Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] LADSPA Control GUI metadata
From: Paul Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Mon Dec 10 2001 - 06:06:14 EET
>> complexity.
>
>OK, fair call. I think we at least need a directory for guis that can provide
>interfaces to all plugins though. That doesn't add much does it?
you mean a special directory in which every GUI was 100% generic? who
is going to write such a thing except for host authors, and why? but
anyway, sure, i see no particular reason not to. what envvar do we use
to find it? i propose LADSPA_GUI_PATH. i think this is a wierd idea,
because of the IPC costs, and the fact that hosts will likely want to
provide "consistent" default GUIs that match their own style, but hey,
there are lots of wierd ideas floating around that are reasonably well
supported.
>> my current idea is something like
>>
>> 1) search LADSPA_GUI_PATH for ladspa-<LADSPA-plugin-id>-gui
>> 2) pick one if any are found, and use it. how to pick is up
>> the host (it could use the first, the most recent, whatever).
>ask the user?
>> 3) build default if none are found
>
>I prefer something like the presets directories, I still think that
>multiple GUIs will be fairly common.
>
>/usr/local/ladspa/gui/1220/basic-gui or whatever
thats fine too. i'll modify the idea to:
1) search LADSPA_PATH, appending "gui" to each directory named,
and then the LADSPA plugin ID, and then look for ?????
2) pick one if one or more gui's are found
3) search LADSPA_GUI_PATH to find generic GUIs. pick
one if one or more are found.
3) build default (whatever that is) if nothing is found
how to identify a "gui" is another question. we don't dlopen() them -
just fork/exec, so there needs to be a filesystem-based method of
identifying them as candidates.
in what has been discussed so far, a "GUI" implies X Window. this is a
bit limiting, even though it will cover 99.8% of all current cases,
and a similar number in the future. i think that any naming convention
for GUIs should indicate that they use X (or not) so that future non-X
situations can be handled.
>LADSPA related things. It might let hosts choose the right guis more
>easily or consitantly.
how? using any metadata means either opening a 2nd file to read the
metadata, or dlsym-ing to find the revalant symbol. since we don't
dlsym GUI's, only the first is really possible, and as soon as there
are 2 files, one of them can always go out of sync.
>What code would you like to see? I don't think it really needs any
>library support.
how is the metadata discovered/read?
--p
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