AVANTI - FFmpeg/Avisynth GUI (support thread).

[Chris K]

Dshow looks broken to me in many ways, and also definitely needs improvement. Avanti can pickup or set default webcam output without user adding any code in [USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS]. Also, it should list all available sources without user adding the source manually in Source 1.

You may be right it could use some improvement but "Dshow device" is only part of many options and I do not going to fully automate it. Adding the retrieved device names at "Source 1" and adding your input commands at the [USER_SOURCE_PATHS] section is just how it has to be done. Avanti isn't advertised as a webcam capture application. It assists by using the FFmpeg protocols and devices.

EDIT: Avanti has the option to save your whole setup in a template and recall it later so you don't need to add these settings over and over again when you want to do a webcam capture.

0.9.1. looks broken, and 0.9.0 didn't work yesterday with Dshow. When clicking on Preview button after entering above code, the error says: "FFplay seems to have a problem and reports ...
Argument 'HD' provided as input filename, but 'video=Logitech' was already specified." Can you post the command you call ffplay with?

FFplay preview is only a option to preview user filter chains and the options that make use of filters like color correction, crop/scale/pad and subtitle burn.

It also unclear, whether user code entered in [USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS] should be saved somehow.

Eeverything at the FFmpeg script editor is directly inserted at the command line. It doesn't need to be saved.

There should be also an option to adjust Preview window size, since webcam stream selected for Preview window is often uncompressed low res, while webcam stream captured to file may be high res natively compressed by webcam to avoid transcoding.

There is! Just pick up the bottom right corner of the preview window and drag to desired size. Right-click on the window for a menu where you can also set full-screen (you should do some reading in the manual).

I assume, when Destination Audio and Video Settings are disabled, Avanti would save the captured stream to a selected container type without transcoding? If that's not the case, can you add "No Transcoding" option to Audio and Video Codecs dropdowns? You may need to explain in Help, what container types are better suited for certain codec types.

If both audio and video are enabled, the "Destination" file extension follows the setting of the "Container" field. To copy the source audio and video uncompressed, you have to select the codecs "Copy Audio" and "Copy Video". Then select a container from the list manually.

Do I need to select MP4Box option in Destination field when capturing audio and video streams from webcam? Also, Destination File Type should provide several valid selectable options in dropdown menu, like MP4, mkv, avi etc. They should depend on what audio and video codecs are selected for the output, and vice versa.

As mentioned above, that is already done when you select the "Default" container. You don't need mp4box which isn't even part of Avanti. I't just a post processing option (read the manual).

Why Source 2 right click options are different from Source 1 options?

Devices, protocols and the watch folder option can only be used with "Source 1". For "Source 2" is a special (Avanti) protocol that convert or muxes the audio from "Source 2" into the destination instead of "Source 1". Also accepts e.g. m2v at "Source 1" and ac3 at "Source 2". It's all in the help but it's ok if you don't like the whole Avanti "It's up to you..." concept.

Not sure, what your forum avatar means?

It's a modern watertap that looks a bit like a snake.


Chris

[zamar27]

Thanks. Hope, you'll fix the above Dshow error to a degree you percept as "acceptable". At least it should show something in Preview window...

Btw, while Avanti is not advertised one way or another, there aren't many if any GUI available for FFMpeg & Dshow especially with non-transcoded output options and capable to capture H264&AAC native device stream to file, so if you look positively on my suggestions, we might just end up with a better application for everyone. Because modern capture apps arent available, especially with such options choice, while file transcoding apps based on popular libs are plentiful.

As to Preview size, I mean it should default to selected stream resolution, but that stream resolution used exclusively for preview should be changeable by user independently on resolution of (another) stream from the same webcam captured to file. In other words, 2 different streams can be used: one for preview, another for capture to decrease CPU load. Another option can be piping to FFPlay the file already captured, but success depends on HDD speed and captured stream resolution.

Sorry for not reading Help in full detail - its a "known bug" for most of us, though Help is written extremely well just to make sure no-one repeats stupid questions again and again. I wonder if some Tooltips or Suggestion messages can make user life easier, just like FFMpeg outputs suggestions to the user, and not only error messages? Thanks for the app!

