Hmmm...I think here lies a problem...following on from the discussion 
about usability, how many Csound users can handle CVS? Wouldn't it be 
better to put this as a download on a website somewhere?

I actually think a survey of Csound users would be a good idea--how many 
users, what platforms, degree of computer literacy, etc.

Cheers,

Chris


Istvan Varga wrote:
> There is also a new Winsound-style GUI frontend now in the Csound 5
> CVS. It is not entirely finished yet (some changes may also be made
> based on user feedback), but is already in a quite usable state; the
> only parts missing from the originally planned features is some of
> the utilities and the "about" window. Like Winsound, it also uses
> (configurable) external text and sound editors, but there are a few
> additional features like saving and loading "presets" of settings,
> transport controls, performing either in a separate thread (better
> real time audio) or synchronously with the GUI (required by the
> widget opcodes), etc.
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

This looks quite nice so far, Istvan!  I'm amazed at how quickly you have
been able to create it.

Are these screenshots from a Linux X-Windows sessions or does this run on MS
Windows?  (What GUI toolkit does it use?)

Just from the screenshots, I could make a couple of suggestions.  For
settings that override the orchestra (Sample Rate, Control Rate, Tempo), it
might be better to have a checkbox to turn them on and off rather than use
"magic numbers" such as -1 to indicate "no change".  The "presets" idea is
good but it might just be easier to save settings to a "project file"
instead of maintainging a list of presets in the GUI.  That way a user can
store their "project settings" with their Csound files and just double-click
to open them in your GUI.  (Although having multiple sets of settings within
one project could be useful, so please take this with a grain of salt).

I am just inferring from the screenshots though how things work, so forgive
me if I'm wrong.  And overall it really does look like a good interface :)

Anthony

Istvan Varga wrote on 4/27/06 12:29 PM:

> There is also a new Winsound-style GUI frontend now in the Csound 5
> CVS. It is not entirely finished yet (some changes may also be made
> based on user feedback), but is already in a quite usable state;

Wasn't John ffitch working on a almost identical project? I can 
understand his frustration.

Rory.


Istvan Varga wrote:
> There is also a new Winsound-style GUI frontend now in the Csound 5
> CVS. It is not entirely finished yet (some changes may also be made
> based on user feedback), but is already in a quite usable state; the
> only parts missing from the originally planned features is some of
> the utilities and the "about" window. Like Winsound, it also uses
> (configurable) external text and sound editors, but there are a few
> additional features like saving and loading "presets" of settings,
> transport controls, performing either in a separate thread (better
> real time audio) or synchronously with the GUI (required by the
> widget opcodes), etc.
> 

Having a standard cross-platform Csound5 GUI (such as this) would be  
excellent.

The ability, as it is now, to use Csound5 with other Front-Ends (such  
as Blue), is also
a huge advantage, but I do think that if the program is distributed  
with a default GUI
"launcher/brouser/editor" with links to the manual  and an easy way  
to configure run-time
defaults and directory paths, check-boxes and text fields for the  
specification of command-line
options for all utilities, and some decent form of waveform display  
and console display (as this
all seems to have) would be a real plus.  This is looking great.   
Will it run on a Mac?  Do I need
to compile it to get it to run?  Will there be a manual to accompany  
it?  Is it ready for primetime
now?  Hope so.

Dr. B.

On Apr 27, 2006, at 12:29 PM, Istvan Varga wrote:

> There is also a new Winsound-style GUI frontend now in the Csound 5
> CVS. It is not entirely finished yet (some changes may also be made
> based on user feedback), but is already in a quite usable state; the
> only parts missing from the originally planned features is some of
> the utilities and the "about" window. Like Winsound, it also uses
> (configurable) external text and sound editors, but there are a few
> additional features like saving and loading "presets" of settings,
> transport controls, performing either in a separate thread (better
> real time audio) or synchronously with the GUI (required by the
> widget opcodes), etc.
> 
> 
> 

Can you email me a copy to try on my Mac?

