can now go from 10 to 450 with 1 unit increments, allowing for both way higher tempo and more granular adjustments.
- You can now create notes as long as 128 units, where previously the maximum length was limited to the pattern size.
The latter turns Bosca Ceoil Blue to be more on par with the original Bosca Ceoil. In the original app you could make notes of any size, with upper limit enforced. Initially, I attributed this to an oversight since usability when working with such notes was lacking (a loooot of mouse wheel scrolling). But I was made aware that this is actually something that many of you need, so as a compromise I settled on the new upper limit, 128. Let me know if this seems reasonable to you!
To help you work with notes of variable sizes there is a new interaction available — you can use Ctrl + Left Click to set the size of the note cursor to the size of the existing note. Clicking on an empty space will reset the size back to 1.
New editing tools
Here's a cool thing: you can now select and copy notes between patterns! Hold Shift and then click and drag across the pattern, and you'll see a selection rectangle. Drag it over the notes, noticing as they change color, then press Ctrl + C to copy. As you would expect, pressing Ctrl + V pastes copied notes. Insert them into a different pattern, or just duplicate the notes on the same one — it'll simply work.
Another cool thing is the new instrument randomizer (#34 by @SirLich). While you could previously delete and recreate instruments over and over to experiment with a random one, now it's available at a press of a button. You can find the dice icon in the instrument panel and click it to your heart's content!
When arranging patterns on the timeline, you can now hold Alt while dragging to create a variation when you drop. In fact the old Middle Click shortcut has been removed in favor of Alt + Left Click. The reason for this is technical, but in short, Godot doesn't allow to handle drag events started with anything but the left mouse button. So I decided that it's better to have consistency than to preserve the old shortcut here.
Oh, and finally, if you're from a part of the world where people don't call notes after the Latin alphabet, there is also an option to use the Doremi notation!
Export and import improvements
There has been a number of fixes and internal changes in pretty much every exporter. On the MIDI side, exports should now correctly store the time signature, especially for songs which do not use 16-note patterns. During imports we cannot reliably deduce the pattern size, a concept that doesn't apply to MIDI files, so instead you can now configure the size manually as a finishing step. MIDI imports should also result in a little more reasonable songs now.
FastTracker 2 XM exports are also improved, with a better approach to rendering samples and fixes to volume/velocity.
There is a new feature available to all exporters in 3.1: you can specify exact bars that you would like to export, enabling you to extract parts of your song into an external format. So, for example, if you have a track that has an intro part and a looping part that you'd like to mix in some other tool (or at runtime in your game, perhaps), you can render out partial WAVs now!
To help with all these new export and import options, the workflow has been reworked. There are now shiny and new popup windows that help you set up the export or import, and also give you some extra hints, such as compatibility and limitations of external formats.
Online documentation
Bosca Ceoil Blue features a neat built-in tutorial with interactive steps that lets you learn the app as you use it. But a common complaint about it was that you couldn't quickly reference the information provided, nor could you share it with others in a discussion.
Well, good news! Bosca Ceoil now has its own online documentation, which covers every part of the app in a more reference-friendly way. It also has a comprehensive list of shortcuts and some community links. Check it out now!
Bugf...
Contributors
Assets 8
Bosca Ceoil Blue - 3.1-beta1
First Bosca Ceoil Blue update is ready for you!
After several months of development version 3.1 is ready for testing! Everyone is invited to help ensure that this release is as solid as it can be before we officially break open champaign. In a week or so, if no major issues are found, we'll be celebrating 3.1 stable.
So, what is there for you to test?
Bosca for Web
Yes, we are officially back! Classic Bosca Ceoil has been available in the browser thanks to its Flash roots, and because of these same roots this version is no longer accessible. Release 3.1 is the perfect time to rectify this historic mistake. Please say hello to Bosca for Web, which is now available in its beta state alongside all of the desktop releases:
All you need is a compatible browser (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc. will do), and internet access. No installation and no compromise on the features! Unfortunately, Safari is not supported due to restrictions enforced by Apple.
Better GUI scaling
Continuing with the theme of platform support, the way the app is scaled across all desktop platforms have been improved. It should no longer appear too large, struggling to fit a 1080p screen. If you have a standard DPI screen, you can keep the GUI scale at 100% in the application settings, and everything will remain crisp and well-fit. If you use a hiDPI screen and use system scaling, you might want to play around with that setting a bit, increasing as needed.
Note that if you've used Bosca Ceoil Blue before, your existing settings will be applied as is. So if you used 75% GUI scale before to fit Bosca to your 1080p screen, make sure to change that value to 100% after opening version 3.1!
