Notes on WHAM 1.33 ------------------ WHAM (Waveform Hold and Modify) is a Windows 3.1 application for manipulating digitised sound. It can read and write Windows 3.1 WAVE files, raw eight-bit digitised sound files and files of several other formats (of which more may be added) and can perform various operations on this sound. WHAM can handle sounds of any size, restricted only by memory. New features in release 1.33 ---------------------------- - WHAM will disable the "Play" button if the current sound is 16 bits wide and you have an 8-bit sound device (i.e., PC speaker, SoundBlaster). - WHAM can be configured to automatically reduce 16-bit sounds to 8 bits upon loading. This causes information to be lost and quality to be reduced; however, it is convenient for users with 8-bit sound cards who use WHAM for browsing sounds. - The clipboard paste bug is now vanquished. - WHAM may be started with flags on its command line to cause it to load and play a sound immediately, and possibly to exit without showing a window. The flags are as follows: To load a sound, play it and allow it to be edited: WHAM -p filename To load and play a sound without showing the WHAM window: WHAM -q filename These flags may be useful when invoking WHAM from other programs as an external viewer for sounds. New features in release 1.31 ---------------------------- - A bug within the Sun/NeXT audio (.au) format driver has been fixed. - A bug within WHAM which caused WHAM to crash in certain circumstances (often after playing a portion of a sound) has been fixed. - WHAM now looks in the executable's directory for sound format drivers. This means that you can associate files with WHAM and launch them from File Manager. New features in release 1.3 --------------------------- - Sound recording is here! Yes, WHAM can record sound (assuming, of course, that you have a sound card). - External file formats; files are read and written using external DLLs. This means that more formats may be added in the future without changing the WHAM program itself. Files may also be saved in variable encodings. - 16-bit sounds are supported. - Improved file information handling; now all defined RIFF information chunks are supported, and some file formats can utilise these as well. - Yet more buttons - 3D dialogs; WHAM uses the Microsoft Ctl3D library, which makes all the dialogs look extra-sexy. - Your usual small changes, bug fixes and cosmetic tweaks. New features in release 1.2 --------------------------- - Many bugs fixed. i.e., WHAM no longer crashes when cutting/copying sounds or stretching/shrinking large sounds. (Well, I hope it doesn't, anyway... :-) ) - Resizable window. - "Zoom in" function. WHAM can change the scale and scroll position to show the selected portion of the current waveform in its entirety at the largest possible magnification. - Cursor in waveform window. Sound can be pasted at the cursor or played from the cursor onwards. - WHAM can be launched with a sound file name on the command line. - WHAM is compliant with Windows 3.1's Drag-and-Drop technology, and will accept files dropped from the File Manager. - Enhanced button bar. The Save and Paste buttons reveal a drop-down menu of buttons when clicked with the right button. New features in release 1.1 --------------------------- - WHAM can now read and write Creative Voice .VOC files, Amiga IFF/8SVX sound files, Sun/NeXT .au (8-bit linear and Mu-Law) and Apple/SGI AIFF files - New display options. WHAM can now display the waveform at full or half height, and in solid or outline form. - Support for embedded information. WHAM can embed information (title, copyright, date, software, artist*, engineer*, technician*, comments*) in WAVE and IFF files, and read information that is in these files. If I find information formats for other file types (and, preferably, examples of these formats in use), I will add these. [* WAVE format only] - A more robust WAVE file reading mechanism (now recognises information in files and acts accordingly.) - More buttons at the top of the window. - Many bugs/glitches have been removed. Known bugs/problems: -------------------- - The "stretch/shrink" function may not yield desirable results for all ratios, and may report an error on some. - The sound recording memory allocation routine could probably be improved and made faster (although this would involve either considerable blood, sweat and tears or proprietary Microsoft source code.) - I have heard reports that the status line at the bottom of the main window does not redraw correctly on some accelerated video cards. This fault seems to be confined to specific hardware/driver combinations (only one person reported it), and thus I cannot test for it. Your mileage may vary. License ------- WHAM may be freely distributed; in fact, you are encouraged to distribute it far and wide. If you use it for professional or commercial purposes, you are expected to send a donation to the author, as recommended. If you wish to bundle WHAM with other programs, repackage it or license it, please contact the author. (I could probably arrange source licenses to those needing it, although the code is all in Turbo Pascal.) How To Contact Me ----------------- If you notice any serious bugs in this program, or have any suggestions for improvements or enhancements, please contact me and let me know. If you find this program useful and wish to make a donation (suggested size: $25-30), please send it to my address. Please note that there is no guarantee that I will fix any mentioned bugs or implement new features, as I have no time. If I have an answer to a query, or something worthwhile to say, then I shall reply. If you have problems with getting WHAM to work with Mosaic or Netscape, please don't ask me. I have never used the Windows versions of these products, and thus cannot be of help. Sorry. If you have access to the Internet, you can contact me by email. This is the preferred way of communicating with me. My address is: acb@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au If you don't have access to these networks, my snail-mail address is: Andrew Bulhak 21 The Crescent Ferntree Gully Vic 3156 AUSTRALIA Please do not try to contact me by telephone; I am not listed under my name and am not home often anyway. Acknowledgements ---------------- WHAM 1.3 uses Microsoft Corporation's Ctl3D dialog enhancement library. This library was written entirely by Microsoft Corporation (I had nothing to do with it), and is used and distributed with permission. WHAM 1.3 contains a 64-bit long division routine which was taken, more or less in one piece, from sample code distributed by Microsoft Corporation. The sample code is used as permitted. Please note that Microsoft do not support this program in any way, and are not liable for anything that may happen. Warranty Disclaimer ------------------- Andrew Bulhak ("The author") makes no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including any warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will the author be liable for any incidental or consequential damages arising from the use of, or inability to use, this program. Andrew Bulhak 6-2-1995 0:41:03