For program version 0.5.0

1. Introduction

Tembro (which is Esperanto for musical "Timbre") is a virtual software instrument based on samples. All instruments are permanently built-in, there is no option to load your own files. New instruments are only added with new releases, old ones are never removed.

That makes Tembro reliable, predictable, portable and compatible. All projects and all users have the same "instrument" with the same instrument sounds, numbering system, midi controls… ; a solid basis for communication and collaboration.

2. Usage

  • Nothing

  • To

  • See

  • Here

3. Installation and Start

Tembro is exclusive for Linux. The best way to install is to use your package manager. If it is not there, or only in an outdated version, please ask your Linux distribution to provide a recent version.

If available in the package repository, please continue reading directly at "Start tembro from Agordejo / New Session Manager". If not, you can build Tembro yourself.

Build and Install

  • Please check the supplied README.md for dependencies.

  • You can download a release or clone the git version

  • Change into the new directory and use these commands:

  • ./configure --prefix=/usr

    • The default prefix is /usr/local

  • make

  • sudo make install

Start tembro from Agordejo (New Session Manager, NSM)

  • Run agordejo

  • Press the New button, and enter a name for your piece of music.

  • Use the launcher to add tembro to the session.

  • Add any compatible programs, e.g. synthesizers.

Please read README.md for other ways of starting tembro, which are impractical for actual use but can be helpful for testing and development.

4. Help and Development

You can help Tembro in several ways: Testing and reporting errors, translating, marketing, support, programming and more.

4.1. Testing and Reporting Errors

If you find a bug in the program (or it runs too slow) please contact us in a way that suits you best. We are thankful for any help.

How to contact us

4.2. Programming

If you want to do some programming and don’t know where to start please get in contact with us directly. The short version is: clone the git, change the code, create a git patch or point me to your public git.

4.3. Translations

Tembro is very easy to translate with the help of the Qt-Toolchain, without any need for programming. The easiest way is to contact the developers and they will setup the new language.

However, here are the complete instructions for doing a translation completely on your own and integrating it into the program. The program is split in two parts. A shared "template" between the Laborejo Software Suite and the actual program.

The process is the same for both parts, but needs to be done in different directories: template/qtgui and plain /qtgui, relative to the root directory, where the tembro executable is.

Everytime you see "template/qtgui" below you can substitute that with just "qtgui" to translate the other part of Tembro.

You can add a new language like this:

  • Open a terminal and navigate to template/qtgui/resources/translations

  • Edit the file config.pro with a text editor

    • Append the name of your language in the last line, in the form XY.ts, where XY is the language code.

    • Make sure to leave a space between the individual languages entries.

  • Run sh update.sh in the same directory

    • The program has now generated a new .ts file in the same directory.

  • Start Qt Linguist with linguist-qt5 (may be named differently) and open your newly generated file

  • Select your "Target Language" and use the program to create a translation

  • Send us the .ts file, such as by e-mail to info@laborejo.org

You can also incorporate the translation into Tembro for testing purposes. This requires rudimentary Python knowledge.

  • Run the "Release" option in QtLinguists "File" menu. It creates a .qm file in the same directory as your .ts file.

  • Edit template/qtgui/resources/resources.qrc and duplicate the line <file>translations/de.qm</file> but change it to your new .qm file.

  • run sh buildresources.sh

  • Edit engine/config.py: add your language to the line that begins with "supportedLanguages" like this: {"German": "de.qm", "Esperanto: "eo.qm"}

    • To find out your language string (German, Esperanto etc.) open the python3 interpreter in a terminal and run the following command:

    • from PyQt5 import QtCore;QtCore.QLocale().languageToString(QtCore.QLocale().language())

To test the new translation you can either run the program normally, if your system is set to that language. Alternatively start tembro via the terminal:

  • LANGUAGE=de_DE.UTF-8 ./tembro -V --save /dev/null