New control scheme
Version 3.1 makes more GUI elements scrollable. For instance, you can now use your mouse wheel to scroll the pattern and instrument lists. (#30 by @genderfreak). The mouse wheel is a natural candidate for scrolling, as it's used for this purpose in the majority of applications. However, previous versions of Bosca Ceoil used it for different purposes. In the pattern editor the mouse wheel could be used to change the size of the note cursor, and in the arrangement editor it would change the zoom/scale of the timeline grid.
To keep things intuitive, this had to be changed, which deviates from the control scheme present in previous versions of Bosca. Now, wherever you want to scroll, the mouse wheel — without any modifier keys — can be used. To change the note cursor size, you must hold Ctrl alongside scrolling the mouse wheel. To change the arrangement timeline scale, you must similarly hold Shift.
Just so easy mistakes can be avoided, you can no longer remove notes with Ctrl + Left Click. Use the right mouse button instead (which was always a thing). And you can still use keyboard for the aforementioned actions. There are actually quite a few new shortcuts available in this version, and a few new tricks to help you work on your music more proficiently.
Check out the shortcut list in the help menu for an exhaustive list of shortcuts and input options!
Less restrictions for composing
A couple of limitations have been lifted in 3.1:
- BPM can now go from 10 to 450 with 1 unit increments, allowing for both way higher tempo and more granular adjustments.
- You can now create notes as long as 128 units, where previously the maximum length was limited to the pattern size.
The latter turns Bosca Ceoil Blue to be more on par with the original Bosca Ceoil. In the original app you could make notes of any size, with upper limit enforced. Initially, I attributed this to an oversight since usability when working with such notes was lacking (a loooot of mouse wheel scrolling). But I was made aware that this is actually something that many of you need, so as a compromise I settled on the new upper limit, 128. Let me know if this seems reasonable to you!
To help you work with notes of variable sizes there is a new interaction available — you can use Ctrl + Left Click to set the size of the note cursor to the size of the existing note. Clicking on an empty space will reset the size back to 1.
New editing tools
Here's a cool thing: you can now select and copy notes between patterns! Hold Shift and then click and drag across the pattern, and you'll see a selection rectangle. Drag it over the notes, noticing as they change color, then press Ctrl + C to copy. As you would expect, pressing Ctrl + V pastes copied notes. Insert them into a different pattern, or just duplicate the notes on the same one — it'll simply work.
Another cool thing is the new instrument randomizer (#34 by @SirLich). While you could previously delete and recreate instruments over and over to experiment with a random one, now it's available at a press of a button. You can find the dice icon in the instrument panel and click it to your heart's content!
When arranging patterns on the timeline, you can now hold Alt while dragging to create a variation when you drop. In fact the old Middle Click shortcut has been removed in favor of Alt + Left Click. The reason for this is technical, but in short, Godot doesn't allow to handle drag events started with anything but the left mouse button. So I decided that it's better to have consistency than to preserve the old shortcut here.
Oh, and finally, if you're from a part of the world where people don't call notes after the Latin alphabet, there is also an option to use the Doremi notation!
Export and import improvements
There has been a number of fixes and internal changes in pretty much every exporter. On the MIDI side, exports should now correctly store the time signature, especially for songs which do not use 16-note patterns. During imports we cannot reliably deduce the pattern size, a concept that doesn't apply to MIDI files, so instead you can now configure the size manually as a finishing step. MIDI imports should also result in a little more reasonable songs now.
FastTracker 2 XM exports are also improved, with a better approach to rendering samples and fixes to volume/velocity.
There is a new feature available to all exporters in 3.1: you can specify exact bars that you would like to export, enabling you to extract parts of your song into an external format. So, for example, if you have a track that has an intro part and a looping part that you'd like to mix in some other tool (or at runtime in your game, perhaps), you can render out partial WAVs now!
To help with all these new export and import options, the workflow has been reworked. There are now shiny and new popup windows that help you set up the export or import, and also give you some extra hints, such as compatibility and limitations of external formats.
Bugfixes and tweaks
Last, but definitely not least, are many fixes and under the hood improvements.
- There is no more forced compression.
- Note previews now work correctly with drumkits and different keys.
- Drumkits no longer permanently erase notes in various cases.
- When notes are removed as an indirect result of your actions, there is a warning now.
- Instrument recording doesn't skip the first note anymore.
- Notes are properly cut off when pausing/stopping/previewing.
- Popup windows are now moveable and won't close accidentally.
- Instrument names have been cleaned up and made more homogeneous.
- Help has been updated with new information and better descriptions.
- Credits and shortcuts are now proudly listed in their own popups.
And probably something else that I'm forgetting!
If you experience issues, please report them as soon as you can.
Downloads
- Download for Linux (x86_64)
- Download for macOS (Universal)
- Download for Windows (x86_64)
- Download for Windows (x86_32)
- Download for web (self-hosting)
Or try it online with Bosca for Web (beta)!
Built from commit fa1a7ed34e75880ae8b5871719eaaf30081c03b8.
