[LAD] adding session notifications to jack

[torbenh]

On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 06:05:01PM -0500, David Robillard wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-11-21 at 23:36 +0100, torbenh wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 04:37:17PM -0500, David Robillard wrote:
> [...]
> > > What is this unique ID?  Unique ID of what?
> > 
> > unique id, which is meant to persistent. a unique client id for the
> > session. 
> > jack_client_open is extended to accept this uuid. so upon session
> > restore, the client will have the same uuid again.
> > and the session manager will be able to query its jack client name.
> > and then be able connect things again.
> 
> Is there a purpose to this ID other than getting the client name?  If
> it's about client name, we should just use the client name.

what would happen if the name was already taken ?
i basically had lash in mind when i imlemented it. 

but the client name would not work, if i had a hydrogen running, and
loaded a session with another hydrogen. 


> 
> > i have added:
> > 
> > void jack_client_set_cookie( jack_client_t *client, const char *key, const char *value );
> > char *jack_get_cookie_by_uuid( jack_client_t *client, const char *uuid, const char *key )
> > 
> > now. this allows for publishing such things.
> 
> Excellent.  Jack has needed a metadata system really, really badly for
> ages.  Need to be able to set stuff for ports too though.  This could
> elegantly solve so many long standing problems of jack (e.g. the auto
> connect problem).
> 
> However, notes from a metadata nerd:
> 
> - The key should REALLY REALLY be a URI.  The manager (or whoever else,
> including JACK itself) needs to be able to actually infer some meaning
> from a "cookie", or the system isn't really that useful.  Because this
> is persistent, and can be used to convey meaningful information, using a
> free text (i.e. meaningless) key is an extremely bad idea.

its not really persistent. the client needs to set them.
and i dont have means yet, to set them from another client.
do you think thats necessary ?

> 
> - There should probably be an optional const char *type parameter, to
> specify the type of the value.
> 
> I still don't see why this uuid is needed when any existing client
> already has a unique name.

noted above, because the client name uniqueness doesnt necessary persist
between session loads.

> 
> > > But this leads me to the main point I want to make:
> > > 
> > > My take on this general thing is that a simple API like this is very
> > > definitely the right path, but if anything I would like it not even tied
> > > to Jack itself either.  The reason session management has failed to take
> > > hold is too much implementation-defined crap, breaking APIs, complexity
> > > to implement, and all that kind of thing.
> > > 
> > > How about taking it one step farther:  define this API in a single C
> > > header, which would be very small, not tied to ANY implementation
> > > whatsoever, and implementable by both plugins and hosts (this last part
> > > is a very big win IMHO).  All this header would define is a descriptor
> > > (struct) with the necessary methods.  Sort of a ladspa.h for session
> > > management, except even simpler.  How you actually get this descriptor
> > > would be the only implementation dependent part (e.g. a host could pass
> > > it to a plugin, or Jack could have a single new call to return it).
> > 
> > interesting idea. i am not sure about the semantics of the reply strings
> > in the plugin case though.
> 
> I don't understand what the reply string means.  You said "return a
> string which specifies, how they want to be restarted".  Specifies
> what/how, precisely?

oh... its the key to session reload.
it basically is the command line, thats needed to get this client up
again, and make it load its config.

(so simple clients might specify their config via commandline switches
or whatever) 

another special handling is for ardour, which isnt able to save a
session into some session dir.
so my current patch makes it save a snapshot, and puts the path to the
snapshot into a file in session dir.
then it returns: "alink_loader /path/to/session/<prefix>.alink"


we have already identified a weakness for ncurses clients.
so we might need to specify some environment variables, which are usable
in these commandlines. $XTERM or something...


> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -dr

-- 
torben Hohn
http://galan.sourceforge.net -- The graphical Audio language