sound editor

[robingravel]

Will SCI studio 2.12 support a sound editor?

Robin Gravel

[Brian Provinciano]

Version 2.12 won't include a sound editor. 2.13 will if Ravi wants to contribute the current one. I'm so busy with the tutorials and bug fixes that it's not on my list at the moment. Also, since Ravi already did one and I have so much other stuff to do, I don't see a point in spending the time on another when I could spend it on stuff that hasn't been done yet (like more tutorials, bug fixes, and SCI Studio VGA).

[Ravi]

Brian, if you want source for the current editor you're welcome to it (just mail me or whatever), although I hope to rewrite it keeping in mind some of the lessons learned. Build one to throw away, more or less. Regardless, the current editor may be freely distributed. I don't think it says so in the program, but it's public domain.

Considering future integration with SCI Studio: I happen to use MSVC++, and as I recall Brian uses C++ Builder. I can probably keep data structures and functionality fairly portable (any special requests?) but the UI will have to be more or less re-written.

[Brian Provinciano]

It is C++Builder (unfortunately).

How much of the sound editor is VC++ specific? Just the GUI, or more? If the audio is WinAPI or DirectX, it should be easy to port.

I can wait until you've got the new version done before trying to merge it.

On another note, it would be incredibly easy to modify SCI Studio 2.1 to be SCI Studio VGA. Unfortuneately, due to the discoveries of Borland's memory leaks which I have no control over, I will probably be building SCI Studio VGA with a toolkit such as wxWindows and toss C++Builder. It will be a lot more flexible!

Do you have experience with these toolkits such as wxWindows, QT, GTK+, etc? If so, which is your favorite? I'm looking for one with the best speed, most compact, and (preferebly) portable. Compiling an empty C++Builder application with just a window is 450KB statically linked!

[Nick Sonneveld]

QT is really only free for Linux.. windows is DLL/VC++ specific unless you want to pay for a licence.  You're stuck if you don't have VC.

I don't think GTK is very stable under windows either

wxWindows is the best choice and that's what I've been playing around with.  You can use C++ or python (which is great for prototyping) and it's portable to several OS's without having to pay a license fee.  Apparently the interface is very similar to MFC but I don't have any experience with that.

http://www.wxwindows.org/

There's other portable toolkits like Fox and FLTK but I haven't looked too closely into them.. fltk is more for c programmers.   lots of people like wxwindows though.

- Nick

[Ravi]

wxWindows does look stable and solid. I can use it for the user interface if you plan on migrating, or if that would be easier for you to integrate.

My personal favorite GUI toolkit to program for is Swing. Once I got my head around its layout managers and event model, I found it simple and easy to work with. Java's garbage collection made it especially nice. Sadly, the actual GUIs produced by Swing never quite satisfied me.

[Brian Provinciano]

SCI Studio 2.1 (EGA) will stay C++Builder. It would be far too much work to convert it. There's no rush. It would probably be best to wait for your new version before merging it with SCI Studio.