About and What's New

MusicStation answers two questions about itself: which build is running (the About dialog) and what changed in it (the "What's New" dialog). Both dialogs are modal - they dim the window behind them, take the keyboard focus and hand it back when they close - and both close with Escape, with their Close button or with a click beside the dialog. The release notes they show are read from the copies bundled with the application, so they need no network connection.

Version

The version of the build you are running, as a semantic version string such as 0.1.0. It is shown in the About dialog, opened from MusicStation ▸ About MusicStation (see About MusicStation). The number in the dialog is what the running application reports about itself, and it is the version the release notes below belong to.

The version is a single source in the project: the engine, the desktop interface, the bridge and the iPad remote read the same value when they are built, which is why all parts of one release carry the same number.

Build

The short git commit the application was built from, for example fff82af, shown right below the version. It identifies the exact state of the source the build came from: two builds can share the same version number and still differ, and this row tells them apart. A build that was not made inside a source checkout shows unknown here.

Quote the version and the build commit when you report a problem - together they say exactly which program you are using.

Update check

The status line the About dialog shows when the Check for updates in the About dialog preference of the settings column is switched on (see Check for updates in the About dialog). With the preference off - which is the default - the line does not exist: the dialog asks nothing, and nothing leaves the machine.

With the preference on, opening About asks the release feed that was baked into the build once per session and reports one of three answers:

MusicStation is up to date. - the running build is the newest version the feed knows.
Version 0.4.0 is available. - a strictly newer release exists; the number the feed offers stands in the message. The line is emphasised and the Open download page button appears next to it.
No update information available right now. - the feed could not be reached, answered with something unusable, or the build was made without a release address at all; the Retry button appears next to the line.

The answer is remembered for the session: closing and re-opening About shows the same line without asking a second time, and only an explicit Retry asks again. This is as far as the check reaches - it is one HTTPS request to the address the build was made with, it happens only while the About dialog is open, and MusicStation never checks during start-up.

The check sends no identifier of you or your machine: the single HTTPS request goes to the release address the build was made with and asks for that one release document - no account, no session, no machine data and no usage data go with it, and it names nothing but the application itself with its name and version. A check that cannot answer is no error report either: it is the neutral line No update information available right now. with the Retry button beside it, never a dialog you have to dismiss.

Open download page

The button that appears next to the update line when a newer version is available. It hands the address the feed published to the operating system, which opens it in your browser. Release addresses are https addresses; an answer that offers any other scheme counts as No update information available right now. and never opens a browser.

MusicStation downloads and installs nothing itself: what you fetch, the browser fetches. The button exists only with the update line - while no newer version is offered, there is nothing to open and nothing is shown.

Retry

Asks the release feed again instead of showing the answer of the session. The button appears next to the update line while that line reads No update information available right now. and disappears with the next answer: a retry that succeeds shows the new status, one that fails again shows the same line. Retry is the only gesture of the dialog that sends a second request; closing and re-opening About does not.

Like the automatic check, Retry only exists while the update check is switched on and the About dialog is open (see Update check).

Search release notes

The search field above the release-note list filters the history as you type. It searches the notes of the language the dialog is running in: every version that contains all of the words you type is kept, matched against the version number and the text of the note itself - so 0.3.0 finds that one release, fixed finds every version with a Fixed block and midi every version whose notes mention MIDI. Two words narrow the list down, they do not widen it.

Escape clears the field without leaving it and restores the whole history; the field is a filter and nothing else - it changes no note and no bundled file. While nothing matches, the area answers No release note matches this search., which is a different message from No release notes are bundled for this language. - the one shown when the chosen language has no notes at all (see Release notes).

Release notes

The release-note history of every version this build ships, newest first, in a scrollable area of the About dialog. Each entry is the release note of one version, grouped into the blocks that release really has - New, Improved, Fixed and Known limits. Which of them appear depends on the release: a version that only adds something may carry a New block alone, and a block with nothing to report is left out instead of being shown empty. The area is a scroll region: click or tab into it and scroll with the mouse wheel, the trackpad or the arrow keys. The text is read-only.

The history follows the language of the dialog; the Language switch above it re-renders the whole history in the chosen language without leaving the dialog. The Search release notes field above the area narrows the list down to the versions you are looking for (see Search release notes). When no release notes are bundled for the chosen language, the area says No release notes are bundled for this language. instead.

Close

The button in the footer of the About dialog. Click it, or press Escape, or click beside the dialog to return to the window. Closing About never loses work: playback and the transport keep running while the dialog is open and after it closes. The dialog holds the keyboard while it is open, so the transport keys (Space, Enter) belong to it until it is closed.

Close (What's New)

The button in the footer of the "What's New" dialog, which shows the release notes of the running version. Closing it - with the button, with Escape or with a click beside the dialog - also records that you have seen these notes. That is what makes the dialog appear exactly once per version: after an update MusicStation opens it on its own, and the next start of the same version stays quiet.

You do not have to decide anything here: the notes are information, not a request, and they can be reopened at any time from MusicStation ▸ What's New (see What's New) or read again in the history of the About dialog.

Workflow: find out what changed

On the first start after an update, the "What's New" dialog opens by itself. Read it and close it (see Close (What's New)).
Later, open MusicStation ▸ What's New to read the notes of the running version again (see What's New).
For the whole history, open MusicStation ▸ About MusicStation and scroll the release notes (see Release notes).
Want the history in the other language? Switch the Language inside the About dialog - the notes re-render at once.
Looking for one change among many? Type a word into Search release notes - mixer, a version number - and press Escape to get the whole history back (see Search release notes).
Curious whether a newer MusicStation exists? Switch Check for updates in the About dialog on in the settings column and open About again (see Update check).