[linux-audio-dev] Re: Which widgets?

[Albert Graef]

cdr wrote:
> since this thread is so GTK+-centric i'll chime in and say ive found nothing i like for easily creating customized/flexible GUIs more than Tcl/Tk [...]

Not to forget there's also Gnocl which lets you program Gnome and GTK+ 
applications in Tcl: http://www.dr-baum.net/gnocl/

I've actually written a GUI builder for that which makes it possible to 
click together simple Gnocl GUIs in a matter of minutes. (Currently the 
builder only generates Q code, see below, but tacking on a Tcl backend 
to it shouldn't be a big deal.)

I'm not sure how well Tcl integrates with MIDI, OSC and digital audio, 
though. So, if you want/need to write the rest of the program in C then 
Tcl might not be that helpful, unless you're willing to fiddle around 
with SWIG (http://www.swig.org) or Tcl's C interface.

Shameless plug: Those interested in scripting languages might also 
consider Q (http://q-lang.sf.net) which already has interfaces to 
PortAudio, libsndfile, libsamplerate, Faust, MidiShare, SuperCollider, 
OpenGL/OpenAL, Tcl/Tk/Gnocl and whatnot. This has the added benefit that 
it's a functional language which makes it easy to deal with complex data 
structures and symbolic processing. I'm currently doing the final 
touches for the Q 7.0 release which also has full unicode support and 
comes with the GUI builder I mentioned above. Scheduled to be released 
Real Soon Now -- surely in time for LAC06. ;-)

> once going beyond sortable lists and selectorboxes, youre going to end up with some kind of canvas

Yes, having a good canvas widget certainly helps, and Tk has a nice one. 
The one in Gnocl provides a similar interface while it is based on GNOME 
Canvas. (Looks like GNOME Canvas isn't liked very much by some, but I 
found it to be quite usable, at least in its Gnocl incarnation.)

Albert

-- 
Dr. Albert Gr"af
Dept. of Music-Informatics, University of Mainz, Germany
Email:  Dr.Graef at t-online.de, ag at muwiinfa.geschichte.uni-mainz.de
WWW:    http://www.musikinformatik.uni-mainz.de/ag