Alphas

Changes:

Threaded dialogs.

Other changes from r1100 and previous versions.

I would like to get this functionality released officially for all versions (Windows, Linux, MacOS) in v8.1 as soon as possible. Before that there are some features that still need to be implemented and some additional tweaks associated with file browser dialog functionality (On Windows/MacOS the native dialog should be used.) It seems unlikely that I'll be able to release a full MacOS version as the GUI still needs to be ported, but the alpha can be updated.

Changes:

Preset library works fully.

Init state automatic generation.

When run without an existing init state, for example upon first run of the plug-in on a user account, the plug-in will automatically load the "Xhip factory bank" from the embedded content and generate the initialization state file.

This means new users will have the bank available immediately without being presented with an empty bank filled with "init" presets.

Updated "Xhip factory bank" with some improved presets and other minor tweaks.

Still to come are improvements to this system where the standard "factory bank" will be installed along with a standard init state when the plug-in is launched for the first time. This will allow new users to have content immediately available rather than a bank filled with init presets.

Changes:

Basic preset library.

A custom file browser and message box dialog.

GUI improvements.

The side-chain input switches in embedded effects are now disabled.

Changes:

Implemented very simple double-buffering.

This eliminates GUI flicker almost completely.

Implemented native Xhip Effects.

The effects are now working completely as native Linux plug-ins. This version includes the recent alpha skinning and configuration features and has a fully resizable GUI. The GUI now defaults to 2x size and no longer includes any bitmap strips for widgets. Widgets are by default rendered directly and the self-rendered widgets have been improved significantly.

Some minor issues remain but these Linux versions are now near complete ports. The one exception is the lack of a file dialog for the synthesizer but the plug-in is still very useful without it.

Changes:

Added embedded GUI skin resources.

This simplifies installation greatly. You can now simply copy the plug-in to your native vst folder and it should work.

Added in-window custom dialogs.

Due to xlib's lack of core support for modality (depends upon the window manager) I've been forced to create my own in-window dialog implementation.

The current implementation provides a "message box" dialog which should make the plug-in GUI much easier to use.

With the dialog system working it shouldn't be much trouble to implement a simplified file browser.

Various changes and fixes (revision number +38) that I won't bother to list.

There are some important issues remaining but the GUI is very nearly complete at this point and entirely usable with some work-arounds for missing file browser dialogs. (It is possible to use .fxb or .fxp files via your host's interface for states and presets.)

Changes:

Implemented basic resizing functionality.

Added a GUI configuration file.

Added feature to parse in shared skin resources.

This requires a lot more work before it is reasonably functional for the purpose of skinning or advanced configuration. For now some very basic configuration is possible along with nearly complete static GUI scaling functionality.

Changes:

Implemented xlib SHM buffer.

In the end it turned out that the SHM implementation was less important than I thought. It was reasonably easy to accomplish though and is massively more efficient than the naive XPutImage method. The current implementation uses XPutImage as a fallback in case SHM isn't available but doesn't include checks associated with SHM support. Instead error-codes are checked and upon failure to allocate the SHM buffer the standard methods will be used.

Fixed issue with GUI redraw.

The function get_client_rect() was calling XGetWindowAttributes() as part of set_clip_rect() associated with every GUI item redrawn. Since this uses xlib's high latency communication protocol and xlib does not buffer the response the function call overhead was absolutely, unbelievably huge.

The data is now read from cached values rather than calling into the sysdep/xlib functions.

Improved xlib messageloop and associated code (timers, etc).

Changes:

It's ALIVE!!!

Seems I need to implement a slightly different bitmap blit using an xlib shared-memory extension (SHM) as the current implementation is ridiculously slow.

Launch the plug-in first without installing the skin. It should work fine (no warning messages implemented yet but it obviously won't have the skin resource data.)

If it works extract the skin data into ~./xhip/synth/8/ and delete the ~./xhip/synth/8/bitmap cache/ directory and content.

Close your host and re-open the plug-in GUI and you should have bitmaps and fonts!

TODO includes embedded resources, SHM support and beta testing before an announcement and release can be made.

Various parts are missing: Dialogs like messageboxes and open/save file and a few other bits still need to be implemented. I'll likely use wxwidgets for this if possible. Beware the horrible messagebox stub implementation: hit a key to close it; it doesn't actually work at all.

Changes:

Windows XP compatiblity

Some small changes were made to fix issues on Windows XP.