[Vm-dev] Mac OS Cocoa MIDI Plugin

[Eliot Miranda]

Hi Tobias,


> On May 17, 2016, at 12:24 PM, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 17.05.2016, at 20:15, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On 12.05.2016, at 15:22, Craig Latta <craig at blackpagedigital.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi Eliot--
>>> 
>>>> recently the Cog VM on Mac OS X moved to Cocoa, the Objective-C API
>>>> for the platform, leaving behind the old Carbon C API.  There is some
>>>> backward compatibility support but it is gradually being deprecated by
>>>> Apple.  One victim is the MIDIPlugin which was written against a
>>>> ComponentManager API that, while Apple docs say is only deprecated,
>>>> has actually disappeared.  Consequently the MIDIPlugin support
>>>> (see http://www.squeakvm.org/svn/squeak/branches/Cog/platforms
>>>> /iOS/plugins/MIDIPlugin) needs completely rewriting to use Cocoa
>>>> APIs.  I've recently changed the build so that the MIDIPlgin is built
>>>> externally, which will make it easier to work on; one doesn't need to
>>>> build the entire VM, only the plugin.  I'm looking for volunteers who
>>>> a) love music/know MIDI
>>>> b) are happy programming at the Objective-C level using command-line
>>>> builds and perhaps Xcode, but more immediately lldb for debugging.
>>>> 
>>>> If interested, reply to vm-dev and we can continue discussions there;
>>>> there are folks that can help with Mac OS support, but no one I know
>>>> of that has time to write this rather important plugin for multi-
>>>> media.  It would be a great shame to lose MIDI on Mac.
>>> 
>>>   Perhaps this is an opportunity to reduce the platform code fanout a
>>> bit. I've had good results with Squeak MIDI before on Mac, Windows, and
>>> Linux, by making a VM plugin from the platform-independent PortMedia
>>> libraries (PortAudio and PortMidi), at [1]. Perhaps it would make sense
>>> to use PortMedia in combination with FFI/Alien these days.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -C
>>> 
>>> [1] http://portmedia.sourceforge.net
>> 
>> Why not re-implement MIDIPlugin in terms of PortMidi? That way even older images would benefit.
> 
> Or timidity++ http://timidity.sourceforge.net/

It's a software synth so doesn't fit serious use where one wants to send midi to ones own midi instruments, be they software synths or external modules.  Not to mention receiving midi data from external controllers.


_,,,^..^,,,_ (phone)
>> 
>> - Bert -
> 
>