[ecasound] Running ecasound within a script

[rocco <roc...@ne...>]

Hi,

I've been writing a tcl/tk front-end for ecasound for quite a few years 
now. The whole time I've run it from the console so I can interactively 
work with the program for testing and such things. Then I finally got 
the brilliant idea (yes... that's sarcasm) to run it from an icon on the 
desktop. No matter what I do, I can't get ecasound to run within my 
front-end unless my front-end is started from the terminal.

I use the mechanism in tcl/tk that allows me to create a pipe to 
ecasound that in turn allows me to send commands to ecasound. When I run 
my program from the terminal, I go to another terminal and issue the 
command...

ps -C ecasound -o pid=,args=

I get...

871 ecasound -c

But when I run my front-end from an icon on the desktop, and issue the 
'ps' command, I get...

956 [ecasound] <defunct>

Since the program 'tkeca' is also written in tcl/tk and uses ecasound as 
the back-end, I looked at how that program established a pipe and even 
how the pipe was configured. It sets things up exactly how I do. When I 
tested tkeca, I got the exact same results... never works from an 
icon... but always works if ran from the terminal.

I experimented with running ecasound (in interactive mode) from bash 
scripts and tcl/tk scripts in many different ways and I get the same 
results no matter what.

I've done everything I can to solve this matter... I read both the 
ecasound and ecasound-iam manuals top to bottom... the tcl/tk manuals 
top to bottom... googled the topic... tried running ecasound in the 
background. Nothing works unless I run my front-end from the console.

I know that for us linux audio people, it would be no problem having to 
start up a terminal and issue the command to run the front-end (and then 
have the terminal there permanently). But this is an attempt to create a 
legitimate DAW with complete DAW features that you see in all the other 
leading DAW's. It just wouldn't be very professional to ask the average 
user to run it from a terminal.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this would be much appreciated...

Thank You
Rocco