krecspk/wrecspk updated - less screen real-estate GUI.

[mcewanw]

Krecspk, the "speaking, hotkey-driven, frontend commandline audio recording program" created with the visually impaired in mind, and
wrecspk (the included GUI version) have been upgraded to version 2.5.0. Wrecspk now uses less screen real-estate and both now include amplitude scaling for playback as well as for record. Note that krecspk DOES NOT use or require kde.

If you want to use wrecspk, the GUI frontend, instead of the console-based krecspk, just click on its icon
in /usr/local/wiakapps/krecspk/ or use a menu/desktop shortcut for it (a JWM Menu->Multimedia->wrecspk icon entry is provided in the dotpet version).

Available as usual at:

http://wiakapps.freehostia.com/downloads.html

mcewanw

[mcewanw]

A old bug has resurfaced ; wiakrecord sometimes hangs. Its a process handling problem - not getting killed correctly. I'm working on it. sox starts up child processes and they are
difficult to keep track of...

[mcewanw]

It's late and I'm tired, so not certain, but I may have fixed the problem. A sox child process was completing without being waited on in "morfi". I'll have to go to bed now, so will test the 'fix' more thoroughly tomorrow.

I've uploaded a slightly amended version of morfi. Now at version 1.0.1. None of the other files are affected.

Get it from http://wiak.org/ as before.

mcewanw

[mcewanw]

It's not on the webpage yet - having trouble uploading. It should be there in a few minutes though...

Okay... the new 1.0.1 morfi and associated md5sum is now on the download page.

Note that if the software scaled volume, in wiakrecord, isn't right for your system (too low or too high or too much distortion...) you can easily change it. Just click on the CONFIG button and a simple text file pops up in Geany text editor (well, if you have Geany already open, but minimised in the taskbar you'll have to click on it to see the new tabs that have opened...). Anyway, just read the config file, it is only a few lines long - you will see where to change the volume (and the audio file type etc...)

[mcewanw]

Apart from the fact that this wee sound recorder/player doesn't take up much screen realestate it also has the nice characteristic that it uses hardly any memory and pretty much no CPU at all when sitting idle (it blocks whilst waiting on button presses). So you can leave it on in the taskbar for recording whenever you like. I should be able to easily make a version which works from a commandline dialog or similar interface on a low-powered machine: because of the way it is written, most of the code won't even need changed.

wiakrecord can make tiny mp3 or ogg files (depending on the bitrate you choose). Good for making quick voice recordings for attaching to your emails at Christmas(!) or for making podcasts.

The ability to "pause" recordings easily whilst you are making them, makes it particularly useful for recording longer pieces such as audio books.

However, the real power of the application comes in the ability to morph it into something else altogether by simply making new buttons on the GUI and changing the configfile. You can create complex wiakapps by running many instances of "morfi" (the server backend used by the program) from the same GUI.

Of course, with "wiak" you can write lots of programs quite quickly, without using morfi at all (as the other little applications provided for download illustrate).

[BarryK]

Very interesting!
I'll take some time soon to have a proper look at it.

[mcewanw]

You don't need to use morfi at all to use wiak to write simpler programs. Not at all.

Nevertheless, coincidentally, someone was asking how to stop
wavplay from playing... I used the question as an opportunity
to show how easily wiakrecord (which uses morfi) can be morphed into a different program. In this case it is still being
used as a sound recorder, but a slight change makes it use
wavrec and wavplay instead of sox rec and play. It allows you to not only start and stop wav files, but also to pause them (and record them). However, as I mention, wavplay doesn't
like being paused so takes five seconds after you click the pause button to pause (a second click and it continues playing again straight away though).

In practice, it is better to use the original wiakrecord with sox (rec and play); it responds pretty much instantly and
makes tiny little mp3's etc.

Anyway, the couple of things needed in order to morph wiakrecord into a wavplay machine is given here (though, I haven't given this modification any rigorous testing..., because I prefer wiakrecord as it is!):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 015#162015

I'm pretty sure you could modify wiakrecord to play and pause videos just as easily, with a suitable commandline video playing utility underneath.

[Lobster]

The thing to do is try a recording . . .
So I did

185K MP3 enclosed (had to add as zip file due to forum files allowed)
Make sure you up your volume setting if you can not hear anything . . .

