Suggested modification/extension of beep

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Thursday 18 February 2010 10:28, Harald Becker wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I  want to suggest an alternate and extended command syntax of the beep
> applet. The new syntax is very close to old one. That is most old script
> should work without a fix or only little modifications. Additionally a
> new syntax style allows to play sequences of tones more easily.
> 
> Example:
> old: beep -f 200 -l100 -d50 -n -f400 -l200 -n -f800 -l50
> new: beep -d50 200:100 400:200 800:50
> 
> Additionally  the new beep allows to play phaser style effects. That is
> increasing or decreasing tone frequencies over the tone duration (in
> contrast to constant frequencies).

Why do you want to do it? Sure, current beep is limited,
but it is not meant to play too complex sounds.

Whatever you add to it, it will still be less capable than
a .wav or .mp3 player.

You might ask "why stop on exactly these options?" then.
The answer is "because this way we are compatible with beep".

The current beep.c contains a few TODOs which point out
what options from real beep we do not implement yet.
Patches whcih implement those will definitely be accepted.

But patches which add options/features on top of than need
to give the rationale. "Just because it's fun"
might be not enough.

Some people deal with it by first suggesting/implementing it
in corresponding upstream tool. For example, "\e" escape sequence
in "echo".
--
vda