SparkyMK2 v0.7.3

Fixed

• Importing samples and any other write to the card failed at once on Windows ("The
  semaphore timeout period has expired", os error 121): the serial port gave every write
  2 ms to go out, too short for a 20 KB file chunk. Writes now get 5 seconds.

SparkyMK2 v0.7.2

Added

• A diagnostic log, turned on in Settings: every command the app runs, its result and
  timing, the device requests behind it and any error, written to a file to send in with
  a bug report. Open log folder shows where it is. It stays on across starts, with a new
  file each start and the last 10 kept.

Fixed

• Writes to the card wait up to 20 seconds for the unit to finish storing a file, rather
  than failing after 5, and the app runs one device operation at a time, so a status
  poll no longer lands in the middle of an import or a restore.

SparkyMK2 v0.7.1

Fixed

• Small layout slips: the Key label in the Samples tab matches the other labels, a
  one-bar pattern says "1 bar", Clear project's option names stay on one line, and
  Settings uses the width of a wide window.

Also new since 0.6.0

0.7.0 was never published, so its changes arrive with this release.

Added

• A screen library, in the Screens tab's new Library view: display images kept in a folder
  on the computer (~/Documents/SparkyMK2/Screens unless another is picked in Settings),
  as PNGs you can also open, sync or add to outside the app. An entry is a single frame
  or a set of all six. Every image applied in the editor lands there once by itself, and
  a frame or a whole project's six can be saved by name. (#4)
• Apply a frame or a set from the library to many projects at once. The images go straight
  into each project's folder, so the unit stays on the project it is on, and the images
  they replace are kept on the computer. (#4)
• Share a frame as a share code, a line of text to paste into a chat; Paste share code…
  picks it out of a whole message. Sets are shared as their PNG file, which Add files…
  takes back, along with card BMPs. (#4)
• Export a pattern from the Patterns tab, as the official app does: a MIDI file at its
  bank's tempo, a Bounce (one WAV of the whole pattern) or MULTIPAD (a WAV per pad it
  plays), to the SD card's EXPORT folder or to the computer. The unit renders the WAVs
  itself, so those take as long as the pattern plays.
• Back up a project to the computer and restore a backup into the current project, in
  Settings. A backup is the project's whole folder, the same files the official app
  exports; restoring takes that folder or one laid out as ROLAND/SP-404MKII/PROJECT_xx,
  and asks for the project number before it replaces anything.
• Clear project can clear one bank's samples or patterns, the device's Samples Bank and
  Patterns Bank inits.
• Detect a pad's key, between Start and End, in the Samples tab. It is shown in the app
  only: the SP-404MKII accepts a key but keeps none (firmware 5.52).

Changed

• The Screens tab's editor puts the image first: the six slots are a list on the left, with
  the screen saver's frames under a thumbnail that plays it, the image fills the middle at
  the largest size the window allows, and loading an image or a library entry, the image
  settings and saving to the library sit in a column on the right. (#4)

Fixed

• Groove, Rate and Humanize show in the Samples tab. They were set like the other
  parameters but left out, because where the pad keeps them was not known.
• Files dropped on a pad on a Linux screen scaled above 100% land on that pad; the drop
  position was divided by the scale, which only Windows needs.
• Disconnecting, switching to another port or quitting the app sends MKII EXIT, so the
  SP-404MKII leaves its remote screen instead of staying on it with nothing connected.

SparkyMK2 v0.6.0

Added

• Settings shows the app's version, so a bug report can say which one it is about. (#2)
• Clear project, in Settings: remove any of samples, patterns, screen images, and settings
  with the name from the current project, and keep the rest. Settings can only go with
  samples and patterns (the device's Init "All" takes all three, and the screen images
  too, so those are put back unless they were ticked). Typing the project's number
  confirms it. (#3)
• The app follows the unit: hit a pad there and the grid moves to its bank and selects it,
  and the pad lights while it sounds. It works the other way too: select a pad in the app
  and the unit selects it, and choosing a bank selects its first pad on both, as the unit
  does, so the grid and the pad editor always show the same bank. (#5)

Changed

• A new app icon, the Faceplate: a sampler's top panel with four knobs, a round display
  and effect buttons, drawn for SparkyMK2 by diamond-one, with its own drawings for the
  smallest sizes. (#1)
• Preview on the Samples tab plays the pad from its start to its end rather than for at
  most four seconds, turns into a Stop button while it plays, and runs a playhead across
  the waveform. (#5)
• Big folders open at once: the names show first and the file sizes follow in the
  background. An 832-file folder used to look like it never finished listing, because each
  size is asked for separately and every ask searches the whole folder. (#5)
• Deleting a folder on the SD card in the Files tab takes everything inside it along,
  instead of refusing unless it is empty, with a progress bar while it goes. Folders in the
  device's own storage, which holds the projects, still have to be emptied first. (#7)

Fixed

• Project names stick. The SP-404MKII renames whichever project is current, whatever
  project the rename names, and a name typed in Settings was saved as the project menu
  closed, so picking the next project quickly could hand it the name meant for the last
  one. Switching projects now waits for that save. Renaming a project that is not current
  (as sp404 rename-project allowed), an empty slot, or one saved by older firmware is
  refused with the reason: the device keeps a name only in a project's PADCONF.BIN, and
  those have none, so the name was shown and then lost. (#2)
• The Files tab and the Import browser read their folder again whenever saving finishes,
  whether it worked or not, and whenever the Files tab is opened or the top bar's reload
  button is pressed. Files deleted, imported or exported no longer linger in the list until
  it is refreshed by hand, and a delete that fails halfway shows what it left. (#6)
• Unplugging the device while connected goes back to the connect screen with one message,
  instead of a Broken pipe toast for each action and a restart to recover, and the app
  connects again by itself once the device is plugged back in. (#5)
• Files dropped on a pad from Finder on a Retina screen land on that pad; the drop
  position was halved, sending pad 11 to pad 2. (#5)
• The Mac's own files on a card (._* twins, .DS_Store, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes,
  .fseventsd) no longer show in the Files tab or the Import browser, and are left out of
  folders saved to the computer. (#5)
• On macOS the device is listed once, on its cu.* port, rather than twice. (#5)

