[linux-audio-dev] Midi/OSC help - Continuous controllers

[Mario Lang]

Olivier Guilyardi <ml at xung.org> writes:

> Paul Davis wrote:
>>> Actually, I just started from the following assumption : a midi
>>> hardware controller is a input device, among keyboard, mouse and
>>> others.
>> the problem is that its also an output device, for some midi h/w. add
>> this into the situation, and you start to realize that the midi h/w is
>> actually a "GUI" just like the one on the screen. forcing one GUI to
>> be mediated by another seems odd.
>
> Okay, let me try to improve this...
>
> Assumption v0.2 : a midi hardware controller is a set of input and
> output devices, and is in its nature identical to the more
> conventional monitor, keyboard and mouse.
>
> And because I like ascii diagrams, here is where this assumption drives me :
>
>   +----------------+                  +--------------+       +--------------+
>   | input & output | <----- X ------> | GUI Toolkit  |       | Application  |
>   |    devices     | <---- Midi ----> | (gtk, etc..) | <---> | (MVC or not) |
>   |                | <-- Whatever --> |              |       |              |
>   +----------------+                  +--------------+       +--------------+
>
> About configuration : there are tools to map keys to letters for a
> keyboard, so there could be tools to map knobs to controllers in case
> of a midi box.
>
> This is all theoritical, but can it be considered false ?

It at least would hurt users like me.  If I already have an alternative
input/output device like a MIDI controller, I do not want to have to
run a GUI as well, since I actually wouldnt even see it.

In my mind, the application should be the engine/model, and all
views/controllers should be independent of each other.  Having to go
through the bloat of running GTK or something similar is just silly if
what someone wants is to just send/receive MIDI data.

-- 
CYa,
  Mario