Release Release 1.0.0 · LuSrackhall/KeyTone

Overview

This is the first major release of KeyTone, marking a milestone of stability and completeness. It brings a series of significant new features, and extensive stability improvements accumulated since v0.6.0.

✨ New Features

🖱️ Mouse Button Sound Support & Keyboard/Mouse Album Separation

KeyTone now supports custom sound effects for mouse buttons. Mouse key sounds can be configured in the key sound album editor, just like keyboard keys.

Alongside this, a new Keyboard/Mouse Album Separation mode has been introduced on the main page:

In Unified Mode (default), a single album covers both keyboard and mouse events — maintaining backward compatibility.
In Separation Mode, independent album selectors are provided for keyboard and mouse respectively, allowing users to freely mix and match their preferred sound packages.
In separation mode, independent volume controls are available for keyboard and mouse separately, stacking with the global volume slider.
An optional "Mouse fallback to keyboard album" setting is available — when the mouse album is missing in separation mode, it can fall back to the keyboard album instead of the built-in test sound.

🎛️ Waveform Visual Trimmer

The Define and Trim Sounds (Step 2) dialog now features a built-in waveform visualization component:

Displays the waveform of the selected audio source file, with support for zooming and scrolling.
Drag a selection region on the waveform to visually define the trim range; it stays in two-way sync with the numeric start/end time inputs.
A right-click quick selection gesture (right-click to set start, drag to update end, release to confirm end) resolves the pain point of overlapping handles near the start position.
Built-in frontend audio preview player (independent of SDK preview), supporting pause, draggable playhead, and range playback (full or selection).
A draggable volume pointer bar in the waveform area allows intuitive dB-based volume adjustments (±18 dB visual range; left axis shows 18/12/6/0/-6/-12/-18 tick marks; right side displays the current dB value).
Ctrl + Mouse Wheel shortcut for smooth waveform zooming, anchored to the cursor position.
A Waveform Scroll Behavior preference has been added in Settings (under "Key Sound Album Related"):
- Paged Jump (default): viewport flips when the playhead passes the right edge, classic DAW style.
- Smart Edge Push: playhead moves freely in the 0–85% zone and the viewport smoothly follows near the right edge.
The existing numeric input trimming workflow is fully preserved; the waveform component is an enhancement, not a replacement.

🔊 Press/Release Independent Volume Control

In Settings → Main Page Related, a new Press/Release Independent Volume Control master switch (off by default) unlocks per-direction volume tuning:

Set separate volume adjustments (dB) for key-press (down) and key-release (up) events, globally and per keyboard/mouse device.
Each direction supports its own volume adjustment slider, maximum attenuation input, and a debug slider toggle.
Volume stacking order: global volume → keyboard/mouse split volume (if enabled) → press/release volume layer (if enabled).
When this switch is off, behavior is identical to the previous version — no impact on existing settings.

🎲 Global Random Volume Variation (Main Page)

A new random volume variation option is available in Settings → Main Page Related. When enabled, each keystroke plays with a subtle, randomized volume reduction, making repetitive typing feel more natural and lively without changing the overall volume level.

For per-direction control, a secondary Press/Release Random Volume Independent Control switch (off by default) unlocks six independent nodes — global down/up, keyboard down/up, mouse down/up — each with its own enable switch and max attenuation range input. When both global random and press/release random are active, their attenuation values stack.

🔍 Sound Selector Search

The sound/album selector components in the key sound album editor now include a built-in search box, allowing quick filtering by name across large lists — audio source files, defined sounds, and premium key sounds are all searchable.

