# arecord2lamegui-0.4.pet
# Announced and download link at murga forum thread:
# http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20323&start=15

# Dotpet of Program: arecord2lamegui  Revision 0.4 20Sept2007
# Record audio from your soundcard straight to mp3 without any need for an intermediate wav file.
# Do not call this script arecordgui, Puppy already has that
# Programmer: William McEwan (mcewanw)

This dotpet automatically adds the following files to your system:

/usr/local/bin/arecord2lamegui
/usr/local/share/doc/arecord2lamegui
/usr/local/share/doc/arecord2lamegui/arecord2lamegui-0.4readme.txt

It also creates an icon (mini-sound.xpm) and JWM menu item in JWM > Multimedia > arecord2lamegui sound recorder, storing this desktop info in /usr/share/applications

The utility registers with PETget so that you can easily uninstall it if you wish.

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I've never before programmed with Xdialog/gtkdialog stuff, and don't even know the name of the language(!). However, I managed to create this utiliy by first examining the scripts /usr/local/apps/Soxgui/soxexec and /usr/local/apps/Soxgui/main and by then doing a bit of reverse engineering... (i.e. I stole bits of code and modified it...).

The result is a simple, albeit rough, gui frontend for the commandline mechanism for recording direct to mp3: 

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame --abr 16 -a -h -b 16 -m m -q 0 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 -x - out.mp3 & 
[Thanks Lobster for the lame parameter settings]

(As described in the howto at: http://jordilin.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/howto-recording-audio-from-the-command-line/ and discussed in murga puppy linux forum thread http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20323 )

I should mention that it proved important NOT to name the new script "arecordgui" because Putty Linux already had a script of that name (which is in fact a symlink to soxgui).

This script is unpolished, and should be considered as no more than a fully-working starting point for a more robust gui frontend. I also think it is a nice simple illustration of how easy it is to script gui apps in Puppy Linux. Remember, I don't know this particular programming language (though this wee script is quite easy to understand), so I don't guarantee it at all; however, it works for me! :-)

You should, of course, check that your sound source (e.g. a microphone) is working correctly beforehand. Personally, I usually run JWM > Multimedia > Puppy sound mixer, in order to check that the settings are correct, before running any audio programs.

Should you want to improve the sound, you might like to try manually altering the installed script. That is, open the script /usr/local/bin/arecord2lamegui in any text editor and play with the parameters for lame and arecord on the line:

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame --abr 16 -a -h -b 16 -m m -q 0 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 -x - $DIR$myfile &

Sorry, I know nothing about these utilities, so I can't help you further with that at the moment. Remember, if you "break" it, no problem, you can uninstall it and reinstall it again via PETget. However, usage of this utility is entirely at your own risk! :-)

You can also change the default directory for storing your recordings by editing /usr/local/bin/arecord2lamegui and changing the line: defaultdirectory=~/my-documents