[linux-audio-dev] Modular Jack patch bay

[Dave Robillard]

On Mon, 2004-02-09 at 10:56, Nathaniel Virgo wrote:
> Dave Robillard wrote:
> 
> >Screenshot:
> >http://chat.carleton.ca/~drobilla/patchbay.png
> >
> >Waiting on the Jack callback issue to make a pre-release.  Anyway,
> >basically I need a name for this thing, and any (UI) suggestions anyone
> >has.
> Here are some GUI ideas I thought might be cool or useful:
> 
> The wires would look even cooler if they were splines, so that they came 
> out of their ports horizontally and gracefully curved their way to their 
> destination :) It looks cool and feedback loops display better.  (if 
> you're using something like a GTK canvas it's pretty easy too)

I was thinking about that (or even using bezier curves to have
connections cleverly avoid modules if possible).. If there's support in
the canvas it'd be easy enough.  Otherwise... well, there's only so many
hours in the day. ;)

> When ardour is in use I imagine a feature where the output ports of a
> program can appear as a seperate module from the input ports would be
> handy (so that [ardour output]->[effects chain]->[ardour input] can be 
> drawn without a loop).

I planned on this from day one, not because of ardour but because of
alsa_pcm.  Audio input and output being on the same module always screws
things up pretty bad when you're running loops (like ardour).

> Being able to shift-drag to move all the wires connected to one port 
> directly to another would be really handy sometimes, as would click-drag 
> to copy connections (I often find myself doing these things by hand in 
> other apps).

Good idea.

> Another potentially handy idea is to make it so that if a module is put 
> next to another so that the input ports of one line up to the output 
> ports of another, they automatically become connected.

Not sure about that one.. how many cases are there really going to be
where this happens, and all ports that should be connected are beside
each other?

> A very ambitious idea would be to allow LADSPA plugins to be embedded
> into the UI so that to the user it looks as if they've been put straight
> into the JACK graph. In reality they would not be connected via JACK at 
> all of course.

This was touched upon before; but I'm not sure if the ideas of a modular
synth/effects rack and a jack patch bay should really be slammed
together.  A few people seem to think it'd be good though.

Of course, it'd require a whole lot of time (ie rewrite) on my part, and
with my current workload something like that just isn't going to happen
anytime soon. :/  (I have to deal with the ALSA problem first)

> Anyway, it looks great, I can't wait to try it out.

Thanks; I'm /trying/ to get a prerelease out! (even though ATM it
depends on a simple jack patch).  I might have a free day this week
sometime..

-Dave