The sound is heavily compressed so sounds weird but it works

Another test would be to create a
podcast quality version of the recorder
to show the code is easy to modify.

Anyone up for that?

It also needs testing in 3.01 and Dingo.
Any results on that?

What you seem to have done is put a bash front
on C code

Gonna read your docs some more.

[mcewanw]

Which recorder were you using in the recording, Lobster? Wiakrecord or wiakdevrec?

The first (which has a "pause" control) doesn't have an "edit" button (you mentioned an edit button in your voice recording). Instead, it has a "config" button, which lets you quickly change the bit rate (and hence output quality) in a few seconds, as well as the software volume (though a real microphone amplifier is always better...). Wiakrecord uses a VERY simple bash/gtkdialog3 GUI, the special shell program "wiak" (which is written in C), and a server program "morfi", which is also written in C (morfi controls the underlying sox utilities, but you could easily replace it with a server written in bash for that purpose; indeed, that is basically the difference in wiakdevrec). Sorry, but I'm only releasing morfi as an executable, and only freely for Puppy Linux at the moment at least (the other components used by wiakrecord , including "wiak" itself and the frontend GUI are open-source; as are all parts of all the other wiakapps released so far - none of which use morfi anyway).

The second sound recorder, wiakdevrec, on the other hand, is completely open-source in all its parts (it also uses wiak, but not morfi). Indeed, I partly produced wiakdevrec specially for those who somehow feel uncomfortable using any program which contains parts which are not completely open-source. I can understand that sentiment. I can assure everyone however that there are no hidden viruses, trojans or advertising, etc, in any wiak.org code; nothing sends messages "back home"; it is clean. If they don't want to use anything, that is fine too.

Wiakdevrec also uses "wiak", as one of its components, and it has an edit button which allows you to edit the underlying bash/gtkdialog3 code of both the frontend GUI and the backend server. Since both wiakrecord and wiakdevrec use sox underneath, they both give the same recording quality (which can be as high or low a quality as you like; you just need to edit the parameters).

It would also be quite easy to add a wizard for configuring the quality settings; I may do that myself, eventually, though my personal priortities are more concerned with the wiak system in general now, rather than sound recording or for any other specific application purpose. Wiak, is the core component of a programming system/methodology, rather than being something particularly to do with sound recording. I've made wiak open-source because it is the core building block; the system component needed by anyone wanting to write a wiakapp. Morfi, on the other hand, is purely one implementation of a possible server; you don't need it to write your own wiakapps.

Though, as I say, I'm not so interested myself in putting much more effort into sound recording, if enough interest is shown, I may be still be inclined to improve either or both of these sound recorders to some extent at least. Admittedly most of my energy, and truly limited time, is likely to go into wiakrecord rather than wiakdevrec, since that fits in with my own desires: I'm developing wiakrecord's "morfi" for other purposes anyway.

More important, I feel, from my point of view at least, is to support development of new programs written using the wiak system itself (whatever kind of programs they may be). I'd certainly be very happy to offer support to anyone using wiak in their own programs. As my development work on morfi continues (which, at the moment, is really just a special wiak-compatible server that I am developing for my own specific needs/interests) I will be backporting some of the relevant code into wiak (keeping them in sync as it were) so benefits should accrue from that process in any case.

So, in summary, I possibly/probably won't be doing much more on sound recording per se; rather you can expect to see new versions of wiak being produced which include additional Inter-Process Communication capabilities (currently it just uses named pipes; the next version will include message passing; and then, all going well; some form of internet sockets). Most of what I produce is likely to be of most interest to people who want to try out new programming techniques. However, I do encourage people to try wiak as a way of programming, for example, bash/gtkdialog3 utilities/applications; it really is easier than trying to do it all in one big program - they may find it surprisingly simple.

There is also something intrinsically satisfying getting all the pieces to work together; amazing almost that the server understands and responds to the simple commands you send it via wiak.

I will also be publishing morfi's commandlanguage (it's a flexible little beast which already has a command vocabulary of around twenty words), so some people might find that fun to play with too.