SparkyMK2 v0.5.0

Added

• Export pads as WAV files: one pad, a whole bank, or the whole project, to the SD card
  (in IMPORT, where the device's own IMPORT finds them) or to a folder on the computer.
  Each sound is named after its pad (C05 Kick.wav), so a folder sorts in pad order, and
  a bank or project goes into a folder of its own, named after it and the time.
• Restore such an export and every sound goes back on its own pad, gaps and all, with its
  settings: start, end, loop top, chop points, level, pitch, envelope and the rest travel
  in a sparkymk2.json beside the WAVs. Restore from the card in the Import browser, or
  from the computer with Restore…. It can land in another project, which makes it a
  way to copy a bank across.
• Dropping several files that all start with a pad (C05 …) onto the pads puts each on
  its own pad, instead of filling the pads in a row. One file still goes where it lands.
• The Import browser takes the keyboard: click a sound, then the arrow keys walk the
  list and each sound plays as it is reached. Enter or → opens a folder, Backspace or ←
  goes back up to the folder just left, Space replays, Home and End jump to either end.
• Sounds already heard play again at once instead of being read over USB a second time,
  and holding an arrow key skips ahead without fetching every sound it passes.
• The Files tab browses the same way: a click on a sound plays it, and the arrow keys,
  Enter, Backspace, Space, Home and End work as they do in the Import browser.
• Settings → App → Preload sounds when a folder opens: every sound in a folder is
  fetched as it opens, so browsing it plays each one at once. Off by default, since it
  keeps the device busy for longer. The folder is usable while it loads, and a sound
  clicked meanwhile waits behind one file, not the whole folder.
• A macOS build: each release now carries an Apple Silicon .dmg alongside the Linux and
  Windows downloads. It is unsigned, so macOS quarantines it on first open; the README
  says how to get past that. Untested on a Mac so far.

SparkyMK2 v0.4.2

Added

• Screens tab: a Move tool frames a loaded image. Drag it around, scroll to zoom, and
  everything outside the 128 × 64 screen is cropped off, so a detail of a much larger
  picture can be used. Recentre puts it back.

SparkyMK2 v0.4.1

0.4.0 was tagged but never released, so everything below ships for the first time here.

Added

• Files tab: browse both of the device's filesystems over USB and move files either way —
  its own storage (projects, samples, the factory library) and the SD card (IMPORT,
  EXPORT, BKUP). Copy folders on or off, rename, delete, make folders. Transfers show
  progress, and files can be dragged in from the file manager.
• Audio copied into the card's IMPORT folder appears in the SP-404MKII's own IMPORT
  browser, so sample packs can be loaded without taking the card out.
• Samples tab: the Import panel folds away, and holds a browser of the card's sounds.
  Drag one onto a pad to import it straight from the card, with no round trip through the
  computer's disk.
• Preview any sound on the device, in the Files tab or the Import browser: audio files on
  the card and the device's own .SMP samples alike. The protocol can only preview a
  pad, so these play through the computer's speakers.
• sp404 put, rm, mv, mkdir and rmdir do the same from the command line. Paths
  prefixed SD: address the card; plain paths address the device's own storage.
• The file API turns out to serve two filesystems, not one: /SP404REMOTE// is the
  device's own storage and / is the SD card. Its mkdir, rmdir and rename
  operations, previously guesses, are decoded. All of it is in
  docs/re/01-transport.md.

Fixed

• Leaving a menu on the device now re-reads its state. Edits made on the SP-404MKII
  itself happen behind that menu and are not announced, so the app could sit on a stale
  view until something else made it reload.
• Listing a directory on the SD card no longer fails at the end: the card closes its own
  directory handle once the listing runs out and then refuses closedir.
• Dragging a pad, a sound, a waveform marker or the pixels of a display image no longer
  drags a text selection along with it.
• Deleting a pad's sample said it erased the sample "from the pad and the SD card". It
  only ever removed the copy the project keeps in the device's own storage; nothing on
  the SD card was touched. The same stale wording was in the Files tab's delete
  confirmation and in several command-line help strings.

SparkyMK2 v0.3.0

Added

• Screens tab: edit a project's startup animation and screen saver, and write them to the
  device. Load a PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP or BMP and convert it with a choice of dithering,
  threshold, brightness and contrast, or draw the 128 × 64 pixels by hand. The image each
  slot held before the app first changed it is kept, so it can be put back.
• sp404 screens, sp404 export-screen and sp404 import-screen do the same from the
  command line.

SparkyMK2 v0.2.0

Added

• Windows installers (.exe and .msi), built for each release alongside the Linux
  packages. Untested on Windows hardware so far.

SparkyMK2 v0.1.1

Fixed

• Samples tab: the Trigger checkboxes and the Chromatic menu now line up with the rows
  above them, at any window size.

Changed

• The README says the project is vibe coded, and points at docs/re/ for anyone who
  would rather reimplement it by hand.
• Releasing pushes the tag on its own, so the build actually starts.