[Chris K]

Btw, while Avanti is not advertised one way or another, there aren't many if any GUI available for FFMpeg & Dshow especially with non-transcoded output options and capable to capture H264&AAC native device stream to file, so if you look positively on my suggestions, we might just end up with a better application for everyone. Because modern capture apps arent available, especially with such options choice, while file transcoding apps based on popular libs are plentiful.

You are free to set up the audio and video options to aac and h.264 instead of copy but you need a powerful multi-core CPU to have any success.

As to Preview size, I mean it should default to selected stream resolution, but that stream resolution used exclusively for preview should be changeable by user independently on resolution of (another) stream from the same webcam captured to file. In other words, 2 different streams can be used: one for preview, another for capture to decrease CPU load. Another option can be piping to FFPlay the file already captured, but success depends on HDD speed and captured stream resolution.

I test on a quad-core CPU and there preview of high resolutions is already choppy. Not to mention piping FFmpeg into FFplay for preview. I don't expect to technically be able to add a useful real-time preview while you are capturing you webcam.

EDIT: Note that FFplay doesn't use your video card overlay memory. All has to be done by the CPU.

Sorry for not reading Help in full detail - its a "known bug" for most of us, though Help is written extremely well just to make sure no-one repeats stupid questions again and again. I wonder if some Tooltips or Suggestion messages can make user life easier, just like FFMpeg outputs suggestions to the user, and not only error messages? Thanks for the app!

Avanti has context sensitive help. Click on a field, dropdown box or open sub-window and press <F1>.


Chris

[zamar27]

You are free to set up the audio and video options to aac and h.264 instead of copy but you need a powerful multi-core CPU to have any success.

I mean that modern webcams like Logitech C920 and C930 output H264&AAC stream already compressed in webcam hardware. But I don't know of any GUI based packages apart from LWS that can capture such native compressed stream to MP4 without transcoding. So Avanti can be useful at that since latest FFMpeg can do it easily with very low CPU load, and that natively compressed webcam stream is high quality.

If the webcam doesn't support output to 2 video pins simultaneously, single output can be split by Tee filter, or its possible to capture video for recording and series of still images for preview, if selected video and image Color Space & Compression match, and use same resolution. You can check your webcam features with AMCap, which has refined preview mode in parallel with capture to file mode. It can't capture webcam H264&AAC streams to MP4 without transcoding with high CPU load. Attached is AMCap graph of capturing uncompressed RGD24 images and video with preview from a webcam.

I don't expect to technically be able to add a useful real-time preview while you are capturing you webcam.

EDIT: Note that FFplay doesn't use your video card overlay memory. All has to be done by the CPU.

In seldom case, if webcam supports 2 simultaneous video outputs, if you omit format settings, Dshow would open Preview in a default webcam format (or selected by FFMpeg as "best"), or you can auto assign the lowest res & frame rate format as default for any webcam in Avanti by analyzing as text the console output list of available stream formats, or simply set it to a standard small res 640x480@5fps. That would provide a dynamic preview while capturing another higher quality stream to file. But I think, Tee splitter used by AMCap is more realistic choice. Dshow allows to use GraphEdit files as a source via AviSynth. See also FFMpeg Creating multiple outputs.

[zamar27]

This command was reported to work for Logitech C910 and other webcams including laptop integrated, when capturing natively compressed MGPEG & PCM webcam stream to mkv without transcoding, and using Preview window:

ffmpeg -s 1280x720 -framerate 30 -c:v mjpeg -c:a pcm_s16le -rtbufsize 100MB -f dshow -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910":audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)" -flags +global_header -c copy -copytb 1 -f tee -map 0:v -map 0:a "L:\\Video\\C910.mkv|[f=matroska]udp://192.168.3.35:1234/" | ffplay -f matroska udp://192.168.3.35:1234/

It works for me, resulting in 3-4 sec output delay in Preview and some extra CPU load. VirtualDub shows twice lower CPU load during capture with preview, but its remote graph shows only preview mode, hence recording is done by some direct calls to lib.