🔐 Album Signature & Authorization System

KeyTone now includes a comprehensive album signature and authorization system for .ktalbum files:

Album authors can create personal signature keys on the Signature Management page to sign albums during the export process, providing a verifiable, tamper-proof identity seal.
The Signature Info Dialog within the export workflow guides authors through the album signing process.
The Album Import/Apply Process verifies signatures and clearly indicates whether an album is signed.
Albums can be configured to Require Authorization for export, giving content creators control over the secondary distribution of their work.
When Require Authorization is selected, a mandatory Contact Info Dialog will appear. Authors can provide an email or additional contact details to facilitate user inquiries and feedback.
When No Authorization Required is selected, an optional Contact Info Dialog will appear. Authors may choose to provide contact details or simply skip this step.

🔒 Album Configuration Encryption

Album configuration data stored within the .ktalbum package is encrypted when a signature is required. This provides an additional layer of protection against unauthorized viewing or modification of the original album data.

🌍 13+ Languages with RTL Support

KeyTone now ships with 16 UI language options:

Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arabic (MSA, with full RTL layout support).

The language selector intelligently handles multi-country same-language entries, presenting a clean unified list.

💻 Windows on ARM (arm64) support

KeyTone now provides native support for Windows on ARM (arm64):

Released native arm64 builds and installers so users can install and run directly on ARM-based Windows devices without relying on x86/x64 emulation.
Compatibility testing completed to ensure core features (keyboard/mouse sound playback, waveform trimming, album import/export, signature verification, etc.) work correctly.

🛠️ History of Stability & Performance Fixes

Memory leak fix: Resolved a memory leak in the beep audio library dependency caused by improper stream management in the SDK.
Audio deletion deadlock fix: On Windows, audio streams that were still in use could prevent file deletion. A global "stop all active streams" mechanism now ensures clean deletion.
Concurrent safety: Reworked critical sections in the SDK to eliminate potential panics and deadlocks during concurrent album operations.
Log rotation: Added file-size-based log rotation and a retention-day cleanup policy to prevent unbounded log growth.
Distorted audio panic fix: Corrupted or low-quality audio source files no longer cause a panic during trimmed playback.
Album import/overwrite: Fixed rare cases where overwriting an existing album left stale data or failed silently.
Deleted sound reference stability: Fixed a cascade of UI crashes triggered by deleting audio sources, defined sounds, or premium key sounds that were still referenced.
Single-key recording: Fixed an intermittent failure on Windows where single-key recording silently dropped key events; also fixed mouse left-button incorrectly being auto-recorded when enabling single-key auto-record.
Taskbar window close/hide: Fixed a two-click issue when hiding the minimized window via the taskbar on Windows, and the window size shrinking on re-open.

please note

Although the release assets of this version include multi-platform packages, it does not mean that KeyTone already supports multiple platforms.

At this stage, the main focus is still on feature development, and this process is carried out under Windows.

In other words, this version of the KeyTone package only guarantees the usability and functionality completeness of the software under Windows. The packages for other platforms only follow the most basic build packaging and have not undergone any related testing.

When will other platforms besides Windows be supported?

A: The current version has not been officially adapted for Linux and MacOS platforms. We expect to consider formal adaptation work after version 1.0.0.

Starting from version 0.5.0, we conducted some basic testing for KeyTone on the macOS platform, confirming that it can run normally on macOS. However, this does not mean that KeyTone has been officially adapted for the macOS platform.

Security

The SHA256 hash sum

KeyTone-1.0.0-win-x64.exe is:

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KeyTone-1.0.0-win-arm64.exe is:

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KeyTone-1.0.0-linux-x64.tar.gz is:

db6b2693a30b214c6198c3f2fc95682b2e61d6daeb5cddc6881abb2bcc573120

KeyTone-1.0.0-linux-x64.AppImage is:

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KeyTone-1.0.0-linux-x64.deb is:

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KeyTone-1.0.0-mac-x64.dmg is:

5ec0346435bd629040c1f3b0dc0c14f53a4259af529b52b84e9805c39f34eda8

KeyTone-1.0.0-mac-arm64.dmg is:

7bfb2876b542fdf4a283f323adb779ce0055e5819427dfc6a45f27c729b25cfb

The MD5 hash sum