White/black screen when building with the current Makefile

[goudreinette]

Hey there!

I recently discovered NitroTracker, and I love it. The workflow is really efficient and fun even compared to full DAW's on the PC.

I have some additions in mind, and I'd love to continue developing it, either via PR's or a fork. The code is really readable and easy to change!

However, I need some assistance to get it to build. I understand that it may be a hassle for you to return to this project after all this time, but I am highly enthusiastic about this project and if you could help me out here will do my best to breathe new life into it.

When building using the Makefile in this repository, the rom gives a white screen in DesMuME and a black screen when running from an R4 card on a DS Lite. Version 0.4 from here works just fine.

Using Makefiles based on devkitPro's "combined" example everything works except for touch input in the GUI.

[goudreinette]

This is my forked repository with the Makefiles adapted from devkitPro's example: https://github.com/reinvdwoerd/nitrotracker

[goudreinette]

I'm on devkitARM r54-3

[goudreinette]

Wow, after two days I managed to solve it myself!

[deadpahn]

NICE. I forked this too but never got around to playing around with it. I use Nitrotracker A LOT and there are some minor things I wanted to fix. Do you think you could make a docker file that has all the devkit pro stuff configured for nitrotracker development?

On Tue, Jun 2, 2020 at 1:45 PM Rein van der Woerd notifications@github.com wrote:

Wow, after two days I managed to solve it myself!

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[goudreinette]

I’m not too familiar with Docker yet, but I could look into that, If it’s allowed by devkitPro...

At least I’ll try very very hard to keep it working with each new release...

[goudreinette]

I also want to save make sure all the documentation and supporting libraries are safe, the Google Code link is already only half-working.

[goudreinette]

@0xtob are you ok with this?

[0xtob]

Hey! Wow, super happy to hear you are still using NitroTracker and even want to work on development! Yes, feel free to pick up the code and send me pull requests! I haven't worked on NT in ages and don't have a working DS dev setup any more, so I'd be thrilled if someone revived the project!

[0xtob]

I'm happy to answer questions as far as my memory serves :-)

[goudreinette]

Awesome! Yes, the workflow with the sampling is really quick, the response times are faster than larger DAWs on my laptop and a DS has no multitasking distractions. Plus it has a massive air of coolness around it as so many people have memories of their DS's from childhood.

Since last week I already did a LOT, so I have to backtrace my steps a little bit. I made a fork so I could experiment with various different features (not all of them good, but all worth a try). So just tell me which of them you want!

These are the things I've added/changed/experimented with so far:

• Made the project build correctly with the current version of devkitARM. There is a bug where touchPosition.px / .py are always zero, and it is too much for me to solve right now, so I made a workaround using touchPosition.rawx / rawy. Unfortunately DesMuME gives different raw touch values than a real device, so I had to make a flag for that.
• The 'stop' button jumps to the start of the pattern when you press it (for pause I could use the pause button)
• Made clearing/deleting work on selections
• Implemented penMove on the piano, so you can move from note to note with the stylus (it works really well, this is one of my favorites!)
• I personally wasn't using the 'switch screens' buttons much, though I do like the icon, but I removed it because there are already two hardware shortcuts for it
• Experimented with more monochrome dark/light themes, still not finished as the DS screen has some issues with reflections, contrast etc.

And right now I'm trying to fit one more channel on the screen by shrinking the action buttons a few pixels, I'm not sure if this too cramped, and I want to draw a greyed-out version of the next channel that isn't currently visible so you know that you can scroll.

Ideas I still have:

• Effects! Probably one of the harder ones, but I see you made a start with it!
• A theme selector in settings?
• I think the DS screen is pressure-sensitive? If so, we could implement velocity on the keyboard
• Undo/redo in the pattern view. Undo/redo in the sampler is probably unrealistic with the amount of RAM, but the pattern view is where I make most of my mistakes anyway
• A quick-record button. Perhaps even one that works with the lid closed, so you don't miss any interesting sound that happens.
• On the splash screen: a help diagram explaining the functions of the different buttons. The main screen is blank, so we have space!
• Fastscroll scrolls faster instead of jumping
• Not sure if the file format supports it: saving muted/solo tracks so they're still muted/solo when you reopen the track
• Finishing mod_transport
• A 3DS version. That's a lot of work, as most of the API's are different, but hey, 3D. Maybe sometime later. The bigger screen is nice but it's a shame that flipping main- and subscreens is no longer so seamless as they're differently sized.
• Lastly: a revived website? How about a domain like nitrotracker.life? ;)

[asiekierka]

I recommend testing with melonDS over DesMuME; I have a branch on my GitHub with Slot-2 device emulation, which is sufficient for testing DLDI.

I have made a quick PR which fixes libnds/devkitARM compat (including touch init) and does nothing else, allowing the tracker to run on DSi/3DS in DSi mode (more CPU! more RAM!): https://github.com/0xtob/nitrotracker/pull/61

[illettante]

Hard agree about workflow speed. XM effects support would be all it needed to be my go-to tracker.