Other useful commands:

# List devices

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

# List selected device options

ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910"
ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)"

[Chris K]

This command was reported to work for my webcam, when capturing natively compressed MGPEG & PCM webcam stream to mkv without transcoding, and using Preview window:

ffmpeg -s 1280x720 -framerate 30 -c:v mjpeg -c:a  pcm_s16le -rtbufsize 100MB -f dshow -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910":audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)" -flags +global_header -c copy -copytb 1 -f tee -map 0:v -map 0:a "L:\\Video\\C910.mkv|[f=matroska]udp://192.168.3.35:1234/" | ffplay -f matroska udp://192.168.3.35:1234/

It does for me, resulting in 3-4 sec video delay in Preview and some extra CPU load.

OK, thanks! I'll have a look.

I did some experiments with audio only capture. I'm currently on a single core machine without video capture card. I only did the FFplay preview so no simultaneous FFmpeg encoding and had already almost one second delay. I have a quad-core machine with a video capture card and probably try some things out with that in the weekend. I don't have a webcam.


Chris

[sjazz]

Hello,
Will you add unicode filenames to the software???

Thanks.
Regards Sjazz.

[Chris K]

Other useful commands:

# List devices

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

# List selected device options

ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910"
ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)"

I already use that!

Once you have used the <Ctrl>double-click option and put the audio=xxx:video=xxx at the "Source 1" field, press <Shift>double-click to get the device options.


Chris

[Chris K]

Hello,
Will you add unicode filenames to the software???

Thanks.
Regards Sjazz.

I'm afraid not!

The language in which Avanti is written doesn't support unicode. It only has a few options to convert UTF-7 and UTF-8 to ANSI. But if already useful, it would discard any character that is not in the ANSI range.


Chris

[sjazz]

I'm afraid not!

The language in which Avanti is written doesn't support unicode. It only has a few options to convert UTF-7 and UTF-8 to ANSI. But if already useful, it would discard any character that is not in the ANSI range.

Chris

Hello again,
BTW is it possible to add this option with current programming language?

Thanks.

[Chris K]

BTW is it possible to add this option with current programming language?

No !

I see no options to convert from unicode or UTF-16 and even if it had such, it would only work if the filename contains only ANSI characters. That happens occasionally but in general file names are in unicode because they contain special characters (Japanese, Chinese etc.).

You could take a look at FFqueue which is also a nice FFmpeg gui. AFAIK it supports unicode file names.


Chris

[Chris K]

@zamar27

Real-time monitoring of a webcam or any other DirectShow device needs a dedicated application wriiten by a DirectShow expert. Probably VirtualDub will do. The FFmpeg/FFplay combo isn't capable to do that decently.

This is at the start of the FFplay docs...

FFplay is a very simple and portable media player using the FFmpeg libraries and the SDL library. It is mostly used as a testbed for the various FFmpeg APIs.

Also note that the FFplay docs are just a copy of the FFmpeg docs with some addition and that half of what's written there is not applicable. E.g.; It only allows one input so you can't use the power of -filter_complex for filter chain preview. That can only be done with -vf and -af which is much more complicated to set up.

I decided not to spend too much time on it and to stay at the Avanti "It's up to you..." concept. Within this concept, Avanti offers the -new option at the script editor which "should" allow you to do anything you can do from the command line without too much interference of Avanti. The benefit of it is that you can save and recall your whole setups in templates or projects. The -new option allows you to add the following script which is a adaption of your example ...

[USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS]

-new

-s 1280x720 -framerate 30 -c:v mjpeg -c:a  pcm_s16le -rtbufsize 100MB

-f dshow -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910":audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)"

-flags +global_header -c copy -copytb 1 -f tee -map 0:v -map 0:a

-o "@destin1|[f=matroska]udp://192.168.3.35:1234/" |

"$ffmp_path/ffplay.exe" -f matroska "udp://192.168.3.35:1234/"

This "would" do exactly what your command line does but current throws a script path error because of the udp:// protocol where Avanti assumes it's meant a input like -i "udp://192.168.3.35:1234/". That can be easily fixed in the next version.

It uses a preserved Avanti label "@destin1" and internal variable "$ffmp_path" to point to the destination path on top of the gui and to the location where you keep FFmpeg and FFplay (doesn't necessarily need to be the Avanti FFmpeg folder).

I will further simplify the procedure to set up Dshow by that you can use <Alt> double-click on the device names to copy them formatted to the "Source 1" field.

I will also add preview (not monitoring) to the "dshow device" and "web protocol" options. Currently all options at the "Source 1" menu have already preview, except these two.


