Hey, thanks again for your work! Would it be possible to add an ellipsis character? Y’know, triple-dot as one glyph, “…”. It’s quite often used in UI for text overflow.
Hey! So you adjust fades by dragging the circles at the top of the track region, right? To trim the track, you move the vertical line that the circle rests on. And if you grab the middle area between all the handles, you can move the region on the timeline left and right.
(sorry for an imgur link, something is wrong with video uploads in comments on itch)
In the upcoming version you’ll also be able to ctrl+click to set left and right ends of the trimmed region, and right click to align the region with 0:00. Should be up this week.
Hey there! I believe panning is supported by our synth, so it should be possible to expose such a feature. But not until version 4 is in the works, since any extra bit of data requires changes to the file format, and that’s when it’s planned to happen.
Not exactly, what you are probably referring to is lack of electronic code signature. Which is typical for projects released here because it’s expensive to do and itch is a platform full of first time indies. And without codesign Windows shows a protective warning.
Here the issue is different, but curiously if the executable was codesigned, it might have lowered the risk factor for the AV software and prevented the false positive.
So, first of all, let me say that you absolutely should be careful online and should NOT open or execute files which you do not trust.
So if you don’t feel safe using Bosca Ceoil Blue, do not use it! That’s the only right approach to digital security.
Now, if you still want to use it, but are alerted by your AV freaking out about it, there are a couple of options which might help you.
If you are trying to use the 32-bit version, please choose the 64-bit version instead (choose the file ending in windows-x86_64.zip). There is likely no reason for you to use the 32-bit version of any app in 2025.
You can also download Bosca Ceoil Blue using Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3570850/. Perhaps having Valve as an intermediary would give you confidence. They do manually test every project that is published on Steam (at least initially).
You can also use Bosca Ceoil Blue online with your browser: https://humnom.net/apps/boscaceoil/. This way, nothing gets downloaded on your PC, except for the music that you make and eventually export.
If you’re wondering why your antivirus is freaking out, let me try to explain it as simple as possible.
There are many ways to detect wrongful activity on your PC. One of the most basic ones is scanning every file to try and spot a virus hidden within. As you might know, files are made up from bytes. Like our DNA, bytes form chains, sequences which together create a unique file on your hard drive.
These chains of bytes are not themselves unique. Anyone can have brown eyes or blonde hair. These are traits that may repeat from person to person, and so chains of bytes may repeat from file to file. Despite that, chains of bytes is exactly what an antivirus is looking for when scanning your files for viruses.
Now, you might think, an antivirus should just know all chains of bytes that make up a known virus, but that’s not a very good defense. If you only identify a virus by how it looks like now, the hacker who created it could just disguise the virus in a different form. Like using differently colored contact lenses or wearing a wig. So antivirus makers try to find a trait, a chain of bytes that would be sufficiently unique for the virus.
That is called fingerprinting. And the process of trying to match a file using multiple fingerprints is called a heuristic approach.
Like everything in security, there is balance to things. Looking for traits allows to identify bad software even as it tries to elude the antivirus. But it also means that inevitably someone will match the description even though they have no relation to the virus. This is called getting a false positive: the matching was successful, but there is no virus actually, just a coincidence.
Digital security is crucial, so your antivirus is designed to be extremely paranoid. It will happily report a false positive match like that just to be sure. Better to be safe than sorry. Which is how sometimes legitimate and innocent files can be marked as viruses or trojans. They just have same brown eyes and same blonde hair as the description that the antivirus is looking for.
Hope this makes sense :) But again, if you don’t feel safe using the app, do not use it. That’s the right thing to do.
Hey there! You are not the first to run into this issue, but, unfortunately, this is not really something I can address on my end.
Antivirus software generally works based on a system of heuristics, or, in simple terms, fingerprints added to their database. They check the executable for a sequence of bytes that matches a known fingerprint and trigger an alarm. As you can imagine, a particular sequence of bytes isn’t in itself malicious or unique, and such matches can happen at complete random.
