[kln2-devel] tse3: alsa, arts and maybe more!

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Hi e-body,

I am leaving Warsaw today for 10 days. As usually, I cannot
promise to check my e-mails regularly until Mar 23. Sorry.

I do have some problems for you to solve while I am away,
though. I hope someone will cope with them.

I tried to look at possibility to use tse3 library
( http://tse3.sourceforge.net ) for two things:
1. ALSA midi output (really, really needed)
2. midi piano keyboard input (requested independently by few
  persons)
[in future: 3. reading midi files for training notes for a
  specific piece of music rather than random ones].

Let's stick to the first subject for now. I don't have ALSA, I
use OSS. But I managed to make TSE3 OSS interface work on my
computer and tried to add ALSA support in a similar way.
Unfortunately, I don't have ALSA and can't test it.

If you look at
http://tse3.sourceforge.net/doc/doxygen/namespaceTSE3_1_1Plt.html
you will see, that tse3 deals with OSS, ALSA and aRts in a
similar way: you just replace a OSSMidiScheduler for an ALSA or
arts MidiScheduler. This means anyone who is interested can help
add new features independently of which of these systems you
use! :)

==============
Problem 1: compilation

This is a big problem. But I hope there is a simple solution.

Things do not compile. A "-ltse3" option is not passed to
linker even if tse3 library is installed. When linking,

/bin/sh ../libtool --silent --mode=link --tag=CXX g++ ...

breaks with an error

midi-TSE.o: In function `TSEOSSMidiOutput::TSEOSSMidiOutput(void)':
midi-TSE.o(.text+0x28): undefined reference to `TSE3::PhraseEdit::PhraseEdit(int)'

and so on. To solve this manually, you just have to (in src/)
copy the same line ("/bin/sh ../libtool ...") but with extra
"-ltse3"  (of course, you have to have tse3 library installed
first!).

Therefore,I cannot commit what I did to CVS, and changed kln2
sources are available only at:
http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~wiecko/klearnnotes2_cvs040310.tar.bz2

This is the first problem to solve. If we cannot use CVS it is
hard for a few people to work on things simultaneously. :(

Adding "-ltse3" as an obligatory option is not a good idea.
Users who do not have tse3 library should still have possibility
to use kln2, just the extra features should be turned off.
That's where the mess came from: configure needs to check if there
is the tse3 lib, and if yes add some defines (WITH_TSE3 or
HAVE_TSE3_TSE3_H) and -ltse3, if no don't define the constants
and do not add -ltse3.

So the question is: how to make the bloody configure.in.in work.
Lines 7-8 of this file is how I tried to make it check for tse3
libs, but it doesn't. It checks for headers, but still doesn't
find libs and doesn't add the -ltse3 option for the linker :( .
Therefore, everything below the 9th line:
#   FROM KGUITAR 0.4.1 - check for TSE3 :
is taken from kguitar. But it doesn't work either. :( Apparently
I am missing something.

Maybe some nasty workaround would do for now?

Note that, if you modify the configure.in.in file you may need
to type
	make -f admin/Makefile.common cvs
to update 'configure' and other scripts.

==============
Problem 2: extra features for OSS

As I said, OSS with TSE3 basically works (provided you link
manually).  But I didn't have time to add volume (=midi velocity
and mixer volumes) control. Also, after choosing OSS/TSE3 one
should be able to turn midi on and off (on => internal_midifd=0,
off => internal_midifd=-1; play => if (internal_midifd==-1) do
nothing).

Could someone with OSS look into this? TSE support for ALSA and
aRts works in exactly the same way, so if anybody adds this for
OSS, this should work for all the others too! :)

==============
Problem 3: ALSA support

* test if current ALSA MIDI works (choose it from the sound
 setup dialog)
* if yes, add some TSE3 mixer support (currently volume setup
 methods are just blank {}) [this is like Problem 2, just for
 alsa]
* if no, delete TSEAlsaMidiOutput definitions, and explicitly
 copy and modify TSEOSSMidiOutput (there may be a problem with
 inheriting)

=============
Problem 4: aRts support

Right now, if kln2 finds aRts (KDE sound server) it suspends it.
This means other aRts programs cannot use soundcard when kln2 is
running. So using aRts rather than turning it off would be very
much welcome. And again, this looks like a VERY simple task -
just replace OSSMidiScheduler with an arts one and add new stuff
to the sound setup dialog.

=============

If anyone would like to coordinate/organize work on one of the
above subjects, please write a short note to this list.

I hope the subject is challenging enough to make you all
interested. :)

Best regards,
Marek

PS: Problems with compilation shouldn't stop development of such
important features. Yeah, probably we will need "very unusable"
cvs branch in future, just to enable many people to work on
things even if some fundamental problems are not solved.

PPS: No, I don't plan to drop native OSS sound support. As it is
already there, people without tse3 should be able to use sound.
Why not? And because of the same reason, native (non tse) alsa
would be nice too. It's just that tse solves many problems the
same time in a standardized way, so this should be the focus for
now.

-- 

     \/   /|\  Marek Wieckowski
  #####  | | |
 = . . =  \|/  Institute of Theoretical Physics
    U      |   Warsaw University
  / ~ \___ |
 <|   |    |
  > . <    |   http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~wiecko
 <<___>>   |   http://klearnnotes2.sourceforge.net