Obi Changelog

What's new in Obi 4.5 (4.4.8 Build 29978) RC

Jan 9, 2020

Detail on New Features and Enhancements of Obi 4.5:
Obi presents new and enhanced audio processing functionality, which enables the users to increase/decrease the volume, fade in, fade out, or normalize audio. It can be accessed from the submenu of Tools->Audio Processing. The old audio processing features have also been merged in the new audio processing functionality.
Many thanks to BrailleNet, France for updating the French language pack.
Introduced comments for Todo phrases to facilitate editing—You can now insert a comment for a Todo phrase specifying the reason for marking it as Todo or giving some cues to the editor. Todo comment can be placed using the submenu of Phrases->Todo Comment or by using the context menu. If the selected phrase is not Todo, Obi will first mark it Todo and then add the comment.
Ability to mark Todo on exact time position in a phrase—Obi enables you to mark Todo on the exact time position in a phrase. This speeds up the process of editing, as the editor will not have to go through the entire contents of the phrase to look for the position where editing has to be performed. This feature is especially useful for long phrases.
Peak meter can now be shown in main Obi window—This release presents the option to display peak meter inside the main Obi window, so that users can work with the full view of Content view. Found on the right of the TOC view, it can be shown by clicking Show peak meter inside Obi in the View menu.
Option to start or stop recording using single key shortcuts in TOC view—Single key shortcuts make working in Obi very easy for new users. You can now use the single key shortcuts R and T, for starting and stopping recording respectively. Check the check box Start and stop recording using single key shortcuts from the TOC view via Additional audio settings in audio preferences.
Separate preference for giving warning before deleting a section—To make section manipulation more efficient, this release includes a warning message for the delete operation. It can be turned on by checking the check box Warn before deleting section in project preferences.
Some of the Major Bugs that have been Fixed and Behaviour Changes made in the 4.5 release:
Added option to cancel recording in the information dialog that is shown when the recording is started by selecting a section in the TOC View.
The Peak Meter inside main Obi window is switched on in all Vision Australia profiles.
To avoid performance issues in the user interface, the mouse wheel scrolling of the Content View is restricted to scrolling limited number of screens at a time.
The comboboxes of the Quick Configuration dialog are now non-editable to prevent invalid input from the user.

New in Obi 4.3 (4.3.0 Build 26468) (Jan 9, 2020)

Obi 4.3 was an incremental release bringing usability enhancements and improvements requested by DAISY members.
Detail on New Features and Enhancements of Obi 4.3:
Introduction of a dialog for quick configuration of Obi when it is started the first time—This release introduces a convenient way of configuring the basic settings in Obi such as input device name, output device name, and profiles, via the Configurations dialog. which appears when you first start Obi after installation. You can modify these settings any time later by using the Preferences dialog.
Facility to restrict unintended modification of structure while narration—You can disable the modification of the structure of your project by checking the check box Switch to read only structure via the Project tab of the Preferences dialog. This feature is very useful for preventing unintended modification of structure while recording.
Updated language pack for French—Many thanks to European Digital Reading Lab for consistently updating the French translation.
Choice of removing accents from the filenames during DAISY 2.02 export—Obi can now normalize accents during the production of books in languages that contain accents. If you choose to append section names to audio file names for non-English books, the file names may contain some characters that may create issues in accessing them. This feature normalizes the accents in file names to curb such issues. The Audio tab of the Preferences dialog provides the check box Remove accents from filenames during DAISY 2.02 export to activate or deactivate this functionality.
Project and audio preferences made more manageable by segregation—Obi now classifies a few project and audio settings as additional settings, if they are not used frequently by users. You can access these settings by using the Additional Project settings and Additional Audio Settings button in the Project and Audio tabs of the Preferences dialog respectively.
New keyboard shortcut for pasting multiple phrases—You can now conveniently paste multiple phrases by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Z.
Some of the Major Bugs that have been Fixed and Behaviour Changes made in the 4.3 release:
In the TOC view, the copy command copied full name of the section even when a part of the section name was selected.
When a new section was created and multiple phrases were copied and pasted (using multiple phrase operations), the undo command could not remove all the copied phrases in one go.
Removing the headphones/earphones while navigating Content View in Play on navigate mode resulted in the null reference crash.
Replaced the Preserve Zoom checkbox in Zoomed Waveform view with a button to prevent the checkbox from altering the space bar behaviour, which is supposed to start and pause the playback.
One was not able to paste a set of phrases multiple times by giving consecutive paste multiple phrases commands.
Added a message to inform that skippable structures are not exported to DAISY 2.02 file set.
TODO mark position in a phrase is now preserved in an Obi session. The caveat is that currently it is not saved when Obi is restarted or project is opened again.
User registration dialog now needs explicit authorization of the user for sharing the personal data with Obi team.
Known Limitations of Obi 4.3
There are some limitations in this release which the team is working consciously towards resolving:
Pipeline-lite does not work with non western characters in file path—Pipeline-lite is not able to operate if there are non western characters in path of the file. It is recommended to keep non western characters away from the file paths on which Pipeline-lite needs to work. This means that the DAISY 3 export folder and the DAISY 2.02 export folder should be placed at a location where there are no non western characters in its path. This only affects validation, mp3 encoding and fileset renaming process and does not hinder normal operations of book authoring.
EPUB 3 export & import does not support skippable structures yet—The skippable structures like footnotes, sidebars, notes etc. are yet not supported by EPUB 3 export & import. The support will be added as the EPUB 3 navigable audio-only guidelines will progress.
Error messages are not so user friendly—Error messages in message boxes when some invalid operation is done, give information. But these messages are not so user friendly, especially the exception messages. These will be replaced with more user friendly text in future.

