[Clam-devel] Re: [pksampler-devel] CLAM and PK widgets

David García Garzón dgarcia at iua.upf.edu
Thu Apr 12 09:54:30 PDT 2007


On Thursday 12 April 2007 04:14:49 Patrick Stinson wrote:
> I wish I had more brain to use to listen to your description, but i am
> in the middle of a totally unrelated commercial release for my client.

No problem. Let's talk afterwards then.

> I built our system around the specific requirements for our product
> plugin system, so it probably won't make much sense for you.\
>
> I program against the latest PyQt4 and for any platform. I always
> build from source. I suggest you do too.

I do, but we offer a development platform and distribute packages for a lot of 
platforms so in some way we will like to distribute the widget toolchain too 
in a similar way or providing some howto.

> I'd be happy to answer questions about the povray stuff. That facet of
> my code is pretty interesting, as it lets you focus on the povray
> scenes. I can't remember what state the pkpov tool is in, but I was
> just writing the scenes myself in python anyway, so I suggest you try
> that.

I did some experiments by changing parameters such as colors and size of 
buttons, and works pretty well. :-) I need to know how to crop them but i am 
on the track.

What i miss is some way of making the background transparent. Adding pkwidgets 
to an interface forces you to use the widget background for all the interface 
to avoid awkward aspect. By having an alpha background we could remove this 
limitation. I spotted several interesting links:
http://www.imagico.de/pov/icons.html
http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/shadowtut/index.htm

> Keep me informed how your work goes. I'm glad to hear my code helped.

At the moment i'll use the existing widgets and pixmaps and i'll extend both 
as i need more. Our packaging must not to be changed for that. Eventually i 
would like to integrate things further and porting other widgets. So let's 
talk then. I'll keep you informed. Warn me also when your release is over and 
lets chat a little.

Regards


> On 4/11/07, David García Garzón <dgarcia at iua.upf.edu> wrote:
> > On Dijous 12 Abril 2007, Patrick Stinson wrote:
> > > Are you working on a project written in python?
> >
> > No, it is C++. Although we want to provide bindings soon.
> >
> > > If so, I would suggest
> > > that you keep as much code in python as possible!
> >
> > Yes, i understand why. Now i have to take a look at the features you
> > added since the original port i did in 2004. Afortunatelly, C++ code is
> > nearly as tiny and simple as Python code.
> >
> > Any way i just need being able to load the plugin, and just rely on the
> > AbstractButton and AbstractSlider interface, so i would like to check if
> > i the new announced PyQt feature (python designer plugins) really works.
> >
> > > I developed an interesting way to do this in designer in C++. It is
> > > kind of complicated, though.
> > >
> > > I have a basic subclass for each standard widget like knob and button.
> > > They all have myStyle, myObject, and myValue (not the real names - the
> > > real names have our code name in them), string properties declared
> > > with Q_PROPERTY. When a plugin widget is loaded, the host wrapper
> > > checks all children with QWidget::findChildren() that have the myStyle
> > > property, and creates the appropriate style and sets it on the widget.
> > > It took me a while to write the styles, but know that I know the
> > > proper enums and virtual functions (hint: read qwindowsstyle.cpp and
> > > qcommonstyle.cpp for QWidget subclass usage, in that order) it's
> > > rpetty easy to write a style.
> > >
> > > PyQt doesn't support QStyle subclasses because of a casting problem -
> > > that's why I wrote my simple custom classes. My classes expect the
> > > pixmaps to be in a certain format (not so unreasonable), and the
> > > subclasses are all centered around a pythonic way to set a pixmap path
> > > on a widget easily. I don't know how this integrates into your
> > > project.
> > >
> > > What are your requirements for your widgets? do you just want to
> > > display pixmaps widgets from a designer form?
> >
> > Well, i think that the current approach we are taking is more suited for
> > our purposes. Just a property with the base name for the pixmap. Our
> > project is a prototyping tool, as i told you. We want to allow a maximum
> > flexibility without programming. A user can build his own interface and
> > bind it to a processing core which is also constructed by another visual
> > tool, the NetworkEditor. Check the newer development snapshots. They have
> > been assembled using pixmap widgets from the designer plugin.
> >
> > http://clam.iua.upf.edu/wikis/clam/index.php/Development_screenshots
> >
> > For the pixmap widgets i would like to have a fast way they can change
> > the image without compilation, that's why i made it a property.
> >
> > In fact, I don't like my current property implementation. I would like a
> > pixmap property so you can use the resource dialog, but then i don't know
> > how to get the file name from the pixmap in order to extrapolate the
> > other names. I also would like to provide some default implementations
> > classes not requiring to setup any property. But definitely this approach
> > is more flexible than building a QStyle.
> >
> > I would like also that our users could have your povray based widget
> > construction kit available on a handy place. So that they can generate
> > new widgets easily. I have to talk more to you about that. I am not a
> > povray expert. Also debian and your programs' dependencies are in some
> > kind of trouble. Which ditribution are you programming on?
> >
> > > You can do whatever you
> > > want with my code, just leave a reference somewhere that says you
> > > learned something from me so I can get hired again when I quit my
> > > current job.
> >
> > Of course. Thanks. And when you need to be hired, feel free to refer our
> > project as a success history for your developments. Definitely, we are
> > going to use it a lot. :-)
> >
> > > On 4/11/07, David García Garzón <dgarcia at iua.upf.edu> wrote:
> > > > Hi, patrick and any one on the list.
> > > >
> > > > I am working on a C++ designer plugin version of pk widgets to
> > > > integrate them with CLAM audio application prototyping framework. The
> > > > framework allows you to visually build audio applications by
> > > > prototyping the audio core with a patch tool and the interface with
> > > > Qt Designer.
> > > >
> > > > I just ported some of the pkwidgets: a generic button and a generic
> > > > slider. Both offer properties to base pixmap from the designer
> > > > interface. [2] They really look nice!!
> > > >
> > > > I am open to any collaboration, to split the widgets from CLAM as an
> > > > independent library or check the new PyQt4 method to build plugins in
> > > > python (published today!). I know we also share some interests on
> > > > VST/Qt integration so drop us a line.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > David García Garzón
> > > > (Work) dgarcia at iua dot upf anotherdot es
> > > > (Home) vokimon at telefonica adot net
> > > > http://www.iua.upf.edu/~dgarcia
> > > >
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> > > >VDEV _______________________________________________
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> >
> > --
> > David García Garzón
> > (Work) dgarcia at iua dot upf anotherdot es
> > (Home) vokimon at telefonica adot net
> > http://www.iua.upf.edu/~dgarcia






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