Your Support
This project is free for everyone to use. But it still takes time and effort to maintain and develop free and open tools. Please consider supporting the project financially by d...
Bosca Ceoil Blue - 3.0-stable
Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album goes stable!
After a little over a month of testing and additional improvements I'm happy to announce that the first release of Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album, a.k.a. version 3.0, is considered stable and ready!
Downloads
- Download for Linux (x86_64)
- Download for macOS (Universal)
- Download for Windows (x86_64)
- Download for Windows (x86_32)
Built from commit 9f01e4d2e0a867eaa1953d555669056102bfb5f3.
What is Bosca Ceoil Blue?
Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album is a revival of the classic music making app Bosca Ceoil by Terry Cavanagh. It has a playful nature and is very easy to use, especially if you are not musically inclined!
You can see that for yourself right now, because Bosca Ceoil Blue is free to download and use, no strings attached. You will be welcomed by an interactive guide that will get you settled, and then — just start jamming :)
At its core Bosca Ceoil Blue is a step sequencer, meaning you work with a fixed beat and rhythm. You don't have to worry about getting the timing right, and can focus on the melody that speaks to you!
- Build patterns out of notes, and build your song out of the patterns.
- Choose from over 300 hundred instruments, arrange your tune across up to 8 polyphonic channels, pick a key if you want!
- Use the built-in scale limiter to give yourself a constraint and only allow harmonious notes.
And, when you're ready, export it to WAV or MIDI — to share with the world, or to use it in your other projects. It's great for small productions and gamejams!
Changes from Bosca Ceoil 2
The main goal of the first release of Bosca Ceoil Blue is to replicate all the things that make the original app so great and beloved. But, certain things definitely needed an improvement and touch-ups. So if you're familiar with the original Bosca Ceoil, here's a non-exhaustive list of new goodies:
-
Native macOS support is back! While some extra testing is still required, we're enjoying cross-platform capabilities of the Godot game engine this time around. So many platforms are supported out of the box, including Linux and macOS.
-
Confirmation dialogs when you may lose your progress. Bosca Ceoil is kind of infamous for having no guards when it comes to potential data loss from exiting the app or starting a new composition. This is all in the past now, and you will be prompted with a confirmation popup whenever data loss can happen.
-
To go along with confirmation dialogs we also have the action history, a.k.a. the undo/redo system! With a press of a button, revert any recent action and restore your composition to its previous state. No mistake is final, and you always get a second chance.
-
A new time track in the Arrangement editor will help you tune your songs to the exact length that you want. This is a small, but handy change when you have a specific target, or just want to know ahead of exporting what to expect time-wise.
-
Speaking of exporting, all exporters and importers have been rewritten from scratch! While every external format is lossy and cannot exactly replicate the structure of a Bosca Ceoil song, an improved output can be expected for MIDI, MML, and XM.
-
The advanced instrument tuning feature, which allows you to record instrument settings per note in a pattern, is now more obvious and features an additional visualization layer to inform you about the progression of recorded values. There is still room for it to grow, but this is already a start on the path to make it more user-friendly.
-
Oh, and you can delete patterns now too, just like you could delete instruments before. Keeping your creative chaos orderly since 2024!
There are many more smaller touches across the board, but in general you should expect the app to feel very familiar and just as playful. Well, enough of that. Give it a try for yourself!
And if you experience issues, please report them as soon as you can.
Your Support
This project is free for everyone to use. But it still takes time and effort to maintain and develop free and open tools. Please consider supporting the project financially by donating via Patreon, or by leaving a tip with your download on itch.io!
Every dollar helps, so please consider donating even if it's a little. Thank you very much <3
Bosca Ceoil Blue - 3.0-beta2
Bosca Ceoil Blue is getting in shape for the stable release with beta 2!
This pre-release version contains a number of fixes to stability and GUI scale, smaller QoL improvements, and a major feature! Let's talk about them.
Performance and stability
After the release of beta 1 I've received a number of reports related to performance issues on Linux and some undetermined platforms, pointing to problems with the synthesizer. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to confirm these issues myself (even got a Pop! OS machine running for that!), however improving the synth had been on my agenda anyway.
Thus I dedicated some time to review the synthesizer and address a whole bunch of potential problems. A new version of GDSiON is being released alongside Bosca today!
Please let me know, with as many details as possible, if you still experience problems with the app. Slowdowns, hangs, freezes, cracks in the sound — all these can be signs of performance issues.
GUI scale and window management
Another major pain point with the first beta release was the GUI scale. Working on a high DPI display I miscalculated how the app will look on a normal one, compared to the original Bosca Ceoil. Beta 2 addresses this with a new set of scaling options, going above and below what was possible before.
If you accidentally pick a scale that doesn't fit your actual physical screen space, there is a check for this now as well. The app will make its best attempt to fit the UI into your screen and pick a scale that works, even if it's not a standard value. You can also input any value between 25% and 300% in the settings file, to fine-tune it to your special case.