New in Obi 4.2 (4.2.0 Build 24402) (Aug 30, 2018)

New in Obi 4.2 (4.1.7 Build 34233) Beta (Jul 10, 2018)

New in Obi 4.1 Build 35898 (Dec 15, 2017)

Audio import enhanced to import audio files in existing structure of sections:
The Import Audio Files dialog has been enhanced to enable placement of imported audio files in the project in the following different ways:
Import audio files in selected section (existing behaviour): All the files will be imported in the selected section.
Import audio files in each section (new): The files will be imported one in each section starting from the current section. This feature enables you to place the files in the existing contiguous sections.
Create a new section for each audio file (same as before): Creates a new section for each audio file after the selected section.
Conveniently know the duration of audio content in a set of phrases:
Obi lets you calculate the duration of audio content in a set of contiguous phrases of your project. Simply place the Begin Mark on the first phrase to be included in the set and End Mark on the last phrase to be included. You will be presented with the Multi-phrase operations dialog. Choose Time Elapsed and press OK. Obi will calculate the total duration of audio content in the selected set of phrases and display it in a dialog. If the Begin Mark and End Mark is applied on waveforms of phrases, then the time between the cursors will be consider for the calculations.
UI of the Preferences dialog redesigned:
The user interface of Preferences dialog has been redesigned to present a better view of the configurations and personalization; the functionality and features remain the same though.
Updated language packs for French and German:
Many thanks to the following organizations and individuals for the translations -
European Digital Reading Lab for French
Hermann Dremel (atz) for German
Multi-section operation dialog now indicates sections with no audio:
The Sections List field of Multi-section Operations dialog now augments the names of sections having no audio content with the string “(no audio)” to enable the users identify empty sections at a glance. Earlier this kind of functionality was only available in TOC view after enabling option of Highlight empty sections in TOC view.
Audio processing and Renumber selected pages can now be applied to multiple phrases across sections:
You can now execute Audio processing and Renumber pages commands on a set of selected phrases spanning multiple sections. Multi-phrase operations enable you to place Begin mark and End mark on the phrases of different sections for enabling this functionality.
Option to disable message box asking to move to another section:
When a command like Go to Page results in moving the focus to a phrase of another section, Obi displays a message box alerting the user that the respective section will be brought in the Content view. This message box can be disabled or enabled via the check box Do not show message box while moving to phrase in another section in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.

New in Obi 4.0 Build 4.0.0.41698 (Sep 1, 2017)

New in Obi 4.0 Beta (Build 3.9.7.18998) (Jul 13, 2017)

New features:
In EPUB 3 export, added an option to generate media overlays for navigation document, which will enable playback of section headings while navigating table of contents in the player; the behavior similar to DAISY TOC playback.
Multi-section operations dialog now shows the list of pages contained in a section along with the name and level of the section, for quick inspection of the project structure.
To keep pace with new technology, Obi is up graded to .net framework 4.0, which is based on the latest CLR (4.0). Support for Windows XP is also deprecated from version 4.0 alpha.
Enhanced Automated page generation, the feature added in alpha release to create pages automatically at time interval specified by the user. The beta version provides a new checkbox Create Pages at the end of the section only that creates a single page phrase per section at the end.
Provided option to import old NCC files with Windows 1252 encoding to prevent distortion of characters. It can be activated from Project tab of Preferences dialog.
Added option to auto play the recorded phrase when the recording stops. It can be activated from Audio tab of Preferences dialog.
Added option for merging first two phrases after on-the-fly phrase detection. It can be activated from Audio tab of Preferences dialog.
Added predefined keyboard shortcuts profile for Vision Australia. It can be applied from Advance tab of Preferences dialog.
Major bug fixes and behavior changes:
If a part of waveform of a phrase was selected and the playback of some other phrase was being executed, use of the shortcut shift+v resulted in an exception.
If there was an empty phrase in the section before the selected phrase, the Elapse in section timer of transport bar showed incorrect time in stop state.
If the system was set to the languages that use ',' instead of'.' for decimals, the time in DAISY 2.02 export used to get corrupted when the total duration of the book exceeded 24 hours.
Sometimes the audio cursor kept on moving in a single phrase even when the playback reached the subsequent phrases.
Sometimes, the Auto Generate pages feature used to start creating pages from some other section than one specified in the Starting Index combo box.
If selected phrase was different from playback phrase, elapse back command misbehaved while moving to the previous phrase.
Backup file is now created every 2 hours even if the user has not activated the auto-save option in Project Preferences dialog.
Improved the performance of Auto Generate pages feature.

New in Obi 4.0 Alpha (Build 3.9.4.31244) (May 8, 2017)

New in Obi 3.9.1.16756 (May 8, 2017)

