[linux-audio-dev] Re: processing plugin standard wrapper

[Stefano D'Angelo]

> > > > you can think all you want. unless there a plugin->host callback that
> > > > allows the plugin to determine its operating environment in huge detail,
> > > > this kind of idea is pretty impossible to make use of.
> > >
> > > What?
> > > Once again: misunderstood! These optimizations involve that the
> > > "wrapper" (I should stop calling it this way) knows about the network
> > > of processing objects (read: plugins) and that these last ones contain
> > > "generic" information on their functionality (ex. STFT for LTI proc.
> > > objects).
> > > Then the wrapper takes care of optimizing the net.
> >
> > find me a host author who would want to use such a thing... managing
> > plugins is a central task of a host, and handing that over to some
> > "wrapper" that hides information from the host doesn't make the host's
> > life easier, it makes it more complex.
>
> In fact you wouldn't have to.
> You could just use it as a plugin wrapper, network representation and
> optimizazion would be of some use only for some (experimental?
> advanced? strange?) hosts.
> Personally, I would use such thing for my project.
> Then, who said that it has to hide such informations to the host?...
> It is definitively not a plugin arch wrapper, but a kind of
> "inter-application jack-like connectivity tool for processing objects
> with already existing plugin archs wrapping and network optimization
> capabilities".
> As it goes when you build a GTK app, you don't have to use each
> library function, and so it would become just a plugin wrapper.
> Maybe the two things can be split, but maybe optimization could hardly
> depend on each processing object interface (aka plugin format).

Well, I thought about it last night, and maybe the whole thing could
be split in three parts:

1. A modular processing object format wrapper (one module for each format)
2. A GUI generation and handling (and maybe embedding? XEMBED?)
wrapper with format-specific modules and toolkit-specific modules
3. A library with network representation, optimizing and processing
capabilities.

What do you think about it?

Stefano