Subject: [linux-audio-dev] GUI-free ardour
From: Paul Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Sat Apr 07 2001 - 07:32:23 EEST
just a quick note to convey some of my excitement at the last week's
work.
at the instigation of frank carmickle, i've spent the last few days
implementing a completely GUI-free interface to ardour. it differs
from ardour in that its intended primarily as a mixer and real-time FX
processor, rather than a DAW and recorder. but its most important
difference is that its designed to be friendly to people using screen
readers, and as such presents no persistent visual indications of
anything. instead, the entire functionality of ardour is available
from the keyboard, using a very ergonomic and intuitive key assignment
that frank and i have worked out. you can load up LADSPA plugins
dynamically, control their parameters, etc. all with almost no finger
motion at all, and very definitely no mouse.
the program is short and sweet. it uses the keyboard in raw mode, and
so it currently cannot be used under X (which already owns the
keyboard). it has linkage to any GUI code at all. assuming you've got
my libraries already built (heh), it compiles in less than 30 seconds,
and can (must!) be run from the command line on a VT console.
this has been a very useful exercise in ensuring that the ardour code
really is cleanly separated between the "engine" (libardour) and the
GUI (gtk-ardour). right now, the new program starts its own audio
engine rather than connecting to an existing one, but this was just to
speed up my development time.
there are some ardour features not yet implemented, notably i/o
assignments (you currently get N "line in" mixer strips, where N is
the number of physical input channels on your audio interface; each
one is wired to one physical input channel and two physical output
channels). however, that will all change extremely rapidly (its all
about key assignments, not writing more than a few lines of code).
i have also considered how to allow it to run under X, and its not
that difficult at all, so i might possibly add that. but since screen
readers apparently don't work very well under X (or perhaps not at
all) its not really my focus right now.
those who prefer the idea of a mixer/RT-FX-processor that doesn't come
with a GUI may want to check this out. i hope to have it available
once i hear from sourceforge about a pending reorganization of all my
projects.
and as an aside, this has provided some insights into GUI design that
will make ProTux's "mouse jog pad" look a little clumsy, IMHO. there's
basically no reason that gtk-ardour shouldn't work the same way as
this new interface, other than the fact that i need to find out how to
steal keystrokes before GTK's idea of key stroke handling gets in the
way.
--p
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