Released on December 14, 2016
What's new:
Obi 3.9.1 is an incremental release for updating French, Spanish, Finnish and Portuguese language packs. You can switch the language via the User Profile tab of the Preferences dialog.
In addition, a new field is added to section properties for showing the list of page numbers in a section.
Obi comes with high performance version for 64 bit windows, in addition to existing 32 bit version for better utilization of capability of 64 bit operating systems. [Note: Java runtime 32 bit (version 7) will be required even for 64 bit Obi installer because Pipeline backend is still 32 bit]
Added option to improve efficiency for higher resolution screens. To enable it, you can check the check box "Enlarge phrases as per increase in screen resolution" in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
Introduced the capability to Rollback the last Cleanup operation. It can be activated from the submenu of Clean unreferenced audio under Tools menu.
Refined on-the-fly phrase detection, and added Option to skip auto-splitting of pages during the operation.
Implemented the capability to select the desired font for Obi's UI using the Color & Font tab of the Preferences dialog. The first phase enables selection of popular English fonts.
Waveform channel colors can now be personalized. the colors for channel mono, stereo channel 1 and stereo channel 2 can be changed from Color & Font tab of the Preferences dialog.
Added Option to warn before cutting, deleting, or renaming sections. It can be activated from the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
Added more information to the Properties dialogs for advance users. Phrase Properties Dialog shows the audio file name for the selected phrase and the Project Properties Dialog shows number of files managed by the project. It can be enabled from the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
The active audio profile is now shown in title bar.
Audio zoom for Content View can be preserved across obi sessions. It can be disable from the check box, Preserve audio zoom for Content View in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Audio zoom in Zoomed Waveform View can also be preserved for reapplying on the next view session. It can be disable from the check box, Preserve zoom in the Zoom Waveform View.
Added keyboard shortcut Ctrl+U to turn on/off Play on Navigate feature spontaneously.
Zoom waveform panel keyboard shortcuts for next phrase and previous phrase have been changed to Alt+Right Arrow and Alt+Left Arrow respectively to make them in sync with the transport bar keyboard shortcuts.
The Visibility of Small page phrases has been improved.
The width of TOC view can now be fixed for ensuring consistent visibility of book's structure irrespective of Obi window size. It can be enabled via the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
Transport Bar can now show cursor time in stop state also. It can be activated from the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
An option has been introduced to move the focus to the last phrase played. It can be activated from the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Option added to record from first empty phrase with Record Section command. It can be activated from the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
XHTML export enhanced: new list of metadata entries are inserted in the beginning of the exported XHTML file for facilitating narrators.
Major bug fixes and behavior changes:
If the background color of live recording waveform panel was changed, white patches were seen when a part of panel was selected and then deselected.
If Play on Navigate was active and next phrases were loaded in Zoomed Waveform View one after the other, the audio cursor failed to move to newly loaded phrases.
If a heading contained the letters "aud", and the project was exported with the option of append section names to audio file names, the letters "aud" were removed from the file names.
Audio profiles status in the title bar had inconsistent behavior.
If peak meter and TOC view were hidden, Zoomed Waveform View threw exception while navigating phrases.
If there were empty pages after the recording position, the recording command in VA-Overwrite profile selected the last empty page of section instead of selecting the last recorded phrase.
Setting system to some regional languages spoiled time in smil duration attribute due to representation of decimal with comma.
Live Recording waveform panel threw an Exception occasionally, when recording was stopped.
On changing language, the font was not reset to default.
The size of preferences dialog is now saved in Obi's settings file.
On some systems, rare glitches were observed in the recorded audio.
If zoomed Waveform View was invoked on an empty page, an exception was thrown.
If focus was moved to another phrase while recording, the green color of the phrase being recorded also moved to the selected phrase.
Obi's log file has been moved to the users settings directory from program files to prevent the problems related to permissions.
Setting system to some regional languages spoiled smil timings, due to the conventions of representing decimal with comma instead of dot.
The new check box to disable creation of new headings and pages while recording fail to work in some cases.
Even if a profile was deleted from profile list in the advance preferences, it was not deleted from the recording toolbar preferences.
If the Preview before Recording command was stopped during the preview (i.e. before recording was initiated), the recording could not start again.
If the user changed the path of XHTML export in the Export dialog, the location of the exported XHTML file did not change.

New in Obi 3.9.0.28610 (Oct 29, 2016)

