[gmpi] Re: lost-n-found #3 parameter stuff

Need is a strong word. The facilty for this is built in for every parameter of every plugin, no matter the type. Right now, no VST plugins can use it. I would be happy if some GMPI plugins could choose to support it. We also, BTW, provide for custom UI for all plugins that support it, but that is a parallel mechanism.

I don't really think that this is some brand new requirement. I rather think that this is a refinement of how host-based UI for plugins would work. It will be very nice if we can provide a mechanism to support text entry in the host for plugin parameters, regardless of the presence of custom UI. And I don't think that raw entry of the parameter is in its natural units is quite enough, because of the fast that many plugin writers may have a natural unit which has only a complex algorithmic relationship to the display parameter.

A hot text is an enhanced edit field. In Adobe products, when it is not selected, it appears blue without the white edit text box around it. If you simply click on it, it converts temporarily to a standard edit field. After it loses focus, the value is entered and it become blue again. If you click and drag, you can increment or decrement the value without it converting to an edit field. It also supports standard modifiers for 10x, 0.1x, and 0.01x dragging.

The increment/decrement that I want are strictly for display values. I would like to have a call where I can ask the plugin, given a value, can you tell me what the value would be if I incremented by one standard unit. Or by 10 standard units. Or 0.1. The plugin gets to decide what the standard units are. I also need the max and min values. The host would have the responsibility of actually sending the new real parameter value. The increment call would strictly be for UI purposes.

Mike

Tim Hockin wrote:

On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 08:35:32AM -0700, Mike Berry wrote:

I don't think it is a corner case if we can show a host (Premiere) which needs it 100% of the time for all plugins, custom UI or not. 


If you need this for EVERY parameter of EVERY plugin, I'm worried.  This
is a whole chunk of new functionality that was totally missed for the last
18 months, and now it's NEEDED?


The issue is not just for parsing the string that is typed. Hot text controls in Premiere are also draggable. For that, I need to know what the natural unit of increment is. Lets say that I have a parameter that is frequency in linear units in a float. In the plugin's custom UI, it is free to put a log-based control onto that parameter. But the host has no idea. So how does the host pick a useful unit for incrementing and decrementing the value? This is exacerbated by the normalization in VST, but just getting rid of the normalization does not fix the problem. 


Can you explain real breifly what "hot text" is?  And you're saying that
you never use custom UIs?  You always have a host-generated UI?

As for increment/decrement, those would need to become events so they can
be timestamped (and everything else that happens to parameter changes).
Eek.

so, what you want is (if I understand)

PARAM_TYPE new_val = parameter->increment(old_val);
send_event(new_val);

Am I right? 

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--
Mike Berry
Adobe Systems


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