Chris

[zamar27]

Hi Chris K,

Thanks for the reply, as always very detail. As to -filter_complex, its mostly used to overlay several sources. Fortunately, SDL supports it, and its now compiled with FFMpeg for Win, while FFPlay doesn't support that filter. These command examples work well:

Save natively compresses source stream to mkv + show decompressed & converted Preview:

ffmpeg -s 1280x720 -framerate 30 -c:v mjpeg -c:a pcm_s16le -channels 2 -sample_rate 41100 -rtbufsize 100MB -f dshow -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910":audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)" -c copy L:\Video\C910.mkv -c:v rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -an -f sdl "C910 Preview"

Compress raw source to H264 & AAC and save to mkv + show raw video Preview:

ffmpeg -s 1280x720 -framerate 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p -rtbufsize 100MB -f dshow -i video="Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910":audio="Microphone (HD Pro Webcam C910)" -c:a libvo_aacenc L:\Video\C910.mkv -an -f sdl -window_size 640x360 "C910 Preview"

Of course, in case of heavy source stream encoding by FFMpeg, CPU load and Preview video delay & frame drops may increase, unless encoding is GPU accelerated.

Not sure, how in your view watching preview is different from monitoring? But at least such working option should be available to an unexperienced user, since experienced FFMpeg users tend to less rely on GUIs and more on CML.

As to VirtualDub, unfortunately it only supports saving captured non-transcoded raw or mjpeg stream to AVI, and sadly can't be used with modern webcams, streaming natively compressed H264 & AAC source, to capture and mux it to a non-transcoded or any mkv & mp4 . In fact, latest FFMpeg and limited in features Logitech LWS are about the only apps I know of able to do that.

[Chris K]

Not sure, how in your view watching preview is different from monitoring? But at least such working option should be available to an unexperienced user, since experienced FFMpeg users tend to less rely on GUIs and more on CML.

With monitoring I mean, viewing the encode or remux process that is going on. With preview I mean, just see if your setup will work before you start the process.

On my Windows 7 machine I have a Asus hybrid capture card on which I capture terrestrial broadcast with ProgDVB. Now recently dshow added crossbar support and the related commands to call up the dialogs. Nice but at a very low level to handle with FFmpeg. I don't expect many people would be interested if I added support for it. The same goes for webcam capture.

There are several options in Avanti, like e.g. CD track extraction that are only there because I found it a challege to make it work. But for all these things are much better dedicated applications available like e.g. foobar2000 in this case. Or ProgDVB in my own case.

Do those webcams not include recording software?


And then there are the Windows 7/8 issues that make me reserved to add to much complex code to Avanti.

http://avanti.arrozcru.org/windows7.htm

Current 0.9.1 version seems to be rather stable but todays testing of new additions on Windows 7 didn't look very promissing.


Chris

[GoldenMeanie]

I've done this countless times before but for some reason the rotate function isn't working.
I've got a video I created in landscape mode but when I upload it to Facebook it shows up as portrait.
I used Avanti to re-render the video and rotate 90 degrees but it still plays back on Facebook in portrait mode.

Please Advise.

[Chris K]

I've done this countless times before but for some reason the rotate function isn't working.
I've got a video I created in landscape mode but when I upload it to Facebook it shows up as portrait.
I used Avanti to re-render the video and rotate 90 degrees but it still plays back on Facebook in portrait mode.

The rotate option has FFplay preview. How does it look like when you preview with that. And the converted clip with a media player on your PC?

I can't find any issue with it. You must not only set rotate to 90 degrees but also enable the "Crop/Scale/Pad" option.

EDIT: It might perhaps happen when you set the destination frame size to "Source". Try with a fixed frame size.


Chris

[GoldenMeanie]

I'm having a problem with the audio on DVDs. When I import the stream the audio is recorded very low. I use Avanti to compress to MP4 with an AAC stream at 320kpbs and have to use the -afout filter to increase the volume, but then I get a ton of wishy-washy noise in the soundtrack. I find if I don't increase volume above 3 or 5 decibels it's not so bad but it's still there but it's still not loud enough. I realize when you increase volume you also increase noise, so can you recommend any additional options that might reduce this effect? I'm still exploring the import process if I can increase the volume but not the noice but since it's a straight copy of the AC3 tracks I don't think I really can. Thank you.

