Getting an Alpha-Build when compiling the latest Audacity 3.0.3

Programming and Development Compiling Audacity
1

Hello everybody,

after I managed to compile the current Audacity 3.0.3 64bit with ASIO I noticed that I always get an Audacity 3.0.3 alpha build with the source codes from the official website or from Github.

Can someone point me the source code for the release version of Audacity 3.0.3.

Thank you for your help.

Cheers
Christian

2

You can look here: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases

3

Those are the official code release versions.
The “alpha / beta / release” signifier is added at build time:

I’m not sure exactly how this works now, as it has recently changed. The following is how it looks to me from looking at the code:

In /CMakeLists.txt change line 22 from:

set( AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL 0 CACHE STRING "0 for alpha, 1 for beta, 2 for release builds" )

to:

set( AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL 2 CACHE STRING "0 for alpha, 1 for beta, 2 for release builds" )

(Maybe this should have been set before tagging it as the 3.0.3 release: perhaps someone forgot, or perhaps it was an intentional default.)
Note that if AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL == 2, (as is used in the AppImage build), then CPACK_AUDACITY_APPIMAGE_UPDATE_INFO is set.
For a custom build, you do not want to be checking for updates because the updates will not have your customizations, so probably better to just leave it as

AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL 0

Technically, “alpha” is arguably correct for your build as it is NOT a “release build” - it is your custom build and is not distributable due to Steinberg’s ASIO license.

4

Update:

No, don’t do that.
Looking a bit closer, the correct way is to pass “AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL” as a cmake option.

I’ll post an example shortly (Audacity is currently building).

5

I’m on Linux, so you will need to adapt this for Windows.

My usual cmake command is:

Debug build:

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -Daudacity_use_ffmpeg=loaded ..

Release build:

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -Daudacity_use_ffmpeg=loaded -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

For a Release version (rather than alpha or beta), I would pass “-DAUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL=2”

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -Daudacity_use_ffmpeg=loaded -DAUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL=2 ..

and then “make”,
which gives me:

Audacity 3.0.4
Program build date:    Aug 10 2021
Commit Id:             cea4a9 of Mon Aug 9 08:02:30 2021 -0400
Build type:            CMake Release build (debug level 1), 64 bits
Compiler:              GCC 9.3.0 (Audacity)
6

Hello Steve,

Thank you very much for your efforts and your answer.

As I am not really familiar with programming and I only just manage to compile Audacity with ASIO via the Windows CMake GUI, I have to work my way into the command line functions of CMake.

The most important thing for me is to know that I use the source code for my compiles that is also used in the official release build. Whether the programme information in Audacity then says “Alpha” or not is more of a cosmetic nature.

Nevertheless, I will try your command line examples at some point.

Thanks again and best regards
Chrsitian

7

Hello Steve,

I have now made another compile. In the CMake GUI, setting the build levels is actually very simple.

The option AUDACITY_BUILD_LEVEL is already present in the Windows CMake GUI after configuring the project and is set to the value 0 (i.e. alpha build).

I simply set the value to 2 before generating the project and I then actually get a “release build”.

But as I said, this is just a cosmetic thing for me.

Thanks again!

Cheers
Christian
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