NEW FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS:
High performance version for 64-bit systems:
This release presents separate set of installers for 64-bit systems, in addition to the existing 32 bit version, to enable Obi utilize the capabilities of the 64-bit Windows and improve the performance of the user interface.
Option to improve efficiency on higher resolution screens:
You can now increase the efficiency of Obi on large sized screen also; just enable the option Enlarge the phrases with the increase in resolution in Project tab of the Preferences dialog. It will preserve the orientation of phrases in Content View, and will improve the efficiency by preventing accumulation of large number of waveforms in the view.
Rollback the last Cleanup operation:
Obi now lets you rollback the last cleanup operation. Simply click Tools->Clean unreferenced audio->Rollback and reinstate the removed unreferenced audio back in the project. You can disable this functionality by checking the check box Disable rollback for cleanup in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
Enhancements to on-the-fly phrase detection:
New Obi brings further refinements to the on-the-fly phrase detection making it more robust and proficient. In addition, it comes with the choice of skipping the page phrases for phrase detection during live recording. To activate this option, check the checkbox Prevent on the fly phrase detection on pages in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
New Portuguese language pack added:
Obi now also comes in Portuguese! Many thanks to Vitor Ferreira for translations.
Change the font of Obi’s UI:
New Obi presents the first phase of font personalization for English language. You can select the desired font for Obi’s UI elements using the Color & Font tab of the Preferences dialog. This preliminary phase enables selection of a set of popular English fonts.
Waveform channel colors can now be personalized:
New Obi enables you to configure the colors of waveform channels (mono channel, stereo channel 1 and stereo channel 2) from the Color & Font tab of the Preferences dialog.
Option to warn the users before cutting, deleting, or renaming sections
You can instruct Obi to warn before performing section manipulation such as cut, delete or rename. This feature can be activated from the Project tab of the Preferences dialog.
More information added to phrase and project properties for advanced users:
The Phrase Properties and Project Properties dialogs can now show information for advanced users. To enable the advanced properties, check the check box Show advanced properties in properties dialog in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog. The advanced properties introduced in this release are:
Total file count in project properties that shows total number of audio files in the project.
File name in phrase properties that displays the name of the file(s) containing the audio content of the phrase.
Active audio profile now shown in title bar:
The title bar of Obi now also shows the audio profile currently loaded in Obi. It will appear after the project file path.
Ability to preserve audio zoom:
Obi now saves the current audio zoom level for Content View. Henceforth, the users do not have to configure the audio zoom level each time they start the application. To disable this behavior, uncheck the check box Preserve Audio Zoom for Content View in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Also, the current zoom level can be preserved in the Zoom Waveform View with a new check box, Preserve Zoom. If this check box is checked and you apply audio zoom to the waveform, it will be preserved and automatically re-applied when the view is opened again.
New/Modified keyboard shortcuts:
The following keyboard shortcuts have been added/modified:
The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+U has been added to turn off/on the Play on navigate option spontaneously.
Zoom Waveform View keyboard shortcuts for moving the focus to the next phrase and previous phrase have been changed to Alt+Right Arrow and Alt+Left Arrow respectively to make them in sync with the Transport Bar keyboard shortcuts.
Visibility of small page phrases improved:
A page phrase will now be of minimum 10 pixels in Obi. This is done to ensure the visibility of page phrase even when its length is very small, say 0.4s. In such a case, it can be hard to locate it. By having a minimum size of page phrase, its visibility is ensured.
Option to fix TOC View width:
You can now fix the width of TOC view to prevent its automatic or manual adjustments. It will ensure consistent visibility of book's structure irrespective of Obi's window size.
To do so, first set the TOC view to the desired width using mouse or by adjusting panel splitter. Thereafter, check the check box Fix TOC view width in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog. Once you fix the TOC view width, Obi will not allow its adjustments, unless you uncheck the check box again.
Option to display cursor time in Transport Bar in stop state:
The Time Display field of Transport Bar can now show the current cursor time in the stop state also. To enable this behavior, check the check box Show cursor time in Transport Bar in stop state in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog. If this check box is unchecked, Obi will display “0” in the stop state as earlier.
Please note that the cursor time in stop state is shown only for Elapsed in phrase and Elapsed in section values of Time Display.
Choice of moving the focus to the last phrase played in playback:
To facilitate new narrators in recording, Obi can now select the last phrase played in playback when playback stops. To enable this behavior, check the checkbox After playback, select the last phrase played in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Option to record from first empty phrase with Record Section command:
Obi presents the option to start recording from the first empty phrase of the section, which forces the Record Section command to record in the first empty phrase instead of recording at the end of the section. To activate this behavior check the check box Record in first empty phrase with record section command in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog. This feature is specific to the workflow of Vision Australia. It reduces errors when complete structure of the book is created before starting the recording process.
Enhancements to XHTML export:
The XHTML export now inserts some new metadata entries at the beginning of the exported XHTML file for facilitating the narrators. This feature is also specific to the workflow of Vision Australia.
You can find help on the functionality of these features in the “What’s New?” page of Obi Help, which can be viewed by clicking on the Contents menu item under Help menu of Obi.
To always get notified about the latest updates, please register yourself as an Obi user using the user registration form provided in Obi.
BUG FIXES AND BEHAVIOUR CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE:
If Play on Navigate was active and next phrases were loaded in Zoom Waveform panel one after the other, the audio cursor failed to move to newly loaded phrases.
If a heading contains the letters "aud", and the project was exported with the option of append section names to audio file names, the letters "aud" were removed from the file names.
Audio profiles status in the title bar had inconsistent behaviour.

New in Obi 3.8.0.23286 (Dec 15, 2015)

