diff --git a/News.php b/News.php
index 641d542..4ff2be3 100644
--- a/News.php
+++ b/News.php
@@ -8,6 +8,394 @@ include_once("includes/header.php");
THIS IS A FAKE PAGE, KXSTUDIO NEWS USES A DYNAMIC MODULE NOW
+
+ > Carla 2.2 RC1 is here!
+ On 2020-07-16 by falkTX
+
+
+ Hello again everyone, it is release day! (casually late again, but only 1 day late this time, yay progress!)
+
+
+ This is the announcement of the first release candidate of Carla 2.2.
+ As done with 2.1, there is no beta release for v2.2 and we are going straight into a release candidate.
+
+
+ There are not many graphical changes, but many under the hood.
+ One very important note for developers is that the "native" API to access carla as plugin (as used by LMMS)
+ is still ABI and API-wise backwards compatible with 2.0, but ABI and API of Carla as a library is not.
+ All the host functions now have a "handle" prefix, so they can be reused for standalone, plugin and other variants.
+
+
+ With that said, let's go through what's new, first the bigger changes and small stuff for last.
+
+
+
+linux vst3 plugin support
+
+patchbay positions
+Add 2x and 4x zoom save image actions, compress output
+Add action to copy canvas as image to clipboard
+
+Set correct Carla-VST UI size based on scale factor
+Fully Scalable UI Part 1 (leds, what else?
+Fixup icons
+
+Make pixmapkeyboard right-click menu a bit better
+Fix creation of a rack when one of the parameters is a NaN
+Some attention to inline display ?
+
+Use newlocale methods in CarlaScopedLocale to be thread-safe
+Ignore errors from non-native vst3 files
+Force discovery to be in "C" (english) so we can parse errors
+Fix for vst2 plugins that crash on init
+Check for updated program names during audioMasterUpdateDisplay
+Change the way plugins are deleted, ensure they are not being used
+
+Add --cnprefix arg, for client name prefix; Set it also when needed
+
+New internal CLI arg "--osc-gui="
+Add script used to test carla-plugin as standalone
+Add script to test carla-osc usage locally
+Start checking python code with pylint, adjust some already
+
+Implement NSM :optional-gui:
+libjack: Implement client name uuid stuff, port search requests, integrate with nsm optional-gui, fix under clang and maybe other systems
+
+Allow all MIDI options in jack-apps
+Make add-jack interposer work for builds without X11
+
+haiku working build, but no audio yet
+
+Better handle case of JACK server stop (or killed)
+Add API to know current project folder
+Better handle lv2 map/make path, now based on project dir
+
+
+More work for LV2 state path, symlinks and move/copy when needed
+Check for state:threadSafeRestore on lv2 plugins; More debug paths
+ Allow to set custom prefix for jack clients, use it under NSM
+
+
+Allow to change plugin window title dynamically
+
+Fix modguis for carla host changes and new tornado
+
+sfzero: fix crash on multi-line c-style comments
+
+Fix SFZ rescan adding all files again each time
+
+
+
+Raise limit of plugins that can be loaded (512 default, 64 in rack)
+
+Tweaks to loading external patchbay data into internal one
+
+
+carla-plugin: Only export exactly the symbols that we need
+
+Add a few more details to lv2 plugin version, passes lv2lint
+
+
+Fix SF2 default polyphony
+
+Add a 12400x9600 canvas size
+
+
+Keep current edit-dialog tab state while reloading parameters
+
+
+Always use maximum amount of channels for VST2 plugins
+
+
+Show current mapped type+value directly together with parameter
+
+
+Initial implementation of MIDI learn (per plugin, not global)
+
+
+Implement MIDI CC and CV source parameter changes for bridges
+
+
+Increase lfo max value, so we can get real slow
+
+
+Add desktop files with hidden status for all carla variants
+
+Show canvas tab in jack-single or multi modes under NSM
+
+Remove X-NSM-capable from main carla desktop file, forcing variants
+
+carla-jack-multi should always show canvas
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+High-DPI support (work in progress)
+
+ Initial work was done to support high-DPI screens.
+ Note that this was not tested very extensively, due to lack of proper hardware, but the requirements in terms of code are all there.
+ There are still a few "normal" resolution bitmaps in use, to be replaced in future releases.
+ You can click on the screenshot on the left to see Carla rendered at 3x the resolution.
+
+ So for now, the situation is:
+
+
+ - Most of the icons changed to scalable format
+ - UI will scale with the desktop automatically, as Qt takes care of that for us
+ - Some bitmaps still remain, to be replaced by vector images in a future release
+ - Not extensively tested, feedback is welcome
+
+ |
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+Better CV Support
+
+ CV ports are now supported in the internal patchbay mode, meaning you do not need to use JACK with Carla in order to use CV plugins.
