[linux-audio-dev] Alternative Sequencer User Interface

Thorsten Wilms t_w_ at freenet.de
Sat Apr 10 03:52:36 UTC 2004


Hi!

Firt of all, since this my first post, some words about me:
My name's Thorsten Wilms, I'm studying industrial design 
in Germany/Wuppertal.
I'm very interested in interaction / interface design, and 
of course making music on the Linux platform.
My coding skills are _very_ basic:(
Used Cubase VST on Windows, but I can't stand Windows anymore, 
and what people around here have developed / are working on 
is more interesting anyway, not to forget that open-source 
just feels better and gives me a chance to influence things :)

Ok, now the screenshot Tim Orford linked to
(http://80.61.20.184/wiki/smgui_5.png)
reminds me of Ableton Live. Everybody who doesn't know it should 
take a look at this screenshots:
http://www.ableton.com/pages/products/live/live3tour/whatislive/live3sessionbig.gif
http://www.ableton.com/pages/products/live/live3tour/whatislive/live3arrangebig.gif

It's optimized for live usage. No pseudo 3d look, everything 
fast and easy to 'read'. Not that everybody should copy 
this right away, but it might be a source of inspiration. 


And now for everybody interested in a different approach to 
a sequencer gui, I would like to point to the 3d application 
Blender.

It has something like it's own windowing system,  
whereby what is called a Window in Blender is rather like 
Panes in other environments.
You can split windows verticaly and horizontaly and resize every 
window by dragging the borders. Every window (usualy) has a 
header (even though these can be at the bottom) wich can hold 
buttons and menus. But the first control in every header is 
for selecting the windowtype (3d view, file-browser, schematic 
view, ...).
Setups of these windows can be saved as Screens. Shortcuts 
allow to switch through Screens, or to maximize the window 
the mouse is over to full-screen (or minimize afterwards).
All this allows to adapt Blender to one's own workflow 
or current task at hand.

Screenshots:
http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-04-10_blender_1.png
http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-04-10_blender_2.png

The same approach could be used for sequencer / audio suite.
To take it a little further, the windowtypes could be 
seperate applications / plugins.
Managing various effects, synths, the mixer and everything  
else on a single screen in Cubase was a nightmare. I make 
use of virtual desktops under Linux, but a system like in 
Blender would be so much more comfortable and fast ...

I can't code anything coming only close to such functionality, 
but I'm more than willing to work on conception and graphics, 
if there is interest.


Thanks for the attention!
---
Thorsten Wilms



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