Does this mean I'm a programmer now?

[Mind Riot]

I really love Schwa's Audio Statistics plug he released a little bit ago. I use it all the time.

But one thing that has always bugged me about it is the way the different fields of information were laid out. There were a couple that were L R channels right next to each other, but then there were some that were stacked L L L and then R R R under them. It made it harder for me to read, because to look at any given statistic on a stereo signal I would have to be looking at two separated places at once.

I thought it would be easier to follow if all the parameters were arranged in L R pairs going down, so each parameter was listed together for both channels.

I know absolutely nothing about programming, but out of curiosity I went looking in the edit file to see what was what. I saved the original first of course, so if I screwed things up I could get it back.

Looked like a foreign language to me, which is to be expected for someone with no background in this sort of thing. But I started looking around and it became clear to me that all I needed to do was move the slider parameters around and change the numbers to move their positions.

I then noticed that I needed to change a few related lines to reflect the changes, so I did that.

I loaded up Reaper and loaded up the plug, and lo and behold, it works perfectly! Same thing, just that the parameters are all arranged in L R pairs like I wanted. Yay!

I know this is infantile stuff to most of you, but it was a fun new experience to me. And it's a very cool feeling to go tinkering under the hood and have it work the way you want it to when you start it up.

I'm a programmer the same way a guy who stacks wood is a carpenter.

[carbon]

That's my approach to HTML

[Tedwood]

I know what you mean Mind Riot, I did actually embark on a programming course a few years ago, but i was kind of like these guys that say "I wish I could play guitar" they buy the gear, and the Marshall tee shirt, then they find out there is a bit more to it than just distortion and power chords. It's like you have it somewhere deep down inside you if it's going to be a life long thing. What I learned was useful enough but I prefer to just tinker with stuff that programmers have already written, it gives me a very childish sense of power - hehe.

So I take my hat off to all the people that do the real work, because thats what they were designed to do, and I was designed to play sweet little tunes on my geetar.

[the all new rob]

If you change the moving pointer at the bottom to a disembodied cat head, then you're a programmer.

[xackley]

That is how everyone starts, and a good programmer steals everything available avoiding reinventing the wheel as much as possble.

The real reason I am posting is that I searched high and low for that plugin in the JS folder. I had forgotten the name and maker and there are so many JS that it is hard to see the one you might be looking for. So thank you for refreshing my memory.

[schwa]

Mind Riot, please post your improvements here, and thanks!

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by schwa

Mind Riot, please post your improvements here, and thanks!

I was kind of afraid you'd be mad at my tinkering with your plug.

Here's a screenshot of both versions, the original on the left and the new one on the right. I just think it's easier to read at a glance with it arranged this way.


I thought maybe there was something wrong since the stats aren't identical, but I loaded up two instances of the original and they don't quite update identically either. If I stop the transport they're identical, but they don't perfectly sync when it's running.

I think it would actually be even easier to read if we could arrange things into columns, so instead of the stats being on top of each other they'd be side by side, like:

L R
L R

But I would have no idea how to do that or even if you CAN do that in JS.

Here's the new plug in a zip as well.

Thanks for not being mad, I was kind of hesitating even posting about it because I didn't know if messing with someone else's plug was a no-no.

[schwa]

Mad?! Are you kidding, this is what JS is for!

I like your changes, I'll see if I can get the installer version changed as well.

[argee]

Originally Posted by Mind Riot

...I think it would actually be even easier to read if we could arrange things into columns, so instead of the stats being on top of each other they'd be side by side, like:

L R
L R

But I would have no idea how to do that or even if you CAN do that in JS...

You could use the JS gfx capabilities to display the numbers in two columns or grouped however you like and just hide the sliders.

Have a look in: http://reaper.fm/sdk/js/advfunc.php#cat_gfx

In particular, the "gfx_drawnumber" function will do this. There are some examples in this section of the forum on using the JS gfx features.

cheers

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by argee

You could use the JS gfx capabilities to display the numbers in two columns or grouped however you like and just hide the sliders.

Have a look in: http://reaper.fm/sdk/js/advfunc.php#cat_gfx

In particular, the "gfx_drawnumber" function will do this. There are some examples in this section of the forum on using the JS gfx features.

cheers

Yikes...I think I'll need to do some more learning on the basics before I start messing with that stuff. I read a bunch at the link and looked around the forum but I couldn't seem to find anything much on basic gfx layout changes in JS. It's still all pretty new to me.

Not that I have a burning desire to get into programming, but I'm always interested in learning new things.

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by the all new rob

If you change the moving pointer at the bottom to a disembodied cat head, then you're a programmer.

if he puts my cat's face on a plugin ill go crazy

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

if he puts my cat's face on a plugin ill go crazy

Oh, man, if I can find a way....

Here, I did this version. I like this better, because I think the most important parameters to be seen at a glance are peak, current RMS and overall RMS, so I put them at the top. I also capitalized the names to make them stand out more, but I wish I could make them bold too.



Whichever one everybody wants, but I think this one is the easiest for a quick read.

[argee]

Ok Mind Riot, here's another take on it for you - I did this before I saw your latest re-ordering of the readout, hopefully this will still be useful for you (or someone anyway).



I left out the meters for simplicity, but if you wanted them I could probably put them back in.

get it at : https://stash.reaper.fm/v/1193/audio_statisticsGUI.zip

just unzip the files into your Reaper/Effects/schwa folder

cheers

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

if he puts my cat's face on a plugin ill go crazy

Hmmm...