Obi 3.8 continues high focus on making Obi extremely customizable for the diverse requirements of the production centres of the members. It presents the capability to configure the recording and playback modes on the run, via the new buttons of Transport Bar and Recording Toolbar that empower the users to switch between audio profiles instantaneously. Also, it makes the process of creating the structure of book more efficient with the ability to fill missing pages between the non-consecutive pages by using a single command.
The release also increases the efficiency and robustness of Obi on network based deployment via the new features like the quick cleanup command and the option to record in local drive. Apart from these, it brings new preferences for adapting the features according to the requirements of the members. More details of these features along with numerous other enhancements and adaptations are listed below.
New features and enhancements:
Switch audio profile on the fly using Transport Bar and Recording Toolbar
Working with audio now becomes more efficient with quick access to the switch profile functionality via the new buttons of Transport Bar and Recording Toolbar. There is no need to go to the Preferences dialog to load an audio profile; you can simply click on these new buttons and switch profile on the run.
Cleanup operation made highly efficient on network based deployment
New Obi enables you to perform quick cleanup that removes unreferenced audio from only the files that were not cleaned earlier and thus reduces the overhead of going through the clean files. This improves the efficiency of the Clean unreferenced audio operation on the network based deployment to a great extent. But please note here that it may ignore minor changes done in the previously cleaned files.
The quick cleanup command can be found under Tools menu, and can be enabled or disabled via the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Deployment of Obi on the network made more robust with the option to record in the local drive
You can now instruct Obi to record the audio content on the local drive and transfer the data to the server when recording ends. This option makes recording more robust in the client server architecture. To turn on this option, check the check box Record in local drive in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog. The check box activates a text box and Browse button to provide the path of the directory where audio being recorded should be stored.
Fill missing pages with a single command:
The process of creation of book structure has been made more proficient with a new command to fill missing pages between the existing non-consecutive pages. Obi can now identify the gaps in the page numbers of the page phrases and create the missing ones with a single command. The submenu of Multi page/phrase operations under Phrases menu gives access to this functionality.
Users can take advantage of this feature while creating the structure of the book: create one page phrase at the beginning of each section and give this command to automatically create the intermediate empty pages.
Audio processing can now be performed on multiple phrases:
Obi enables you to select a range of phrases and perform audio processing on them. The submenu of Multi page/phrase operations under Phrases menu provides the commands for selecting contiguous phrases. Once the phrases are selected, Obi shows a dialog box to choose the operation you wish to perform. Select Audio processing radio button and you will be presented with the Audio Processing dialog to do the needful.
Enabled structure export to XHTML:
Now you can export the structure (sections and pages) of your project to an XHTML file. The Standard selection dialog of the export function (Ctrl+E) presents a new check box XHTML Structure to enable this functionality.
Determine current cursor or selection position from section properties and phrase properties
You can find out the position of audio cursor or selection in the section or in the phrase via the Section Properties dialog and the Phrase Properties dialog respectively. The position will be calculated in time with respect to the beginning of the project.
Enhancements to the Preview before recording command:
Preview before recording command now previews the last part of the previous phrase if the cursor is very close to the beginning of the current phrase.
Added a new option to highlight the phrase label of the phrase being previewed, which can be activated from the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
New options added in project preferences:
The following preferences have been introduced in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog:
Disable collapse of selected section in TOC view
Open Obi in maximized state
Use Vision Australia rules for XHTML export
New options added in Audio Preferences:
The following options have been introduced in the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog:
Enable quick cleanup (for network based deployment)
Disable creation of new headings and pages while recording
Highlight phrase label for preview before recording
Use Play button and Space key to play section
Enabled creation of empty pages and phrases from TOC view
Obi now lets you add empty phrases and pages from TOC view also. The phrases will be added at the end of the selected section.
Added new keyboard shortcuts for improving access through controller devices
The following new shortcuts have been introduced:
Place the blue cursor at the beginning of the selected phrase - Ctrl+Alt+Home
Place the blue cursor at the end of the selected phrase - Ctrl+Alt+End
Note regarding DTB Merger Application: DTB Merger will not be packaged with Obi from this version onwards, as Obi now has a fully functional in-built Merge Projects functionality.
You can find help on the functionality of these features in the “What’s New?” page of Obi Help, which can be viewed by clicking on the Contents menu item under Help menu of Obi.
To always get notified about the latest updates, please register yourself as an Obi user using the user registration form provided in Obi.
List of some major bug fixed & behaviour changes made in this release:
Import of the preferences profile with the same name as the default preferences was being allowed, which used to overwrite the default preferences, and resulted in unexpected behaviour.
Preview before recording failed to start when the pause position was at zero seconds.
Sometimes drag and drop of strip cursor moved the wrong strip cursor.
Sometimes the red preview indicator persisted even after the Preview before recording operation finished. It also triggered change in the selection behaviour.
Sometimes after recording with live phrase detection, a few phrases without waveform appeared.
If the project had consecutive pages, DAISY 2.02 export added wrong references to the corresponding txt elements in the smil files.
The cursor position was not restored when Preview before recording was undone.
The current profile status box in Advance tab of the Preferences dialog was not reporting the loading of Color preferences.
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made in Obi 3.8 beta release:
Split and record command failed to start recording if the cursor was at the beginning of the phrase at (0 seconds position).
If play on navigate was enabled and preview before recording command was given, the recording was delayed.
Use of audio editing commands like copy and paste in zoom waveform panel resulted in reset of audio zoom.
Even though the ensure single cursor option was enabled, the blue cursor failed to disappear when playback was started.
Audio cursor failed to follow the playback in a large phrase. It used to move out of the screen with the playback.
Increment & decrement levels of multiple sections could not be undone with single undo command in the Multiple-Sections Operations dialog.
The line breaks in heading names were not removed by the import operation.
Audio file export was not able to remove the special characters from file paths entered by the user.
Enabled recording from playing state if the "Allow overwrite" option is enabled.
Added option to disable mouse wheel scroll in the content view. it can be enabled from project preferences.

New in Obi 3.7.7.23750 Beta (Nov 3, 2015)

New features and enhancements in Obi 3.8 beta release:
Switch audio profile on the fly using Transport Bar and Recording Toolbar
Working with audio now becomes more efficient with quick access to the switch profile functionality via the new buttons of Transport Bar and Recording Toolbar. There is no need to go to the Preferences dialog to load an audio profile, you can simply click on these new buttons and switch profile on the run.
Fill missing pages with a single command
The process of creation of book structure has been made more proficient with a new command to fill missing pages between the existing non-consecutive pages. Obi can now identify the gaps in the page numbers of the page phrases and create the missing ones with a single command. The submenu of Multi page/phrase operations under Phrases menu gives access to this functionality.
Users can take advantage of this feature while creating the structure of the book: create one page phrase at the beginning of each section and give this command to automatically create the intermediate empty pages.
Deployment of Obi on the network made more robust with the option to record in the local drive
You can now instruct Obi to record the audio content on the local drive and transfer the data to the server when recording ends. This option makes recording more robust in the client server architecture. To turn on this option, check the check box Record in local drive in the Project tab of the Preferences dialog. The check box activates a text box and Browse button to provide the path of the directory where audio being recorded should be stored.
Enhancements added to the Preview before recording command:
Preview before recording command now previews the last part of the previous phrase if the cursor is very close to the beginning of the current phrase.
Added a new option to highlight the phrase label of the phrase being previewed, which can be activated from the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog.
Configure the Play button and its shortcut to play section
You can map the Play button and its corresponding keyboard shortcut to play the audio of section. To turn on this feature, check the check box Use Play button and Space key to play section in the Audio tab of the preferences dialog.
Audio processing can now be performed on multiple phrases
Obi enables you to select a range of phrases and perform audio processing on them. The submenu of Multi page/phrase operations under Phrases menu provides the commands for selecting contiguous phrases. Once the phrases are selected, Obi shows a dialog box to choose the operation you wish to perform. Select Audio processing radio button and you will be presented with the Audio Processing dialog to do the needful.
Enabled structure export to XHTML
Now you can export the structure (sections and pages) of your project to an XHTML file. The Standard selection dialog of the export function (Ctrl+E) presents a new check box XHTML Structure to enable this functionality.
Determine current cursor position from section properties and phrase properties
You can find out the position of audio cursor in the section or in the phrase via the Section Properties dialog and the Phrase Properties dialog respectively. The position will be calculated in time with respect to the beginning of the project.
Enabled creation of empty pages and phrases from TOC view
Obi now lets you add empty phrases and pages from TOC view also. The phrases will be added at the end of the selected section.
Added new keyboard shortcuts for improving access through controller devices
New keyboard shortcuts have been introduced to place blue cursor at the beginning of the selected phrase or at the end of the selected phrase. They are ctrl+alt+home and ctrl+alt+end respectively.
You can find help on the functionality of these features in the “What’s New?” page of Obi Help, which can be viewed by clicking on the Help contents menu item under Help menu of Obi.
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made in this release:
Split and record command failed to start recording if the cursor was at the beginning of the phrase at (0 seconds position).
If play on navigate was enabled and preview before recording command was given, the recording was delayed.
Use of audio editing commands like copy and paste in zoom waveform panel resulted in reset of audio zoom.
Even though the ensure single cursor option was enabled, the blue cursor failed to disappear when playback was started.
Audio cursor failed to follow the playback in a large phrase. It used to move out of the screen with the playback.
Increment & decrement levels of multiple sections could not be undone with single undo command in the Multiple-Sections Operations dialog.
The line breaks in heading names were not removed by the import operation.
Audio file export was not able to remove the special characters from file paths entered by the user.
Enabled recording from playing state if the "Allow overwrite" option is enabled.
Added option to disable mouse wheel scroll in the content view. it can be enabled from project preferences.

