[ardour-dev] code monkey request #1

[Paul Davis]

Taybin has already begun the task of getting things ready to port
Ardour itself to GTK2. One of the tasks that we face within ardour/gtk
is porting the GtkCustomRuler widget (it lives in the gtk_ardour
directory). It has always been my goal to implement these as canvas
items to make their use more flexible. This is your chance for glory
and education. I will be happy to answer questions along the way. To
get started you will need to get current CVS, plus the infrastructure
for GTK 2.6.6 set up. I just did it last night, and it was rather
painless:

       glib
       atk
       pango
       gtk
       glade
       libgnomecanvas

This is essentially about taking the design of the ruler and moving
into a "rendering" framework rather than the normal widget one. It
should be fun. There should be a lot of logic and even code that can
be ported. The ruler design is relatively simple: it has callbacks
that get the "metrics" (definitions of where major/minor tick marks
are), its job is to draw those metrics in its allocated space.

Note that we only require horizontal rulers at this time. I don't
think this will make much difference, but it might be worth knowing.

--p