+
+
+ Automable parameters can now be exposed as a CV port, so they can be controlled by regular CV sources or other plugins.
+ This is a kinda feature preview, as there are some limitations at the moment:
+
+
+ - Parameter changes are not sample accurate
(in a later version, Carla will split buffer up to 32 frames for more fine-grained control changes)
+ - Not all plugin formats and parameter types are allowed to be controlled this way
(to be extended as I test more compatibility)
+ - Only available for parameter inputs, not outputs
+
+
+ In order to make CV more useful by default, a new internal "MIDI to CV" plugin was added, originally created by Bram Giesen.
+ More plugins will be added as needed, for now I recommend to use
+ ams-lv2
+ and
+ mod-cv-plugins
+ as they already do a lot.
+
+
+ Also, a new variant of Carla as plugin was created that provides audio, MIDI and 5 CV ports (for each side).
+ This allows CV signals to flow in and out of Carla as a plugin.
+
+ |
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+Proper theme and Carla-Control for Windows
+
+ The Windows build stack changed from using official Python and PyQt5 packages to msys ones, allowing us to link against them using mingw (Carla does not support MSVC)
+ This makes it possible to use the proper "pro" theme like Linux and macOS already did, and also get Carla-Control finally working on Windows.
+
+
+ Previously, the Carla Windows builds were using Qt's "fusion" theme (which the Carla "pro" theme is based on), which looks very similar but misses all of custom tweaks made for Carla.
+ This includes, for example, preventing pop-up menus from taking the entire screen or ugly thick lines being drawn where a small one was expected.
+
+
+ A small but important step towards cross-platform feature parity. \o/
+
+ |
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+VST2 plugin for macOS and Windows, plus exposed parameters
+
+ This is the final item that was missing for cross-platform feature parity.
+ We now have Carla as VST2 plugin running on both macOS and Windows!
+
+
+ Embedding of the full GUI on these systems is not possible, so a small "middleware" window is shown as the plugin custom UI.
+ Not the best experience, but allows Carla to finally work as VST2.
+
+
+ Additionally, 100 parameters are exposed to the host, dynamically used in the order of the plugins loaded.
+ So for example, if the first plugin in the rack has 20 parameters, the first 20 parameters of carla-vst will be mapped to that plugin.
+ This continues in order for the remaining plugin parameters until we reach 100 of them.
+
+
+ When Carla is loaded as an internal plugin, parameters will be dynamically available too.
+ This feature is not available in the LV2 version of Carla though, at least not yet.
+
+
+ Note: Carla plugins are not "notarized" yet, so they will not run under latest macOS 10.15/Catalina where this is a requirement.
+
+ |
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+Wine-native bridge, sorta experimental
+
+ This is a way to load Linux binaries under Windows applications running with Wine, in case you need that for some reason
+ Personally I made it so that I could run the native Carla inside FL Studio, which allows me to use its sequencer but not have to deal with Windows plugins.
+
+
+ This is available in the KXStudio repositories as "carla-vst-wine" package, you need to copy /usr/lib/winvst/Carla* into your Wine VST dll folder to make it work.
+ It requires Carla to be installed system-wide, so it cannot work if Carla is downloaded manually.
+
+
+ Building it is kinda tricky, as it requires building a native-windows dll first, and then a few things with winegcc...
+ Packager documentation will be added soon to Carla's source code repository, so other Linux distributions can pick it up.
+
+
+ I demoed this feature at Sonoj last year (2019), you can watch it as the 3rd part of this video.
+
+ |
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+Refreshed add-plugin dialog and favorite plugins
+
+ The add-plugin dialog had a major overhaul, now looking much better and with more content visible at once.
+ Target was to improve the user experience, making clear that there are filters available. (it was not so obvious in previous versions)
+
+
+ The star on the most-left section of the table is to mark a plugin as a favorite, which will add it as a shortcut to the right-click menus on empty rack and patchbay areas.
+
+ |
+
+
+
+ 
+
+ |
+Single-page and grouped plugin parameters
+
+ The dialog for the generic plugin parameter view also had an update.
+ All parameters are now placed in the same tab (separated only by input and output types), and grouped when supported by the plugin.
+ The options for mapping a parameter to a MIDI CC were taken out and replaced by a button that triggers a menu with the relevant options.
+
+
+ Note that, at the moment, only a few LV2 plugins support parameter groups.
+ This is because most hosts do not support this feature, so plugins do not have many incentives to support such a thing.
+ And with not a lot of plugins supporting it, hosts also do not care that much. The usual circular dependency deal...
+ But since the feature applies quite nicely to Carla, made sense to add it.