New in Obi 3.7.0.24166 (Nov 3, 2015)

New in Obi 3.3.4.35200 Alpha 2 (May 22, 2014)

This release introduces the highly demanded feature: EPUB 3 export. It empowers you to create navigable audio-only EPUB 3 books as well as convert your existing DAISY 3/2.02 books to the latest EPUB 3 standard.
This is the incremental test release for Obi 3.5 with EPUB 3 export as the main feature. The previous release, version 3.5 alpha 1, presented numerous configuration options for different requirements of worldwide membership of DAISY Consortium; such as, enhanced Transport bar giving smart access to various playing and previewing options, new additions to the Recording Options button, audio profiles for one-step configuration of audio preferences based on members’ requirements or skill level of the users, etc.
The next release of Obi will implement EPUB 3 import, which will enable you to use the existing EPUB 3 resources also.
New features and enhancements:
Obi can publish navigable audio-only EPUB 3 books
The export function of Obi has been extended to produce navigable audio-only books conforming to EPUB 3 specifications. It not only enables you to create a new book, but also update your existing collection of DAISY 3/2.02 books to EPUB 3 standard. The Export as DAISY/EPUB menu item under Tools menu gives access to this functionality.
Please note that the EPUB 3 publications produced by the current release support navigation among phrases, sections, and pages, in a way similar to the DAISY navigation.
After exporting, you can take advantage of EPUB 3 Validator to ensure that the exported book is valid as per EPUB 3 specifications. Obi’s EPUB 3 Validator uses IDPF’s EPUB Check Validator in the backend, and can be accessed by clicking Tools->EPUB 3 Validator on the menu.>
One-click configuration of audio preferences:
Now you can configure audio preferences to suit your requirements by simply selecting an audio profile. Audio profiles are either based on the proficiency of using Obi (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced), or based on the specific requirements requested by members (Profile1 and Profile2). When you select a profile from the Profile combo box in the audio preferences, a particular set of checkboxes get selected. You can view the description of the selected profile by clicking on the adjacent question mark (?).
Following is the brief introduction of the profiles:
Basic: This profile is best suited for new users; it turns on non-destructive recording mode.
Intermediate: This profile is suitable for advanced users; the Record button starts recording directly, and the Recording Options button gets activated giving access to advanced recording commands.
Advanced: This is also for advanced users who have powerful computers. It turns on the features like live waveform creation, merge first two phrases detected by post-recording phrase detection, etc., in addition to the features of Intermediate profile.
Profile 1: This profile is tailored for specific requirements, where the Record button is configured to record over subsequent phrases of the section along with some other configurations.
Profile 2: This is also a tailored profile, where the Record button previews before recording and overwrites the subsequent phrases of the section along with some other configurations.
Playback made more flexible and handy:
You can access the variants of Play and Preview commands by simply clicking on the Playing Options button of the Transport bar or pressing Ctrl+F7. This new button is placed next to the Play button and offers the following options:
Play All: Plays the entire audio content of the project.
Play Section: Plays the audio content of the current section.
Play Section Heading: Plays the contents of the heading phrase of the section.
Preview From: Plays a small portion of audio starting from the position of the audio cursor.
Preview Upto: Plays a small portion of audio up to the audio cursor.
Recording becomes even more powerful by readily available advanced recording options:
The Recording Options button (Ctrl+F8) of Transport bar has two more commands:
Monitor Continuously: Continually monitors the audio input when not recording.
Preview Before Recording: Plays a small portion of audio before recording.
Introduction of Step forward and Step back commands:
Obi introduces two new commands, Step Back and Step Forward, to move the audio cursor back and forth by a small amount of time in the section. These commands are listed in the Navigation submenu under the Transport menu. The single key shortcuts for executing these commands are:
Step Back: E
Step Forward: Y
Locate empty sections by just looking at TOC view:
Obi can now display empty sections in a different background color in TOC view, enabling users to locate them by just looking at them. To turn on this feature, check the checkbox Highlight empty sections in TOC view in project preferences.
Avoid confusion by enforcing single cursor:
You can instruct Obi to use a single cursor instead of two. In this case, whenever you click on any location, the red audio cursor will automatically be mapped to it. To activate this feature, check the checkbox Enforce single audio cursor in the audio preferences.
Capability of updating language pack:
Now you can update the latest language pack in Obi. The new menu item Update Language Pack under the Tools menu gives access to this functionality.
Choice of restricting the behavior of pressing Stop twice
The default behavior of executing the Stop command twice was to invoke the Select Nothing command. This used to result in deselecting the selection, which may confuse new users. Obi gives you an option to change this behavior by checking the checkbox Do not deselect on pressing Stop twice in the audio preferences.
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made in this release:
If the user activated the Monitor Continuously option from the Recording Options button, and then clicked Select Nothing on the Edit menu, the Recording Options button used to get disabled leaving the user with no option to deactivate it.
If the DAISY book being imported had newline characters in the section names, they were not rectified at the time of import and imported as is.
When phrase detection was automatically applied after recording, Obi used to select the first detected phrase instead of the last.
Structure import from XHTML file used to fail, if there was no anchor element (a) inside the heading element.
Structure import from XHTML file used to fail, if the ID attribute was missing from heading or span elements.
Audio cursor used to get stuck, when the user used to pause the Play All command and give the Play Section command.
The navigation buttons of the Transport bar, such as Next Phrase, previous Section, Next Page, etc., can now be used to navigate in the entire project when Transport bar is in the stopped state. Earlier the navigation was restricted to the play-list only.
Preview Before Recording provides the tape-like behavior of recording by deleting the subsequent audio content in the section.
The phrase being recorded is shown more distinctively for easy visual identification.

