[linux-audio-dev] PTAF link and comments

[David Olofson]

On Wednesday 05 February 2003 11.57, Steve Harris wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 11:56:39 -0800, Tim Hockin wrote:
> > Defining a proper cross-platform GUI system will be fun.  I see
> > four levels of UI from plugins:
> >
> > 1) none - host can autogenerate from hints
> > 2) layout - plugin provides XML or something suggesting it's UI,
> > host draws it
> > 3) graphics+layout - plugin provides XML or something as well as
> > graphics - host is responsible for animating according to plugin
> > spec
>
> These three are not useful, because it doesn't allow custom UI
> objects to be drawn, eg. compressor curves, meters etc, which is
> the whole point.

I would say they *are* useful. 1) basically comes for free, so we 
don't really have to consider it. 2) provides some 
layout/grouping/structure that cannot be seen in the plugin 
meta-data, and 3) provides chrome - something that seems to be 
considered really rather important in the VST and DX world.


> > 4) total - plugin provides binary UI code (possibly bytecode or
> > lib calls)
>
> bytecode would be too slow I think, the maths for some UI work is
> quite heavy.

Yeah, there are definitely GUIs that need custom code, but I'd think 
they're in minority.

Either way, there's array based processing, canvas widgets with 
extensive rendering features and whatnot, so you can do pretty 
advanced stuff without pixel-by-pixel code...


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

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