44. Future directions

The Kangas Sound Editor (QI) project currently has a number of development possibilities; see below for some of them. In order for any of these possibilities to actually materialise, help for this project is definitely needed by you! For 12 ways to help this project, click here

  1. Allow a user-definable graph to be used as an oscillator in the sound engine. Although user-definable graphs are widely used in Kangas Sound Editor (QI), they are not currently used for the oscillator at the heart of the sound engine, which is effectively fixed at a sinusoidal graph. Allowing a user-definable graph would allow sounds built from square, triangle, sawtooth and many others to be constructed. It is currently envisaged that a user-defined oscillator graph could be input at the levels of track, Sequence box and Sound box: an oscillator graph at Sound-box level would override one at Sequence-box level, which in turn would override one at track level.
  2. Develop a version of Kangas Sound Editor for Android.
  3. Allow the boxes used in construction of Sounds, Chord Groups, Sequences, etc. to be configurable in their size and in the gap between boxes. As well as for personal preferences, this enhancement is seen as important for touch screens and the development of Kangas Sound Editor for Android.
  4. Support for audio formats other than .WAV: .AIFF and .AU would probably be targeted first, as these are already partially dealt with in the area of Recorded Sound box properties, where the Raw sound file can have a .AIFF, .AU or .WAV extension.
  5. Minor bug-fixes and enhancements, including:

    • Improve error handling if a Recorded Sound raw file is missing.
    • When importing a composition, don't prompt Save current composition first? if no unsaved edits.
    • (Recorded Sound raw files). Accept .aif for .aiff files.
    • (Variations). Add tooltip labels for flag graph abbreviations; for example, Overall graph for OG.
    • (Export sound files menu option). Improvements in handling if an intermediate or sound file is missing: present a dialog allowing Skip, Abort and Skip All options.
  6. More than two channels (i.e., stereo) — upto six is envisaged.
  7. Add an undo/redo facility.
  8. Support for other languages, possibly starting with español (Spanish), which is already catered for in the Kangas Sound Editor QI installer.
  9. Integrated help.
  10. Implement changes requested by users in Feature requests
  11. Move from a simple listing of KangaSound XML files to a searchable database of KangaSound XML files, whose files can be downloaded, uploaded, rated, commented-on etc. For this to happen, there needs to be a little more upload activity to the existing KangaSound XML file listing.
  12. Improvements to navigation of these tutorial pages, such as allowing individual pages to be bookmarked. As of May 2017 work on this is nearing completion.
  13. Launch the KangaSound 80's music project. For this to happen, more volunteers are needed!