[linux-audio-dev] LADSPA proposal for named values

Hi all, It appears as though LADSPA at the moment lacks a means to provide names for control values (this topic has probably crossed the list before so I'll try to keep it short). The common solution for this problem (e.g. as used in Steve Harris' plugin collection) is to use an integer control port to encode for the different options that the port can have, then add some text to the PortName to describe those options (e.g. "1=sin, 2=saw, ..."). This has a few drawbacks though. First, it doesn't really solve the original problem; the user is still inputting ordered numeric values, even though the relationship that is being modeled can be totally arbitrary. Second, it makes for very long PortNames, which causes layout troubles. Therefore (if such a thing does not already exist) I propose to extend the LADSPA specification with a convention: if a PortName matches the following regular expression: .+ \((\d+=.+,)*(\d+=.+)+\) (in words: any sequence of characters following by a '(', followed by one or more comma-separated 'value'='name' pairs, followed by a ')'), then the host may assume that the given values map onto the given names and display them as such. In addition, the host may suppress displaying the '(...)' part of the PortName. This proposal follows current best practices, requires no modifications to the LADSPA protocol or data structures, is easy to implement, and highly unlikely to adversely affect any existing plugins/hosts. Any comments? Pascal. -- The GNOME U sound editor: http://awacs.dhs.org/software/gnusound