Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] LCP v0.1.0
From: Paul Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Mon Dec 10 2001 - 18:18:59 EET
>I think an important use of LCP is that the host writer need _not_ care
>about GUI design, but can just launch a standard LADSPA-default-gtk-gui
^^^^^
we don't care about toolkits. repeat it after me :) still, i suppose
someone might want both a GTK one and a Qt one.
>or whatever that handles params via sliders or numerical entries.
thats not really what LCP was intended to provide for. LCP is intended
to allow steve and anybody else to cook up their own GUIs without us
worrying about toolkit issues.
this could also be rather cost-ineffective: its one process (at least)
plus one socket per GUI. for many plugins, it seems to me quite silly
to fork and use TCP/IP to do this.
also, there are no LADSPA hosts that I know of at this time that lack
the ability to build LADSPA (G)UIs. there are, however, several LADSPA
plugins that lack decent (G)UIs.
yes, its true that people might want to write future LADSPA hosts
without writing GUI code. this seems to me to be what open source is
all about. MusE and ecawave provides Qt examples; GLAME, Ardour, and
others provide GTK+ examples.
we've also proven fairly conclusively that you can't build *good*
GUI's generically this way. Steve's "hermes" plugin is never going to
be amenable to this approach, whether the GUI code is in the host or not.
its why Steinberg wrote VSTGUI - they had exactly the same problem
with Cubase was responsible for cooking up GUIs for VST plugins.
>I don't think custom GUIs will be popping out en masse, because GUI
>writing is somewhat boring :)
if you read the VST plugins list, you'll see that at least 50% of the
questions are about writing GUIs, because the authors of those plugins
want decent looking (ok, ok, read "inaccessible to the visually
impaired non-mouse-using user" :)) GUIs. they don't do it because its
fascinating stuff, but because of pride and concern for the user.
fundamentally, i'm trying to make certain things possible here, not
all things. in particular, i'm not trying to massively simplify the
life of a host writer. more than anything, i just want steve to be
able to continue cooking plugins at the rate he's been doing, knowing
that he can ensure that there are functional (perhaps even slick) GUIs
for them.
--p
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