customdesk64

[serge]

Hi,

Today I added a little code in vmidibox64, that may be of interest for all you that like to build hardware midiboxes.

Using the file customdesk.ini in the application directory,

you can customize a the faderdesk.

To give you a preview, the current version

supports modification of all that was available in the previous vmidibox tools.

This means you can move, size, label buttons and pots, ...  most ini settings are easy to understand. I might consider to make a customdesk.ini description document one day   ::).

The value of the Tag property for each control is important : this links a button to a property in the editor.

See the example to understand which value range  this can have.

When I have more time I will extend this functionality.

I plan to add a lot of features to this INI format

including skinnable pots and buttons, background skin,

...  I still need to decide which components (free, open source ?) I will finally use and include for these purposes.

Regards & Happy customizing,

Serge

[serge]

Hi,

I added the possibility to load bitmaps on your virtual mb64 faderdesks today.  

Regards,

Serge

[TK.]

Hi Serge,

thanks a lot for this great enhancement!

Although all the values whithin the .ini file will put off most of the users, the customization feature opens a lot of new possibilities, which cannot be found on any other freeware or shareware tool!

Now I can start to create a special .ini file for the MIDIbox SID which allows everbody to control the sound parameters without a hardware controller - of course, this is not the perfect solution -- we all want to get rid of those colourful PC mouseclicking tools ;-) -- but it will be the most prefered solution for people who don't want to spent too much money for the SID synth.

Btw.: to simplify the creation of the .ini file, I will just write a perl script which generates the setup based on my constraints :)

For MIDIbox SID control, one important function would be necessary, could you please add it? It's a "pot element", which isn't a pot, but in fact a set of 7 toggle-buttons, which allows me to switch on/off flags within a CC parameter.

For example this parameter:

CC # | Hex | Description                                  | Range       | Reset

  32 | 20h | Voice 1/2/3 Waveform                         |             |    4
     |     |   Bit 0: Triangle                            |             |
     |     |   Bit 1: Saw                                 |             |
     |     |   Bit 2: Pulse                               |             |
     |     |   Bit 3: Noise (disables all other waveforms)|             |
     |     |   Bit 4: Disable Voice                       |             |
     |     |   Bit 5: Sync                                |             |
     |     |   Bit 6: Ringmodulator                       |             |
     |     | Example: 02h = 2 = Saw                       |             |
     |     | Example: 05h = 5 = Triangle & Pulse          |             |
     |     | Example: 21h = 33 = Triangle & Sync          |             |

can only be handled with such an "set of toggle-buttons"

I will publish my MIDIbox SID skin, as soon as this feature is available! :D

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[serge]

Hi Thorsten,

I'm glad you like the concept. I am curious to see the results of your perl script.

Of course there's still a lot of work to do for me, so it may be that the file syntax still changes a little bit and for sure a lot of features will be added !  ;).

I will try to implement your toggle control soon.

By the way I changed vmidibox64 a little bit :

there now is is a button to load *.vmb files.

(this is just a different extension for the same ini files).

By default, customdesk.vmb is used when it is found in the application directory. The intention is to make it possible to have a collection of .vmb files in a 'customfiles' subdirectory of the application directory.

Regards,

Serge

[serge]

Hi Thorsten,

I want the control to look like a real dipswitch with labels for each switch. I could not find such component for C++ builder so I will program it from scratch ...

it will be great to be used with bit-encoded midi codes,

but also for other purposes.

Luckily GenMarx wants to help me with the component's graphics coding so I can make  flickerfree double-buffered dipswitch. :)

I hope to finish it this weekend, anyone feel free to send your graphical dipswitch skin designs, I would like to incorporate several styles in the component.

 

Regards,

Serge

[serge]

Hi,

I will collect the info I type on custom VMB file creation

in the following text document.

http://users.pandora.be/sdrsite/sites/serge/vmidibox/dev/VMBformatinfo.txt

This should grow to some kind of AAQ (Already Asked Questions) for customizing vmidibox.

Regards,

Serge