[Chris K]

I'm having a problem with the audio on DVDs. When I import the stream the audio is recorded very low. I use Avanti to compress to MP4 with an AAC stream at 320kpbs and have to use the -afout filter to increase the volume, but then I get a ton of wishy-washy noise in the soundtrack. I find if I don't increase volume above 3 or 5 decibels it's not so bad but it's still there but it's still not loud enough. I realize when you increase volume you also increase noise, so can you recommend any additional options that might reduce this effect? I'm still exploring the import process if I can increase the volume but not the noice but since it's a straight copy of the AC3 tracks I don't think I really can. Thank you.

You could try to put the volume command in a -afin instead of -afout to see if that helps a bit. FFmpeg doesn't have a easy to use audio noise reduction filter. Bandreject could be useful but it's hard to find the appropriate settings for it.

Within Avanti I would try something with the 18-band equalizer. If your source is a mpg or vob, you can preview the audio with FFplay. The trick would be to lower the sliders one by one to see (hear) which one will help. You can increase the overall volume with the up/down buttons on the left. If you found something useful that way, you can save the settings in a FEQ preset which can be used in the -afin or -afout of your script. At the equalizer page, press <F1> for a few examples how to set it up.


Chris

[Melchior]

I have tried the v0.9.2 w/ FFmpeg x64 on WinXP64, and it works ^_^

which leads to my next question.... and I know its probably already been asked many times... loi ;D *mercy*

is there any chance there will be a 64bit version some day? =3

[vijm1972]

At second thought, I think it's possible (in one go) where it concerns FFmpeg. But it's somewhat outside the goal of this support thread to provide complex FFmpeg solution. Avanti offers the tools and it's up to the user to use them creatively.

I'll give it a try and if I succeed, I'll post back.

FFmpeg can do it and Avanti can do it with the -new option but it gets stuck on the FFmpeg progress info which displays two times the q value instead of one. It isn't prepared for that. You could do it by setting the console mode with <Ctrl-S> keys.

frame= 292 fps= 22 q=17.6 q=8.4 size= 942kB time=00:00:19.79 bitrate= 389.6kbits/s

[USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS]

-new

-i "@source1"

-dvs -b:v 256k -r 15
# additional video commands
-das
-o "f:/$source1_name 15fps.wmv"

-dvs -b:v 512k -r 25
# additional video commands
-das
-o "f:/$source1_name 25fps.wmv"

You have to set the basic settings for wmv at the main page. For "f:/" you have to fill in the watch destination folder path.

EDIT: You need to set the destination path on top of the gui to NULL.

EDIT2:

There is another issue that makes it practically not very useful yet. Destination file name is delayed which means the current clip gets the name of the previous. Anyway, food for some improvements on the next version.

Chris

Chris have you able to solve the issue in Avanti latest version 0.9.2?
I have one requirement in which I have to convert multi channel sources. Please find below example for your detail.

Source File Name as per below:
1) Program Name1_Star
2) Program Name2_Zee
3) Program Name3_Disney
4) Program Name4_HBO
5) Program Name5_Discovery

I have to drop them into one watch folder and after conversion I wanted to move them in specific destination folder like below
1) Star
2) Zee
3) Disney
4) HBO
5) Discovery

And also wanted to rename the output files as per below.
1) Program Name1
2) Program Name2
3) Program Name3
4) Program Name4
5) Program Name5

Is this something I can do with the help of Avanti? Also wanted to know how many destination folder I can add?

[Chris K]

I have tried the v0.9.2 w/ FFmpeg x64 on WinXP64, and it works ^_^

which leads to my next question.... and I know its probably already been asked many times... loi ;D *mercy*

is there any chance there will be a 64bit version some day? =3

There is no 64-bit version of the programming language used for Avanti. I don't expect there will be any soon. It depends on the developer of the language.

Avanti can control 64-bit FFmpeg versions as you experienced. As for the performance of Avanti, it wouldn't give much measurable improvements. If you look at the Windows task manager during a conversion, you can see that Avanti's CPU usage max out at 5% at most. The average is 0-2% (0 means less than 1%).


Chris

[Chris K]

Chris have you able to solve the issue in Avanti latest version 0.9.2?

