[ardour-dev] Glugin aesthetics

[Paul Davis]

>But there is a problem. The plugin is even worse looking in other apps 
>like muse or rosegarden, because of the completely unnatural controls 
>order. Moreover, if ardour changes in the future, my plugin could look 
>bad too even in ardour!

this is a general problem with LADSPA's complete lack of GUI
specification. 

>I don't know what rules are used when displaying a plugin gui, but would 
>it be possible to have more control on the appearance (in the rdf 
>description?), or have simpe rules that would allow to easily make a 
>plugin with the same number of controls in each row?

LADSPA offers no way to do this, unfortunately. Each host has had to
make its own decisions on generic rules for laying out a potentially
complex set of controls for every plugin.

>***
>2°/
>I really would love to see a "favorite plugins" tab in the plugin selection.

mantis that one!

>Here's a screenshot (please look at the second automation curve - track 
>"Saw"):
>http://nolv.free.fr/ardour/ardour_zoom1.png
>
>When de-zoomed, it looks like this:
>http://nolv.free.fr/ardour/ardour_zoom2.png
>
>Confusing!

we could obviously do a better job of selecting which points to
display. the code for all this is nightmarishly complex already, and
the kind of heuristic needed to get this right would make it even more
complex. however, it is apparently needed.

please put this in mantis, along with both screen shots for
reference. thanks.

>That said, i must say that i am completly amazed by ardour. I use it in 
>production since ~0.9beta10. It is the most flexible multitrack tool i 
>have ever used and it is open source. It even offered me the possiblity 
>to reuse my hardware effects in a mix session, thanks! Thanks to Paul 
>Davis and all ardour developpers, ladspa developpers, etc. You do a 
>wonderful job.

Thanks for the thanks.

--p