By their nature, AVs are designed to be as panicky as possible. Better safe than sorry. That means that they are more than happy to report something as a virus even if it’s not, rather than to potentially miss one. This leads to abundance of false-positive reports.
Personally, I can assure you that there is no malware in Bosca Ceoil Blue, as far as I am aware at least. All of the source code is available for inspection, since it’s an open-source project. The build pipeline is also public, as builds are produced on GitHub, alongside the code repository.
Now, you have no way to verify that I upload files that I say I upload. While the build process is public, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I upload those same build results to itch, GitHub downloads, or Steam. I can assure you that I do in fact upload the same executable that you could build yourself using the publicly available code. But it’s up to you to trust me, or not.
If it helps, the 64-bit version doesn’t seem to trigger AV warnings for people. Although I assume you’re trying the 32-bit version for a reason. I’m surprised there are people who seek the 32-bit version in year 2025, if I’m honest. But it costs me nothing to provide one.
You can also use the Steam version of Bosca Ceoil Blue, if that sounds safer. Or use it in browser without downloading or installing anything.
Yes, you are correct that the MIT license text only explicitly covers full copies or copies of significant portions of the software, for the purposes of including the MIT license text itself.
I’m sorry if my original post appears misleading in that regard. I had to answer this person several times (though those messages are now gone for some reason), and this was my attempt to summarize everything that I have explained before. That is to point out that:
MIT license’s laymen implication and spirit is to give credit where possible;
It is customary to credit tools used in the production of your game/video/whathaveyou;
This does in no way transfer to people who get from you, including purchases, creative work made with the tool.
Their main concern is whether I put any restriction or claim any partial ownership over their songs, and the answer to that is NO. The rest is just elaboration.
The tool is provided under the MIT license. This means that you can use it for both non-commercial and commercial work, for any kind of project or purpose, without limitations for you and without liability on my part.
The MIT license’s only requirement is that you credit the tool, i.e. mention that it has been used in your work. This is typically done in some credits or description section. For example,
If you sell your music, there is probably a product description field somewhere where all third party credits can be given.
If you create music for your own game, there is probably a credits screen where all first and third party contributions to the project are listed.
If you create music for your own video, credits are typically given at the end of it (like in a movie) or in the video’s description.
In case you sell, or provide for free, your music to the general public, that’s none of my concern at that point. What kind of license, limitations, and requirements you put on your work is up to you and is between you and your customers.
TL;DR: If you draw a picture in Photoshop and then sell it to someone, that someone doesn’t enter into relationship with Adobe. Likely, they won’t even know that you’ve used Photoshop. Same here.
The maximum pattern length is currently limited 32 units, with the longest possible note being 128 units. How long of a pattern would you like to have, hypothetically? Keep in mind that the pattern length is universal for the song and cannot be adjusted per pattern or per instrument.
Thanks for looking more into this! That’s curious and definitely not expected. I’ll have to try and replicate it during the next round of improvements.
Hmm, I would hazard a guess that the area is just too small and you slightly missed it those few times. That can easily happen, and I should make it more reliable to hit.
Hey! I’m currently working on another project! Work on Bosca Ceoil will continue once that project is released. Currently there are plans for 3 different things:
Version 3.2 with some usability improvements without breaking compatibility,
Version 4.0 that breaks compatibility to enable new functionality, and
Mobile version of 4.0+.
I don’t have specific deadlines for these, and priorities might change (e.g. I might drop the 3.2 version in favor of moving directly to 4.0). While I’d love to dedicate more time to this, Bosca Ceoil doesn’t put food on my table right now so I need to put my efforts elsewhere as a priority. Hope you understand.
Bosca Ceoil Blue is a modern port of Terry Cavanagh’s Bosca Ceoil.
It’s remade from scratch using all new technology, but it’s functionally the same. Current version is fully compatible with the original Bosca Ceoil, backwards and forwards. There are several usability and UI improvements.