On Apr 29, 2006, at 6:56 AM, Istvan Varga wrote:

> On Saturday 29 April 2006 13:42, Dr. Richard Boulanger wrote:
>
>> Will it run on a Mac?
>
> Probably not on MacOS 9 and earlier, but OS X should theoretically  
> work;
> I do not have a Mac, though, so I cannot do any testing for that  
> platform,
> but the code is designed with portability between Linux, Windows,  
> and OS X
> in mind.
>
>> Do I need to compile it to get it to run?
>
> Not if it is going to be included with the 5.02 release.
>
>> Will there be a manual to accompany it?
>
> Perhaps, although if a GUI is sufficiently well done and there are
> tooltips where the purpose of a widget is not immediately obvious,
> a manual should not be needed for someone familiar with general
> Csound use. But if there is demand for a detailed manual, I may try
> writing one.
>
>> Is it ready for primetime now?
>
> If you mean it is sufficiently stable, then, as of the current  
> version,
> yes, at least on Linux and Windows where I was able to build and test.
> Additional features may need to be added later (e.g. more utilities,
> and some functionality requested by users), but other than not having
> all the utilities (currently, there is cvanal, pvanal, and list  
> opcodes,
> but more can easily be added until 5.02 is released), it is as good as
> or better than Winsound 4.23.
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk

On Apr 29, 2006, at 7:53 AM, Istvan Varga wrote:

> Or do you mean posting the source code ? That is possible, as long as 
> you do not mind fiddling with
> the makefiles as there is none specifically for OS X yet.

I for one would really appreciate access to a source tarball since 
SourceForge has effectively introduced a barrier that did not 
previously exist between developers and users/testers relying on 
anonymous CVS.

Still getting

cvs [checkout aborted]: connect to cvs.sourceforge.net:2401 failed: 
Operation timed out

:(


-David

The Linux makefile almost works right out of the box on OS X.

A couple things,

1) According to the -I../../H and -I../../interfaces CXXFLAGS, the 
source tree nominally should reside in 
/path/to/csound5/frontends/csound5gui_src although they probably do in 
CVS!

Fix -> csound5gui_src directory exists two levels down from the csound5 
source tree


2) On OS X, a linker flag to libsndfile is required to avoid

ld: Undefined symbols:
_sf_command
_sf_readf_float
_sf_read_float
_sf_seek
_sf_close
_sf_open_fd
_sf_open
_sf_set_string
_sf_write_float

Fix -> added -lsndfile to LIBS


3) If I could only figure out what library these symbols belong to, I'd 
be in business!

__ZN2Fl4lockEv
__ZN2Fl6unlockEv

Fix -> Link against whatever library these symbols belong to, so 
Unknown :)


4) Needs to add the commandline for Rez after successful compilation 
(I'm not there yet) how to add this commandline to the Makefile ? 
Usually I just run it after successful compilation but ideally on an OS 
X makefile it would have it right in there.

/Developer/Tools/Rez -i APPL -o [app-name] ../../cs5.r


Otherwise the compilation is successful, it's just the linking that's a 
little trouble.



-David

On Apr 29, 2006, at 10:13 AM, David Akbari wrote:

> Otherwise the compilation is successful, it's just the linking that's 
> a little trouble.

PS. Looking great on Linux!


-David

I could give compiling a shot here.

Dr. B.

On Apr 29, 2006, at 7:53 AM, Istvan Varga wrote:

> On Saturday 29 April 2006 14:47, Dr. Richard Boulanger wrote:
>
>> Can you email me a copy to try on my Mac?
>
> I cannot compile Mac binaries. Or do you mean posting the source
> code ? That is possible, as long as you do not mind fiddling with
> the makefiles as there is none specifically for OS X yet.
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk

David Akbari wrote:
> The Linux makefile almost works right out of the box on OS X.
> 
> A couple things,

> 3) If I could only figure out what library these symbols belong to, I'd 
> be in business!
> 
> __ZN2Fl4lockEv
> __ZN2Fl6unlockEv
> 
> Fix -> Link against whatever library these symbols belong to, so Unknown :)

Have you tried the standard C++ library?  There are two ways of linking 
it and it tends to cause trouble.  It depends on the version of OS X as 
well.  Apple have instructions somewhere...


          Graham