CLAM binders, ipyclam and PyQt
I just finished a pair programming session with Xavier Serra. He is going to defend his Final Career Project on Friday and we are preparing some cool demos involving binding ipyclam and pyqt. It has been an exciting session because as we debunked one by one the show stoppers that we were finding, we realized that the potential of the tool mix is wider than we thought.
What we can do now is to build a network with ipyclam, building an interface by combining pyqt and ui files and binding them to that network, all that either in live by using the interactive shell or using a written script. This formula adds the flexibility of scripting to CLAM prototyping system, raising the ceiling of what you can do without raising too much the learning threshold.
For example, let’s play a file in a loop with ipyclam:
import ipyclam n=ipyclam.Network(ipyclam.Clam_NetworkProxy()) n.file = n.types.MonoAudioFileReader n.out = n.types.AudioSink n.file.Loop = 1 n.file.SourceFile = "jaume-voice.mp3" n.file > n.out n.backend="PortAudio" n.play()
Then you can instantiate an Oscilloscope, bind it and play:
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui a=QtGui.QApplication([]) w=n.createWidget("Oscilloscope") w.show() w.setProperty("clamOutPort", "file.Samples Read") n.stop() n.bindUi(w) n.play()
You can also load an UI file and bind it simultaneously..
w2 = n.loadUi("myui.ui") w2.show() n.stop() n.bindUi(w2) n.play()
Adding a tonal analysis and some related views
n.stop() n.tonal = n.types.TonalAnalysis n.file > n.tonal w3 = n.createWidget("CLAM::VM::KeySpace") w3.setProperty("clamOutPort", "tonal.Chord Correlation") n.bindUi(w3) w3.show() n.play()
The enabler of the mix has been the new binder architecture in CLAM. Until 1.4, the Prototyper used what we call ‘binders’ to relate processing elements with user interface elements. Each binder concentrates in a given kind of binding: oscilloscopes, control sliders, transport buttons…
For the upcomming CLAM 1.5 the binder interface (CLAM::QtBinder) has been redefined and moved out from the Prototyper to the qtmonitors module. So now you can use them in any CLAM application. The bindings are now based on Qt dynamic properties which provide more flexibility than former QObject name mangling.
Currently there are several binders implemented:
- Action/Button -> launch a configurator dialog on some processing
- Action/Button -> launch a open dialog for a MonoFileReader
- Checkable -> Send a bool, or a bistable float control
- Slider -> maped float/int control
- Any Monitor -> outPort to monitor
- ControlSurface -> Send pair of controls
- Slider -> ProgressControl or a MonoFileReader or similar to control
Now you can extend those binder by means of plugins as we extended processings. You can use Qt dynamic properties in the interface elements to specify how the binding is done.
The abstract interface provides the static method QtBinder::bindAllBinders() which is the one called by python bindUi. This looks for every ui element in the QObject hierarchy, looks for every registered binder and if they match it is applied.
To implement your own handle you just have to rewrite the bool handles(QObject*) method that returns true if the object managed by the binder (type, name, presence of properties…) and the bool bind(QObject * uiElement, Network & network, QStringList & errors) which does the actual binding. To register the binder, you just have to instanciate one as static variable of a cxx file in your library.
All that is still being building up but its potential seems clear, so i hope that this new way of claming will be useful to you all.