Hi, Velli-Pekka! Wonderfully interesting points!<br><br><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>[UI for synth panels]<br>Cool, I've only seen references to that Mini Audicle thing and tried out
<br>some binary in WIndows. Itr looks to me like a ChucK IDE, though I've yet to<br>figure out how to run scripts in it, <embarrassed emoticon>.</blockquote><div><br>Ah, yes. I'm on Win and Linux as well but my eyes still work (though they are going down....) so I saw the screenshot of the Mac version. This screenshot shows sliders and leds and so on and the idea is of course that this will be extended. Making those screen-readable now seems like a good idea, especially since I imagine that in the long run more visually impaired people will try programing for their electronic music needs, the idea seems very natural.
<br><br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">That's right. Although I was thinking the panel objects could maybe export
<br>their serialized state. That info could be then stored in a file directly.<br>Do chucK objects have built-in serialization capabilities as in Java? Or<br>maybe a class to inherit from and a bunch of callbacks for preset
<br>management, kind of like in VSt plugs.</blockquote><div><br>Right, yes. I think that here Spencer's point of view is close to my own. As I understood it Spencer wants to integrate such things with ChucK itself, not make it into a exception. I think that this would make it more versatile and powerful in the long run. For novice users it might be harder to use at first but that trade-off might be worth it. I think we can assume that anyone who is using it will be already familiar with implementing functionality using ChucK. The same goes for MIDI learn. You are quite right that MIDI learn needs a way to indicate what parameter is meant and right now -without a graphical interface- that would be a rather primitive affair. As soon as the graphics get here it would need a night of clever thinking but be very possible.
<br><br>This might be a good topic for a future example to be distributed with the Mini.<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Not necessarily. I didn't mean the GUI would be customizable in the app<br>itself. In stead, it would use the colors and fonts you had picked for your<br>OS. I'm a low-vision user myself so I've chosen Windows colors that are
<br>sufficiently high contrast but virtually no VST plug ever respects those,<br>for example.</blockquote><div><br>Ah! I think that I myself run one of the Windows settings meant for disabled people; I use one of the high-contrast B&W ones because I find them easier on the eye and more clear.
<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">[accessibility]<br>Basically yes. My rather technical definition is that they are apps that
<br>programmatically reduce the graphical user interface to text, which is then<br>rendered as speech and or Braille. Other things they often do include<br>following focus changes, heuristically guessing which pieces of text are
<br>labels and augmenting the keyboard interface by providing mouse-emulation<br>and virtual focus for apps that either lack a keyboard interface or have a<br>broken tab-order.</blockquote><div><br>Got it. This is the sort of thing why we need alt tags for images and Flash is of dubious value and so on.
<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">It's not so much the interfaces as such, but the fact that they are custom
<br>controls screne readers are not able to read programmatically. They also<br>lack keybord access unlike say your average Office app. I'm actually a fan<br>of GUIs myself and wouldn't want to go back to a command prompt, though I
<br>like programming. It's just GUis that don't cleanly reduce to text that are<br>the problem. Usually direct manipulation with the mouse, graphs and such. A<br>graphically editable envelope would be a good example, though again there's
<br>no reason why the points could not be managed via a list view and some<br>buttons.</blockquote><div><br>Absolutely. Now that I think of it it's quite remarkable that nobody -that I know of- pointed out the interesting benefits that livecoding and generally using programing as a musical instrument might have for the visually impaired.
<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>>synth programs for people with perfect sight as well; it seems to distract
<br>>from the sound.<br>Not to mention all the people with high res TFT displays, glasses and or<br>aging.</blockquote><div><br>Oh, yes, and the need for split-second decisions while in chaotic environments like when performing in a nightclub.
<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">[HID API]<br>Yup, I've noticed. Although I think I found a bug in it. In:
<br>.\chuck-1.2.0.7-exe\examples\hid\keyboard-organ.ck<br>The keystrokes get delivered to chucK even when that window has not gotten<br>the focus. I find that counter-intuittive and a potential problem if you<br>multi-task several keyboard instruments in different consoles. Sure it is
<br>expected behavior for MIDI but not for the keyboard in Windows apps at<br>least. Besides such an implementation likely means system-wide Windows<br>keyboard hooks may need to be used, which can be a resource hog at times. My
<br>screen reader already has its hooks in the chain.</blockquote><div><br>Personally I like this. Right now I work with ChucK and the Nord Modular and I find it very convenient to be able to play ChucK with the keyboard while the Nord editor is in focus and addressed by the mouse. If this isn't what you want you might want to try the non-hid keyboard interface; that one doesn't do this and demands focus. You would lose key up and key down messages though.
<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">How good is the HID API by the way? I've got a gamepad with a mini joystick,
<br>a v axis, the throttle, pov switch and 6 buttons and hav always thought it<br>would be cool if I got it to send out MIDI. Also this laptop has a Synaptics<br>touchpad that can send pressure in addition to the xy coords. So I guess one
<br>could use it as a 3D mini Khaos pad if you will.</blockquote><div><br>I have some good news for you. As I mentioned; my eyes are fine for normal computer usage but I got tired of staring at the screen all the time in a performance context so I'm developing my own instrument (a house style sequencer) which is build around two HID gaming devices and is playable without using the screen at all. I still use screen prints to know what BPM I'm currently at and how much shuffle I'm using but only to help me make "presets". This is very feasible and I'd like to encourage you to try to do the same. A good pianist can play blindfolded so why not a techno producer? <provocative grin>.
<br></div><br>One thing that I've become very interested in is interface sonification for musical programs. I'm in the very early stages of testing that idea. My aim here is to stylise the interface sonification in such a way that it blends with the music, using some quantisation where it may be necessary. You might want to experiment in that direction as well. As Asio gets here this will feel more natural; realtime interface sonification depends heavily on low latency if you want to make it pleasing. I found that I tend to input commands rhythmically after listening to a beat for a while regardless of whether those commands have anything to do with the beat directly.
<br><br><br>Yours,<br>Kas.<br></div>