The two issues as mentioned in the earlier example are solved so converting a source simultaneously to two different output versions should work now.

I have one requirement in which I have to convert multi channel sources. Please find below example for your detail.

Source File Name as per below:
1) Program Name1_Star
2) Program Name2_Zee
3) Program Name3_Disney
4) Program Name4_HBO
5) Program Name5_Discovery

I have to drop them into one watch folder and after conversion I wanted to move them in specific destination folder like below
1) Star
2) Zee
3) Disney
4) HBO
5) Discovery

And also wanted to rename the output files as per below.
1) Program Name1
2) Program Name2
3) Program Name3
4) Program Name4
5) Program Name5

Is this something I can do with the help of Avanti? Also wanted to know how many destination folder I can add?

No, this is too heavy for the folder watch option. Too many variable conditions. You can only have one destination folder.


Chris

[vijm1972]

Can I rename the file using time-stamp option as per below?

Source Name_Time-Stamp(Created Date & Time).wmv

[Chris K]

Can I rename the file using time-stamp option as per below?

Source Name_Time-Stamp(Created Date & Time).wmv

There currently is no time_stamp option for file names in Avanti (I will add it). But there are $$time.xxx variables that can be used for now.

Windows doesn't allow the colon : and slash / characters in file names so there are some limitations in formatting. I came to this...

[USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS]

-new

-i "@source1"

-dvs
-das

-o "@destin1_path/@source1_name_($$time.numdate-$$time.hour,$$time.min'$$time.sec).wmv"

This gives a unique destination file name with (YYMMDD-HH,MM'SS) like...

source_name_(150420-14,38'51).wmv

Perhaps you can use this until I've added something decent.


Chris

[vijm1972]

Chris I need to rename the output file as per the source created date and time not current date. Is it possible to add the same from media info?

[Chris K]

Chris I need to rename the output file as per the source created date and time not current date. Is it possible to add the same from media info?

Does that date/time shows up in the metadata (look at the enabled "metadata manager" after you've loaded a file). Not every video clip contains that. In such case MediaInfo also shows nothing.

A few mxf test clips of mine show the "modification_date" key. Do you mean that?


Chris

[Melchior]

except upgrading it to 64 bit will have to happen one of these days 32bit won't be supported forever, just like the 16bit DOS games of old...

[Chris K]

except upgrading it to 64 bit will have to happen one of these days 32bit won't be supported forever, just like the 16bit DOS games of old...

I guess you're right but I expect that by that time a lot of new FFmpeg gui's have seen the light. Avanti already has other restrictions that I cannot fix because of the programming language (no unicode/utf-8 support, not dpi aware). There will come a time I'll have to leave it to a new generation and quit my work on it.

Chris

[Melchior]

I guess you're right but I expect that by that time a lot of new FFmpeg gui's have seen the light.
Chris

true, cmdline is great but GUI is just as great.....

Avanti already has other restrictions that I cannot fix because of the programming language (no unicode/utf-8 support, not dpi aware). There will come a time I'll have to leave it to a new generation and quit my work on it.

Chris

NO Unicode support?! my goodness it must be old if it does not support Unicode loi

My favorite Text editor called Notepad 2:
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/index.html
and the last beta works perfectly..

ohh now I remember.. here it is in NP2's changelog(aka txt file)

New in Version 3.0.20 (released October 31, 2008)

- Notepad2 converted to a native Win32 Unicode application

he had or at least wanted to convert his app to Unicode...

[Chris K]

NO Unicode support?! my goodness it must be old if it does not support Unicode loi

My favorite Text editor called Notepad 2:
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/index.html
and the last beta works perfectly..

ohh now I remember.. here it is in NP2's changelog(aka txt file)

New in Version 3.0.20 (released October 31, 2008)

- Notepad2 converted to a native Win32 Unicode application

he had or at least wanted to convert his app to Unicode...

Avanti isn't a compiled application. It actually is a script interpreter (Gui4Cli) with a large bunch of scripts. I cannot "convert" the scripts to unicode if the interpreter doesn't support it.

The Avanti concept is almost 8 years old. Vista was just coming up. 64-bit OS' was not common yet for the average user. Let's say I only maintain it for my own fun. I still love that script language but perhaps I should not release new public versions at all. I never had any commercial (financial) interest in it.


Chris