And you can read here why I decided to port Bosca Ceoil.
I appreciate your concerns, but it’s a bit early to sound the alarm I think. My goal is to preserve the beginner-friendliness of Bosca Ceoil throughout this project’s existence. I will not be adding anything that makes things too convoluted or is detrimental to user experience. It’s never just about whether something can be added, but also about how it can be exposed to users in a non-threatening manner.
I definitely do not want to have an “expert mode” toggle, because developing features which aren’t targetting Bosca’s main audience is not worth my time. I’m working on this alone and for free, so I’d rather not spend time on things which are of no use to people who are using Bosca Ceoil Blue.
Hey there! A future version will have support for custom instruments. You’d need to configure it with the synthesizer, just like existing instruments are defined. Sampled instruments are also possible, but in a longer term.
What you can do now is compose that specific guitar part in another application that has it and then mix everything together with something else. I’ve seen people doing this with drums!
Hey there! It’s certainly possible to have BPM change during the song in the future. I’ll have to think of a way to expose such functionality though. But it’s been asked about before, so there is a good chance we will include it at some point!
Hey there! Yes, there are indeed some special conditions that must be met. SharedArrayBuffer is required for the application to work because it’s multithreaded. Browsers require secure context and cross-origin isolation for SharedArrayBuffer to be available. To establish secure context and cross-origin isolation your server must serve the following headers:
Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin
Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: require-corp or Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: credentialless
Note that Bosca Ceoil Blue doesn’t have any server-side logic, so it doesn’t really matter where it’s hosted from. So if you just want to use it, the version that I provide is fine. But of course feel free to spin up your own, and if you have any more questions, let me know!
Bosca doesn’t use custom export templates. But, this error points to GDSiON, a synthesizer library that Bosca uses, which may be compiled against a different version of glibc. I’ll look into it, thanks for the heads up!
Hey again! In the next version you’ll be able to create a pattern variant by hovering over it in the grid and pressing Ctrl + D instead of Alt + Click.
Also note that when dragging a pattern you can press Alt at any point to drop it as a variant instead. So if click and dragging, and then pressing Alt works for you, that is something you can use now already!
So I assume there is some JavaScript error on your Chromebook that prevents the page itself from functioning correctly. Unfortunately, without any knowledge what that problem is I wouldn’t be able to address it. Maybe somebody else will face it as well and will be able to poke deeper.
Your Linux setup seems fine from that description. It would be nice to see the entire error log though, could you show me what it prints from the top? From what you’ve already shown, it’s clear that the Godot runtime is operational, but the synthesizer library is not loaded for some reason. That’s very strange, and the only thing I can think of immediately is that it’s some permission issues.
Make sure that the .so file that comes with the Linux version is accessible by the same user who runs the Bosca executable. A library file like that normally doesn’t need an execution permission, but maybe it does in your case? Worth checking this as well. The ZIP already should have correct permissions otherwise (sans the user, of course), but if you unzip it on one machine and then copy to another these permissions can get lost in the process.
Hey, that’s unfortunate! What Linux distribution do you have, and what is your hardware? If you can capture the command line output from the beginning that would also help. It seems like the shared library is not loading on your device for some reason.
Regarding Chrome OS, is the whole landing page showing up blank or does it turn blank after you try to load the application? I ask because you should see at least the landing page itself, since it’s just a regular web page, and if it breaks at that point, this is not about the application itself. Could you open the devtools and see if there are any messages there?
Edit: Also you mention that the web version doesn’t work on Chrome OS, but what about Linux? Have you tried it on your Linux machine, in either Chrome or Firefox?
Self-hosting is a way of providing a web resource by hosting it on the server that you directly control, rather than using a service that hosts something for you and lets you control it via some high level tools like an admin or control panel.
When I talk about self-hosting I mean a situation where a developer hosts a web project of theirs on their own server or a server that they directly control, and not by uploading and embedding it on itch.