Of course, I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has used the program. Obviously it would be useful to know of any discovered bugs etc. And indeed, it would be great if some would try the program out on other distributions and let me know the results; as I've said I don't have these downloaded at present and so that kind of testing would save me a lot of time. Lastly, I do encourage people to try modifying these programs for themselves; improving the GUI's, for example, and creating GUI wizard-type configuration addons. I'd find such additions useful too, but I'm too busy on the other bits to work on such things.

My own feeling is that the wiak system could be used, very easily indeed, to GUI-ify pretty much all the config settings for an operating system distribution in a very consistent programming manner. It is a very efficient, resource friendly system, which is not to say it doesn't have its own problems: Wiak servers and clients CAN hang if something goes wrong with the communications between them; making sure all that is okay is where most of the programming effort goes.

[mcewanw]

I'm surprised there hasn't been any feedback to let me know if wiakrecord is working in Puppy 3.x.x series since there have been quite a large number of downloads so far. You might save yourself a lot of problems if you let me know, or maybe I can fix things.

Anyway, though I don't have the latest 3.x.x Puppy I suddenly remembered I did have a download of the early 3.01 version so I gave that a spin. The wiak pet installed okay, as did the wiakrecord GUI frontend part, but Petget wouldn't install morfi. It turned out I had forgotten to change the directory name to morfi-1.0.1 when I upgraded morfi from version 1.0.0 and the Petget manager in 3.0.1 didn't like that (Puppy 2.17.1 accepted the dotpet anyway). Well, I have now remade the dotpet and uploaded it to wiak.org. As for the test of wiakrecord in Puppy 3.0.1... Well, that version won't record mp3 files using rec (nothing to do with wiakrecord, I even tried rec direct from the commandline); it doesn't have mp3 encoding compiled into the version installed on it. So, to see if wiakrecord was working otherwise I started it up and pressed the application's CONFIG button. I then changed the filename to .ogg rather than .mp3 (you need to do that in both wiakrecord.conf and wiakplay.conf if you want to record and play; there is only the one line to change in each. Then it worked fine (recording and playing and pausing ogg files...). Hopefully, mp3 support has been built into the newer 3.x.x series Puppy's or you'll have to use ogg instead; let me know please. Or...

There is one other possibility; I will try the method I used in the older WreckedLeg recorder where I piped rec into lame (that is just a matter of altering wiakrecord morfi's configfiles to include the appropriate rec | lame command string. I'll do that shortly and report back... However, I have a memory of Lobster having trouble getting wreckedleg to work in puppy 3.x.x so maybe there is a problem with lame too. I'll be back to say soon, but really I need someone to try it on the newest Puppy 3 and on Dingo.

Remember you'll have to re-download the now fixed morfi-1.0.1.c.pet in order to try it out.

[mcewanw]

Yes all tested (quick as that...) and worked with rec being piped through lame (though the sound quality isn't so good as rec used on its own - i.e. rec with inbuilt mp3 support).

All I did was started up wiakrecord, pressed the CONFIG button and replaced everything in wiakrecord.conf with the following (I didn't need to alter wiakplay.conf which still had the line, play /root/my-documents/out.mp3 in it):

# new wiakrecord.conf contents (but remember, rec on its own [with the parameters in the original wiakrecord.conf] in Puppy version 2.17.1 gave less distortion than this)
# do remember to turn all the Puppy sound mixer controls up to maximum to make sure you hear the results. Puppy sound system is quite quiet generally it seems.
# Note that the single dashes on their own in the config file ARE necessary. Now I am away to catch up on some sleep.


# --- start of wiakrecord.conf
[conf] # This is the config section for static storing of morfi's defaults
dummy # A minimum of one value is required here. In this case, the value
# 'dummy' is used as a placemarker for future morfi developments.

