I _have_ done this both ways. 

Writing the GUI in Python and embedding the csd is definitely easier for me than using the FLTK opcodes (your mileage may vary). This may be because I have considerable experience writing GUI applications, so that approach seems "normal" to me. 

However, I also am confident that independently of my experience, using an external GUI toolkit will be much more powerful, simply because not only is the selection much larger, but new widgets can be developed by the user.

There did used to be threading issues, but they were resolved (as far as I can tell) with Istvan Varga's very useful CsoundPerformanceThread class.

Regards,
Mike

-----Original Message-----
>From: Anthony Kozar 
>Sent: Oct 25, 2007 1:10 PM
>To: "csound@lists.bath.ac.uk" 
>Subject: Re: [Csnd] FLmenu?
>
>MacCsound is still only available as a PowerPC binary.  However, you can
>usually run PPC binaries just fine on an Intel Mac due to Rosetta.  The
>important thing to take into account is that you must install a PPC version
>of Csound, not the Intel version.  Someone did recently report having
>trouble with MacCsound on an Intel Mac (something about Csound not loading
>plugins), but I don't think it was clear whether this was a universal issue.
>
>Personally, I have to disagree with the many suggestions to implement a GUI
>in C++ or Python.  If you are used to MacCsound's GUI widgets and just want
>something similar that gives you the option to move to other platforms, then
>using the FLTK opcodes is the obvious choice.  They are a bit clunkier to
>use since you have to write code to create and position them (i.e. more
>experimentation to get the layout you want), but the results will be
>comparible.
>
>Writing a host application on the other hand and trying to mix Csound with
>an FLTK interface in C++ or some other toolkit has seemed like a tricky
>project from the many questions and problems posted to the lists.  I have
>not tried it, and perhaps some of the stickier issues have been solved now,
>but it always seemed like there were issues with threading or GUI toolkits
>conflicting, etc.  I am not saying that this route should be avoided
>completely, just that I think the learning curve is much steeper than others
>have estimated.
>
>Anthony Kozar
>Providing custom open-source software services for musicians:
>http://services.anthonykozar.net/
>
>
>Rory Walsh wrote on 10/24/07 8:19 PM:
>
>> MacCsound is available on Intel Mac's afaik but cross-platform GUI's are
>> great so if you don't feel like learning python or another GUI toolkit
>> go ahead with fltk.
>
>> Lou Cohen wrote:
>
>>> So it would seem that fltk should be the way for me. Despite the lack of
>>> menus, there are many strengths to the widgets, including the ability
>>> for the user to modify sliders with arrow keys. And I like the idea of
>>> all the code being in the orchestra, not spread across more than one IDE.
>
>-- 
>Send bugs reports to this list.
>To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk