kode (plugin toolkit)

[skei]

vst2/vst3 editor, some widgets..
purely xcb, so it's not antialiased, and fonts are ugly..
but it works.,.
not sure when (if?) i will have motivation enough to dive into lv2 gui things..
(and not sure if i will ever care about a dssi gui)

- tor-helge

[mike@overtonedsp]

purely xcb, so it's not antialiased, and fonts are ugly..

That's no excuse.. you should just build your own font renderer and embed the fonts you need, that way you don't have precarious dependencies on fonts which may or may not be included in the user's distro and you can handle all the antialiasing yourself. I'm currently working on (amongst other things) a redesign of the (purely X11) font renderer in my plug-in (GUI) toolkit e.g.



Pure X11, no dependency on other libraries. The thing about plug-ins is that because you can guarantee so little about the (host) environment in which they will be run, they need to be as self-contained as possible, so don't worry about re-inventing the wheel - do as much or as little as you need to in order to get it working.

[skei]

purely xcb, so it's not antialiased, and fonts are ugly..

That's no excuse.. you should just build your own font renderer and embed the fonts you need, that way you don't have precarious dependencies on fonts which may or may not be included in the user's distro and you can handle all the antialiasing yourself. I'm currently working on (amongst other things) a redesign of the (purely X11) font renderer in my plug-in (GUI) toolkit e.g.

..img..

Pure X11, no dependency on other libraries. The thing about plug-ins is that because you can guarantee so little about the (host) environment in which they will be run, they need to be as self-contained as possible, so don't worry about re-inventing the wheel - do as much or as little as you need to in order to get it working.

i totally agree with you about self-containment, and plugins/hosts being a very specific environment, which demands specific care..

up until now, i have mainly bee focusing on the functionality, and left the design and graphics and aesthetics for a little later.. the drawing is almost completely separated from the functionality itself (events etc), so i can focus on one thing at a time.. but now that i have the most basic widgets i need (for the plugins i plan to do), i've just started to look more closely on rendering and graphics and visuals.. fonts have always been an area i don't know much about, so in earlier version of the toolkit, i was just using the font stuff in cairo.. but i have been thinking about for example stb_tryetype, and similar small libs for some help with the fonts..

nice font renderer!
i guess it is for internal use only?

- tor-helge

[sysrqer]

I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to seeing what you're making. I've used your old plugins a lot and I love them, I've seen you mention new ones for a while and by the sounds of it they will be good. I can't wait!

[mike@overtonedsp]

nice font renderer!
i guess it is for internal use only?

No it isn't open-source (because we need to make money from the software in order to fund the cost of development, hosting, maintenance and distribution) but there has been some interesting work published in this area which you might find of interest, or as a starting point e.g. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/2007/SIGGRAPH2007_AlphaTestedMagnification.pdf

I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to seeing what you're making. I've used your old plugins a lot and I love them, I've seen you mention new ones for a while and by the sounds of it they will be good. I can't wait!

Thank you - I'm glad you like them

(but... I'm also dismayed by the number of people who tell me they really like the software, but... they might consider buying it in six months time because.. you know, its £10 - that's a set of guitar strings or a couple of beers and a pizza. I can't get the sense of buying a PC and all the associated hardware required to make use of the software, and then baulking at the cost of a £10 plug-in... So for anyone who thinks £10 is a lot, my copy cost a lot more than that, about 5000 times more than that - all told). The bottom line is we need to be able to sell more than a few a week in order to make the new stuff happen...)</rant>

Anyway - back to the kode toolkit -

@skei: I think you've taken an interesting approach, there is no right or wrong - what matters is whether it works (reliably). There will always be those who criticise implementation details, sometimes for what amounts to stylistic reasons (I've been developing code in some form since 8Bit games on the first Z80 based home micros, (where the binary was the source code) - so I've seen opinions change back and forth way too many times about the right way to do things. I think code should just be readable, maintainable, well documented and work. Very often the best solutiion is also the simplest and most elegant (its important to have taste.. ) and while It's nice that some people can sit in their computer science ivory towers and dream up the latest implementation paradigm - back in the real world you need to ship code, that works, or you don't get paid.

[sysrqer]

Thank you - I'm glad you like them

I actually meant Skei's but I'm a big fan of your plugins as well so applies just the same

[skei]

No it isn't open-source (because we need to make money from the software in order to fund the cost of development, hosting, maintenance and distribution) but there has been some interesting work published in this area which you might find of interest, or as a starting point e.g. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/2007/SIGGRAPH2007_AlphaTestedMagnification.pdf

totally understandable! i myself am (partially) disabled, and lives on benefits from the norwegian state (which is ok, i have enough for normal living expenses, but not much extra), so i don't (have to) work.. i am also quite immobile, so i spend a lot of hours in front of the computer.. and a lot of that time is used for coding.. so i chose to just give it all away, since it's mainly my hobby.. something i do to fill up each day..

thanks for the link.. i'll take a look a little later..

I think you've taken an interesting approach, there is no right or wrong - what matters is whether it works (reliably). There will always be those who criticise implementation details, sometimes for what amounts to stylistic reasons (I've been developing code in some form since 8Bit games on the first Z80 based home micros, (where the binary was the source code) - so I've seen opinions change back and forth way too many times about the right way to do things. I think code should just be readable, maintainable, well documented and work. Very often the best solutiion is also the simplest and most elegant (its important to have taste.. ) and while It's nice that some people can sit in their computer science ivory towers and dream up the latest implementation paradigm - back in the real world you need to ship code, that works, or you don't get paid.

yeah, exactly !!

btw, seems like i have kind of the same background.. i started with a dragon 32, back in '83/'84.. learned a lot of tricks and stuff, because you had to, just to be able to make anything work.. and i also developed some attitudes, that i still have with me today..

[skei]

I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to seeing what you're making. I've used your old plugins a lot and I love them, I've seen you mention new ones for a while and by the sounds of it they will be good. I can't wait!

thanks!
always motivating to hear that people can use the stuff we make for something!

[skei]

btw, i just added initial mpe support..
works great in bitwig and reaper, using my seaboard....
it should work just as well for lv2 too, but i haven't tested it!
cool!

[skei]

been working on "traditional" multitimbral midi vs mpe vs note expressions.. needed some thinking and adjustments to the code to make them coexist nicely.. it turned out to be a bit more involved than i thought, but i think i found a good solution now..
one major bug to fix: bitwig doesn't react when i turn a knob on a plugin gui/editor (vst3).. apart from that, everything seems to twork pretty well..
will do a marathon-session this wekend to try to get that fixed, and also cleaning up the code, before i commit it to github..
i also started to work on a proper plugin, a synth.. more info later..

[skei]

very, very early test/prototype of the synth i'm experimenting with..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEcpJDERfG0

just me playing around with the parameters, without purpose, using a roli seaboard (block) and mpe mode..
gui is minimalistic and primitive on purpose.. (a test/prototype!)..
screen-glitches by obs..

[sysrqer]

Looks really interesting, some of the sounds are fantastic.

[skei]

thanks!
i'm almost finished with the modulation stuff now (mod matrix, env, lfo, step seq), which will drastically expand the possibilities.. after that, it's probably time to start thinking about a 'proper' gui.. and posting some binaries.. optimizations have to wait a little longer, until things have settled a bit more..