[proc_0] # This is the first command in the two stage pipe
rec
-c 1
-t raw
-f sw
-r 44100
-v 4 #This is the volume (an integer value 1 - 64 say).
#Increase size for louder (e.g. try 8 )
#Decrease size for quieter (gives maybe less distortion)
#Value depends on your computer's sound system sensitivity
#Best to use -v 1 and a preamp on you microphone if you
# really want best quality with good volume.
#To get it all working, I suggest starting with
# your Menu->Multimedia->sound mixer controls all unmuted
# and at maximum amplitude (100%).
-

[proc_1] # This is the second command in the two stage pipe
lame
-r
-x
-s 44.1
-m m
-h
--abr 8 # This is the requested mp3 sample bit rate in Hertz.
#For high compression, smallest files, try --abr 8
#For higher quality, bigger files, try --abr 16 or --abr 32
#If you increase bit rate you may
# also want to increase lowpass filter value

--lowpass 7 # Refer to note above concerning bit rate
#For --abr 8, I suggest using --lowpass 7
#For higher bit rates you might want to
# increase --lowpass to say 14 (experiment!)
--nspsytune
-
/root/my-documents/out.mp3 # This is the directory where you
# want to store your recordine, and
# the file name for your recording
#end of wiakrecord.conf file

[Lobster]

Which recorder were you using in the recording, Lobster? Wiakrecord or wiakdevrec?

I used devrec

wiakrecord is on the menu but not coming up

this is what I get

Code: Select all

# ./wiakrecord
Error in wiakrecord: wfifozrecord already exists, so exiting...
# 

[mcewanw]

Thanks Lobster, that means something went wrong with one of the earlier wiakrecord run attempts such that it didn't clean up its fifos after it was finished. Maybe you originally tried wiakrecord with the first version of "morfi" that I posted on the website. You must upgrade morfi to the latest version with filename: morfi-1.0.1.c.pet.

Once you have the latest morfi (if you don't already) you can fix the problem easily as follows:

Either:

reboot your system (that should fix all such problems and wiakrecord should then be able to start)

Or (and you maybe should do it this way instead, to save having to reboot and to ensure the problem is fixed):

Make sure you have no wiakapps running and then, open up Rox-filer File Manager and then open up a window to directory /tmp. If you have been using waikdevrec or wiakrecord you should see a folder in /tmp called wiak. Just delete that folder and the Error should not occur next time you start wiakrecord (it will rebuild the folder and put the required wfifozrecord automatically AND automatically delete wfifozrecord once you have QUIT using it).

Generally, when such problems occur it is best to delete that folder /tmp/wiak and start again (no need to reboot).

Let me know if that worked (you should have a pause button for your recordings now!)

If any of the wiakapps I provided ever give a similar problem that is the way to fix it (assuming the wiakapp itself doesn't have an internal problem). i.e. Make sure you don't have any wiakapp programs running and delete /tmp/wiak

If you ever can't get any wiakapp to shutdown, other than rebooting, you can close pretty much all of them by using the command:

ps | grep wiak

and then use: kill -9 <whatever_their_process_ids_are>

(that sometimes includes the 'cat' process used by certain wiakapps to read their received message fifo).


Note that: killall wiak
WON'T work. If you want an automatic way of killing all the above processes you'd need to write a small script using ps | grep wiak, and kill -9 <pid> commands in it.

ANOTHER NOTE: I'm about to write a small tutorial on creating a simple wiakapp (a "hello world" example). Once it is ready (in a few hours time) you will find it on the wiak.org website at: http://wiak.org/wiakapptutorial.html

[Lobster]

. You must upgrade morfi to the latest version with filename: morfi-1.0.1.c.pet.

I am using a fresh install
Tried installing the program again and deleting temp files and old installation

same results

[mcewanw]

Here is the absolute only bit of code inside the bash shell script wiakrecord that gives the Error message you are getting:

Code: Select all

# If WIAKTMP environmental variable set use that else
# use /tmp/wiak/ as default wiak tmp file path
wiak_tmp_path=${WIAKTMP-'/tmp/wiak/'}

# Only allow one instance of wiakrecord. If fifoz already exist
# another instance is running, or something else is wrong
if [ -e ${wiak_tmp_path}/wfifozrecord ]; then
	echo "Error in wiakrecord: wfifozrecord already exists, so exiting..."
	exit 1

As you can see, all it does is checks to see if /tmp/wiak/wfifozrecord already exists; if it does it exits with that error message. If it doesn't the rest of the program continues and the recorder GUI should pop up (takes a few seconds though - lots of servers to start up... hope you were patient...). I suggest rebooting and trying again. But physically do the following after rebooting:

Code: Select all

rm -f /tmp/wiak/

There is no way, that I can see that wiakrecord wouldn't at least then start up...