+
+
+ The group can be collapsed by clicking on it.
+
+
+ A similar feature will be added to the patchbay in a later release, so we can group audio ports too. :)
+
+ |
+
+More UI changes
+
+ The rack items will dynamically show as many knobs as possible
+ You can now change the "skin" and color of any rack item, making it easy to identify certain plugins
+ Added buffer-size, sample-rate and xrun information to the status; clicking on the xrun counter will reset it to zero
+
+
+Canvas changes
+
+ Right-clicking on a canvas group will show options for quickly connecting all ports to another group
+ Many small tweaks and fixes, plus a few extra actions, as contributed by Nikita Zlobin (to be documented on the user manual)
+ Support for Ardour-style inline-displays, marked experimental in this release (sadly cannot be made stable until Carla v3.0)
+
+
+Carla-control and OSC rework
+
+ Carla's OSC support has been reworked, now has its own dedicated page in the settings.
+ Carla-Control has been extended to support all non-local-dependent features of the main Carla (like patchbay management and transport controls).
+ This will be extended even further in future releases.
+
+
+AU and VST3 support is back, by leveraging JUCE
+
+ Disabled during a previous 2.0 beta release, support for the JUCE library was removed and replaced by a heavily stripped-down version of it. (while it was still GPlv2 licensed)
+ The reasons for that decision still remain relevant, but in order to keep in mind with Carla's goals, I decided to add back JUCE support - but now completely optional.
+ It will always be possible to build Carla without JUCE, it is only used for extra hardware and plugin format support.
+ In fact, Linux builds by default do not use it, as there is no need for it.
+
+
+ Anyway, the published macOS and Windows Carla builds do use JUCE, which means Carla supports VST3 under macOS and Windows, and AU under macOS.
+ As a bonus, it is now possible to show the custom control panel of ASIO devices. :)
+
+
+ Worth noting is that JUCE does not support VST3 under Linux at this point, so neither does Carla even if you build it yourself with JUCE enabled.
+
+
+Other changes
+
+ Within a bunch of small fixes and new implementations, here are some changes that deserve to be mentioned:
+
+
+ - Carla now requires Qt5, can no longer work with Qt4; but can still use LV2 Qt4 UIs with its built-in bridges
+ - NSM is now supported for JACK applications
+ - Added a 16 MIDI port mode for JACK applications
+ - Added "Cancelable actions" during project and plugin bridges load, so they will no longer time-out; instead the user has the option to cancel them at anytime
+ - Initial support for LV2 parameter API
+ - Initial support for LV2 file paths, assuming plugin has no custom UI (click on the show-gui button to open a file dialog)
+
+
+Notes for developers and packagers
+
+ - Linking against the JACK library directly is now possible by using `make JACKBRIDGE_DIRECT=true`, which allows for building Carla as an internal client
+
+
+Notes for users
+
+ The code for scanning plugins had a little rework, again, making some internal data structures change.
+ Because of this, a full rescan of your plugins is needed after the update.
+
+
+Downloads
+
+ To download Carla binaries or source code, jump on over to the KXStudio downloads section.
+ If you're using the KXStudio repositories, you can simply install "carla-git" (plus "carla-lv2" and "carla-vst" if you're so inclined).
+ Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! Jump on over to the Carla's Github project page for those.
+
+
+Future and final notes
+
+ I have started a change of the Carla's frontend coding language, from Python to C++ (for performance, reliability and debugging reasons).
+ There are a few canvas related things, currently experimental, that can never be made stable or fast due to how Python/PyQt works.
+ Also Carla is not scaling very well at the moment, and the addition of CV controlled parameters and inline-displays does not help its case.
+ So a move of the entire frontend to C++ makes quite a lot of sense.
+ Whenever this is finished a new release will be made.
+ But it is going to be something that, even though means a lot behind the scenes, visibly nothing will change. (except performance)
+ Because of this, do not expect many UI related changes in Carla for the time being.
+
+
+ A user manual for Carla has been started.
+ It proved to be quite helpful for development too, as I had to justify why things are the way they are, and explain how they work too.
+ Now that Carla UI should not change too much for a while, it is the right time for such thing.
+ I personally dislike writing such things, but understand it can be quite useful.
+ The work-in-progress manual is at https://kx.studio/Documentation:Manual:Carla.
+ (Not much to see there at the moment though, give me time)
+
+
+ That's it.
+ Please remember that this is a release candidate, and not the final release.
+ Some issues are expected, I will do my best to fix all reports that get to me.
+ If I don't know about the issues though, I can't fix them. So please report any issues you find, thanks!
+
+
+
+
> A DISTRHO-Ports update
On 2020-07-15 by falkTX