At Adobe we have products built this way. AfterEffects is basically one
giant plugin host. You can write plugins to replace the host
functionality of tremendous portions of the app.
Im not sure this is where we want to go with GMPI, though. Here are
several issues:
- The needs/requirements of different host function API's will be very
disparate. We should stick to those kinds which can be represented by
the mechanisms we have already discussed. For instance, AfterEffects has
an API for drawing interpolation curves for automation. While it is
really cool that they allow this, this seems to me to be outside of the
scope of GMPI if we want to finish it.
- The more the host exposes of its functionality, the more coordination
is required between the plugin vendors and the host vendors, and the
more risk the host has of abberant behavior (which generates support
calls to the host vendor).
The AfterEffects team spends a huge amount of time working with plugin
vendors. This is for an API they completely control, though. For a
standard-based API, we run the risk of making it impossible for host
vendors to allow certain sets of plugins because the risk associated
with exposing certain functionality.
In Premiere, we have a Player Module plugin API where a plugin vendor
can take over displaying video and playing audio. This allows vendors to
control (and speed up using hardware) a crucial portion of the app. But
our player needs are very specific to Premiere, and I can't see us even
trying to make a broad standard out of this API, because other apps just
have different specs.
So I suggest we stick to designing an API for communicating audio and
control events between a host and a plugin, and not try to
over-generalize the system to where it would be unsupportable by hosts.
Asnaghi Lucio wrote:
i know the fact of having all in plugins ( especially for drivers and controllers/proxies ones ) could not be easy
to implement and to handle. but i see in this the direction of gmpi, its future essence. if all remains like before
gmpi imho is like another plugin spec that do not offer anything new, anything better than before.
i want everyone think on this point of the topic. i really want to see complete modulars virtual studios. cause one is
in studio with some players and needs a pianoroll sequencer ( plugin ), another day is playing a live act
in a club and needs a pattern sequencer ( plugin ) or both, but he would like to use in both environment the same
audio mixer ( plugin ), everything in the same rock solid host app, handling scheduling/interaction of all these
events/streams - generators/processors.
-- Mike Berry Adobe Systems
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