New in Obi 3.0.1.33298 (May 12, 2014)

Introduction of Zoomed Waveform view to exclusively work on waveforms:
Obi introduces a new view called Zoomed Waveform view. The main attraction of this view is rapid and enormous magnification of the waveform, which enables the users to perform quick and accurate editing. It is augmented with concise but exhaustive toolbars providing the commands for audio editing, navigation, and zoom.
Improved performance with the choice of displaying phrases without waveforms in Content view:
By default, Content view displays waveform for each phrase in the view, which consumes considerable amount of graphical resources. With new Obi, you can choose to hide the waveforms and reduce the response-time of the application. The Project preferences tab of the Preferences dialog contains a check box Show waveforms in Content view that lets you choose between both these modes. If you uncheck the check box, the waveforms will be hidden. To view the waveform of a phrase in this mode, simply press a single key Z or select Zoom Phrase from the context menu, and Obi will open the Zoomed Waveform view showing the waveform corresponding to the selected phrase.
Capability of merging multiple Obi projects:
You can merge multiple Obi projects (with same audio format) using new Obi. This feature empowers the users to segregate the work among several workstations, and then merge them back into a single project. The menu item Merge Project under File menu gives access to this functionality.
Phrase separator can be dragged to adjust the boundaries of the phrase:
Now you can fine-tune the boundaries of a phrase by dragging the phrase separator. This action will split the phrase at the point where you dropped the phrase separator, making it the new boundary of the phrase. The trailing portion of the waveform will then be merged with the respective adjacent phrase.
Ability to save metadata for use across projects:
Obi introduces the concept of default metadata. It enables you to save the metadata entries of the current project as default, and reuse them across the projects by simply importing the default metadata. This feature eliminates the need of re-typing the metadata entries for each project, thereby reducing the turnaround time. The commands for using this feature are presented by the More Options button next to the Update button in the Metadata view.
Smart access to recording options via a new button on Transport bar:
When you enable advanced recording mode, Obi activates the Recording Options button next to the Record button on the Transport bar. It provides the following recording options:
Start Monitoring: Start monitoring the audio input:
Record over subsequent phrases: Erase the audio subsequent to the current position in the section, and record in a new phrase next to it
Choice of mapping “Space” key to the stop recording command:
The default behavior of keyboard shortcut, “Space” is to pause the recording. With new Obi, users have an option of mapping it to the stop recording command instead. Check the check box Use Space key to stop recording in the audio preferences to activate this behavior.
Advanced options for files exported in MP3 format:
New Obi lets you set the advanced options (like resample, replay gain, etc.) for encoding the MP3 files during DAISY export. If you choose to encode the audio files in the Export dialog, the Advanced button gets activated. Click this button to open another dialog box enabling you to set these advanced options.
Enhancements to Import Audio Files dialog:
The Import Audio Files dialog enlists the parameters to parse the audio file names for creating sections and their contents. Now these parameters are preceded by a check box, which gives the users the flexibility to use a particular parameter for parsing or not. In addition, the parsing algorithm is enhanced, and also made more tolerant to slight variations of the format of audio file names, along with some other UI improvements for visibility of page phrases.
Option to remove indentation from exported files:
You can now choose to ignore indentation for the exported text files of DTB. Indented files are human readable, but consume more disk space. The files that are not indented, on the other hand, are smaller and are apt for online streaming. You can make your preference by checking or unchecking the check box Always ignore indentation for DAISY export files in the project preferences.
Renumbering pages made easy:
Now you can renumber all the pages subsequent to the current phrase by simply clicking the menu item Renumber following pages on the Phrases menu.
You can find help on functionality of these features by opening What’s new page in the help contents from the help menu bar of the application window of Obi.
To always get notified about the latest updates, please register yourself as an Obi user using the user registration form provided in Obi. Existing users are also requested to register again because the registration will now be preserved for future versions also, eliminating the need of registering again.
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made in this release:
When the UI language was set to Finnish, the Organization name text box in the user registration form overlapped the Email textbox
Tooltips in Zoomed Waveform view were not able to show long keyboard shortcuts
Tooltips in Transport bar were not being updated when keyboard shortcuts were changed in the preferences
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made:
When the command Record over subsequent phrases was invoked at the last phrase separator of the section, sometimes the Null reference message got displayed
If a section of newly merged project was selected, and undo was executed, the deleted section was still held in the selection
An exception was thrown if an empty phrase was created in the Zoomed Waveform view, and an audio file was imported with the option of applying phrase detection on it
The command Record over subsequent phrases was not able to delete the part of the selected phrase that was on the right side of split point
In Zoomed Waveform view, the waveform was reset to the default size when the command like cut audio was executed
Generate speech for all pages was not disabled while recording
Skippable element name was erroneously being removed from the assign role submenu when that skippable role was removed from all the phrases in the project
When overwrite with default metadata was used, a duplicate DC:Identifier was added to the project metadata
Undo failed to work on anchor role if the role was assigned from the Phrase menu - Assign role submenu
Option to auto save to backup when recording ends is removed from project preferences as it got redundant due to another preference - Save project when recording ends
List of some major bugs fixed & behaviour changes made in beta2 and beta1 release:
The audio cursor position in the Content view was not synchronized with the Zoom Waveform view when the view was closed during the playback
Sometimes the controls of Zoom Waveform view got mis-aligned on reducing the size of Obi window
Enable Advance Recording Mode button in audio preferences now also enables the check box Phrase detection while recording
Synthetic speech was not generated for special pages
Go to time in section operation selected the correct phrase, but failed to place the audio cursor in the contained audio.
Fast play was not able to preserve the pitch in the project with stereo channels.
If the order of files to be imported was changed by user in the import Audio Files dialog, it was not preserved while import, instead the files were imported in the default order.
The import algorithm of automated book production was not tolerant to the random postfixes used in audio file names that were imported.
Page phrases created by automated book production feature were quite thin, and thus difficult to locate.
Occasionally Method Parameter Empty String Exception was thrown on clicking on a phrase due to rounding off error.

