Subject: [linux-audio-dev] ladspa GUI round 2
From: Paul Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Wed Mar 28 2001 - 21:36:23 EEST
i am very excited by steve's re-presentation of the plugin
GUI-as-separate-process idea.
it took me less than 10 minutes to add some code to ardour that could
handle the IPC via a FIFO (using the LADSPA_Parameter_Change struct I
included in my last message).
if we take this route, we could skip the (quite complicated) task of
implementing backends for the XML spec. people can write their own GUI
"applets" in whatever toolkit they want. then, in the initialize
callback of the plugin, they can fork the GUI process, passing it any
necessary info via exec(2), and presto, we're done. our LADSPA's GUI's
can be as beautiful (or ugly) as their individual authors want them to
be.
all we need to settle on is the struct used to send port value change
requests (and its name!) and the IPC method (which i think should
clearly be a pipe). the requests themselves don't need timestamps or
anything complex, just a way for the host to identify the plugin, the
port ID and the new value.
note, btw, that the host may not pay any attention to the pipe to
which requests are sent (it may even choose not to have such a pipe at
all). i suppose the host should pass the name of the FIFO
(e.g. /tmp/ardour_ladspa_gui_pipe), or a null pointer, so that a
plugin can tell if and where to send GUI requests (and thus whether or
not to bother with a GUI at all).
i still that a plugin should indicate if it has its own GUI, so that
hosts like ardour, sweep and many others can build their own simple
GUI for those that choose not to provide one.
what do you all think ? we could have this done in a few days!
--p
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