[Just Talk] Re: [linux-audio-user] Why we need graphic designers

[Steve Harris]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 03:53:04 +0000, Nathaniel Virgo wrote:
> ability to wire LADSPA plugins directly into the network (the difference 
> between this and your average modular synth app is that the guis for these 
> plugins will be drawn on top of the plugins' boxes in the network, rather 
> than in their own windows).

Good, that is the Right Way(TM) IMHO.

> Anyway, the point of mentioning this here is that what I had originally 
> envisaged was curved wires drawn over the top of the modules, and each wire 
> having a control point which can be dragged around to change the curve it 
> follows (right-clicking would bring up a menu so that the wire can be 
> deleted, changed colour, etc).  I was also toying with the idea of making 
> ports dockable so that if you drag a module next to another one so the ports 
> line up they will automatically be connected, making things like chaining 
> stereo effects much quicker.

I like the docking ports idea, and I do think that for typical jack apps
routing style connections will be easier to follow. Yes, I'd imagine that
the algorithm will be complex. I did start to plan something out to do
this myself, but all the simple algorithms I could think of failed on
common cases.

I had a quick search for papers on the subject but I mostly found stuff
specific to chip design (which is a different problem).

- Steve