Download Agent Orange

You can download the Agent Orange cue sheet application for Mac OS X 10.4 from this link. The program is currently at version 1.6.0, and I released it on November 9, 2007.

If the latest version is giving you problems, you can download a previous version from the Change Log.

In order to help keep Agent Orange free and open source, please consider making a donation of $20 to fund its support, maintenance, and web hosting:

Agent Orange Forum

At this time, you can submit questions about Agent Orange and talk to other users of Agent Orange on our google group.

Subscribe to Agent Orange Cuesheets

Email:

Visit this group

Change Log

• Version 1.6.0 2007-11-09
  • Added: "Show Selected Tracks" checkbox to allow selection of all highlighted tracks.
  • Added: Built and tested compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

• Version 1.5.0 2007-09-23

  • Added: Start and finish times in cues now automatically shrink their font size if the content is too big. This will help display for those of you that've hacked your copy of Agent Orange to print more than 18 tracks (you rebels!)
  • Added: When printing in timecode with frames, cue finish times print in "MM:SS:FF" format, to save space.
  • Fixed: Minor appearance cleanup, also related to time display.

• Version 1.4.2 2007-08-21

  • Fixed: Changed forum URL in "Go to Forums" menu item to new forum

• Version 1.4.1 2007-03-15

  • Added: Universal Binary

• Version 1.4.0 2007-01-23

  • Added: Settings are now saved into preferences and restored every time Agent Orange launches.
  • Added: "Go to Forums" menu item in Help Menu
  • Fixed: "DeCamelize Region Names" option much improved, now usable in most circumstances
  • Fixed: Blend selector now disabled when an input file is not selected

• Version 1.3.0 2006-10-25

  • Added: "DeCamelize Region Names" option
  • Fixed: Minor UI issues in the Application menu
  • Fixed: Added tooltips for more options on screen

• Version 1.2.0 2006-09-29

  • Added: Made channel strip numbers optional, with a checkbox
  • Fixed: UI issues with enabled/disabled checkboxes

• Version 1.1.1 2006-09-25

  • Fixed: A permissions issue that was preventing the text export from working

Source Code

Download Agent Orange source code if you'd like to learn more about how it works or would like to improve it.

Instructions for Use

The instructions are for using Agent Orange with Pro Tools 7.1. Agent Orange has been used successfully on text exports from version 5.1 forward.

Export a text file form Pro Tools

1. For the sake of safety, make a copy of the session you're going to cuesheet with File → Save as...
2. Delete any tracks that you don't want to show in the cuesheet. Also, delete any regions that are muted, or you don't want to advertise.
3. Give the tracks good names. You can use carets "^" to insert a line break into the middle of a track name.
4. If you want multi-channel tracks to appear as individual tracks, split them into monos.
5. Delete all fades by selecting Edit → Fades → Delete
6. Select File → Export → Session Info as Text...
7. In the Export window, select Include Track EDLs and make sure you export your EDLs in Feet+Frames or Time code. You may include subframes if you want; It'll have no effect on the cuesheet.
8. Export the file and make a note of where you saved it.

Import the text file into Agent Orange

1. Start Agent Orange by double-clicking.
2. Click the Select... button and choose the text file you exported from Pro Tools.
3. Enter a Cuesheet Title to appear at the top of each page, select a Paper size and a number of strips (tracks) per page. Multichannel tracks will appear as one track, using whatever appears in the first lane of the multichannel track.
4. Uncheck Interpret Tags if you didn't do any tagging, and you don't want Agent Orange to blend regions. (Generally, whether you tagged or not, you want this option checked, since it will blend regions together within the given blend duration.)
5. At this time, if you wanted to print your cuesheet in a different program that supported text exports, you could click Create Text... and a text file would be generated with the tagging interpreted.
6. Select your paper size. Agent Orange is capable of printing on a either letter, tabloid, or legal sized paper. Tabloid can, of course, hold the most tracks, and it maxes out around 18.
7. Select your shade option. Agent Orange is able to shade regions uniformly, or not at all.
8. The 1st Channel field controls what numbers appear in the channel strip, which prints numbers just under the track names. If you enter a "9" here, it will number the first track from the left "9", the second "10", etc.
   Agent Orange will bring a limited intelligence to bear when incrementing each successive track, such that you could name the first "A01", and the next tracks would be "A02", "A03" and so on.
9. Check Print Frames if you want the footage/timecode numbers on the cuesheet to show frames.
10. Click Create PDF... and select a location to save the PDF file. If Open PDF when finished is checked, the PDF will be opened automatically on completion. Otherwise, a dialogue box will appear when the cuesheet is done.

Known Issues/Bugs

• Agent Orange tends to be a bit more consumptive of paper than it needs to be.
• Agent Orange doesn't always draw regions in the most clever way with regards to time-placement.
• When shading is turned on, you might burn through your printer toner faster than you would otherwise.

Frequently Asked Question about Agent Orange

Why is the program called "Agent Orange"?

Because nothing kills trees like it.

Aren't you aware that Agent Orange was a toxin that wrought untold illness and destruction upon southeast Asia during the Vietnam War? What kind of monster would name a computer program "Agent Orange"?

I am a monster born in 1979, and while I try to be sensitive to such things, I needed a clever name that expressed the concept of 'killing trees,' as this is common idiom in our business for printing cuesheets. I tried "Dendricide" and a few others, but nobody got it; meanwhile, I haven't gotten any negative reaction from the people who actually use this program, and many people think it's genuinely funny. Of course, most of them were born after 1975, too. I have nothing but the deepest respect for the sacrifices made by the men and women of the United States armed forces in peace and in war; an uncle I never knew died in the Vietnam War, and several of my cousins and my brother now serve in the military. But all that was Vietnam, the tragedy, the loss, the cause of freedom against the oppression of Totalitarian Communism, has absolutely nothing to do with printing cue sheets. You may consider my use of the name a form of "sublimation" (in the sense of Herbert Marcuse), an attempt to reclaim a positive meaning in language from something with an otherwise-terrible denotation.

Who are you?

My name is Jamie Hardt, and I am an assistant sound editor based in sunny Southern California. I learned computer programming mainly to solve practical problems in my work, and...

Why did you do this?

I wrote this program in a few days in February, 2006 when it was clear that I was going to be assisting on a Pro Tools 7 show, yet there were no cue sheet programs available at the time that would work with Pro Tools 7 sessions reliably.

Is this program free?

Utterly and absolutely; it costs you no money to acquire and operate, and you are free to use view and modify the source code, as long as you make your changes public. You may use this program, without any limitation, but with no warranty as to its suitability for a particular purpose -- it is AS IS. Read the license for more information

Why are you giving this program away when others charge hundreds of dollars for such things?

Many Reasons:

• I don't want to be bothered with supporting it. I believe it works quite a bit better than the awful, awful thing it replaces, but it is not trouble free, and at this time, I have no interest in collecting money for an application that is only "ok."

• Other sound editing systems have integrated, high-quality cuesheeting built-in. I feel this puts Pro Tools at a competitive disadvantage, and I have a vested interest in seeing Pro Tools stay an industry standard.

• As long as there is a good, free solution that "gets the job done," the professional developers will (a) be compelled to provide a high-quality product, and (b) will charge a fair price. If there is a reliable cuesheet program, that generates a desirable cuesheet, that is reasonably priced, I am happy to buy it. I simply want to make certain that no one is stuck using the embarrassing, awful thing that was used before on Pro Tools 4 and 5, and that the people who would sell such trash find no remuneration for their incompetence. I am an assistant, and I had to print many, many cuesheets with substandard solutions, and am quite resentful.