what if I made a little visual programming language for my synthesizer 🤔
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now, this may seem like I'm just fussing around on trivial details, but i assure you this is all going according to plan
I made some forward progress on my visual programming language project. Mind you, not any progress on the actual language yet, but I've established a makeshift gui quasi-framework that will hopefully make it easier to write the editor gui
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I made some forward progress on my visual programming language project. Mind you, not any progress on the actual language yet, but I've established a makeshift gui quasi-framework that will hopefully make it easier to write the editor gui
I believe this was a worthwhile yak shaving detour because I was able to write the select mode in less than an hour.
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I believe this was a worthwhile yak shaving detour because I was able to write the select mode in less than an hour.
The "framework" works such that there's some global state for the working data and theme elements, and there's a set of "screens" which are responsible for implementing drawing the gui and processing input events. Similar screens (as demonstrated here) share a base class to reduce code duplication. Each screen has its own event loop, and so the call stack essentially becomes an implicit stack of UI mode changes that can be unwound.
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The "framework" works such that there's some global state for the working data and theme elements, and there's a set of "screens" which are responsible for implementing drawing the gui and processing input events. Similar screens (as demonstrated here) share a base class to reduce code duplication. Each screen has its own event loop, and so the call stack essentially becomes an implicit stack of UI mode changes that can be unwound.
The side bar consists of "targets" which are just hyper link boxes that trigger screen changes on mouse-down. There's no mouse-over logic anymore since this meant for a touch screen anyway, and removing mouse-over button appearance changes simplifies things a bit. Each screen just define what it wants in the sidebar.
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The side bar consists of "targets" which are just hyper link boxes that trigger screen changes on mouse-down. There's no mouse-over logic anymore since this meant for a touch screen anyway, and removing mouse-over button appearance changes simplifies things a bit. Each screen just define what it wants in the sidebar.
Select mode tests to see if a mouse-down happened on any boxes in the graph bay, and toggles their select state. The toggle function implements all the select and deselect logic. When select mode is active, the graph bay tiles check their select state to see which sprite they should use. When a toggle is issued, the select mode also rewrites its sidebar based on what you have selected. The "magic" button that appears will eventually go to the wire connection mode, but that doesn't exist yet.
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Select mode tests to see if a mouse-down happened on any boxes in the graph bay, and toggles their select state. The toggle function implements all the select and deselect logic. When select mode is active, the graph bay tiles check their select state to see which sprite they should use. When a toggle is issued, the select mode also rewrites its sidebar based on what you have selected. The "magic" button that appears will eventually go to the wire connection mode, but that doesn't exist yet.
I don't think the connection mode will take long to write, but I need to wander away to do other things now.
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I don't think the connection mode will take long to write, but I need to wander away to do other things now.
connection mode update: connection mode indeed did not take long to write
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connection mode update: connection mode indeed did not take long to write
This version of connection mode is just a short term solution for managing parameter connections. I'm going to have it work such that the different sides of the screen correspond to one of the two selected nodes, but I think later on when I get all the other parts in place I'll probably rip it out and replace it with something else.
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This version of connection mode is just a short term solution for managing parameter connections. I'm going to have it work such that the different sides of the screen correspond to one of the two selected nodes, but I think later on when I get all the other parts in place I'll probably rip it out and replace it with something else.
ok I'm at the point where I need to establish a base class representing the synthesizer instructions, which in this thread I've been calling "nodes" but I want to stop calling them "nodes" because the word "node" makes me think of pimples but they're full of javascript instead which is worse. I don't want to call them "instructions" because I'm going to be writing that word over and over and also because the nodes can represent registers and constants too. (there is no js in this project)
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ok I'm at the point where I need to establish a base class representing the synthesizer instructions, which in this thread I've been calling "nodes" but I want to stop calling them "nodes" because the word "node" makes me think of pimples but they're full of javascript instead which is worse. I don't want to call them "instructions" because I'm going to be writing that word over and over and also because the nodes can represent registers and constants too. (there is no js in this project)
ok I'm just gonna call these "tiles" since in my mind they're just weird scrabble tiles anyway
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ok I'm just gonna call these "tiles" since in my mind they're just weird scrabble tiles anyway
an aside on naming things: I tend to substitute the word "user" with the word "player" or "operator" depending on context. So like, if I'm writing documentation on a tool I wrote, odds are I'm going to call you The Operator instead of "user" because I want you to feel cool.
in this particular project, I'm tempted to use the word "musician" instead, but I'm probably going to default to "player" for the person operating and programming the machine.
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an aside on naming things: I tend to substitute the word "user" with the word "player" or "operator" depending on context. So like, if I'm writing documentation on a tool I wrote, odds are I'm going to call you The Operator instead of "user" because I want you to feel cool.
in this particular project, I'm tempted to use the word "musician" instead, but I'm probably going to default to "player" for the person operating and programming the machine.
Getting to the fun part. There are now different types of tiles, and they can be programmatically connected. Tile positions are explicit. The wire positions are implicit, but I haven't implemented the procgen rules for them yet so they're just shortest path lines right now.