Originally Posted by argee

Ok Mind Riot, here's another take on it for you - I did this before I saw your latest re-ordering of the readout, hopefully this will still be useful for you (or someone anyway).

I left out the meters for simplicity, but if you wanted them I could probably put them back in.

get it at : https://stash.reaper.fm/v/1193/audio_statisticsGUI.zip

just unzip the files into your Reaper/Effects/schwa folder

cheers

That's amazing, and it's really easy to follow! I do like having the meters, but I really wouldn't be averse to learning more about how to set things up in columns using the stock graphics if I could figure it out too.

[schwa]

Woo!

I think it would be cool to have the numbers in columns down the middle as argee has done, and rearrange the meters vertically on either side of the numbers. If any of you fine people has the motivation to do something like that, it would be the best of all worlds, the easily readable numbers plus the nice density meters.

[argee]

Originally Posted by Mind Riot

That's amazing, and it's really easy to follow! I do like having the meters, but I really wouldn't be averse to learning more about how to set things up in columns using the stock graphics if I could figure it out too.

The biggest limitation I always run into with the gfx routines is that there is no way to display a string of characters. You can only display one at a time. And there's no font choices. So I find it's easier (and prettier) to make bitmap backgrounds that include any static text needed.

Hey schwa, when I get the time maybe I'll have a go, but Mind Riot, you should try it too - the more the merrier! If you get stuck I can try to help you out.

cheers

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by argee

The biggest limitation I always run into with the gfx routines is that there is no way to display a string of characters. You can only display one at a time. And there's no font choices. So I find it's easier (and prettier) to make bitmap backgrounds that include any static text needed.

Hey schwa, when I get the time maybe I'll have a go, but Mind Riot, you should try it too - the more the merrier! If you get stuck I can try to help you out.

cheers

Well, I did some tinkering today and set up a new background with a different arrangement but similar idea and got it to work. The things I haven't gotten figured yet are:

1: How to change the number colors in the display

2: How to make the fx window size to the GUI when opening (mine is a bit smaller than yours)

3: How to reintegrate the meters at the bottom of the original plug (if I just paste them in I get code error at line 220 or some such)

Here's the pic, I offset the bottom two sets of numbers a bit to make them line up better since they'll never have negative values.



This stuff is frying my brain, I'm just some guy with a high school equivalency here.

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by Mind Riot

Hmmm...

lol

my fianyenn is a star!!!

fian-plug!!!

www.myspace.com/fianyenn btw

thanks for this, made me laugh

[argee]

Originally Posted by Mind Riot

Well, I did some tinkering today and set up a new background with a different arrangement but similar idea and got it to work. The things I haven't gotten figured yet are:

1: How to change the number colors in the display

2: How to make the fx window size to the GUI when opening (mine is a bit smaller than yours)

3: How to reintegrate the meters at the bottom of the original plug (if I just paste them in I get code error at line 220 or some such)

Here's the pic, I offset the bottom two sets of numbers a bit to make them line up better since they'll never have negative values.

This stuff is frying my brain, I'm just some guy with a high school equivalency here.

1. Look for lines like : gfx_r=0;gfx_g=gfx_b=1;
that sets the red, green and blue components of the colour you want (in this case green and blue are set the same). Values are from 0 (off) to 1 (full strength)

2. The window sizing is a tricky thing. I have similar problems with any window less than about 430 pixels. I think it's sort of a minimum value if you are displaying the default sliders at the same time. I'm thinking of ditching the default ones for some graphical knobs or something, but that's a little more involved. You can see some examples of that in my Ozzifier, Chorus, Distortion and MGA-JS Limiter Gui's available in the JS Effects area of the Resources section.

3. Our friend schwa used a bunch of fancy scaling factors based on the overall height and width to draw the meters, so it's not so straight forward to include them with other graphics. When I get it figured out myself, I'll let you know! It's going to be especially fun to turn them into vertical meters!

cheers

[Mind Riot]

Okay, I went and made another one, this time I made the GUI 440 pixels wide and rearranged the number drawing so it would match up. So now when it opens, it'll look nice and clean like so:


That's about all I can do at this point, I'm hoping schwa might be able to incorporate the meters back into this thing underneath, then it'd be the ultimate.

Oh, one other thing, whenever I make an edit to the plug and save it Windows always saves it as a .txt file (I'm opening it in Notepad). Even if I deselect .txt as an option and leave it as All Files it still saves it as a .txt file.

This wouldn't bother me normally, but now the plug shows up in Reaper as audio_statistics.txt instead of just the name like all the other plugs.

What am I doing wrong here?

[Mind Riot]

schwa? What do you think? Could we incorporate the original meters into this setup?

[schwa]

We could ...

I'll have a go at it at some point, I was hoping it would just magically happen.

[Mind Riot]

Originally Posted by schwa

We could ...

I'll have a go at it at some point, I was hoping it would just magically happen.

If I can figure out how to do it, I will, but I think this is getting way outside my area of expertise. I'ma scared!

So, do you like the GUI or did you like it better the old way?

Oh, and do you want me to attach the new version here?

[schwa]

Yes, please do! I think your changes are excellent.

[Mind Riot]

Okay, here it is. Glad you like it, I hope others find it useful as well.

[argee]

Originally Posted by schwa

We could ...

I'll have a go at it at some point, I was hoping it would just magically happen.

I still mean to try doing it too, I just haven't had any time lately. Here's hoping...