#107085 - keldon - Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:59 am
I am looking for a development community to join. My aim is to experiment with skinnable cross platform guis - although I would also like to have a really basic audio stream with low latency. I have no qualms about joining any of the public licenses that would force me to provide code.
I do not mind being restricted to only windows, especially as I have had too many complications setting up linux with my graphics card without resorting to 'four letter words'.
I am considering wxWidgets as it will make it easier to have anything I create cross platform. I really do not know where to start. I have some experience with wxWidgets at uni - we had to develop graphics enhancing programs, but we were not doing anything special. I need a responsive display, so I am unsure if I would have to use directX (which I have worked with a little with c#).
That's why I need to find a viable community that is as strong as this place. I don't want too much choice, I just want a solution to enable me to develop without too much hassle not related to the coding, and a community to support me with new areas. I have googled before and can't find anything concrete.
#107088 - sgeos - Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:29 pm
Are you looking to make anything in particular, or just experiment?
-Brendan
#107089 - keldon - Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:39 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
Are you looking to make anything in particular, or just experiment?
-Brendan |
I have something in mind, but would rather experiment first. I create music, and would like to try to develop a simple app for hip hop beats creation inspired by the akai mpc hardware.
Look at how just blaze creates a beat using his mpc in this youtube clip (click here). The mpc isn't doing anything special, but it works as a stand alone app for creating beats.
I have ideas about how file formats should work, and the options for file exporting to prepare for mixing, how to manage audio samples, and a lot of other things. But I want to start off with small achievable tasks with the main goals in mind; and my first task is to find a simple medium to work with. So initially I will be experimenting with the API's without having such a big ambition.
I am quick at developing code and solving problems; but I still have small goals so that I can only either carry out my given tasks, or exceed them.
EDIT: and I say I am experimenting as I would hate to announce my interest in a project I did not complete. That would look bad.
#107091 - kusma - Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:36 pm
| keldon wrote: |
| although I would also like to have a really basic audio stream with low latency |
have you looked at RtAudio? Does it furfill your need for audio-streaming? wxWindows is quite good for the gui-part.
#107096 - keldon - Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:20 pm
RTAudio looks like a great candidate to use for the audio stream. My main concern is finding a viable community. The latest instructions for wxWidgets and eclipse are out of date and do not work for the current builds. I would like code completion and debugging, although I did work fine without code completion when using c++ before.
#107182 - keldon - Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:08 pm
Also I think my problem is how I am putting together my dev environment. At uni it is seamless and compiles really quick. To get the same code to work both at home and uni on linux and windows I had to install dev-cpp and download all of the plugins, and then borrow some of the lines that the dev-cpp makefile uses and put it into mine when compiling on windows.
But on windows wxWindows compiles much slower than it did when I was on linux, also I have too many troubles getting debugging working and the likes, so any good forum or irc channel that you know of would be great.
#107233 - tepples - Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:10 pm
I have used the Allegro library. Audio latency depends on 1. the buffer sizes you choose and 2. whether your sound card has a hardware mixer.
_________________
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-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#107856 - josath - Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:12 pm
This is somewhat offtopic to your main request, but this line:
| keldon wrote: |
| My aim is to experiment with skinnable cross platform guis |
Reminded me of this:
| makali wrote: |
Also, whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.
|
I have yet to see an app where skinning was a good idea. Just give me a standard rectangular window which matches all my other windows and widgets, and follows basic UI practices. (For example, 'turnable' knobs don't make sense on a GUI. Put a standard slider bar in there instead.)
(the full artcle is here, if you care. it's just some guy ranting about the suckiness of media players on linux)
#107880 - keldon - Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:17 pm
| Quote: |
| I have yet to see an app where skinning was a good idea. Just give me a standard rectangular window which matches all my other windows and widgets, and follows basic UI practices. (For example, 'turnable' knobs don't make sense on a GUI. Put a standard slider bar in there instead.) |
For what I am doing you really do not want slider bars instead of knobs. Packages like reason and fruityloops live on having knobs.
Consider that a standard mixer, 16 channels, each with one slider, 4-8 aux send knobs, pan knob, and 4 eq knobs. You really would have a big challenge making that work with just sliders.
#107916 - josath - Fri Nov 03, 2006 2:55 am
Then do pop-open sliders: When not in use, they simply show the current value. when you click on it, a slider appears, and you can drag up & down. I forget where these are used, but they are fairly standerd, I think Photoshop and Flash both use them in their interfaces.
#107932 - keldon - Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:22 am
| josath wrote: |
| Then do pop-open sliders: When not in use, they simply show the current value. when you click on it, a slider appears, and you can drag up & down. I forget where these are used, but they are fairly standerd, I think Photoshop and Flash both use them in their interfaces. |
Cubase uses sliders, but not like normal windows sliders. The aiming at the slider adds time to seeking for the point and then dragging to your desired position; and it also feel 'crap' compared to the alternative.
Now I am not thinking about skinning in the sense of windows media player, and I have no ambition to begin with some fancy looking app. But if this reaches a point of completion then the look of the interface would be something to think about.
But first stop are the communities, and getting wxWidgets and everything else to work with my debugging IDE and makefiles. I didn't like using dev-cpp because it compiled the entire project each time and took too long to compile something that compiles quicker 'real' custom makefiles.
EDIT: although flash's pop up sliders are good.
#107976 - keldon - Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:43 pm
But back to the original question, does anyone know of any solid communities to join? The main reason is that I find myself spending all of my time trying to get something to work with out of date help. The wxWidgets/eclipse walkthrough is out of date and does not work at all, which means that I cannot get the debugger working so I might aswell be using any other text editor.
And once I am within the community I can take their recommendations and now end up getting stuck in the configuration.
#108001 - Joe_Sextus - Fri Nov 03, 2006 11:12 pm
Have you tried www.codeprojects.com? It might help. I don't know how good the forums are though, I've never used them.
#108004 - keldon - Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:21 am
| Joe_Sextus wrote: |
| Have you tried www.codeprojects.com? It might help. I don't know how good the forums are though, I've never used them. |
Did you mean http://www.codeproject.com/ which is for .net projects?
#108014 - Joe_Sextus - Sat Nov 04, 2006 4:24 am
Yes, but its not just .NET. They also deal with MFC and general C/C++. It may not have anything on wxWidgets, but its got a good deal of generic and Windows programming examples (mostly Windows).