Re: [LAD] mixer

Alex, I hope you don't mind quoting part of your message on the list, as the subject is of general interest. Alex stone wrote offlist: I more than agree with this. Defining the way a user interacts with a large software mixer is 90% of the work of writing one. Common GUI methods just don't work for this sort of thing. The thing that is slowly taking some form here will observe some GUI guidelines quite strictly, in particular there will be *NO* repeat *NO* resizing, scrolling or moving of windows, menus will be used sparingly and be small, and popup dialogs will be used only for operations that can be assumed to be infrequent (mainly setting up things, selecting and connecting plugins, etc.). When setting up a new session, you define the resources: - number of channel strips - number of real groups - number of control groups - number of visible sections - number of strips per section - number of jack/alsa inputs - number of jack/alsa outputs These are more or less fixed afterwards, in the sense that you can't remove any, but probably I can allow to increase these numbers (the point here is that all snapshots taken for such a configuration must remain valid without requiring changes to the resources). Anyway there is no penalty (apart from a small amount of memory used) for providing more than you need. A _section_ is a group of strips, typically 8, 10 or 12. Normally you should select the section size so you can have two of them side by side, as this facilitates many operations. For each visible section there is a control strip, which contains e.g. buttons to select which strips are shown. You will have default sections, e.g. inputs 1-8, 9-16, 17-24, etc, same for real groups and control groups. There are also user-defined sections: these can contain copies of any strip you want in any order you want. For example you could group all inputs used for drums in a secion, or have a 'master' section that contains mainly groups and maybe some solo mics. There is some 'intelligence' in the section selection buttons, for example, if you select to see inputs 17-24 in the right section, you click that button (or use a kb shortcut), then clicking again restores the previous view. Or selecting a section that is already visible will swap the two, etc.etc. Each visible section is vertically divided in two, the bottom half showing the faders, channel ID, mute, solo etc. most of the time, while the top half can show parts of the strips, e.g. EQ, sends or dynamics. Again this layout is configurable to some extent, you can e.g. select to have some aux sends visible all the time. The top part of each visible section can also be used for plugins, metering, 'visual' panning, or whatever extra functions that would need to be displayed. All Jack/Alsa ports are generic, each of them can be assigned to any function inside the mixer. That means e.g. that Jack connections can remain fixed no matter how you 'rewire' the mixer, and this in turn means that nothing is lost if you connect directly to a multichannel Alsa device, e.g. a MADI card. The mixer will have its own plugin interface, and it will not accept any of the existing standards. If someone wants to use a LADSPA or LV2 I will consider porting it. Condition for this will be the *quality* of the plugin, and nothing else. Ciao from very hot Crete (I'll be cooling down 20m below the water surface in a short time). -- FA There are three of them, and Alleline.