I hope you manage to get that going; you are missing a much neater tinier windowed recorder/player with a pause control (which makes a huge difference when recording long pieces when you temporarily want to take a break...)

I even tried it on a clean install of Puppy 3.01 last night (even downloaded the three pets wiak, morfi, and wiakrecord separately from http://wiak.org/ and it all worked fine - albeit with a different config file. I'll try doing that again though with a clean install of 2.17.1 and the default config files, but really I don't expect any problem.

[mcewanw]

I have now completed a very short and simple tutorial showing how to write a program using wiak. It is a daft "hello world!" example which no-one would ever use in practice since its easier just to type: echo "hello world!"

However, it shows all the steps in writing any wiakapp in just a couple dozen lines of code.

You can read the new tutorial at:

http://wiakapps.freehostia.com/wiaktutorial.html

[Lobster]

mcewanw - I am beginning to suspect that tmxxine shard 2.17 (that I I am using) may have part of the old program in its sfs and that is being picked up . . . gonna try just Puppy and see if it works - will get back to ya

Thanks for your patience. Tutorial looks good. Hope you get feedback

[mcewanw]

I am using a fresh install
Tried installing the program again and deleting temp files and old installation

same results

Well... I have no idea what the problem at your end is. More info required I'm afraid.

Here is what I have just tried:

I removed my puppysave.2fs file altogether.
I then looked out my puppy version 2.17.1 CD and booted it up, even giving it the boot command, puppy pfix=ram to absolutely be sure it was a clean install.
Then, of course, I had to configure the Connect information for my isp to allow me to dial in. I then dialed in to the Internet, went to http://wiak.org/ to the download page, and downloaded the three required dotpets:

wiak-1.0.0.bashgtkd3.pet
morfi-1.0.1.c.pet and
wiakrecord-1.0.0.bashgtkd3.pet

After downloading them into /root, I clicked on each in turn and they all installed correctly. I restarted JWM by clicking
Menu -> Shutdown -> Restart JWM
and the Wiakrecord pause play menu item was then there okay as:
Menu -> Multimedia -> Wiakrecord pause play

I clicked on that, and wiakrecord started up just fine.

I then clicked on:
Menu -> Multimedia -> Puppy sound mixer
and turned all the volume controls right up (already had my microphone and headphones plugged in)
Then I pressed the record button in wiakrecord and recorded a short piece. Then I pressed the stop button to end my recording, pressed the play button to hear it. EVERYTHING worked fine. Then I pressed QUIT and the program correctly exited.

Finally, I clicked on Menu->File system Rox-file manager
and went to /tmp. The wiak directory was in there but inside that all the fifos had been correctly erased (without me doing anything). All sweet and good...

So, what are you doing that is different?

I can only suggest you try using Pfind to search for wfifozrecord BEFORE you try running wiakrecord. If Pfind finds wfifozrecord then wiakrecord certainly will not start up; the fifo must not exist before starting the application. Wiakrecord deletes its fifos automatically when you press QUIT at the end of using it.

I still suggest: rm -f /tmp/wiak/
before running wiakrecord should fix your problem if the error message you are getting is the one you quoted earlier.

On my old compaq armada 110 laptop, wiakrecord takes roughly three seconds to start up.

[mcewanw]

Hope you get feedback

Yes, its unlikely I can fix many problems for anyone if they don't supply the necessary feedback. According to the wiak.org website, all the offered files have each been downloaded more than fifty times already, so there should be plenty of scope for feedback.

However, I'll fix/update things as I can as I come across anything anyway. I may try to amend the startup logic used in wiakrecord so that the GUI itself always removes the old fifos, but I earlier rejected that idea because, if by chance a different copy of wiakrecord had been started up and was using the fifos, it would hang on them being deleted... The best I could do, I suppose, would be to use a combination of ps and grep from within the wiakrecord shell script to hunt around looking for any previous running instances of itself (instead of looking for already existing fifos), and get it to NOT delete the fifos only if it finds an existing wiakrecord running. Such a change would only effect the bash/gtkdialog3 wiakrecord shell script itself, so easy to do. I have to think about that though - theoretically the problem shouldn't really be happening much anyway.

[mcewanw]

Wiak.org, or at least this one of its 'employees', is now closed at least for the Christmas/Hogmanay period.

Sláinte