Using flash as a gui toolkit for vst's?

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So I've been using Steinberg's VSTGUI library to make frontends so far, and while it works, I'd really like something a bit more flexible as far as user controls go. It occurred to me the other day that macromedia flash would actually make a really good interface for a VST plugin.

Has anyone here explored something like this? How easy is it to use altranate GUI toolkits from within a VST? I've unfortunately not worked much with flash, but is it possible to use flash as a frontend for C++ code?

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I'm not a coder, but even IF you could I know that Flash is notoriously slow from experience and this would not be the most efficient way to make a GUI.
hi

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I realise this may be a tad off topic, but your post reminded me of Oli Larkin's project for "Interfacing Pure Data and Flash". http://www.oli.adbe.org/puredata.htm

I know you can write your own objects for Pd in C or C++, so I thought this info might be of assistance.

PureData also has a VST Bridge... if that helps.

I'm a complete coding novice.
drab

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Well, I've been using Flash for nearly all of my Synth, it works perfect with SE, don't know about C++
Jonamb aka. JustJ
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allofdrab wrote:I realise this may be a tad off topic, but your post reminded me of Oli Larkin's project for "Interfacing Pure Data and Flash". http://www.oli.adbe.org/puredata.htm

I know you can write your own objects for Pd in C or C++, so I thought this info might be of assistance.

PureData also has a VST Bridge... if that helps.

I'm a complete coding novice.
Looks like these projects were designed around Max/MSP, but if it's possible in Max, then I guess it's obviously possible in C++. Very interesting links.. thanks!

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jonamb: you mean you've been using flash to draw the buttons and backgrounds right? Or is there a way to embed a flash player in a synth edit dll? that would be amazing...
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you can easily interface flash to anything: just use sockets (network packets) the downside is: the flash movie that is your gui will run independanty of the plugin, and yould have to be started manually. The GUI would not be a part of the host (it will be a separate app - namely the flash player from macromedia). It would be possible to use some advanced win32 code to wrap the flash player, but I doubt macromedia would allow this.
It's a very interesting question though. Keeo us posted if you find anything new.
http://www.livelab.dk - slice up your life

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Eric from Novaflash (maker of Snip, Zero, Microgram etc) does most of his GUI work in Flash.
As a vector drawing tool it's more user-friendly than something like Illustrator or Freehand.

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dystonia_ek wrote:Eric from Novaflash (maker of Snip, Zero, Microgram etc) does most of his GUI work in Flash.
As a vector drawing tool it's more user-friendly than something like Illustrator or Freehand.
Yes but is the actual code in flash or does he just create images then load them into SE? Im really curious if you can actually have real flash code runing in a vst without "packets" and if not can you at leaste load flash vector images into a vst?
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FYI,
I was just at the FlashForward conference, and Macromedia demoed the next version of Flash. One of the key features is that it will be MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than any previous version. They demonstrated interacting with hundreds of graphic objects onscreen with absolutely no drop in performance.
Oh, and it also will do real time blurs, glows, transfer modes, and high quality video compositing with alpha channels.

Just when I thought I'd finally given up on Flash for good...
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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I really think vector images are the way of the FUTURE!
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In case it wasn't obvious, they've also drastically improved the performance of handling bitmap graphics.
Back on topic, I'm sure there is a clean way to use Flash as the GUI for a VSTi, but I've never tried it. I'd really like to find a way to integrate Flash content directly into my Java applications.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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Its got a COM interface, so it should be possible.

There is an article at Macromedia on how to do it with VB:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flashslideshow/

using COM with C++ is a little more involved. Probably worth buying a book on it..

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LIMITAPROACHINGINFINITY wrote:
dystonia_ek wrote:Eric from Novaflash (maker of Snip, Zero, Microgram etc) does most of his GUI work in Flash.
As a vector drawing tool it's more user-friendly than something like Illustrator or Freehand.
Yes but is the actual code in flash or does he just create images then load them into SE? Im really curious if you can actually have real flash code runing in a vst without "packets" and if not can you at leaste load flash vector images into a vst?
Just images, AFAIK... don't think SE supports Actionscript in any case.

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I think the general approach would be using Flash for the GUI interactivity, with GET or POST commands (or a COM interface apparently) to pass parameter values to the main C++/Java/SE program.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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