New in Obi 2.0.0.21455 (Mar 20, 2012)

New features and enhancements of Obi 2.0:
Introducing DAISY 3 import along with structure import from DTBook.xml. The command New project from import is enhanced to import audio and structure from DAISY 3 book as well as structure only from DTBook.xml and XHTML file
To increase adaptability of Obi, users are provided with a flexibility to redefine keyboard shortcuts for various operations in Obi
A pop-up recording toolbar is introduced that will remain on screen even after minimizing Obi. It will facilitate the book narrator to read out the contents from scanned images while controlling recording at the same time
Advance recording mode is introduced to make the recording process more efficient and expeditious, which enables the features - Start recording from cursor erasing the following audio, Always record directly from transport bar and Allow overwrite option
The process of restoring project from backup has been automated
The merge section function has been enhanced to merge multiple contiguous sections
Users can now choose to fix the width of Content view or make it variable; fixing the width would result in minimal re-alignment even if the phrase exceeds the width of Content view, preserving the orientation to avoid disruption of workflow
The time display control of Transport bar presents new set of options to watch elapsed or remaining time
Export audio feature has been introduced that creates an external audio file from audio contained in a phrase or a section, enabling its external processing
The DAISY 3 export function has been enhanced to provide better performance and flexibility by the way of providing the users with a choice to have exported audio files in either WAV or MP3 format, eliminating the need of encoding the audio files to MP3 explicitly
DAISY 2.02 export now allows the users to export blank page phrases to a DTB, giving the flexibility to the publisher if the intended audience does not wish to hear the page numbers while listening the audio content of the book
DAISY3 permits a page phrase to be the first phrase of the section, whereas DAISY 2.02 does not. This release of Obi comes with a workaround for adjusting page phrases during export operation without requiring any user intervention
Enhanced Obi remembers the item last selected before closing the project. When the project is reopened, focus will be set on this bookmarked item
Users can now choose to retain the initial silence (present at the beginning of the phrase) as the first phrase of the set of phrases resulting from the process of phrase detection
Users can go to a location in audio content of an item using time
The duration of some of the audio operations is now modifiable
List of some major bug fixes in this release:
The command Clean unreferenced audio used to throw Open data provider stream exception
Occasionally, an Arithmetic overflow exception used to occur while stopping the Fast forward or Rewind operations
The command Normal speed with elapse back used to throw exception, when used after the Preview command
When the Merge sections operation was undone, the hierarchy of sections used to get lost
Altering the audio format (channel and sampling rate) in audio preferences used to have no effect on the audio format of the project
Selecting a portion of waveform of a phrase and pressing down arrow used to result in an exception
Performing Rewind when nothing was selected used to throw an exception sometimes
The command Merge preceding phrase used to delete all the phrases of the section, in case the first phrase of the section was a blank phrase
The Undo command used to make the Content view empty, if recording was started when nothing was selected
Play all could not be stopped, if it was executed after performing Rewind or Fast forward on an empty section
List of some major bugs fixed in Obi 2.0 Alpha & Beta releases:
Import audio files operation used to reverse the order of the resultant phrases with respect to imported audio files
Undo of a cut and paste operation on a portion of a waveform used to fail
After performing the Import audio files operation with "Create one section for each audio file" option checked, if user performed undo followed by a redo, a "Redo stack empty" message used to appear with termination of the redo operation
The undo operation rendered the Content view empty if it was performed after a split section command when all the phrases of the sections were empty
The process of opening a project in Obi 2.0 was slower as compared to that of Obi 1.2
Memory overload used to occur when the user pressed the Left and Right arrow keys very rapidly through more than 500 phrases in Content view
After using the Preview command on the selected audio, pressing Space resulted in playback of the entire phrase, instead of the playback of the audio selection
When the user used to press the Cancel button on the Phrase detection dialog, Obi used to take long time to terminate the process
If the user used to change the used status using the Section properties dialog, Obi used to alter the status of the section without affecting the used status of its phrases