I implemented this part today because I realize that working out the data structures stuff here was a prerequisite to being able to complete the connection editing screen. Lots of options for where to go from here.
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Getting to the fun part. There are now different types of tiles, and they can be programmatically connected. Tile positions are explicit. The wire positions are implicit, but I haven't implemented the procgen rules for them yet so they're just shortest path lines right now.
I implemented this part today because I realize that working out the data structures stuff here was a prerequisite to being able to complete the connection editing screen. Lots of options for where to go from here.
Incremental progress tonight while waiting for dinner. I've updated connect mode to now show the parameters of the selected items, as well as which side corresponds to which selected tile. Still lots of room for improvement.
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Incremental progress tonight while waiting for dinner. I've updated connect mode to now show the parameters of the selected items, as well as which side corresponds to which selected tile. Still lots of room for improvement.
I'm planning on having little detached wires hanging off of the outputs to hint at their polarity when they're disconnected. When they're connected my intention is to have an arrow indicating the directionality of the connection.
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I'm planning on having little detached wires hanging off of the outputs to hint at their polarity when they're disconnected. When they're connected my intention is to have an arrow indicating the directionality of the connection.
Also I'm annoyed that math words are all verbose. "term" and "sum" fit as alternatives for the inputs and outputs of the add node, but the vibes are off. "result" reads better than "sum" for the output. I don't like "term" because it's ambiguous. "summand" is too long. "addend" both is too long and it looks like it says "add end" which what. In the end I went with "+" for the operand end of the tile and "=" for the result end. (operand is also too long)
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Also I'm annoyed that math words are all verbose. "term" and "sum" fit as alternatives for the inputs and outputs of the add node, but the vibes are off. "result" reads better than "sum" for the output. I don't like "term" because it's ambiguous. "summand" is too long. "addend" both is too long and it looks like it says "add end" which what. In the end I went with "+" for the operand end of the tile and "=" for the result end. (operand is also too long)
"input" and "output" could work, but I'm intentionally avoiding them so the output tile doesn't have an input named "output"
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"input" and "output" could work, but I'm intentionally avoiding them so the output tile doesn't have an input named "output"
idk what I'm going to do for the "min" and "max" tiles lol
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idk what I'm going to do for the "min" and "max" tiles lol
also I'm considering making the add tile effectively just a pass through and having the system add all wires connecting to the same input when the input doesn't have a special arithmetic meaning. eg draw two wires to the line out and it just adds them. or draw two hz values into a sine wave and it adds them. draw two values into a mul tile and it multiplies them instead.
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also I'm considering making the add tile effectively just a pass through and having the system add all wires connecting to the same input when the input doesn't have a special arithmetic meaning. eg draw two wires to the line out and it just adds them. or draw two hz values into a sine wave and it adds them. draw two values into a mul tile and it multiplies them instead.
The connect mode is fully functional now, and because I felt it added too much overhead, I also added a magic auto-connect/disconnect function to the selection mode since most pairs of tiles will have one obvious implicit connection anyway.
Here's a video demonstrating both:
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The connect mode is fully functional now, and because I felt it added too much overhead, I also added a magic auto-connect/disconnect function to the selection mode since most pairs of tiles will have one obvious implicit connection anyway.
Here's a video demonstrating both:
I figured maybe I'd have a go at porting over my synth pipeline tonight, but I also decided I wanted to rebuild it as a python C++ extension and then my attention span bounced violently off the python packaging documentation, soooo... I made the lines look more arrow-dynamic instead :3
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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Frammenti di meteorite danneggiano il tetto di una casa a Coblenza, in Germania. Sono i resti del bolide avvistato ieri in mezza Europa
https://www.bild.de/news/inland/in-rheinland-pfalz-meteoriten-teile-beschaedigen-haeuser-69adc532161cd9d527cd8e5c?fbclid=Iwb21leAQb1aFjbGNrBBvVeWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHvTg0cAr4JnsIb0mz7hXHAYwx5DLjzemIBtbbyzU0CdHN7mvgtxWi-ub6RYV_aem_yLP7KOHCGSp6PqWzZe5aUw&t_ref=https%3A%2F%2Fm.bild.de%2Fnews%2Finland%2Fin-rheinland-pfalz-meteoriten-teile-beschaedigen-haeuser-69adc532161cd9d527cd8e5c%3Ffbclid%3DIwb21leAQb1aFjbGNrBBvVeWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHvTg0cAr4JnsIb0mz7hXHAYwx5DLjzemIBtbbyzU0CdHN7mvgtxWi-ub6RYV_aem_yLP7KOHCGSp6PqWzZe5aUw%26t_ref%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Flm.facebook.com%252F
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i think we should call engine programmers "game engineers"
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Da @ilPost
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@kaneda mi rendi felice!
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@cstross is she doing her “you monster” face?
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Guess who's going to the vet? (Annual checkup, no biggie)
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@kzurawel I've heard good things about spacemacs but never tried it myself since iirc it is set up to be vim-like out of the box (regular emacs has vi-mode which you might also like)
