Why can't instruments be offered as both hi- and lo-res?

[bailees7irish]

She's all like "look, I'm covering my eyes, I can't see your password!"

[Karmacomposer]

The VST specification and the fact that it's a .dll and not a executeable - and that there are serious restrictions on how to create the GUIs - make resizing a nightmare. Even Native Instruments Kontakt simply has a button to press for small, medium or large - like a drink at 7-11 or something. It loads in a different GUI depending on the state of that button.

Resizing windows in . . . windows is much easier (as well as Mac) because the graphics subroutines are already built in - you just call them.

In a VSTi, not so. You must create everything from scratch and the fact that you must save as a .dll means you cannot use OS specific graphics calls. You can create tabbed interfaces, but not resizeable windows.

Mike

[Numanoid]

The VST specification and the fact that it's a .dll and not a executeable - and that there are serious restrictions on how to create the GUIs - make resizing a nightmare.

Thanks for your input, I hadn't thought about that.

Do you know if the new standard (VST3) from Steinberg will make things easier?

[Urs]

The VST specification and the fact that it's a .dll and not a executeable - and that there are serious restrictions on how to create the GUIs - make resizing a nightmare.

Thanks for your input, I hadn't thought about that.

Do you know if the new standard (VST3) from Steinberg will make things easier?

Nope. Scaled drawing and scaled event handling still has to be implemented by the plugin developer. The "necessity" for photorealistic GUIs for audio plugins doesn't help much either, as this most often means pixel graphics.

Even after almost 5 years of offering scalable interfaces we still occasionally experience unforeseeable problems.

The easiest and "safest" way to deal with this is offering different versions of plugins, as I think GMedia did with impOSCar2. This just means that you can't just switch between sizes on the fly. However, this also means up to triple the amount of work for gui implementation. That's probably why so few companies do it.

But yes, spending some time to suss it out has a huge potential. Even more so once retina displays become widespread in teh desktop world as well.

Urs

[Numanoid]

The easiest and "safest" way to deal with this is offering different versions of plugins

Agree, it would be great if at least two versions of a plug could be issued, one for high resolution screens and one for low res.

[Lotuzia]

The VST specification and the fact that it's a .dll and not a executeable - and that there are serious restrictions on how to create the GUIs - make resizing a nightmare.

Thanks for your input, I hadn't thought about that.

Do you know if the new standard (VST3) from Steinberg will make things easier?

Nope. Scaled drawing and scaled event handling still has to be implemented by the plugin developer. The "necessity" for photorealistic GUIs for audio plugins doesn't help much either, as this most often means pixel graphics.

Even after almost 5 years of offering scalable interfaces we still occasionally experience unforeseeable problems.

The easiest and "safest" way to deal with this is offering different versions of plugins, as I think GMedia did with impOSCar2. This just means that you can't just switch between sizes on the fly. However, this also means up to triple the amount of work for gui implementation. That's probably why so few companies do it.
But yes, spending some time to suss it out has a huge potential. Even more so once retina displays become widespread in teh desktop world as well.

Urs

Thats what Xils-Lab did with the PolyKBII ( 3 sizes ), and the Synthix (2 sizes ), and yes actually it almost triples the necessary work. You have to reload the plug though once you haved changed the size, but you normally do it only once, as is saved with the inits, unless you change your screen resolution often.

[Keith99]

snip

In a VSTi, not so. You must create everything from scratch and the fact that you must save as a .dll means you cannot use OS specific graphics calls. You can create tabbed interfaces, but not resizeable windows.

Mike

Hi, I agree with what you say but I am confused about the "you cannot use OS specific graphics calls" because you can it just limits you to one platform.

[Karmacomposer]

snip

In a VSTi, not so. You must create everything from scratch and the fact that you must save as a .dll means you cannot use OS specific graphics calls. You can create tabbed interfaces, but not resizeable windows.

Mike

Hi, I agree with what you say but I am confused about the "you cannot use OS specific graphics calls" because you can it just limits you to one platform.

Not exactly. In a .dll, you cannot use the windows GUI graphics built in to, say, Visual Studio or other visual language that has the Windows controls built in. They don't work in virtual instruments. Same goes for Mac. Everything has to be created from scratch by using things like outside XML files that dictate what the graphics are and where they are placed.

Urs is one of the masters of GUI design with his synths. It's amazing what he can do.

Mike

[Keith99]

Well I have created a VST that uses win 32 dialogs, buttons etc. and works fine in Cubase and other hosts.