Note that some blurriness in texts and icons can be noticeable with non-default scales. This is something that I hope to improve in a future version of the tool. From my testing, it's not really a deal-breaker right now, but please let me know if you have any issues!
Action history, a.k.a. Undo Redo
This should've been on my TODO list from the very beginning, but better late than never! The original Bosca didn't have any system to undo and redo your changes, even when destructive actions were performed. This naturally results in lost progress and time, and can be a very annoying issue. The Blue Album added a couple more destructive actions to the mix, for consistency. But that meant even more edits can be dangerous and result in annoyances. Of which I was quickly reminded by multiple people :)
This is fixed now! Bosca Ceoil Blue beta 2 allows you to press Ctrl + Z to undo your last action and Shift + Ctrl + Z to redo it. Last 40 actions are remembered, which should be sufficient to let you fix a recent mistake quickly. I am all ears for what you have to say about this change! Bigger history? Bugs? Some changes that I missed which aren't tracked? Do let me know.
Small things
Some other minor improvements were made here and there. But you probably want to hear about another thing that I initially missed. You can once again preview notes by clicking on the left sidebar with note names! If you have instrument recording enabled, the value of the currently played position is respected when you click.
To redeem myself a bit here, Bosca Ceoil Blue, even beta 1, has a feature that aims to help you in a similar way. If you pause the playback, placing notes on a pattern also lets you preview them. In this case the note length is also respected, of course. Notes that you preview from the sidebar are played with the default length. Although, now that I think about it, should it play with the length of the note cursor instead?.. I'll wait for your feedback!
If you experience issues, please report them as soon as you can.
Downloads
- Download for Linux (x86_64)
- Download for macOS (Universal)
- Download for Windows (x86_64)
- Download for Windows (x86_32)
Built from commit 344d8b8f5ee1514f8190cec64c2c5249754c9e0d.
Your Support
Please consider supporting the project financially by donating via Patreon! Every dollar helps, so please consider donating even if it's a little. Thank you very much <3
Bosca Ceoil Blue - 3.0-beta1
Welcome to the first release of Bosca Ceoil in years!
Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album is a port and rework of the classic music making app by Terry Cavanagh. It has a playful nature and is very easy to use, especially if you are not musically inclined!
You can see for yourself right now, because Bosca Ceoil Blue is free to download and use, no strings attached. You will be welcomed by an interactive guide that will get you settled, and then just start jamming :)
Bosca Ceoil Blue features a pattern-based step sequencer compositor. Build patterns out of notes, and build your song out of the patterns. Choose from over 300 hundred instruments, arrange your tune across up to 6 polyphonic channels, pick a scale and a key if you want! And, when you're ready, export it to WAV or MIDI — to share with the world, or to use it in your other projects. It's great for gamejams!
Changes from Bosca Ceoil 2
The main goal of this project so far was to replicate all the things that make the original app so great and beloved. But, certain things definitely needed an improvement and touch-ups. So if you're familiar with the previous release of Bosca Ceoil, here's a non-exhaustive list of new goodies:
-
Native macOS support is back! While some extra testing is still required, we're enjoying cross-platform capabilities of the Godot game engine this time around. So many platforms are supported out of the box, including macOS.
-
Confirmation dialogs when you may lose your progress. Bosca Ceoil is kind of infamous for having no guards when it comes to potential data loss from exiting the app or starting a new composition. This is all in the past now, and you will be prompted with a confirmation popup whenever data loss can happen.
-
A new time track in the Arrangement editor will help you tune your songs to the exact length that you want. This is a small, but handy change when you have a specific target, or just want to know ahead of exporting what to expect time-wise.
-
Speaking of exporting, all exporters and importers have been rewritten from scratch! While every external format is lossy and cannot exactly replicate the structure of a Bosca Ceoil song, an improved output can be expected for MIDI, MML, and XM.
-
The advanced instrument tuning feature is now more obvious and features an additional visualization layer to inform you about the progression of recorded values. There is still room for it to grow, but this is already a start on the path to make it more user-friendly.
-
Oh, and you can delete patterns now too, just like you could delete instruments before. Keeping your creative chaos orderly since 2024!
There are many more smaller touches across the board, but in general you should expect the app to feel very familiar and just as playful. Well, enough of that. Give it a try for yourself!
And if you experience issues, please report them as soon as you can.
Downloads
- Download for Linux (x86_64)
- Download for macOS (Universal)
- Download for Windows (x86_64)
- Download for Windows (x86_32)
Built from commit 15acb45360b443cbb73d43c19af896670a476c21.
Your Support
Please consider supporting the project financially by donating via Patreon! Every dollar helps, so please consider donating even if it's a little. Thank you very much <3