[linux-audio-dev] Knobs / widget design

[Dave Robillard]

On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 20:22, Paul Davis wrote:
> >On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 07:18:57PM -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:
> >> I think at this point all we need is a mechanism for a host to say
> >> "plugin, show your GUI now".  (Incidentally what DSSI does as far as I
> >> know, which isn't very much yet).  No embedding, no standard widget set,
> >> no crazy event loop stuff.  Let's (gasp!) actually do something that
> >> will get done.  (Of course noone is stopping anyone from making an
> >> audio-app-gui-widget library, far from it)
> >
> >Yep. Exactly.
> 
> There is chasm both broad and deep between 
> 
>       "plugin, show your GUI now"
> 
> and an actual implementation of such functionality.
> 
> Even on windows/macos, where the toolkit issues do not exist in the
> same way, its still the *host* that creates the top level GUI
> resources and integrates them into its own scheme for display
> management. 
> 
> steve knows all too well from the gmpi list just how thorny these
> issues are. "let's (gasp!) actually do something that will ge done"
> ... nice try there dave, but it just *isn't* simple.
> 
> The LADSPA XML DTD that was posted/edited/discussed here 2 years ago
> would do a lot of what people have described here. But its dead in the
> water because it can't do it all. There is no magic bullet here that
> does not involve putting a gun to people's head and saying "do things
> this way". Oh, and the gun doesn't exist.
>  
> 
> --p

I see what you're saying, and don't get me wrong - I didn't mean to
imply it's an easy thing to do.  But it is however, possible.  Just
getting a standard mechanism for the host to call an executable
somewhere that shows the plugins GUI (with communication via OSC or
something like that) would work, and is doable.

I'm just saying the "let's pick a toolkit!" debate isn't going to go
anywhere at all, and there's no point in starting it (yet.. again..).

You're right, it *isn't* simple - which is a good reason IMHO to try and
make it as simple as possible and avoid all the nasty
toolkit/event-loop/etc problems.

Or maybe "we" should just pick a damn toolkit and be done with it; what
the hell do I know? (absolutely zero sarcasm intended)

-DR-