Is it possible to create plugins like Breaking News?

[dancewood]

Just simple question is it posible to create breaking news vst plugin in Flowstone with attached rss feed and when you open you will see fresh news in music,production...etc

[trogluddite]

Sadly, no, I don't think this is possible. The custom version of Ruby used in FS doesn't have access to the 'RSS' library or other internet libraries that Ruby normally ships with, which is a shame, as that would have made it really easy to do.

[aronb]

Having the ability to add Ruby Gems would be incredible...

And if not, a clear and concise (step by step) guide explaining EXACTLY how to "add a gem" (using the EXACT Ruby source code supplied with Flowstone), "compile ruby" (exact compiler and setup), and how and where to put it to "replace the stock ruby install".

And this would need to be done as more gems would be installed - not ideal, but with a well documented workflow" at least adding gems to the Flowstone Ruby Install would be possible!

I would pay extra for this - it would give us access to an ENORMOUS library for the user base...

Aron

[trogluddite]

And if not, a clear and concise (step by step) guide explaining EXACTLY how to "add a gem" (using the EXACT Ruby source code supplied with Flowstone), "compile ruby" (exact compiler and setup), and how and where to put it to "replace the stock ruby install".

At the moment, I don't think this is possible at all. Originally, VST exports could "require" external C++ libraries, so long as they had been recompiled correctly in Visual Studio. However, FS was changed so that the Ruby interpreter was statically linked within each VST .dll - to prevent a problem where multiple VST instances were sharing the same Ruby interpreter. Since then, not even the recompiled "Win32API" library supplied with FS will load into a VST plugin.

[aronb]

Luckily (maybe) for me anyway, I am not making VSTs

I use Flowstone just to create laser effects, and as such I use only the schematic window(s) to create waveforms to output over ASIO (DC coupled MOTU 24Ao to my laser projection system).
See: http://www.laserlumia.com/ for some simple examples (not shows)

I also record this thru and to Reaper, and save show pieces as multi channel wave files... that later get assembled to complete shows - works in progress now. Wish I could record 6 channel wave files direct from Flowstone - it would be amazing.

So for me just having this ability in the editor is fine / would be fine - what am I saying, it would be incredeble

IMPORTANT: I cannot say enough about how happy I am to see you back Trog! Your work here is legendary (especially to me), and it is amazing to have you share your knowledge with us/me

The more I do in Flowstone, the more I realize how much more Flowstone can do AND how much more I need to learn - Cheers!!!

Aron

[trogluddite]

I cannot say enough about how happy I am to see you back Trog!

Thankyou very much!
I must admit, despite only intending to casually pop in while I've an ongoing project, I can already feel myself getting sucked in by the interesting little challenges I stumble across here. In all my time using SM/FS, I think I've only ever released two or three complete plugins/applications - being a maker of little tools hits the sweet spot where I enjoy coding the most, and I can rather perversely get an unhealthy amount of masochistic enjoyment out of hair-pulling debugging sessions! (not an invitation! )

And, wow!
Your laser art is equal parts beautiful, mesmerising, and technically impressive. Despite my earlier VST assumption, I've always really enjoyed seeing FS being pushed beyond the typical musical instruments/FX (shh, don't tell the others! )

Wish I could record 6 channel wave files direct from Flowstone

Yes, likewise. I've built quite a few gadgets that work fine as stand-alone applications in every other respect - I'd quite often prefer not to have the complication of running in a VST host or having to pipe audio between applications. In principle, the DLL component makes it possible, but a .dll for direct-to-disk streaming would be a big undertaking.

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

RSS is pretty simple and I believe there is some old stuff that used fetch. It might be possible. I would have to look over some old files. Making the interpreter would be some simple configured finds with clauses.

I would probably use if and else with multi-line text prims, but I wonder if the clauses will assume \n is a new line. It's a tossup how exactly that could be accomplished. My guess is yes, but it likely wouldn't be very efficient.

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

btw, it's possible by using the image download prim. The image would have to be specially encoded and then that encoding to be interpreted like a code.

This is done through flowstone through synths; Not easy - But not too hard. I'll probably do the same soon.