On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 6:17 PM, Will Godfrey <willgodfrey@musically.me.uk> wrote:

I would guess the best thing (from a user
> POV) would be for a2j to open a new jack client for each ALSA client with the
> ALSA name. I am not sure what other consequences this would have though :)

^ this ^

The existing arrangement makes it far from clear what the connections are.

the alsa_midi internal client (based on a2jmidi doesn't change this design.

the correct way to deal with this is to use the pretty-name metadata for the ports, then you can name them however you wish. for example, here is a qjackctl screenshot after I've a script that calls jack_property to set pretty-name values for my RME device:

http://community.ardour.org/files/portprettynames.png

(note the complete absence of "system", "capture" and "playback" in the names)

of course, not much at all uses the pretty-name metadata yet, but this is definitely the right way for us all to move forward. the screenshot comes from a version of qjackctl that isn't even in svn yet :(