What got you so confused is my mention of the fact that I also provide the source files of the web version, so people who desire, for whatever reason, to host a copy of the project themselves, can do so. This is unrelated to my question, but I brought it up because you decided to make an argument about a situation where the project is not downloadable from itch. I merely pointed out that this is not the case for me, and that this is not a part of the premise for my proposal.
I provide source files because it’s an open source project. People are free to do with it as they please. So in good faith I provide as much as I can, because different users might have different needs. Which is, again, beside the point of this proposal and was but a side remark that I’ve added to highlight that the project is very much downloadable in my case, and that I use itch for its primary purpose.
This is not a blocker to me, and if leafo and team decide against this, or even completely ignore this suggestion, it wouldn’t really bother me. I just thought it’d be good to let the users know that the project is available on web in a way that is as noticeable as other related projects. It sucks to not be discoverable when great efforts have been put to make this version happen. But it is what it is, and I’d be fine with either resolution. Nothing hangs in balance for me. It’s just an idea.
I find your comparison inappropriate and pointless. There are no technical limitations for uploading any executable to itch and labeling them appropriately between the 4 supported platforms. If someone chooses not to do it, then, well, it’s up to them. Hosting web applications on 3rd party services like itch, however, is not always possible. While itch is extremely accommodating, it has its own things to consider. And as a developer I have to consider that if part of my users may have inadequate experience, I should make sure that they don’t.
I could upload the project to be hosted by itch in whatever form it can be, but that means I have to support this second web version of the app, in an environment that I do not control and cannot apply every fix possible if needed. This is undesirable, and it increases burden on me, as a sole developer maintaining a rather popular open source project. But again, I don’t demand or request itch to change anything about their support for web-based projects. And it’s not critical to me that they even consider my suggestion.
I just think it’s a good idea to help developers and users connect better. Your views seem to be rather conservative in that regard. So you try to convince me that I need to do something, that I’m approaching this incorrectly, that it’s mine and mine alone problem and my point of view is insignificant. You wave at the other comment here that mentions that they don’t want to go outside of itch’s ecosystem as if that should discourage me. You demand someone enlighten you why this should be such a brilliant idea.
What’s with all the gatekeeping? You’re making such a big deal out of a tiny suggestion, creating a hostile environment where the person proposing must prove something to you. I’m beginning to regret to even trying to propose anything. But maybe that is exactly what you want people to feel.
That’s fine. If this suggestion is implemented, there should be a clear indication if the project is available via a third party and not directly on itch. So you can avoid such projects if they are not your cup of tea.
And there can be extra guardrails too, like your project must be otherwise present on the platform. So itch doesn’t turn into an ad board for 3rd party services. Though I think it’s a bit premature to worry about that. And, besides, that can already take place regardless of this suggestion, as you are not required to upload any files for your project.
Key words are “don’t need to” and “can”. Hope it helps.
So let me get this straight
Quite frankly and with all due respect, I’m not asking for an advice on how to best distribute my projects. I’m explaining the circumstances and the problem with discoverability. If you do not believe it’s a real problem and think that my suggestion is unreasonable, just say so and let’s stop there.
Is this a translation issue?
I don’t like how this conversation is unfolding. And I’m sure you’re not trying to be rude on purpose, but the way you opened your initial reply and continue to engage with me is very unpleasant and hard to take in any way other than condescending.
You are perfectly clear. But you also make tangential and lengthy arguments which have little to do with the suggestion, like your opening point about projects not being available for download having no place on itch. And you also keep missing the point about source files being provided for download for those who want them — which has been just a side note, which I now regret making because it seems to have really confused you. And you keep trying to catch me on some technicality, posting, as if it’s some kind of proof, links to Godot games available on web or questioning my rationale for distributing the project the way I do.
To which end you do this I don’t know. I assume you just don’t see value in the idea, and that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. The added scrutiny, insistence, and argumentative attitude is unnecessary. So let’s leave it at that, and have a nice day.
