1. Why V1.4.4R?
My first touch to SBaGen made an impression that the idea is hugely interesting and useful, but the implementation is not very user-friendly. Not the command shell interface was the reason; it was a PC desktop (big, noisy, overheating) that never inclines you to a peaceful meditation over our beautiful software. I was pleased to discover a Windows CE version. Downloading and testing (at the friend’s PPC) showed that this version works. Promptly after that I purchased a PPC with Windows Mobile 2005. The result was disappointing. Close look indicated a strange behavior of the application (SBaGence). It doesn’t support many features of desktop SBaGen. It also sometimes disappears after one or two hours of execution.
I was generally dissatisfied with SBaGence, but the money I spent for PPC, and the desire to get a version of SBaGen which answer me, didn’t allow me throwing the PPC away.
After the analyzing of the SBaGence's internals I concluded, that putting the code of the command line utility into separate thread, and redirecting of the output from the console to graphical window is a great idea, but the implementation looks as a "one evening work". So, SBaGence was disposed of, and the work started from ground up. The task was not found to be trivial, so I coded the application through step-by-step iterations.
First, SBaGenr came - a command shell application similar to the original SBaGen, but prepared to be used as "thread" (particularly, it released the used resources at the end of its execution).
Further, SBaGenw was released - Win32 GUI ASCII/ANSI program prototype compiled from the same sources as SBaGenr. It had a much simplified interface which, however, preserved all the features of the original program.
Next, SBaGenwu came - Win32 GUI application, which used UNICODE system calls (it doesn’t work under Windows 9.x/ME).
And, SBaGene - the final application for Windows CE.
During the development, some bugs were fixed. I achieved the compatibility with Windows Vista. Also, now it is possible to select arbitrary times into the embedded session -p drop.
After I released the beta version, several pretty serious bugs unveiled. I removed everything found enough serious (see the Known Bugs for the rest). Following the multiple requests from the beta testers, I restored the support for the OGG format for the background sounds (including the looped OGG), and for the MP3. Moreover, I slightly updated the GUI for the Win32 versions (SBaGenw) with the sizable main window. You’ll also find additional command line options, and the “mute tool” allowing muting of the separate channels in quazi-real time (in GUI Win32/CE versions only).
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