Absolute nub, looking to get into vst/plugin development

[LemonLime]

Is Microsoft Visual Studio (just for example) good for laying out various graphical elements in a sophisticated VST2 plugin GUI?

No. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question. Lay out your graphical elements in your graphics software (Photoshop, Skinman, etc.). Then you get the location (upper left coordinate position) from all the graphical objects and use those to code in their placement in your VST GUI part of your plug-in.

There are of course other development environments/frameworks that let you place your graphics on the window, similar to Interface Builder in Xcode. But if you're just doing straight VST GUI with C++, then that's how it's done.

[AdmiralQuality]

Is Microsoft Visual Studio (just for example) good for laying out various graphical elements in a sophisticated VST2 plugin GUI?

I think you're imagining this stuff is done graphically, in a WYSIWYG editor. It's not. It's code, we type it all in.

You might want to look at Synthedit. It's more like what you're thinking. Not to discourage you, but judging from the questions you're asking, your name may be accurate.

[overhishead]

Is Microsoft Visual Studio (just for example) good for laying out various graphical elements in a sophisticated VST2 plugin GUI?

No. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question. Lay out your graphical elements in your graphics software (Photoshop, Skinman, etc.). Then you get the location (upper left coordinate position) from all the graphical objects and use those to code in their placement in your VST GUI part of your plug-in.

There are of course other development environments/frameworks that let you place your graphics on the window, similar to Interface Builder in Xcode. But if you're just doing straight VST GUI with C++, then that's how it's done.

You have just made my day, and I believe in humanity again. Positive feelings are felt and knowledge has been produced.

[LemonLime]

Is Microsoft Visual Studio (just for example) good for laying out various graphical elements in a sophisticated VST2 plugin GUI?

No. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question. Lay out your graphical elements in your graphics software (Photoshop, Skinman, etc.). Then you get the location (upper left coordinate position) from all the graphical objects and use those to code in their placement in your VST GUI part of your plug-in.

There are of course other development environments/frameworks that let you place your graphics on the window, similar to Interface Builder in Xcode. But if you're just doing straight VST GUI with C++, then that's how it's done.

You have just made my day, and I believe in humanity again. Positive feelings are felt and knowledge has been produced.

Your words drip with sarcasm.

[mystran]

Is Microsoft Visual Studio (just for example) good for laying out various graphical elements in a sophisticated VST2 plugin GUI?

I think you're imagining this stuff is done graphically, in a WYSIWYG editor. It's not. It's code, we type it all in.

You might want to look at Synthedit. It's more like what you're thinking. Not to discourage you, but judging from the questions you're asking, your name may be accurate.

Actually, what you could do is implement "design mode" into your plugins, where the knobs allow themselves to be dragged. Then you would implement some form of a "save" function where you dump the layout into some file. That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

Personally though, so far I've used an approach where I typically do an approximate layout in code (just place stuff in grid), then draw a background in GIMP, then tweak the positions in code until it looks "slightly less horrible".

[hibrasil]

That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

VSTGUI4 has this functionality built in and it seems to work quite well.

[mystran]

That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

VSTGUI4 has this as standard and it seems to work quite well

Oh ok. It's not terribly hard to do manually either, though.

[LemonLime]

That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

VSTGUI4 has this functionality built in and it seems to work quite well.

Only with VST 3 though. At least according to the SDK, inline UI editing does not work with VST 2.x.

[paoling]

Well, I'm using Firemonkey in Delphi XE3. This is a wonderful wysiwyg way to work, since Firemonkey supports transparencies, animations and effects, and i find it wonderful for creating UIs.

[lorcan]

That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

VSTGUI4 has this functionality built in and it seems to work quite well.

Only with VST 3 though. At least according to the SDK, inline UI editing does not work with VST 2.x.

VST3 has VST2 and AU plugin wrappers out of the box, with no additional code.

[LemonLime]

That would give you WYSIWYG but obviously you'd have to implement it yourself.

VSTGUI4 has this functionality built in and it seems to work quite well.

Only with VST 3 though. At least according to the SDK, inline UI editing does not work with VST 2.x.

VST3 has VST2 and AU plugin wrappers out of the box, with no additional code.

Very true. Still means you have to code your plug-in in VST3 though, which many seem still to be a little hesitant to do.

[mystran]

Has VST3 got MIDI yet?

[thevinn]

C++ Development System that previews your GUI as you write the code:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imkVkRg- ... e=youtu.be

Note that the JUCE cross platform framework includes full support for easily creating platform-independent audio plugins of all types (VST, AU, etc...)

[AdmiralQuality]

Has VST3 got MIDI yet?

[lorcan]

Has VST3 got MIDI yet?

Note on/off, pressure, sysex and Steinberg's own note expression are supported.
CC's are not handled directly, you need to use a parameter that the host will transmit the CC changes to.