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What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:26 am
by lalalandsynth
I am working on a plugin that includes an LFO, on the lfo there are a few leds and a moving lfo indicator.
When I turn the lfo OFF i would like it to visually shut down , all leds shutting off ,go "dark" as it were.
Also if there is any automation on a section that is shut down /disabled it would be weird to see the knobs moving still.

I have the same issue with a running position indicator on a small sequencer , I want to be able to completely shut it down.

Obviously , If I can also make sure that it takes less cpu as well when shut down that would be a bonus.
Anyone have any examples of this behaviour that I could look at ?

Thanks for your time :)

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 6:01 pm
by KG_is_back
I've put together a tutorial containing few tips you might use in your GUI. As for bypassing the stream part of your LFO, search for "bypassing blue" or something similar. Long story short, connect the output of the LFO to a selector - that can disable it completely aka it will not even be executed as a code.

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:12 pm
by RJHollins
Thanks KG !

Very informative !

8-)

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:34 pm
by lalalandsynth
Excellent ! Thanks

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 1:21 pm
by lalalandsynth
Disabling a switch or knob, either Gui, automation or both is working perfectly.
I am not so sure about the disabling whole parts of gui part of the tutorial.
It refers to switching GUI and I am not sure how that applies , could you elaborate?

"Another option worth considering is to disable parts of the gui completely. This is really simple and can easily be modified to switch between different GUIs with a single click of a button."

Are you referring to removing the gui from view ?

I would prefer to shut off complete parts of the gui without modifying every switch and knob if at all possible ?
Is there nothing that could do this globally within a module ?

I was thinking maybe something like putting an overlay on the section - making it grayed out when shut off.
Possibly this overlay could block any mousemovements to the underlying knobs ?
And then modifying the output from the knobs to stop the automation , which is simpler then modifying the ruby code.

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:01 pm
by lalalandsynth
Its actually simpler to do in green it seems. :)

I am not sure about this sentence "You also should add "bool to true trigger" prim to update the gui when it is switched on, otherwise knobs/switches/scopes etc. may show old autdated values until interacted with."

When automating a knob - shutting it down it updates correctly according to automation when section is turned os so I am not sure where this " bool to trigger " applies ?

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:12 pm
by KG_is_back
lalalandsynth wrote:Are you referring to removing the gui from view ?


Yes, I was referring to removing parts of a GUI.

lalalandsynth wrote:I would prefer to shut off complete parts of the gui without modifying every switch and knob if at all possible ?
Is there nothing that could do this globally within a module ?


I've put some thought to that option too but didn't came up with anything, expect what you mention. To put overlay module over the GUI part to block mouse clicks and/or gray it out. That is actually why I originally added the section about removing GUI parts, but forgot about it while making the schematic :oops:

lalalandsynth wrote:I am not sure about this sentence "You also should add "bool to true trigger" prim to update the gui when it is switched on, otherwise knobs/switches/scopes etc. may show old autdated values until interacted with."

When automating a knob - shutting it down it updates correctly according to automation when section is turned os so I am not sure where this " bool to trigger " applies ?


There may be situations where the automation from the DAW has low sampling rate or a gap. When the knob would be enabled during that gap it would not snap until the gap ends. I'm sure if that applies to all types of automation, but it definitely applies to MIDI (because midi works more akin to triggers than a stream - knobs on midi controllers only output values when moving).

Re: What is a good way to shut down part of a plugin?

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:27 pm
by lalalandsynth
Ok, thanks a lot , this is definitely doable like this even though its a lot of work :)

It would be slightly less work if the overlay could block any mouse movements.
Is that even possible ?